OK I'm just dreaming out loud here ... But SF Pride is the last week of
June, and Adam Kokesh is marching on Washington July 4th. Wouldn't it be
cool if a liberty torch was passed (Olympic style) from coast to coast
during the intervening week, passing through freedom rallies in cities
along the way? I can't think of a more fitting person to organizing a
lighting ceremony in SF than Starchild, carry it during the parade in
Manning's honor, then pass it across country through Phoenix, where Ernie
and I can rally the locals since Freedom's Phoenix uses a torch as its
symbol and has the media capacity to publicize it, and I'm positive we
could find organizers in cities across the country to get it to Washington
in time for Kokesh to carry it across the bridge into the city. That would
be huge, and it would totally realign the connection between individual
rights as a gay issue, a police-state issue, and a 2A issue. Can it be done?
PS .... It would also mean that Manning's parade of honor would dwarf SF
Prides, and yet encompass its message of liberation in a way that honors
both.
Mikester,
Over a million people typically attend SF Pride. I don't see how a separate parade for Bradley Manning consisting of some kind of torch relay could dwarf that. But I would be happy to see us simply pull it off, and would certainly take part, if logistical and other hurdles can be overcome. Who's going to create the torch? Who's going to get it from city to city all the way across the U.S.? Is there time, and do we have the energy, to bring together a coalition around the project, and if not, can we get enough publicity out of doing this with mainly just libertarians involved to make it worth the effort, or is there something else we could do that would be more productive?
Not trying to be a downer, but I do think the above questions would need to be satisfactorily answered for this to be a viable project. Nevertheless, let's keep trying to come up with creative ideas, and if you have more thoughts on how this could be practically accomplished, by all means post them. It is a beautiful dream.
Totally different concept, but I remember fondly the excitement of dogging the Olympic torch procession as it made its way through the streets of SF in celebration of the Beijing Olympics in 2006. There was a ridiculous amount of security, and I've never seen so many hovering helicopters at one time and place. That's actually part of what gave their location away. They played a whole cat-and-mouse game of misleading people into thinking they were going to follow one route, so that everyone was sitting down by the Embarcadero waiting for a procession that never showed up, and then going a different route up Polk Street in order to avoid the protesters, but some of us caught up with them anyway. All the security couldn't keep the Olympic torchbearers from hearing the anti-regime slogans about Tibet, human rights, etc., I shouted on my megaphone. 
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
Good story abut the Olympics and all the "security," Starchild. It always breaks my heart to remember how much more relaxed things were in the "pre-9/11" world. I took a bunch of our neighborhood kids to see the Olympic torch go by in a street near our neighborhood during the 1994 Olympics (I believe that was the one in Albertville, France). No big security, everybody happy and cheering. Interestingly, for reasons I cannot recall but probably in a change in torchbearers, one of the torchbearers stopped to talk to the crowd. The kids all crowded around him, and I was surprised when my daughter elbowed her way to the front and asked "Do you have to pay for your own torches?" Bless his heart, the torchbearer actually took time to respond and talk to the kids (I don't remember what the answer was).
I guess imperialism has always been a fact of life, but after 9/11 it took such a sinister tone. We non-interventionists really need to work harder!
BTW, I agree that Pride is big enough to dwarf any new endeavor put together in a rush.
Marcy