You can find more ideas at this freep report
Posted on 02/16/2003 7:36:38 PM PST by Mr. Silverback
Saturday dawned cold and overcast with nasty winds and didn’t improve much from there. My “wingman” USAF91 and I arrived at the corner of Empire and West at 1150 local and drove through to get the lay of the land. Our local division of UII (Useful Idiots International), the People For Tyranny Peace were not immediately visible, so we turned around and parked within sight of the intersection. At exactly noon a group of protestors came up West from one of the High School parking lots and assembled at the four corners. We got there at the same time; USAF91 was carrying a sign that read “UN Out! US In!” and I had “NO More 9/11s! Free Iraq Now!”At first we and our signs were greeted with smiles– it took a moment for the message to sink in. It took even longer for an upper-middle-aged appeasenik gent behind us, who asked if we had more signs. I dug “Appeasers KILL!” and “Smallpox: BAD. Freedom: GOOD.” out of my pack. We went through the standard “pro-war protestors” exchange (see below) and he walked off appearing slightly dazed and mumbling to himself.
I won’t bore you with too much detail (especially of the rhetorical fights that the peaceniks picked with us) but here are some impressions and thumbnail sketches:
Several times we were referred to by others as “pro-war protestors,” as in “Oh, you guys are pro-war protestors” which is how we usually heard it. I had a prepared answer for that, which I repeated each time: “No one is pro-war, you would have to be insane to be a war advocate. But in this case military options are the only ones left, so we support our troops and the liberation of the Iraqi people.” Unfortunately, I forgot to say that when we talked to the Journal-Standard reporter...Duh.
The appeaseniks had the usual signs (give peace a chance, drop Bush, not bombs) and a few that were more creative, but even dumber: Sanctions killed 200 Iraqis today; Abide by the UN; No UN, No War; 500,000 Will Die; War=More Attacks on the US; Negotiation Not Annihilation.One idiot had a sign I couldn’t quite make out from across the intersection which had Bush, racism and a word I won’t mention here on it. Very classy. One wonders why he thought that people going by at 30mph would be able to read it.
A general impression of the protestors is that they were unprepared for opposition and shocked that we were intruding on their space. They still think the left owns the street corners. We heard the usual appeasenik pap for the most part, ranging from “rush to war” to a couple of tinfoil hat rants. One big laff-riot was when a woman said to me (About our weapons of mass destruction) “Well, I guess we have them because we’re planning to use them.” Yeah, lady, so that means Saddam has them so he can...what?
Most of the folks going by in cars were studiously ignoring the protest. There were a few people honking and flashing peace signs at the protestors, and a few thumbs down, middle fingers, etc. One guy about twenty years old rolled his window down and bellowed, “Go home, freaks” as he passed through. A friend stopped on West rolled down his window and asked, “Hey man, do you like anthrax or something?”
“No way, man. That big guy in the plaid and I are for military action. We don’t like anthrax and we don’t want it in our country!”
This got a little cheer and thumbs-up from him and his wife, and a groan from the protestors immediately behind me. Heh-heh.
We did have one nasty incident. A woman stopped by and talked to the appeaseniks, telling them her husband is an Iraqi immigrant and that he and many of his friends are worried about how the war is going to affect their families. I approached her as she was leaving to give her a copy of HighRoadToChina’s excellent brochure and tell her we wished the Iraqi people well. She pretty much blew up at me, telling me we were going to kill thousands to get one guy. To make a long story short, (brace yourselves) she gets her news from Arab media and is sure that the Western media are all censored. She even claimed that Afghani women who wish to wear the burka are being forced to go without it by US troops. A real first class tinfoil head.
We spoke to the reporter from the Journal-Standard (article below) and to a fellow activist my wife sent out to us, and promptly at 1pm, the appeaseniks left en masse. James and I stayed about a minute longer, and egressed our frozen butts out of the target area.
Lessons learned: Next time, the signs need to be more militaristic. Many folks thought USAF91 and I were appeaseniks. Also, we need to have more brochures handy. I only brought one, and had more than one request after the nutjob left. Experienced Freepers, please feel free to let fly with any suggestions.
BTW, our numbers are going to grow in Freeport. I have spoken with two recruits since the protest, and we have two freepers who are definite.We are on the march.
zip - Columbia MO Infinite FReeper
PS: Next time you post a Freep report, if you pick a title that reads like "Operation Infinite FReep: .........." it will automatically show up where the rest of us Sidewalk Freepers can easily find it. From the FR homepage if you click on the "Join Operation Infinite Freep" icon it brings up all the latest reports from Colorado, Fresno, Missouri, DC, Boston, Louisville, Houston and more. Have a look at what all of the thread titles look like. (How it works - look at the URL for that page - it includes the pattern match "search?s=Op+Infinite+FReep" - so that it just does a search of all threads with subject/titles that include the pattern "....Op....Infinite.....FReep.....").
Actually, we were using kristen's handout, I was just wrong about the original source.
Rolling my eyes at that one. She's hopeless--she's already been indoctrinated and clearly shares the same simple-minded mindset that the millions of socialists in Europe supporting Saddam and other terrorist regimes have.
In Mid Missouri we say QUALITIY over quantity every time. (And we are the Quality.) As Jim Robinson says "FReepers are the GReatest".
Bump.
It seems the "most likely to have earned a section eight or alleged" veteran crowd, found a another brow beating tactic. Slimy Scotty Ritter often beat up newsies with a similar tactic; whenever a newsie would begin to question Ritter's 180 degree flip-flop.
If your "thanks for their service" doesn't calm them; you might want to respond with something like:
Tell me sir, what did you think about Al Gore disqualifying out our soldiers/sailors overseas absentee ballots? You've been hanging with the same crowd which supports the Gore military voter disenfranchisement scheme.
If you get any response other than agreement with you after that zinger, it is likely they are not a veteran. This veteran thanks you FReepers for supporting the young men and ladies of the US Armed forces. Don't forget to e-mail the troops with your FReep stories. They will love it. And consider the news source they suffer.
They're watching CNN.
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