My letter to the editor...
Regarding your "More than 100,000 marchers fill Civic Center" story 2/16. It's interesting that your reporter chose to label FreeRepublic.com as a "right-wing" group but failed to attach any labels to A.N.S.W.E.R.
For the record, A.N.S.W.E.R. is an ultra-liberal, communist group.
Cheers,
Drango
The Press Democrat: Print a Story http://www.pressdemocrat.com/local/news/17counter_a1.html Pro-war faction braves sea of marchers Bush supporters from Sonoma County try to change minds of SF protesters February 17, 2003 By DEREK J. MOORE
Dressed in an argyle sweater and black gaucho pants, Mary Morrongiello stood out from the throngs of peace marchers Sunday at San Francisco's Civic Center Plaza.
The Sonoma real estate investor stood in a sea of people she labeled "morally bankrupt" while holding a big yellow sign that read "Freedom is not free."
"I think it's important to be a voice for the silent majority of Americans ... who support Bush's policy in Iraq," said Morrongiello, whose Valentine's Day gift this year was her husband's watching the kids so she could attend Sunday's protest.
Morrongiello was with a small but vocal contingent of counterdemonstrators who waved U.S. flags, chanted "U.S.A." and verbally jousted with peace marchers between rows of police officers.
The debates, while heated, did not result in any arrests, police said.
David Chu, an environmental engineer from Santa Rosa, tried to hand out pamphlets he printed himself that said, "Freedom from the Butcher of Baghdad." He didn't have many takers.
"I'm from Communist China. If America had liberated Tibet, 2 million Tibetans wouldn't be dead now. Same thing with Iraq," Chu said.
Small pockets of counterdemonstrators were interspersed with thousands upon thousands of anti-war marchers. Standing virtually alone, Morrongiello confessed that she felt a bit afraid.
The mother of two said her views, and a bumper sticker on her pickup that reads, "France, Germany and Russia -- Axis of Weasel" have put her at odds with many of her Sonoma neighbors and even members of her own family.
She said she has a brother who dodged the Vietnam draft and still lives in Canada, and another one who works in law enforcement as a drug agent. But her own views were decidedly on one side of the debate over whether America should go to war in Iraq.
"I would go myself if I could. That's how strongly I believe in it," she said.
At one point Morrongiello found herself going toe-to-toe with Sebastopol resident Rustie Woods, who wore a battered leather jacket and had her hair dyed purple.
"Where do you get your energy?" Morrongiello countered to Woods' demand that the United States find alternative sources of fuel before going to war in oil-rich Iraq.
"You know how I get my electricity? From the sun. I have a photovoltaic array which heats my water at home," Woods said.
"You've been in the sun too long," Morrongiello said.
Woods accused Morrongiello of falling victim to the Bush administration's "propaganda," to which the Sonoma woman replied: "We need more propaganda, not less. We need caricatures of those monsters."
Finally, after 15 minutes, Morrongiello gave up.
"Go march, OK. I have respect for you. I do," she said to Woods. "But my blood pressure is going up and I have a long day ahead of me."
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whose figurehead is Ramsey Clark, now a friend of Saddam. Actually, ANSWER was setup by other communist groups as a "front" for the their "peace" movement. Check out International Action Center, Richard and Brian Decker, members of the Worker's World Party. Brian is a member of their secretariat. The more you did, the worse it gets. That "friendly" peace activist that your newspaper interviews is probably a communist.
Good. But I am on "first name" basis with four reporters and the ombudman at the SacBee. I keep asking them why they put those communists on the front page but don't label their affiliation.