Posted on 07/10/2006 2:07:39 AM PDT by Albion Wilde
Edited on 07/10/2006 2:33:33 AM PDT by Sidebar Moderator. [history]
WASHINGTON, DC, July 3, 2006--Although the 60s are long over, about 150 aging hippies and hangers-on relived them again over Independence Day weekend. They offered themselves up as tools of the CodePink-Cindy Sheehan leftism-for-profit machine, this time at the Ghandi statue at 21st and Massachusetts Avenue NW, and later, eating off the street in front of the White House.
The eating part -- go figure -- was a kick-off to Sheehan's "Troops Home Fast." She and several celebrites claim that they will forego food for two months to bring the troops home, so, worshipping themselves as they do, they will have a Last Supper as authentic as the Da Vinci Code. But I'm getting ahead of the story.
It's almost 3:00 p.m. on the eve of the nation's 230th birthday party, which should be a day of unity, rejoicing and gratitude for the robustly recovering economy, the absence of homeland terror attacks since 9/11 and the rapid progress towards a free Iraq. But it's just another horrible, terrible, really bad day for the embittered lefties arriving at a small triangle of lawn at 21st and Q Sts NW. There, the Embassy of India's statue of Ghandi will soon be reverently laid with drugstore bouquets by a white-haired, gnarled Flower Child in a pith helmet and saffron robe over her Code Pink duds. Some 4th of July picnic this is turning out to be.
The approaching Raging Granny Peace Brigade, Code Pinkos, Michael Moore wannabes and ambulatory schizophrenics are wearing sandals and Depends and those dumb little sun hats like John Kerry would wear, those upside-down canvas buckets with the downward brim, with white hair sticking out at random angles that has been cut with sewing scissors over the bathroom sink. They have come for yet another revival of the Vietnam war protests of forty years ago, minus the folk music and the wafting aroma of illicit herbs. Wow, man, pass the Lipitor!
Eleven of us FReepers wait quietly across the street (Kristinn, BufordP, Jimmy Valentine's Brother, Just A Nobody, 3D-Joy, Tom the Redhunter, Christopher Lincoln, Nina0331, ShadowMayhem, blogger CrusaderCoyote and myself). Most of us have signs, and ShadowMayhem is displaying the large flag that had draped the coffin of her grandfather, a veteran of WWII and Korea. With the Embassy of India behind us, the sidewalk is bustling with three kinds of law officers: Secret Service, Park Service and DC Metro police. Kristinn clears our permit with them.
We keep our secret weapon securely wrapped for the first 10 minutes of the lefties' demonstration, watching them manhandle American flags desecrated with black slogans like "NO ALLEGIANCE TO WAR, TORTURE & LIES" and listening to them chant,
There is a two-lane street between them and us. At last, we unfurl our secret weapon, a slogan adopted from WizBang, 13 feet long:
Whoa! Suddenly dozens of irate peacepersons swarm across the narrow street, laden with videocams, microphones, Hate-America posters, narrowed eyes and slack mouths dripping venom and bile. One of the more pitiable womyn skeeved at our sign and, eager to demonstrate Ann Coulter's Religion of Liberalism thesis, wailed, "Why attack her personally?" -- referring, of course, to her saint, Mother Sheehan, who incidentally has called our President "reckless, wanton, ignorant, arrogant, dishonest, careless and murder[ing]" and also "ten times the terrorist that Osama ever was":
About three moonbats per FReeper swarmed us, pretending to "interview" us for their cameras, asking such penetrating questions as, "BUSH LIED!" Derek Williams of WTOP Radio stuck a microphone into the face of 3D-Joy, who, although she is in a wheelchair from her recent devastating car accident, nevertheless FReeped with us all day, from the New York Times protest at noon, to this one, to the one that followed it at the White House. "They're talking about peace," Williams said, turning to 3D-Joy with the tone of a school principal discovering a crack vial in the locker room. "What do you say?"
"My husband fought in the Korean War and is buried in Arlington," 3D-Joy responded. "I am very proud of his service, and very proud of the service of all our young people in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Three rather nice-looking young men with expensive equipment tried to convince me they were just "seeking to learn more," and began grilling me and Jimmy Valentine's Brother. We easily refuted their jibes, explaining that fighting terrorism does not constitute "racism," that women in combat was promoted by Democrats long before Dubya took office, that you don't need to have a relative in the war to defend the mission nor a relative in the Fire Department to call them when your house in on fire. Their leader insisted that it was a "fact" that "someone" had told him that "most" of the troops are against the war, to which we laughed outright. "We go to Walter Reed every week," we replied. "And the men and women there are incredibly brave. Many of them, even after they have been wounded, want to return to their units. Where is your research? Where are you getting your so-called 'facts'?"
He then accused U.S. troops of wholesale rape of female troopers and Iraqi women. We challenged him to name a single group of people, anywhere on the planet, where rape does not occur, not letting him change the subject. Finally he said, and I'm not making this up, "Antartica."
We pointed out that his projection of cowardice onto our troops was wrong; that they are all volunteers, many in their 30s or more, and perhaps 95 percent of them are loyal to their mission. I further told him that if he were my son I would have some serious talks with him over the dinner table to re-educate him about his values, to which he responded in the most pathetic way imaginable: by implying that I was trying to date him (I am old enough to be his grandmother). Ewww!
Ladies and gentlemen of the news forum, I offer you the foregoing example of the intellectual development of today's anti-war movement. Thankfully, the law officers soon moved them back off to their permit area. We then shouted out counter-rants:
Kristinn was interviewed by Associated Press, and several other legitimate news organizations milled about, including two Middle Eastern ones, Al-Alam and Al-Hurra. But if the news reporting of the day is any indication, the media as usual focused only on the protesters and outside of a one-sentence quote from Kristinn by Associated Press and a small mention by FoxNews, our presence was ignored by MSNBC, Reuters, Yahoo News, UPI, or People Magazine, which did, however, feature the Sheehan hunger strike as Entertainment, alongside Chad Lowe's divorce from Hillary Swank because of substance abuse.
Starving for Attention, Part Deux
Next, the moonbat assembly marched several blocks to Lafayette Square, the park to the north of the White House that has been abused since the 60s by demonstrators.
Pennsylvania Avenue, blocked from through traffic since even before 9-11, separates Layfayette Square from the Iron fence of the White House; Code Pink laid a long, Barbie-pink plastic "tablecloth" directly onto the asphalt. Their crowd milled around waving their numerous flags, none of which was a regular Stars 'n' Stripes. We even saw a U.N. flag.
The tablecloth on Pennsylvania Avenue was definitely an innovation. In the 60s, these gals would simply have wallowed in the mud over in the park. Now they had to ease their fragile bones onto the pavement and sit Buddha-style to wait for their vegetarian curry, white rice and beans, and a long wait it would be. They first had to hear the PA system squealing in protest at the nasal whines of Code Pink leader Medea Benjamin, living corpses Daniel Ellsberg and Dick Gregory, arrested-developmentarian Cindy Sheehan and several other speakers, who attempted to whip their aged followers into a frenzy equivalent to, say, double-coupon day at the Safeway, or a win on both Bingo cards simultaneously.
They did achieve a fair bit of volume as they sang desecrated words to God Bless America. Milblogger Age of Hooper was there to capture the lefties sneering their disrespectful lyrics at a group of schoolkids in green t-shirts, apparently a choir who were touring DC. Little Green Footballs picked up Hooper's story and the video of the kids drowning out the moonbats with their own beautifully sung version of the treasured anthem. Afterward, they borrowed one of W04Man's "Victory in Iraq" signs for their group photo at the White House fence.
We piled on next, parading our STARVING FOR ATTENTION banner up on 8-foot poles high over our heads, circling their entire assembly so that people facing in any direction had to see it, including the speakers. You could hear the audible gnashing of false teeth as we completed our circuit and came to stand in a spot as directed by the DC police -- between the mass of lefties and the White House.
The anti-war speakers all had pretty much the same things to say as they had in the 60s, with a few new buzzwords plugged in: blahblahblahIRAQ, blahblahblahblahLIEDblahblah, blahblahblahNoWMDsblah, yadayadaOCCUPATIONyada, blahblahPEOPLEDIEDblahblahblah, yadaHITLERyada, blahblahCHENEYblahblahblahblah, blahblahblahRUMSFELDblah, yadayadaNEOCONsyada, blahblahblahTheUN, yadayadaRACISTyadayada, blahMURTHAblahblah, blahblahblahSARANDONblah, yadayadaPENNyada, blahblahMEME-ME-ME-ME, blahblahMEDICAREPARTDblah, blahblahTHECHILDRENblahblahblah...
So every once in awhile we would shout something, just to keep them on their toes:
Throughout the afternoon, dozens of very real American people drifted around us and stood with us, staring over at the demonstration and shaking their heads. A family stopped by with a bunch of kids, and the parents were a soldier's brother and sister-in-law. They are taking care of two small nephews while the dad is in Afghanistan. Just A Nobody and 3D-Joy gave the boys some red-white-and-blue pro-troop buttons.
A young man from Wisconsin, enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania, came and stood with us for awhile. An Australian woman stopped to say that her mother always taught her that the Americans saved the Australians at the Battle of Coral Sea, so Australians should stick with us...
Several active-duty servicemen and their vacationing families stood with us or stopped to thank us, going down our line to make eye contact, shake hands and say, "Thank you!" to each of us individually. An Illinois tourist with a huge backpack, having hitchhiked from Oregon to DC beginning on June 18, stood with us for awhile. A group of young women knelt in front of the banner to have their picture taken.
The Pinkos ate their "last meal" before their fast, which would be the next-to-last meal if you count the birthday party they were throwing for Cindy Sheehan that night. Hopefully, their gustatory sacrifice will last longer than their idol Saddam Hussein's. He announced his hunger strike -- and manfully sacrificed one lunch.
A hundred-fifty of them vs. a handful of us; but we stung like a handful of fire ants at a picnic. By the next day, Cindy Sheehan had co-opted our slogan on her own web site, oblivious to its satire.
Additional links:
CodePink images
D.C. Chapter's July 4 White House FReep
Sheehan: 'I'd Rather Live Under Chavez than Bush', Norah Gives Cindy Rough Ride
Ping for the best (Freepers) oppressing the worst (Pinko ants).
Ping for the best (Freepers) oppressing the worst (Pinko ants).
ROFL -- I swear -- you DC Freepers have all the fun! LOL
"I'll starve tomorrow"! BWAHAHA! Well done, Freepers!
As a Catholic, we give up meals during lent all the time, and we're supposed to to money we would have spent on that meal and give it to the poor.
These "advocates" live on donations that others give to THEM. They are an Entitled Group in their own minds.
Thanks so much for your excellent report and for all you do. I especially love the video of the kids! It's priceless. I'm forwarding to my address book.
Thanks!
They brought plates of it over to us, which we turned down as politely as possible (I might not have turned down water - I went through three bottles & was STILL thirsty) and said that the homeless people had turned it down.
Almost makes me want to move to DC, just so I can go to the next one!
Someone should send these pinko media whores a case of strawberry pink Slimfast. But of course they're not really fasting, cause that would actually take committment. They're just skipping a few meals in shifts.
Pinkos pwned by a choir of schoolkids.....BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!! That's priceless!
Excellent rebuttal. Very good!
Based on the last picture I saw of Cindy, she could certainly use 2 months without food.
Oh my gosh, whose body is that? Someone needs to give that person a cheeseburger!
"I can't fault anyone for being vocal and active toward a goal that they believe to be morally right. So long as the means of protest itself is not inherently destructive to anyone else or innappropriately offensive, I think Americans should be glad that the public in general has not become so apathetic that any attempt at protest and change would be completely futile. A hunger strike is by no means a new or even radical idea, but it does achieve the intended goal, which is to attract attention. Self sacrifice of varying degrees has had a strong impact on public opinion forever.
As far as the validity of Cindy Sheehan and her cohorts' ethos, that is of course a matter of individual opinion. Like many of America's troops, I was disheartened when I learned that Iraq was in fact not in violation of U.N. resolutions 687 & 1441 to nearly the extent that had been alleged. But that was three years ago, and what's done is done. On the ground, today, Iraq is an unstable & dangerous place, and there is little doubt in my mind that these insurgents would export their violent way of life to western countries at a far accelerated rate were it not for a suppressive force at the source. Therefore "immediate withdrawal" as these activists are requesting, would be premature and detrimental."
There is so much wrong with her statement, besides being idiotic. Freedom isn't free. It was paid for with blood. It is a birthright, but it doesn't come from the Bill of Rights. It doesn't come from the Constitution nor the Declaration of Independence. It comes from our Creator, as the Declaration states: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
If it was up to her the American Revolution would have never been fought. After all, it was wealthy landowners ("greedy swine"?) who signed the DOI. Why should we fight for them?
Nowhere in the Constitution does it say anywhere... From the Department of Redundancy Department? Nor did it say that we should have fought in WWI, WWII, or any other war. Sometimes a country just has to defend itself, ya know?
Besides that, she should know that war isn't insanity. "War is Hell."
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