2-4-6-8, This Is How We Demonstrate

[teach1st]

By Erika Hayasaki, LA Times, 2/22 (Free registration required)

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cheer22feb22,1,4109151.story

These cheerleaders from Northeast Los Angeles do the splits for women's rights, not for slam dunks. They protest with pompoms against sweatshops, and root for peace instead of points.

The chants of the Radical Teen Cheerleaders have the same cadences as those of football and basketball boosters, but with a very different message. At a recent Glendale demonstration against the U.S.-led war in Iraq, they shouted:

"Hey, Bush! / Who fights your wars? / Just minorities and the poor! / The CIA / kills people, yeah, / for corporations, yeah, they just want more! / Who trained Bin Laden? / Who armed, who armed Saddam Hussein? / We're out, / we're out to get, / we're out to get those hypocrites!"

The combination of peppy cheerleading techniques and serious political protest dates back to a few efforts during the Vietnam War. Over the last few years, radical cheerleading has reemerged more forcefully across the country, with squads mainly of college students and young adults rallying for environmental, feminist, gay and other liberal causes. The war in Iraq inspired a new generation eager to make a floor-shaking statement against the Bush administration's foreign policy — and have some fun along the way.

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[KG]

1. heh.

this is cool.