My Own Side

Well, it’s the day after the election, and we just elected the least known, most unqualified, most radical and far left candidate ever in American history. But at least he likes puppies, so our economy is going to be just fine.

Shame on the disgraceful media for not informing the public about his numerous scandals, questionable associations and unworkable policy promises in their headlong rush to get him elected by any means. Instead of dumpster diving in Alaska (and coming up empty) they should have been probing in Chicago. The pickings are much juicier there.

I photoshopped this cartoon to reflect my feelings about today. Hopefully it will bring a bitter-sweet chuckle to you. By all means, please add a comment with what you think the speech bubbles should contain!

It’s May Day in Seattle, and as good an excuse as any for another ruckus in the streets. It’s also a time for celebrating workers by, well, not working I guess. This (illegal) immigration march was called by the organizers the “9th Annual”, but it was only the 2006 march where things really hit their high point with about 25,000 marchers in Seattle. Last year it was about 8,000, while this year it was only about 6,000.

I also have galleries of the April 10th, 2006 march, the May 1st, 2006 march, and the May 1st, 2007 march.

There’s always some kind of street theater at these things, and this year a crowd pleaser was the globe. As we were going down the hills in the march I kept a wary eye on it in case it got lose and started flattening people. And notice the “Vote for Pedro” t-shirt. I wonder if that is Barack, Hillary or John? As far as any immigration reform, this year it might as well be “none of the above.”

The march was put on by El Comite Pro-Amnistia General y Justicia Social (The Committee for General Amnesty and Social Justice) and their slogan for this year is “We are not undocumented, we are not illegal, we are workers!” They began in Judkins Park with an address by Seattle Catholic Archbishop Alex Brunett, then ran through downtown on 4th all the way to the Seattle Center. This was during rush hour, which didn’t endear them to many trying to get home that day, but it is Seattle, so there were plenty of guilty white liberals who lined to streets to applaud.

Here are some crowd shots to see the size of the march.

I’m going to dispense with the usual shots of the communist/marxist/socialist/blah-ist groups. They come to every march or protest and attach themselves like tumors to the various causes and peddle their propaganda. There are a few shots of the usual suspects in the full gallery of pictures linked to below. Instead I am going to just let some of the signs speak for themselves.

The sign reads “My immigrant vagina is angry.”

The words on these t-shirts say “They Can’t Deport Us All.” The first one is a parody of the Home Depot logo.

A modified U.S. Constitution was there.

Lots of flags. Anybody see something wrong with one of these pictures?

Of course there was one Palestinian supporter, complete with keffiyeh. And of course, plenty of Che.

We finally made it to the Seattle Center, where they had a hip hop band playing.

The rhetoric from the lead singer was very disturbing, and I found the racist overtones offensive. Sorry for the trouble with the place names below. I couldn’t make out the references, and I certainly couldn’t find any of these places on any credible map.

This land is NOT America! This land will NEVER be America! This land NEVER was America! This land is (Anawok?). This is (Turtle Island?). This is (Los ??)… It really is the brown people that made this country! The only ones that can really claim this country!

When I say “Where are my brown people at?” You say “Right here!” When I say “Where are all my African people at?” You say “Right here!” When I say “Where are ALL my people at?” You say “Right here!”… Whose land this is? (Our land!) Whose? (OUR land!) That’s right, this ain’t never going to be America!

I think she is about 232 years late with that one.

You can see the full gallery of photos here.

The World Can’t Wait activist group, always eager to take the side of America’s enemies, tried unsuccessfully last weekend to shut down the Tacoma Mall Recruiting Station. I found their report on this “action”. I would urge you to take a look at it, especially if you were there. I’m not going to bother and “Fisk” it line by line. I fully expected them to try and praise it up as successful and effective, and distort events accordingly. However, the primary value to me in the report is not so much whether each occurrence was accurately and objectively reported, but rather how it gives a window into the mindset of these people who are becoming increasingly violent and confrontational.

The report is here.

Arriving at the recruitment center, at first, all we saw were American flags and a lot of grizzly old farts with beer bellies. They had come early and were set up in front of the recruitment center. Shit. Then we saw orange, more orange, our signs and, holy crap!, our side was there.

I guess those “grizzly old farts with beer bellies” would be the many veterans who showed up to keep a bunch of pierced punks with bandannas from shutting down a U.S. Government office.

Also notice the reflexive disgust at the American flag. The following comment was revealing.

We pulled out our orange bandanas and signs and said, “Who needs orange?”  A guy came up to us and said, “Give me a bandana. They have their flag to unite them; we have orange to unite us.”

Their flag? That is telling. Orange of course is the color of the prison uniforms used at Guantanamo. In essence, the left is showing solidarity with and uniting under the flag of terrorists.

At one point a PW woman pointed at me and said, “My son is over there you B*itch! I’m proud of my son!” I held up my picture: a dead Iraqi child with his brains spilling out over a road somewhere in Baghdad and said, “Oh, did he do this? You proud of this?” She ran toward me, screaming “I’ll kill you!”

I didn’t witness the above exchange, but I have to ask any objective observer how these protesters can claim to be “supporting the troops” and make a reprehensible statement like that to the mother of an American soldier and be proud of it.

It appears from some statements in the report that the movement is divided internally between two camps. One group wants to calm down the rhetoric somewhat and retain the higher moral ground of saying that they support the troops. The other group is more radical, and is rejecting the mental gymnastics necessary to run around accusing the troops of raping, baby-killing and committing war crimes on the one hand, while saying they support them on the other. My unfortunate prediction is that as they get increasingly frustrated and angry, more will reject the internal conflict and settle into raw hatred for the troops as well as everything else in life they despise.

This observation will not come as a surprise. They do NOT like experiencing a backlash against their radicalism.

We remained firm in our goal: Shut it down!  But the attacks from the pro-war groups were starting to rattle the organizers in Tacoma.

Hmm, and who would those groups be? (The hyperlinks below were added by me.)

Two days earlier we heard that a local right-wing radio station was calling its listeners to come down and confront our “Shut it Down” demo.  The response? Bloggers like “Gathering of Eagles” and Michelle Malkin threatened to attack protesters, saying they were going to “bash heads in”, etc.

It is ironic that they try to claim the victim card. They are the ones coming down to attack the mall! As far as who was the most likely to become violent, it is telling that the double police line that separated the two groups had bicycle cops on the pro-troop side, and riot police facing the bandanna brigade. Maybe the Tacoma PD has some experience in these matters.
The report ends with tips on how to conduct protests in the future. Notice this one.

* Talk to people who come to the event, get their contact info right away. Make sure you have a meeting planned a few days after the demo or night of so you can sum up the day. Make sure you communicate that to people.

It reminds me of the controlled fashion that cults operate in. You always want to control the processing in peoples minds after an event so that their final thoughts of it conform to your ideology. These movements have many impressionable young people in them, and it is important that their belief in the cause is not shaken by any encounters with people on the opposite side. Surrounding them shortly afterwards with other believers to soothe any doubts and reaffirm your values is an important step to take.