Okay, take a good look at the picture above and tell me what you see.
A protest. US flag with a peace symbol in the blue field, many people gathered, apparently in a peaceful-enough looking march wearing colder weather clothing, trees without leaves, maybe winter or, like now, up north, near early spring. I see one homemade-looking banner saying "Troops out now" with another peace symbol and a bunch of blue signs with black lettering saying "End the war!" and "Stop the Escalation" and "NO WAR IN IRAN!"
So it's a photo taken within the past few days of a protest march like the one they had yesterday in NYC, right? Nope. This picture is from 2008!
I found it, or I should say, I re-found it while I was rewatching a slideshow montage video I did back in that year, that I still have on my YouTube channel. I also posted about this video and the FLASHBACK post that inspired it. You can see that video here where the above image appears at the 5:45 mark:
When I saw that an hour or so ago I was perplexed about the signs saying "No war in Iran!" because I don't remember where I'd grabbed this photo from but, perhaps more importantly, I have no idea why these signs existed.
When did we last have a conflict with Iran?
A Google Images search of this pic brought up, readily enough, its apparent source. It's from a New York Times article, dated March 23, 2008 covering an Iraq War protest march in Manhattan. I couldn't get any more details than that since New York Times is a paywall site and I can't read but the first line of the article. If I look closely, some signs do appear to say "Iraq" so that follows, but what's all this about that war spilling over into neighboring Iran?
Barred from the bulk of the NYT article, I had to do broader Google searches for anything pertinent to US action in Iran during the Iraq War and though I found several references to posturing by the Bush administration over the whole nuclear program thing in Iran and things like the Iran freedom and Support Act which appropriated millions of dollars for human rights NGOs working in Iran, sanctions against Iranian institutions, and even an American raid on Iran's Consulate General in Iraq. Other actions and assertions on the part of the US seem to be boisterous saber-rattling but I'm not sure it'd add up to a need for protesters to make signs yet. Not back then. Not that I remember.
So is this another Shameless memory issue? Is this some Mandela Effect? Am I really that much of a Psycho Chicken?
My head's spinning at this point. All I know is I was viewing my old video because hearing of the need yesterday for the playing of yet another Adagio, seeing the burning oil depot in Tehran spewing up thick, acrid smoke covering the whole city, seeing skyscrapers burning in Kuwait and Trump saying "nyet" to the appointment of Khamenei Jr. (ie. new bullseye) so we're in this long-term, I thought of kids, around the age I was when I went to Frontiertown, living through these times.
Here we go again.