Posted on 08/28/2004 3:33:16 PM PDT by SW6906
Today the unwashed masses gathered at the Tacoma Dome for a Kool-Aide drinking party AKA a Kerry rally. The line snaked down several blocks and was continuously feeding into the event for about four hours. I wouldn't be honest if I didn't say there were thousands and thousands of Kerry-ites there. All-in-all, there were at the peak about 50+ pro-Bush/anti-Kerry protesters spread out over a couple block area.
I arrived in Tacoma around 8:30 AM and never before have I seen so many hard-core lefties in one place as I saw here. Nearly every car I saw as I drove to the parking garage (and in the parking garage) had at least a Kerry sticker, more often than not also some kind of anti-Bush sticker. This was truly going into the belly of the beast. As I parked my car, I decided that:
1-I better back my truck into a wall parking space, and
2-I better take down the 8X11 Unfit For Command book cover picture from my back window.
I need this vehicle to get to work. ;o)
I linked up with our fearless chapter leader, Libertina as she stood alone on a corner with her Kerry Lied sign. We weren't there five minutes before we got our first one-finger salute. One woman with a Bush Lied shirt stood across the street and gestured to herself saying "This is who lied". That was just too much of a slow, fat softball pitch right over the plate that Libertina felt compelled to swing it out of the park with her retort: "Yeah, that's right, you are a liar!" That lady gave us our second one-finger salute.
We weren't allowed to meet at our original meeting place, so other Freepers may have had trouble finding us. We met up with some Protest Warriors and headed up towards the event. We soon discovered that the real protest was down a block and around the corner, right at the entrance to the rally! Yes, folks, they set us up on one side of a narrow two-lane street with the line feeding into the rally across the street, WELL within eye and earshot. The police did a good job of keeping the street a "no mans land" as many a time one of theirs tried to come over to get in our faces.
There was one guy there on our side who was VERY vocal, mostly about Vietnam. For some reason, after a while, he decided to get off on a rant about homosexuals and abortion, asking the crowd across the street to raise their hands if they were a "homo" or had had an abortion. After some time of this, a cop came and asked him to tone it down and not use the word homo. Bad idea. This set him off even more and he got louder and even more offensive. Several of us tried asking him to calm down as he was not making us look good, he was not helping the cause. We eventually packed up and moved down the block as we didn't want to be associated with his over-the-top extremism and choice of language - especially when there were kids there.
I respect his opinion, but this just wasn't the place to go off on that. None of the 25+ signs we had dealt with homosexuality or abortion (including his), that was not what we were there for.
After about an hour, he left and we were able to return to the prime spot he had occupied.
The LaRouchie's showed up with a huge banner condemning Bush and Kerry. They had some obscene song they kept singing over and over in unison about Bush and (Dick) Cheney and Kerry and so on. It actually was a nice sounding tune, but the words were nothing I liked. Good thing it was hard to understand many of the words. ;o)
A big group of the protesters (Protest Warriors?) brought these HUGE 4 ft X 8 ft poster boards that they wrote everything from Kerry is a Traitor to Asians for Kerry to Washington Loves President Bush to Kerry Lied and so on. EXCELLENT signs as they were huge with large, easily readable letters. We took turns holding them at various times.
Of course there were a lot of one-finger salutes and swearing at us, all in front of kids that were waiting to go in. One guy was trying to sell stickers to people waiting in line that said Lick Bush and his Dick (as in Cheney) or something obscene like that.
One yell I used over and over as the line moved by was Kerry wraps his campaign in Vietnam and says Bring it On, then when the Swift Boat Vets bring it on, he says make them stop, make them stop (in a whiney voice).
Kerry was supposed to be there at noon, he ended up being 50 minutes late. By then, we had been told by some of Tacomas finest that Kerry was going to come right by on the main street at the end of the side street we were on, so we moved down there and lined both sides of the street with our huge signs and people waving flags. When his entourage arrived, he drove RIGHT THROUGH OUR GAUNTLET. When he came around the corner and saw us, he was clearly seen in his SUV (yes, he was in an SUV) immediately turning and ducking his head so as not to see us. Coward.
Several of the vehicles in the entourage had signs in them saying Press Pool. In one of them the passenger in the front seat had his window down and I saw him flip us off. Another person said they heard him yell FU as well. Nope, no media bias here folks, nothing to see.
A couple other Freepers besides Libertina and I were there, but Im afraid I didnt get their names. As I recall more details, Ill post replies
.
I have missed all the news hours today - but sounds like I didn't miss much anyway... Thanks for atleast relating their bias - what a shocker...NOT.
Great Job!
We'll see if they cover it tomorrow.
They are too busy wiping drool off their chins to care about handling themselves as professional "jornalists." But if they haven't yet put the crazy guy on, I'm really going to begin worrying about them... I'd start looking for something in the water system;) (Don't worry SW, you are tops in our book and you handled the media very well. Of course, for me, I'm just praying I WON'T be in it ;) LOL!)
You're right - I fully expected our "homo-obsessed" friend to be front-and-center representing our side in all of this. That so far he has not is amazing.
GREAT job!!!!!
Wish I coulda been there, but had to support our state Rep. Jim Buck at a fundraiser today!
Komo just now had a little longer version of us. They actually had the obscene bumper sticker whacko too. Not much to see, you escaped the camera.
How wonderful! I noticed how pristine that area is, with gardeners working here and there. Mt. Ranier showed itself that day, too!
I was working the D Strett security zone about 50 feet from Kerry when he arrived. I assumed the carrier of the GOP/Texas combo was a freeper. I was working with Secret Service agents. It was comforting to hear one female agent comment on how much she liked the 4x8 Bush signs!
One of the Kerry fans made a point to video tape the interior of my marked patrol car. He noticed my KVI magnet which serves as a paper/note holder and my copy of American Evita(Hillary) that was on the seat. Tape away buddy, we are not your friends. I was disappointed to miss you guys. Oh, I did manage to draw a chourus of boos when I greeted a Bush supporter I thought I recognized over by the brick building on 26 and C St.
The high point was when I asked a couple of kids droping a banner over the highway overpass what did their sign say? They only were getting like one horn toot every 5 minutes. I was told it said This Is Kerry Country. I told then that it must be disappointing that more drivers weren't supporting you two. I got a nasty look so I told them to relax. Look guys, everyone who would consider that sign to be cool are down the street waiting for Kerry. With that they left and I didn't have to look at the maggots anymore.
The low point was that I was right there along the perimeter fence about 150 feet away from the stage. I had to hear every word that came out of Kerrys mouth. It's the same stuff regurgitated on TV but with much more elan. It's stuck in my head now like a bad song from a commercial!
Yes you did see Armijo there. I've never liked getting his courtroom even when he was a muni judge. Thats another story. Oh, you should of seen one of our bicycle officers before rollcall. He was riding around with his W-04 decal on his helmet. It looked pretty darn cool.
I, Jeann Le Jacquestrap Kerri, would never lie about my heroic efforts in Nam. Just look at my medals, that I didn't throw over the fence.
"If the finger means an IQ of one, the entire dem place probably didn't make it past 100 ;)"
You are probably right, the sum of their IQ's does not exceed 100.
Thanks Shotocan. Now I just wonder, who was the guy in the red car? He obviously had been following our waffle conversation. Anyway, very sorry not to get an opportunity to meet you. BTW You will have FReepmail in about one minute...
Good morning! So great to hear from you, IVV! We missed you out thre! But you will be happy to hear that some of our bridge people came and helped out :) How's the new place? Have you caught up with the Missouri FReepers yet? Need a recommendation? LOL
Good job, SW.
Please give this poll your attention.
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/late.edition/
It asks if you will watch Pres. Bush give his acceptance speech Thursday night. Right now it is 79%, NO!!
One thing I forgot to mention was the thousands of "Veterans for Kerry" signs that were handed out by Kerry's Kreepers. If was a bit curious seeing little kids by the handful and housewives by the dozen walking around with these, so after awhile we started asking, and for the ones who would answer, very few stated they were vets. Most would not answer, though they had no problem waving them in our face. Made it kinda hard to thank someone for their service when you know they're probably misrepresenting themselves.
LOL...
I've been here 18 years and I agree the last few summers have been sunnier than the first few years.
I was just thinking of the fact that even talking about the weather isn't safe with the lefties. when we get around to talking about how relatively warm and dry the summer has been...that's right, you guessed it.... it's the start to a "global warming" is Bush's fault rant:)
Calling MarMema! Hope you can find the time to come and read our afer reports! We missed you. Hope the work schedule hasn't got you completly tied up still. BUMP
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