A slick, young, conservative group prepares for an ideological rumble at the Republican convention
Aug. 13 - Among the 250,000 expected to head to New York City to demonstrate at the Republican National Convention, a small army of about 200 people plans to march alongside them—but on the other side of political spectrum. Calling themselves Protest Warriors, they are an ardently conservative group made up of recent college graduates, high-school students and right-wing ideologues who hope to “counterprogram” the message of the largely left-wing crowd. According to its Web site, the organization’s goal is to “help arm the liberty-loving Silent Majority with ammo--ammo that strikes at the intellectual solar plexus of the Left.” The protests scheduled for the weekend before the RNC begins on Aug. 30 provides one opportunity--a "mission" the group is calling Operation Liberty Rising. “We’re going to be out there in the trenches,” says Kfir Alfia, 30, cofounder of the organization ProtestWarrior.com.
The methods of the right-wing protesters mirror those of their left-wing opponents. The Warriors organize rallies, street theater and marches. They carry video cameras to record their own version of events to bypass mainstream media outlets. And, of course, the members hold plenty of signs and slogans, which read like editorial cartoons from the National Review: PROTECT ISLAMIC PROPERTY RIGHTS AGAINST WESTERN IMPERIALISM declares a sign over a picture of a Muslim woman in a burqa with a leash around her neck tied to a pole. EXCEPT FOR ENDING SLAVERY, FASCISM, AND COMMUNISM, WAR HAS NEVER SOLVED ANYTHING, says another. The most provocative, perhaps, is a picture of a Palestinian woman with a T shirt on her burqa saying MY SON SUICIDE-BOMBED A BUS FULL OF ISRAELIS AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT; the small print underneath reads AND $25,000 FROM SADDAM. Alfia, who designed network chips for a Silicon Valley start-up before devoting himself full time to the group at its Austin, Texas, headquarters, founded it in March 2003 with his childhood friend Alan Lipton. According to Alfia, the organization is funded by merchandise sales from the Web site, the occasional $50 donation and out of “our own pocket.” So far, there are about 7,200 Protest Warriors across the United States. They've pulled off close to 80 missions to date, including Operation Bias Check (they snuck signs behind Matt Lauer’s head during NBC’s "Today" show that said: DON’T BELIEVE THE LIBERAL MEDIA) and Operation Eagle Strike, where the protesters crashed an antiwar demonstration hosted by the radical group ANSWER. This month, the Warriors are gearing up to greet the left on the streets of New York. NEWSWEEK’s Michael Hastings spoke to Alfia to get the battle plan for the Big Apple.
NEWSWEEK : What are your plans for New York? Are you going to be out with the other protesters on the West Side Highway?Kfir Alfia: We’re going to do our standard march infiltration. We’re not there to drown their ideas out, or prevent them from expressing their message. We want them to express their message. The louder they express it, the more their agenda is going to be discounted. We are there to provide a countermessage, and to document their reaction to a different point of view. We do have other plans, but we’re keeping them close to our vests.
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http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5699723/site/newsweek/
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