AlanBarber.Org
Sunday, August 01, 2004
John Kerry Protest
Well the John Kerry Protest / Pro Bush Rally went very well. We riled up a bunch of liberals and made sure it was aware that not everyone in BG welcomed Kerry.
Other than a few minor alterations, that the other side always started, things were heated but never got out of hand. It really is amazing that for all the claims of peace and love you hear from that side they’re always the first to want to get physical with you.
We may get loud obnoxious and try our hardest to irritate the crap out of libs but we always show respect to them. We make sure not to invade the personal space or make physical contact with anyone. That’s because words are always more powerful.
The other side however seems to have no qualms about doing whatever they want. They’ll not only get right up in your face and yell trying to make you back down, many seem to think nothing of grabbing signs, pushing someone, pulling on other peoples shirts, etc.
Anyways here’s a bit of the play by play of what happen. We all met up around 1:30pm at the Taco Bell. The employees on their smoking break were real asses and kept bitching at us to move our cars. We told them we would after we had all eaten.
We headed down the street about 2 blocks to the corner where many other Bush people were set up. We got both plenty of support and hate from the crowds walking to the event. The best part was when 4 fire trucks passed by and ran their sirens in support of us. The worst part was when a lady with her baby, who couldn’t have been more than a year old if that, actually made her baby flip us off. I’m not joking here folks! She took the hand of the child and held its middle finger up to flip us off! Really mature and classy there ma’am!
We were there maybe an hour when we shifted down to another area hoping it would be closer to the actual event. Along the way we had our first real altercation. The group was all marching down the street when some guy grabbed my shirt and tried to pull me aside. I don’t know if he wanted to debate or just hopped I might respond in violence. Either way I got right up in his face and told him to take his F’ing hand off me. Another protestor stepped in and yelled at him to back off too. The little screaming match lasted for about a minute before the guy backed down. We finally got to the new location but it really wasn’t any better. Boy was that area fun with plenty of people coming up to debate us. There were a few bad apples but overall they were very civil and wanted a good, intelligent debate. I highly applaud them and truly respect these folks.
We hung around there for maybe an hour. It’s hard to remember in that heat. I was getting baked alive by the sun. We headed back to the original location. No problems on the way other than the usual people flipping us off and calling us Nazis, etc. Real original there guys! We chilled back at the first location for 20-30 minutes until we decided it was time to taking it all the way. We were going to the “front lines” or better know as the entrance to the event. The streets were already packed down there so it would be pretty dangerous. This is where things can get ugly since you will be surrounded on 3 maybe 4 sides at all times. However, that’s always were you have the most fun.
By then it was 3:30 already a half hour past when Kerry was suppose to start speaking but hadn’t even arrived. We marched out way down as far as we could and were right in the thick of things. We did chants like “4 more years”, “Bush, Cheney”, “Kerry is scarry”, “Give me a B, U, S, H… What’s the spell…”, “We support the troops”, etc, etc. The other side returned with “Kerry, Kerry, Kerry”. There were little debates all over and plenty of heckling from the crowd. The usual assortment of party lines like “Bush lied”, “If you support the troops why don’t you join the army”, Comparisons of Bush to Hitler, etc.
The worst of all and the only thing that truly makes me upset to hear came from one old white guy that had to be like 90 years old and had a oxygen tube in his nose. One of the protestors and a friend of mine is African-American and this old guy walked right up to her and stated rather nastily that she should go back to the cotton fields where she belongs!
I have tough skin and can stand to get face to face with even the most horrid individuals without it bothering me but that statement was such a pure form of hate that it even made me upset. We Republicans get called racists and bigots all the time but the truth of the matter is racism and bigotry isn’t associated with any one party. That old man proves it more than anything. Here was a man with pro-Kerry pins that made one of the most racist comments I’ve ever heard.
Anyways, around 4:30 Kerry finally showed up to speak. We keep making a ruckus for another 10-15 minutes before the leaders told us to pack up and leave. You don’t want to be standing there at the entrance/exit when the speech is over and everyone is trying to leave. That’s just asking for trouble!
So we headed home and all felt great knowing we managed to harass the heck out people and get our message out.
I have all the pictures I took of the event uploaded and ready for viewing right here:
http://www.alanbarber.org/gallery/kerry_protest/index.php
I didn’t get many good pictures but hey it’s better than none. I was too busy holding signs and cheering so I was always too slow to pull out my camera and get picture of the good stuff.
I really don’t know when liberal became a bad word… I find it rather funny really.
It’s probabbly true the more religiously active you are the more likey to be conservative and pro-Bush. It really comes down to the fact that conservatism and religion are very closely tied in beliefs.
Although, I know plenty of diehard libs that go to Mass every sunday. Then again they’re also not the type that go around flaunting their religion by putting stickers/etc on their cars. So the numbers are probabbly skewed more so that if you see Jesus fish on the car they probabbly will also be conservative and thus display a pro-Bush sticker as well…
Hmm… this is rather interesting and would make a great study to see the hard numbers. 
I’m going to add the war question to my topic list and make a full post sometime about it…
on 08/02/2004 at 12:02 PM
Regarding how you can be Christian and support the war, in the Bible (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8) it basically says there a time for everything including war. Actually the Bible mentions warfare quite a bit. I think it comes down to whether or not it’s considered a just war (and there are 6 factors that determine tha..do a google search and you’ll probably find s/th on it)
on 08/02/2004 at 08:17 PM
Thanks for the response Adrianne. I looked up the verse and read it. That seems to make sense, but why then are the commandments so simple in how they are written? Don’t you kill in a war? Do the commandments matter any more or were they ammended by Jesus?
Hi Alan,
Thought I would drop by and take a read on one of your entries. Excellent post! I should visit more often and dive into some of the discussions that go on here. Great debates and questions.
James
Well… Bush is a Nazi. He even has his own concentration camps. Not that Kerry will be any better. After all, he’s an American too. You guys need to learn a whole lot humility before I will take you serious again. Whatever you do, remember that supporting Bush is like supporting Hitler. Remember Ausschitz. Remember Abu Ghraib.
First of all I want you to know that I am a card carrying liberal that would like to see a new president in office. That said I still have a few comments for your opinions.
“Well… Bush is a Nazi. He even has his own concentration camps.”
We’ll get to that association in a minute here…
“Not that Kerry will be any better. After all, he’s an American too. You guys need to learn a whole lot humility before I will take you serious again.”
Granted Americans do have a lot to learn, but keep in mind that an average American does not want to slash and burn the world to make everything a cookie-cutter version of the states. At least I hope we don’t. Let’s just say that at least I don’t feel that way, does that make it better?
“Whatever you do, remember that supporting Bush is like supporting Hitler. Remember Ausschitz. Remember Abu Ghraib.”
Auschwitz was nothing like Abu Ghraib. That makes me think you are an idiot. That is like comparing… well I can’t even think of a good analogy now. You got me flustered.
What you seem to be comparing are two detention centers. That makes them start out similar, but at one a million and a half people were killed and had their ashes spread across fields in the area instead of being buried. In the other the inmates had photos taken of them in homosexual positions and they were falsely threatened with death.
Sure Abu Ghraib got me mad, but which was worse?
lol, looks like Alan deleted the last guy’s comment. You can delete mine too if you like. I was just feeding the trools anyway.
It’s not deleted just hidden… one of the nice features of ExpressionEngine. You can just hide instead of delete comments.
I spent the morning, while on the bike trail working out, decided what my policy would be on people that post like this… I decided I will let them stand as long as they are not outright obscene or truly just trolling for a fight. So, I’ve re-opened the comment and should be visible by time I post this message.
Anyhoo, I pretty much agree with what Josh said. Comparing what happen in Germany in WW2 to what’s going on now is just ridiculous.
Nazi Germany tried to wipe the Jewish people off the face of the earth. The only people in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib are terrorists and Saddam loyalists. OK, there may be some innocents there too but it’s not like they were just grabbed off the street at random. There was a reason why they were belived to be worth detaining. Hopefully they’ll get their due process…
I mean hell I’m pissed at what happen at Abu Ghraib too. We’re better than that and the soldiers there should have not even thought about doing those things.
on 08/03/2004 at 12:04 PM
I think all of us agree that the situation there was bad. It was bad for the world’s impression of the US and it was bad for humanity.
I don’t know what to believe anymore, but I have heard that it was not uncommon to say that someone had terrorist connections just to get them sent to the camp at Guantanimo. If that is true then there must be a lot of innocent people there.
Whether those people are innocent or not is beside the point, they should have gotten the ball rolling much sooner to get them their due process.
I once again point out the fact that if you are going to compare any of this to WWII (Which is stupid to compare this kind of war to) then this is more in line with the American camps for Japanese people living in America than to Hitler’s concentration camps.
PS: This is a fun conversation, I really like Expression Engine’s ability to email me when my comment is replied to. This should be available in all blog software.
Ah genius Alan. Genius. I got your link off BlogShares and decided to stop by and take a look see. After I read a while I added you to my bloglist on my site.
I love how the point was to stir up hate.
Just like republicans. Spread the hate!
Just like your president.
Spread the killing and spread the hate.
—Not working on me. I don’t hate you.
I pray that you dont have to rot in hell for your ignorance.
Ok Jill I want to know outright what in anything proved that any of these people are Republicans second of all where in anything they said were they spreading the hate as you put it?
The Masked Conservative:
I’m not sure what you are talking about. Do you mean how can we tell if they are republicans? I was taking the pro-bush stickers and the anti-kerry signs as proof, but I guess I’m not sure what you are getting at. Are you just implying that they might be independent or democrat and voting for Bush?
Jill:
I gotta disagree with what you are saying. We liberals are some protesting mofos (Not me in particular, but as a group.) So I would say that in general if you seem people assembled and chanting about something they don’t like then you are probably looking at a herd of our own.
On second thought I think the Christian right-wing guys are really getting their protesting act together. If you are confused here are a few tips on how to tell which is which.
If the group you are looking at has more than one person wearing a short sleeve dress shirt tucked in with a tie then you are looking at Christian Conservatives.
If the group you are looking at has any sort of flower painted anywhere on their bodies then you are looking at liberals.
If the group you are looking at seems to be mumbling their protest with their heads down then you are looking at Christian Conservatives. This is what’s known as prayer-test. It’s very efficient because everyone already knows the chant.
If the group you are smelling has an overly ripe smell as if bathing is not a top priority then you are smelling liberals.
Ok Josh what I meant is Jill was calling you Republicans And I wanted to know how she came up with you being Republicans What in anything you said made you Republicans.
Cool pictures. It looks like it must have been fun. What’s up with the assholes that have to ruin everything by acting tough? Those people know no boundaries. They are truly universal to every walk of life.
We will have to chat about politics sometime. I try to keep an open mind, but I would be more likely to be refered to as a liberal than anything. Wait… we aren’t called liberals anymore, we’re called “Progressive” now I guess. I don’t know when that happen, but liberal became a bad word sometime in my lifetime.
Would you say it’s true that the more active of a christian you are the more likely you are to be pro-bush? I have been paying attention to bumper stickers recently and it seems like about 1 in 3 that have a “W ‘04” sticker back there have a Jesus fish next to it.
(Believe me I am not attacking, just looking for conversation) As a Christian how can you condone war?