Chicagoland Chapter - The leftists have been ANSWERED!

Today, a few individuals from the Chicagoland Chapter of the FR Network stood toe-to-toe with the Leftists from ANSWER, and they heard our answer.

In attendence was ChiTown-Chief;justshutupandtakeit;jamesnwu;Bismarck; {one other}, plus we pulled in at least one person (hope she chimes in).

The day started when I arrived at 10:45a to find no one recognizable on location. I walked around a bit and looked upon the 100+ Cook County Sheriffs in full battle gear. Then I noticed a group of individuals unloading 8' tall signs. When I walked over I knew they were from ProtestWarrior.com, and oh boy where they. 6 strong to start, three cameras, 12 signs!

After introductions, and finally meeting the "I got lost on the way to O'Hare" jamesnwu (LOL) we just kinda hung around. The stage was still being set up and sound system being checked. Soon, about 10-15 others appeared, ready to join our group, including the aforementioned FReepers.

I was kinda bored waiting for the Leftists to appear, so I and ChiTown took to the corner of Adams and Dearborn with our signs. We recieved many thumbs up, a few frowns. After about 1/2 hour of this, this 'I voted for Bush, but he's a rich draft dodger and I served in Vietnam wanna see my picture here's me with my purple hearts bush sucks and ...' {I typed it like that because they guy was un-shut-up-able). After trying to get in a point or two, and somewhat being successful considering he now turned to the 'you didn't serve so you suck' tactic, I, and ChiTown gave up.

At the same time this gentleman who had a very deep Yugoslavian accent, even after being here since 1959, started to lay into me because 'Bush sucks'. This was definetly getting tiresome, considering that this guy was impossible to understand due to his accent. I tried. I really did.

The ProtestWarriors, who had taken up position about 30' from the stage where told that they couldn't be there. The Leftists had the permit, afterall. Well, the cops where convinced that only those without the ProtestWarrior signs (someone from PW tell us what the entire story was) were to be allowed. Us FReepers with handwritten signs were out... So we moved. To a GREAT PLACE.

ChiTown, myself, and our newfound companion headed down the other side of the block to try and be in full view of the protestors. Once we got there, we were able to have some enjoyable conversation with individuals, including anti-war protestors, a member of Rainbow PUSH, and others. At some point, the Sheriff's pinned us in, we were told if we stood here we would have to march when they arrived. BONUS!!! Heck, what's a FReeper to do?!? At about this time, a gentlemen who was fantastic appeared across the street. Dressed in a Saddam mask and somewhat olive drab garments, he began displaying ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS signs that mocked the Leftists and all those around (where was a notepad). I hope ChiTown, or a gentleman who was a FR fan but not signed on, can help me remember what was written.

We eventually got into a mode were we waited, and waited, and waited... With some dribbles of those not marching... Then they came into sight and things were good.

Even though some heated conversation occurred, we were definetly on the high road. Two great indicators of that were the full combat gear Chicago Police officers that could not keep from laughing at how we addressed what was parading in front of us. Several times a few of the officers had to turn away from the Leftists to literally LOL. We also cannot forget the poor Chicago Trubune reporter who was trying to interview ChiTown and myself but could not stop laughing, I can't wait to read her article.

The typical trash was paraded in front of us. Bush lied, Bush this, Bush that, get our troops out, blood for oil, yadda, yadda, yadda. It's amazing how easy it would be for us to create the script for these marches. We've seen it all, it's the same old same old. In fact, we saw the "Bush killed Wellstone" sign.

We did have some extra 'fun' though. The black bloc paid special attention to us. Along with anti-war infiltrators who reported the PW to 'command' early in the day. At one point there were three late teen, early twenty, individuals who were trying there best to 'threaten' us during the march. It really was laughable and I only report it because they tried their best to scare us off.

After the march had passed, we walked around to get to the back of Federal Plaza. They had a crowd that was deeper than our "Support the Troops" rally last spring, so according to WLS-AM, about 700! LOL They did have about 5000, atleast in the sense that we had 2500-3000.

After having some quaint discussions with individuals in, and around the back of the rally, I ran across a few of the black bloc. On of the individuals recognized me from earlier and we begun to converse. I will not pretend to say that we changed each other, but I will say that the individual who I spoke to was approachable, more approachable that I could have imagined. That is good. After all, he admitted to carrying a sign that said eff'Communism' - though he was refferring to the state-run version.

RedWing, you're a lot faster than I am but here's my two bits with not too many typos, I hope:

I arrived at Federal Plaza just before noon to be met by RedWing9, justshutupandtakeit, jamesnwu, Bismarck, others whose handles I can’t remember (sorry) and at least a dozen of our friends from ProtestWarrior.com ably led by Captain Mike. They already had their satirical tall signs that you see at their website http://www.protestwarrior.com/ ready to go for today’s action, code name Operation Wolverines. And the weather, by the way, was beautiful. If this is global warming, roll it out!

After an exchange of greetings and a brief strategy session, we staked out a spot beneath the flag in Federal Plaza and awaited the arrival of our left-wing adversaries. To kill some time, RedWing and myself stood at street corner of Dearborn and Adams displaying our signs to passing motorists and bewildered shoppers.

RedWing’s signs included “Not in Saddam’s Name”, “NION, moveon, A.N.S.W.E.R. = Communism”, “Free Iraq”, “Freedom is not Free – Support our Troops” and mine read “Welcome, al Quida Groupies” and “U.N. : Peace or Piece of the Action.” We had a long debate with a slightly wacked guy on a bicycle who said he was a Nam vet with his friend, who apparently was an old DP (if I may be so politically incorrect) who had a heavy accent and was very difficult to understand although he was able to use foul language quite aptly. The vet’s complaint was that he had to go overseas and President Bush didn’t. In fact, that was basically all he said for about 15 minutes regardless of any argument presented to him.

Returning to flagpole, we had to keep a closely guarded perimeter around the signs as the lefties had an idea of what we were up to. A couple of them even tried to pick them up but were rebuffed when we said, “Hey! We don’t go grabbing your stuff.”

Then, near-disaster struck. A police office in full riot gear came over and asked to see the signs. After looking at them, she asked us to move to the back of the plaza saying that International A.N.S.W.E.R. had the permit to Federal Plaza and it was an anti-war rally so we couldn’t display any signs opposing them. But Captain Mike then talked to another officer and arrived at a compromise: the ProtestWarrior satirical signs could stay but our FreeRepublic anti-anti-war signs would have to go. So the ProtestWarrior folks stayed at the flagpole while RedWing and myself headed over to Clark and Adams to meet and greet the anti-war (read as anti-America) crowd as the march turned the corner. At this point, we had also lost track of justshutupandtakeit’s location and we hope he will fill us in later.

At Clark and Adams where there was very police presence, we met a variety of people. We were joined by a very pleasant young lady named Christine, I believe, whose husband is one of Chicago’s finest but wasn’t working the street and we gave her a sign and she joined us for the duration. A few people would stop by and offer moral support and we were very entertained by a guy across the street with a Saddam mask and an array of hilarious signs. Of course, we also threatened by the peacenik thugs that always seem to be integral to these events, one jackass saying that we’d be running when the marchers came down the street. When RedWing answered that we’ve already encountered these guys last year at their Rogers Park march, the peacenik thug shouted, “This ain’t Rogers Park.” To which RedWing replied, “So what are you going to do, beat me up?” and the jackass seemed to calm down after that. We also encountered a few other young peacepunks but their threats were pretty incoherent.

We also met reporters Chinta Strausberg of the Chicago Defender, Sharon Wright of WMAQ NBC-5,and Li Fellers of the Chicago Tribune all of whom we talked to, at least as we could in the commotion. Ms. Strausberg telegraphed her left-wing bias so much that RedWing had to cut her short (I was happy to meet her as I’ve heard her on the radio quite a few times and she provides a good example of how the other half thinks) but Ms. Wright and Fellers were very respectful and polite even while asking some pretty tough questions.

While all this was going on, the marchers came down Clark led by mounted police (one guy was having a terrible problem with his horse) and police in riot gear on foot. It was kind of like opening day at the ballpark. Interestingly, I’ve seen on TV where the marchers were led by the Rev. Jesse Jagoff but I didn’t notice him at all. Maybe he stopped at Ronnie’s for a discount steak.

The situation then settled in to a pretty typical freep with us trading “witticisms” with the rabid snarling peace-lovers who, as always, are quite shocked by even token opposition. This year, they did seem a bit less boisterous almost as if they are as sick of themselves as we are of them. There also seemed to be more old Peter Paul and Mary aging hippie-types along with a bunch of clueless teens who acted as if it were Spring Break in Daytona. And, of course, the usual black-masked anarchists, Muslim wannebees, conspiracy buffs (“The Bush Mafia Killed Paul Wellstone”), and Dennis Kucinich fans were all there. This lasted for about a half-hour and then RedWing, Christine, and myself worked our way through the police line and headed back to Federal Plaza.

We were only able to enter at the back of the plaza but saw the giant blue signs up front signaling that our friends from ProtestWarrior had successfully pulled off Operation Wolverine. We also continued engaging the lefties in debate with one somewhat overbaked woman informing me that the proper Arabic spelling for my sign is “al Queda” and other such nonsense. We weren’t able to hear much of the speeches where we were at although I’m sure we didn’t miss anything and finally met back up with the ProtestWarrior team who reported a casualty of one big sign lost but and otherwise smooth operation.

The final action of the day occurred when the Rolling Thunder Motorcycle Club arrived at the corner of Dearborn and Jackson and really revved them up. We scrambled over to show our support while the peaceniks couldn’t quite figure out whose side they were on but, when they did, the black-masked guys entered the intersection to try to disrupt things bringing the police in. They broke things up quickly and that pretty much ended the action as we exchanged congrats and goodbyes and headed for home.

All in all, a very good day although I was extremely disappointed that we didn’t have time to soak up some suds at The Berghoff. I hope and expect that we can accomplish this sometime soon.

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