Official After-Action Thread: March 19 Fayetteville, NC Support Our Troops Rally

Freepers, lurkers and assorted patriots ^ | March 19, 2005 | Constitution Day

[Constitution Day]

Today we met in Fayetteville, NC to Freep a motley rabble of socialists, anarchists, Code Pink-os, and other throwbacks to the 60's! As usual, we were well outnumbered by their hordes of college students, aging hippies and other bused-in protestors, but we held our own as always.

Please post any reports and observations on this thread only.

[Doctor Raoul]

Chapel Hill’s Paper Hand Puppet Intervention put on a short show before the protest march. Using large puppets on stilts, the performers depicted two tyrants oppressing several people.

Actually, the ones holding the puppets were the bigger puppets.

[Mudboy Slim]

"Both sides made their point. Thousands of protesters made a strong, symbolic antiwar statement in the home of the 82nd Airborne. Hundreds more stood up for the military. To the protesters on both sides, and to the police who helped keep the order - congratulations. You all did your jobs well."

Seriously, that is really good to hear...if the Lib'rals didn't STINK so bad, I reckon maybe we could beFRiend them...MUD

[BillF]

Video report about the event can be seen from channel 50 here.

Click on video to see a short piece that features tgslTakoma and Flora McDonald. The text at the linked page includes AQGeiger's great comments.

[Flora McDonald]

DISSENSION IN THE RANKS OF THE RABBLE!
Found this on Indymedia. It is my opinion that the efforts of FReepers affected the Fayetteville protest in ways that were not apparent to us at the time. Read below how at the last minute the ISO speaker was forbidden to take the stage! These are the words of a hardcore lefty...

"Re: Fayetteville Iraq War Demonstration Photo Essay by J.. M........

21 Mar 2005
(I shared this report back with DAWN, thought it would be appropriate here since it offers a counter-weight to the report above)

A lot of us have been talking about our experience in Fayetteville, and generally the opinions range from lukewarm optimism of the event to downright pessismism.

(snip)

Contrary to what the people in Fayetteville are reporting, there was a maximum of 2,500 people at their march and rally (a number that many experienced activists agree on after surveying the crowd)...which is about half of the 4800 they claim to have. It was a mello march in a tucked away part of town over an extremely small march route that hemmed us in a park where participants all had to go through a search of bags and a sweep, the only purpose of which I could determine was to show the people in Fayetteville that the police were boss. Even the counter-demonstrators looked altogether bored by what happened.

One of the positives is that DC outmobilized any other city in getting people out there. We brought 84 on our buses; there was an ANSWER bus from DC that had 16. And, I estimate another 50 or so DC-area people came separately on their own. I kept running into them all day. If my numbers are right, DC was 6% of the entire crowd.

Another positive of the day was that it’s clear that there obviously is a growing contingent of veterans in the anti-war movement. They are energized and organizing, and my guess is that they looked at the day from a different prism than many of us.

However, the question looming over us all day was whether the rally and march accomplished anything at all. I’ve never been to a mass mobilization (and don’t blame it on the hours I spent organizing; I’ve had quite the opposite experience in other demos and been far more tired) where I left with such little energy (that was thankfully restored by the vigil that’s going on now). We didn’t reach people in the town, who weren’t there and couldn’t have cared less about it (the counter-demonstrators were from out of town by and large; I recognized some of our DC freeper friends). There was no call to further action that I could gather. And, the way the organizers caved into extremely unreasonable police demands left everyone feeling disempowered and like the bold speech from the platform was nothing short of a comical farce.

To their credit, Doug, Luke, and Karen refused to go through the search. In Karen’s case, she stood up for someone getting arrested whereas the Fayetteville organizers left the person in the lurch. I watched from across the park as a man was tackled by 5 police officers. He had been challenging the ridiculous searches going on by jumping over the fence at an unauthorized spot. When police then went in with full force to tackle him, a lot of us went over to understand the situation. Immediately, a sea of red-shirted Fayetteville volunteers did everything they could to turn us back to the stage. Okay, fine, their action, let them make sure that they are supporting the person being jailed, who turned out to be one of their speakers. But, what do they do? They turn there back and totally ignore the situation. It took Karen and the few legal observers there to help the guy out. The Fayetteville organizers couldn’t have cared less and were probably horrified that their tightly scripted event had led to an arrest.

This to me was symbolic of the day, but it wasn’t so much just Fayetteville, but generally this attitude that we can put all this energy into what amounts to a parade and a party without having any sense that we are moving forward in fighting war or protecting civil liberties. Mass mobilizations are intended to pressure the government and the population to notice injustice. Instead, this one seemed co-opted into the unjust system it hypocritically purported to be against.

It didn’t help that our bus was rather lousy…though the energy was great. Maybe the fumes from the burning CB put me in this foul mood.

An ISO person who was under impression he would be speaking since he appeared in a published program was kept from the stage by Lou Plummer (head of their steering committee), who threatened to have him arrested.

One bit of irony that arose out of a very sad incident…ANSWER’s bus, which only had 16 people (almost all organizers and volunteers), couldn’t make it back to DC because their bus driver had a heart attack. We gave all of them who wanted one a free lift home. I hope that the goodwill here will lead to better communication between the two groups."(snip)

[Flora McDonald]

What kind of plugin do you need to view the video? I just upgraded Firefox and it can't seem to find the right plugin.

[BillF]

Interesting. Where does that come from? Also, I probably will know it as soon as you tell me, but I can't remember. What is ISO?

On your post about the video, Internet Explorer opens another small window asking whether you want to use Windows Media Player or Real Player to play the video and asking what speed your connection is. I don't know FireFox, but would think that WMP or RP could be used with it to play the video.

[dstarr]

That big white one looked like a big, skinny chicken.

[BillF]

Right. I think that some puppets are supposed to represent chickenhawks.

Some leftists call anyone, regardless of age or medical condition, a chickenhawk if they support the war, but haven't personally joined the military and served in Iraq.

[clyde asbury]

We didn’t reach people in the town, who weren’t there and couldn’t have cared less about it ...

Last year, when I told a few local strangers about the rally afterwards, none knew about it.

This year, so far, two locals not only knew about the rally, but also knew of the violence.

[bmwcyle]

Ping video

[cf_river_rat]

Bill - ISO=International Socialist Organization

All -Letters to the Editor from Thursday or Friday 24 or 25 March. I haven't seen the paper copies but the website had different letters for Thursday last night, this morning Thursday had been moved to Friday and these letters were in Thursday's column. They are confusing me and that's easy to do. Anyhow check these out

Letters to the Editor, Fayetteville Observer

Photo shows symbol of socialist propaganda(My title as submitted was "Photo reveals protesters' true agenda". I don't know why they changed it.)

Kudos to the Observer for your front-page photo on March 20. The clenched fist logo on the "No More Blood For Oil" signs held by the protesters is the symbol of the International Socialist Organization. I did not see a single American flag in that photograph, but I did see signs depicting the International Socialist Organization's propaganda.

Does anyone still believe these protesters support the military that defends the U.S. Constitution?

Chris Dodds, Sanford

Who is really supporting the demonstrations?

Thanks for the coverage of the March 19 anti-war demonstrations in Fayetteville. Your front-page color photo says a lot about who is supporting and backing such demonstrations. Just look at the bottom of nearly every sign and you will find "International Socialist Organization." Enough said!

Bob Springer, Pinehurst

The picture commented on:

[bmwcyle]

Socialism - How can you have the cheerful giver that is required by God when Caesar's gun (the IRS) is at your head? Instead of giving Caesar (the government) the power, we need to teach people about God. The Godless socialist will only subjugate us under a human sinner (Bill Clinton) and expel God from our lives.

[wolfpat]

...they support the war, but haven't personally joined the military and served in Iraq.
Some of us are just the wrong age. I was too young for Vietnam, and too old by the time the Gulf War came around.

[Mudboy Slim]

BWAHAHAHA...Lib'rals are sooo funny...MUD

[bert]

Wow.....

An analysis of a lost battle with out the wherewithall for a counter attack.

[Flora McDonald]

Here is the link to the lefty article:
Hold Your Nose and Click!

[clyde asbury]

http://dc.indymedia.org

That's hilarious, Flora!

Some of the posters there can't write three words without contradicting themselves:

If you want to have an intelligent discussion, then come back when you can show some respect. Otherwise, f*** off.

(* is mine)

[FreedomPoster]

Nice turnout bump.

[tgslTakoma]

Very Good!

[Doctor Raoul]

Some leftists call anyone, regardless of age or medical condition, a chickenhawk if they support the war, but haven't personally joined the military and served in Iraq.

The left sent Human Shields to protect Saddam. Why won't they sent Human Shields to protect children?