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Marijuana, hula hoops, nudity at 9-11 anniversary peace rally SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) Sep 11, 2005 Debbie Moore danced nude with thousands of undulating anti-war protesters during a marijuana mellowed "Power to the Peaceful" festival on the eve of the Sept. 11 attacks. Dreadlocks and Birkenstocks along with stilt walkers and pot brownie hawkers were rife in the throng that packed a meadow in Golden Gate Park on Saturday for a combined outdoor concert and anti-establishment demonstration. The official theme of the event was "Bring them home now," a reference to the US soldiers in Iraq. The unofficial proclamation on signs on t-shirts and signs was "The world can't wait - Drive out the Bush regime." "We are all the shit we are doing to the planet," Simone Rivers said after she spontaneously stripped to dance with 55-year-old Mooore. The women were joined by three others in a dancing, naked rejection of President George Bush, corporate gluttony and US warfare. "I'm trying to fight the oppression. I'm all about balance of the flesh," the 24-year-old woman continued. "The rivers, the trees, men and women...balance in everything." Moore smiled as she moved her body in rhythm to live reggae music with lyrics calling fighter jets "homicide machines." "I'm an outside agitator," the Berkeley woman whispered with a grin as her newfound friends' gyrated wildly the longer they were naked. "I try to instigate as much as possible." Moore founded a nude protest group called "xplicitplayers" after the first Gulf War. Police estimated the crowd getting baked in the sun at totaling nearly 20,000 people and said "there was no trouble; never is" at the annual peace festival. Just inside the entrance of the event a woman puffing a marijuana cigarette bounced an inflated plastic globe beach ball back to a pair of young boys. On a nearby fence was a "Wanted" poster featuring mug shots Bush and top advisors, and accusing them of mass murder. T-shirts bearing the words "resist or die" were being from the booth activists urged people to take part in a nationwide day of rebellion on Nov. 2, the anniversary of Bush getting elected president. "We are reaching out to everyone, even the red states," said Zara Williams, who said activists are mobilizing people to walk off jobs or out of school and into the streets that day in opposition to Bush and his policies. Interest in bashing Bush has leapt because of the federal government's inept response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster, according to Williams. "There has been a big difference since Katrina," Williams said. Aryk Yorba and his buddy Wyatt Manjarrez, both 10 years old," were so convinced Bush was "a bloody monster" that they converted a carton into a cartoon creature. The boys "took turns driving" as they shuffled through the crowd covered by a box-turned-beast decorated with faux fangs, mock mane and the words "Bush is a freakazoid." "We just hate Bush really bad," the boys told AFP through a peep hole. "My uncle, my dad...most of our families might get sent to war because of Bush." The lads headed toward a spot where women spun hula hoops with their hips while dancing to house music. Coming the other way was a man carrying a sign bearing a quote from American indian chief Sitting Bull. It read "Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children." Members of the Urban Alliance for Sustainability underscored the point in a banner that asked "If not us, who?" and "If not now, when?". All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.
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