The Redhunter: Rallies and Protests III Archives

February 16, 2008

Silver Spring MD Recruiting Station - Countering the Leftists

Yesterday, February 15, about a dozen or so hard-core leftists gathered outside of the Armed Forces Recruiting Station at 8202 Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring MD, from 4-6pm. There to counter them and support the troops was Free Republic.

World Can't Wait staged a series of protests at 6 military recruitment centers across the US.

Here's the background on this group from David Horowitz' Discover The Networks website

Founded in June 2005 by Charles Clark Kissinger, a longtime leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party, World Can't Wait (WCW) is a direct action movement seeking to organize "people living in the United States to take responsibility to stop the whole disastrous course led by the Bush administration." The organization asserts that removing President Bush from office "will be like removing a forty-pound tumor from your gut." WCW vows "to send Bush, Cheney and the rest of those fascists packing. ... After that, there are people in 'World Can't Wait' who are working for everything from reforming the Democratic party, to building a 3rd party, to revolution."

Also present were a few members of Code Pink, including Desiree Anita Ali-Fairooz, the woman who attacked Secretary of State Rice last October 24 as she prepared to testify before Congress. Here she is on that day

And here she was yesterday, trying to explain to an Army recruiter (just out of the picture) why the war in Iraq was evil etc. Needless to say, he wasn't buying.

The protesters gathered at the corner of the parking lot maybe a 100 feet away from the recruiting center. In this photo, Georgia Avenue is to the left, and the parking center and recruiting center are to the right. On the opposite end of the parking lot was Free Republic, which you can see in the background. One of our members had a large Amercan and US Marine Corps flag, which you can see waving proudly in the breeze.

One leftist had on a Palestinian kuffiyeh "support" scarf. You might recognize that his sign is recycled from previous protests. I saw it last Sept 15 at GOE III and GOE I, at the International ANSWER protests in Washington DC.

This is the flyer that they were handing out to passers by

Here's the view from behind the FReepers. At the end of the sidewalk are the leftists

And here we are. As the cars would slow for a traffic light, motorists could observe the scene. We got many honks, friendly waves, and thumbs up from them.

Here's Desiree Anita Ali-Fairooz with a typical Code Pink sign

Throughout most of this the military recruiters stayed in their office, windows shuttered and door locked. In good military fashion they prepared for the worst, fearing a repeat of the seige of the US Marine Corps Recruiting Station in Berkeley, California. No doubt they were monitoring the situation from inside. After some time, though, one of the recruiters came outside and stood in the parking lot where he could observe the protesters better. There was a Montgomery County police officer in the parking lot, but he left after awhile and we were never sure if he was there to monitor the protest or if he was just there by accident.

The Leftists Ratchet Up their Protest

Eventually growing bored with standing at the street corner, shortly after 5:00 some of the Pinkos decided to head over to entrance of the recruiting station and entertain themselves by chanting slogans. By this point two of the recruiters were out front, engaged in debate with the leftists

Here's the scene

One of our number decided that he wasn't going to let the leftists have it all to themselves. The big orange sign says "Hey! Recruiter Leave our Kids Alone!

The leftists started chanting and unfortunately I didn't have a recorder or notepad, so I didn't get their exact words, but it was something to the effect of "No More Rape, No More Torture, No More War"; standard leftist fare. Yawn. This group was a pale imitation of their brethren in Berkeley and elsewhere. They didn't attempt any vandalism or try to force their way inside the recruiting center. They drew some slogans on the parking lot with chalk but that's it.

After chanting for maybe 10 or 15 minutes they grew bored, and some returned to their street corner. Others stayed to try and debate the recruiters and a few of us. We heard all of the usual stuff; that we are "bombing Iraq" (apparently at random), doing nothing but "killing women and children" (no terrorists ever die in their world), that 1.2 million Iraqis had died since the invasion (no doubt referencing the hightly questionable Lancet Study, and when the terrorist kill people it's still our fault), and the "how would you like it if the Chinese invaded the United States and imposed their system here" (the logical fallacy of moral equivalence). As debating them is pointless, I mostly just stood and observed. Here's the scene

The two recruiters handled the situation with grace. They patiently explained to the leftists why the war was justified, what we were trying to do, and that in fact the surge was succeeding. They were quite knowledgeable and overcame the leftist's objections one by one. Each had served in Iraq.

Around 6:00 the leftists decided they'd made their point and stared to pack up. We thanked the recruiters for their service and were sorry that they had to put up with a bunch of idiot protesters. They in turn expressed their appreciation that we were there to show support.

You can see all of my photos on my Photobucket site.

Here are additional photographs taken by fellow FReeper "Mrs Trooprally."

Update

Leftists physically attacked and vandalized the Armed Forces Recruiting Center at 14th and L Streets in Washington DC that same day. From Indymedia, which apparently approves of this sort of activity:

At the peak of the second"Funk the War" dance party/protest, the entire group swarmed the military recruiter at 14th st, with about half the group getting inside and the rest securing the entry and plastering windows with stickers.
After many previous protests had found the 14th st recruiter "closed" at 5PM, Funk the War found them open, and the door unlocked at nearer to 6Pm and promptly exploited the situation by demonstrating to them first hand how an occupying force behaves.

After a loud commotion inside while outnumbered cops watched, recruiters finally managed to get protesters to leave-but not before literature and full-body length cardboard displays in the street window area were destroyed. In addition, hundreds more "Funk the War" stickers were plastered all over just about everything that would take them. By the time everyone was out it looked like a tornado had swept through the lobby.

One recruiter tried to grab an activist but found himself overpowered by SDS's superior strength and numbers and had no choice but to give up!

This came on the heels of the whole group marching in K st and Connecticut Ave at the height of rush hour, closing War Profiteer's Row to cars fro quite a while. The group closed out by going after DC GOP headquarters, but that door was locked and there were too many cops around to break it down.

If conservatives did this they'd call us terrorists.

Posted by Tom at 12:30 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 15, 2007

Gathering of Eagles III - The Fight for Victory Tour and Counter to A.N.S.W.E.R.

Today I was fortunate enough to be able to be at the Gathering of Eagles III in downtown Washington DC, it was the culmination of Melanie Morgan's Fight for Victory tour across the USA.

Several groups, of course, participated in making today's Gathering of Eagles possible. Among them Morgan's Move America Forward, Protest Warriors, and Free Republic. For a full list and details see my post on the run-up to today.

Of course, in addition to us International ANSWER held their protest as well. If by some chance you're not familiar with exactly who they are please see their profile David Horowitz' DiscoverTheNetwork. Wikpedia also has a decent entry.

Order of Events

To provide a structure and get things started, today's events can be broken into three parts:

1) Morning - The Gathering of Eagles held a rally on the Mall, and at the same time ANSWER held a rally near the White House

2) Early-to-mid afternoon - ANSWER (finally) marched down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to the Capitol building, and on both sides of the street Eagles showed them that they were not the only one's in town that day.

3) ANSWER staged their "die in" on the lawn and steps leading up to the west side of the U.S. Capitol. Some Eagles went to watch, I was among them.

Part I - The Gathering of Eagles

I got uptown just before 10, made my way to the Gathering of Eagles. Here are some views of the crowd

This one gets you an idea of crowd size

Two of my heroes, Bryan Preston and Michelle Malkin were there. They also came to Friday night's FReep outside of Walter Reed. Their post on Walter Reed is here, and here's their initial report on today's GOE III. I'm sure they'll have more up later, and I'll link to it when I see it. I'll also link to the Free Republic After Action Report on Friday when that's up.

While all this was going on I ran into one of my favorite bloggers, Tantor of Conservative Propaganda. I didn't get his photo as I'm not sure he would want it published. As of this writing I don't see that he has his post up about today yet, but be sure to visit his site over the next few days. He told me that after spending some time atGOE III he was going right up to the White House and do an infiltration of the moonbat crowd. He'll have an excellent photo essay sometime in the next day or so I'm sure.

Here's a sign that would no doubt infuriate the moonbats later on

Many Vietnam veterans of Rolling Thunder where there. I got a chance to speak briefly with some throughout the day, and shook their hands and said "thank you for your service."

My general impression is that they come to counter the war protesters not because they necessarily believe lock stock and barrel in what the Bush Administration is doing, but because they remember having to come home to the anti-war hippies themselves and have said "never again". They have a great distain for anti-war types, believe you me.

Here are three from the front and back

Kristinn Taylor of Free Republic was emcee, and as always did a masterful job of keeping things on track. We started off with the pledge of allegiance and a prayer, something I'm sure the ANSWER people didn't do.

Taylor and Morgan had secured a very impressive list of speakers for the event. Some were more inspirational, like Lt Col Robert "Buzz" Patterson, and others were Gold Star mothers and fathers who of course had more somber and emotional presentations. One father recounted the last phone call he received from his son, which was quite moving.

Here is audio of part of Melanie Mortan's speech

Another speaker was Dr. Kimberly Kagan, president of the Institute for the Study of War. Check out her latest on NRO, where she and others analyze President Bush's speech last week on Iraq.

Then we had a surprise speaker; presidential candidate Rep Duncan Hunter (R-CA). I am a fan of Hunter, and wish he was doing better in the polls. I think he'd do well against any of the democrats, and would probably vote for him in a primary if I could.

My little camera doesn't have much of a zoom, so here's the my best photo of him

Here is audio of Rep Hunter's remarks.

I walked around to the side after the rally, and he was good enough to speak for a few minutes with me and some others. He shook our hands and I wished him well.

We finished right on time at 12 Noon, with Kristinn dismissing the crowd and giving everyone directions to Pennsylvania Avenue. Everyone slowly filed out and made our way a few blocks away to where we would spend the next 3 or 4 hours.

Part II - The March and the Counter

We gathered up and down both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue, taking up several blocks on each side. All this was part of a pre-arranged plan; the organizers of GOE III (as well as ANSWER) having negotiated with the DC government over permit areas for weeks if not months before this event.

And we waited

And waited

If you're not reading ThreatsWatch...

...you're not fully informed.

During what seemed an interminable wait, I finally got to meet my good friend Marvin Hutchins, who was in town with blog partner Steve Schippert. Marvin is the creator of ThreatsWatch, and Steve is a contributor. Steve also contributes to National Review Online, where you can find his posts on The Corner and The Tank.

They were in town attending some security conference, and as they would be here over the weekend of course wanted to drop by and see real life moonbats in action. They weren't disappointed.

FINALLY, at 2:45 they showed, a good 2 1/2 hours behind schedule. Here they are: Moonbats on parade!

It was, as always, a circus freakshow that would have made P.T. Barnum proud. I'll never figure out what it is about lefties where they think they have to dress up in costumes and carry all manner of vulgar signs. This one wasn't actually as bad as some I've seen in the past (see "Rallies and Protests" under "Categories" at right), but was a show nevertheless. Many of them carried preprinted ANSWER signs that their ~~masters~~ leaders had given to them.

Here's a good wide-angle shot so you can see that at times the street was thick with them

I think I've seen this contraption at other ANSWER demonstrations

The Chants

The leftists:

Iraq for Iraqis, U.S. Out Now!

Bush Never Served! Bush Never Served!

Strengh Through Peace!

Apparently flying F-102 Delta Daggers for 2 years doesn't count, but none of these people would know an F-102 if it hit them on the heard.

One of our number, a FReeper who calls himself "Dr Raoul" was shouting at the moonbats with his megaphone

End the Occupation, Commies Out of DC!

Audio here

There was shouting on each side, and some folks let their emotions get the better of them, and occasionally tempers flared. I've learned to remain calm in the face of provocation, but it's something you have to prepare for.

A few marchers wore bandanas over their faces. I think this is the so-called "Black bloc" of anarchists, but am not sure. I'll do some research tomorrow.

Many Eagles would holler at them to uncover their face, calling them cowards. Sometimes they did, making my wonder why, if they gave in so easily, why them covered themselves in the first place.

Pardon the vulgarity but these people need to be exposed. You'll never see this photo in the MSM

They are a creative bunch, I'll give them that. Too bad they don't put it towards something useful

I'm not sure but I think this is supposed to be Hillary

There were your Palestinian sympathizers, who of course insisted that they just wanted "justice for the Palestinian people".

And no leftist demonstration these days is complete without the 9-11 Truthers

The whole thing was over by 3:30. Huh? I looked at my watch in disbelief. Past demonstrations had gone on for a few hours. If I have it right (and I'll check my recorder tomorrow) this bunch went past us in just under an hour.

ANSWER flopped.

Many of us made our way to the US Capitol, only a few blocks away, to see this "die-in", that ANSWER had been advertising on their website.

Part III - The Moonbat "Die-In"

At the Capitol both groups got somewhat mixed up. GOE didn't have a permit area establised, so we wandered around in small groups, trying to figure out where the moonbats were going to do this die-in.

Here you can see the yellow ANSWER signs in the background by the Capitol

Not being quite sure what to do, our group walked around to the right. We headed up a path to the Capitol, but ended up on the wrong side of where they were doing this "die-in". One of our number told me that the moonbats were on the other side. Since the people I was with seemed content to stay where they were, this left me with a decision.

Hanging with the Moonbats

I took the plunge, and with flag in hand (I was carrying an American flag on a 10' pole), as well as with a American flag shirt, and a "Surge to Success" button, I waded into a veritable sea of leftists over to the other side of the gathering.

Ok, so I wasn't really "hanging out" with the leftists, but there was no way they could mistake me for anyone on their side of the political spectrum.

Sure enough, after a hundred yards or so I came upon a bunch of them lying down. I asked if this was the die-in and they said yes.

Most didn't exactly look dead. And of course the girl in this photo has a vulgar sign on her back. What is with them that they can't put forth their message in a civil manner?

A guy with a bullhorn was trying to get more to lie down, but most just milled about. Why, I wondered, didn't they just all lay down? That was why they were here, wasn't it?

A hundred feet or so past this spectacle was more of them laying on the other path up to the Capitol. Again a guy with a bullhorn was urging them to lay down in this play-dead thing, but most seemed more interested in watching. The guy with the bullhorn here had on a Che Guevara shirt. But of course.

Despite the fact that my appearance put me very out of place in this crowd, no one bothered me a bit. I got some odd looks, but that was about it. I think at this point everyone was pretty tired anyway, having spent their emotions at the morning rallies and afternoon march. I know by this point I was pretty spent, and I could see it in the people around me too. Nevertheless, I wanted to get a few more photos and wanted to see if anything really interesting happened, so I hung out for a bit.

This woman brought her little girl to the die-in. Wonderful.

Finally, as I was leaving, I met this sweetheart.

Just the sort of girl you want to bring home to mom.

Important Update

via Wake Up America WRAL is reporting that 190 Moonbats were arrested

Several thousand anti-war demonstrators marched through downtown Washington on Saturday, clashing with police at the foot of the Capitol steps where more than 190 protesters were arrested. ...
The arrests came after protesters lay down on the Capitol lawn in what they called a "die in" - with signs on top of their bodies to represent soldiers killed in Iraq. When police took no action, some of the protesters started climbing over a barricade at the foot of the Capitol steps.

Many were arrested without a struggle after they jumped over the waist-high barrier. But some grew angry as police with shields and riot gear attempted to push them back. At least two people were showered with chemical spray. Protesters responded by throwing signs and chanting: "Shame on you."

Idiots. Looks like all this went on farther up towards the Capiol than where I was. I don't know if it happened when I was there or not, as I was aways down and couldn't tell what was happenening up closer to the Capitol.

Do I even have to say that no Eagles were arrested?

ANSWER has a list of those arrested on their website

Among the arrested were Adam Kokesh, Liam Madden, Jeff Millard, and Garrett Reppenhagen of Iraq Veterans Against the War; Brian Becker, National Coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism); Ann Wright, former U.S. Army Colonel; Michael Prysner, Iraq war veteran and ANSWER activist in Florida; union president Gloria La Riva; and Eugene Puryear, Howard University student and National Coordinator of Youth & Student ANSWER.

Imagine, a former US Army Colonel degrading herself by hanging out with these loons, and then getting herself arrested in a war protest. If you want to say the war is wrong, fine, but don't hang out with this bunch.

All Photos for Today

You can see all of the photos that I took today on my Photobucket site.

Others Blogging

Age of Hooper as usual has great photos and video

Michelle Malkin has an Us vs Them photoblog up, and has seen fit to include one of my photos. Thank you, Michelle!

This Ain't Hell was in Lafayette Park (which is by the White House) with the Moonbats in the morning and has excellent photos and commentary also.

Victory Caucus has tons of photos. Be sure and check them out.

Media Attention

Washington Post: "Dueling Protests"

Washington Times: "Protesters Slam War"

Fox News: "Thousands March in D.C. War Protest"

New York Times: "Anti-War Protest Ends with Dozens of Arrests"

Videos