My half-hour at the Fayetteville protest

[jmowreader]

I was going to spend a whole hour at the protest--that's all the time I had--but I got grabbed at the shop, and therefore only had 90 minutes to spend on the protest. Thirty minutes to downtown, thirty minutes protesting Bush, thirty minutes back to The Home Depot. Next year I'm putting in for a day off.

So I get to the site and see about half the police force standing there, at least 100 police cars, cops from eight different jurisdictions. I figured they were there in case all the evil DUers decided to rise up and start shooting the townsfolk. Turns out they were guarding the freepers. By the time I left at 2:30, the cop crowd had easily doubled around the freeper contingent.

I liked the site of the protest a lot. Rowan Street Park has a stage on which a band was playing, and some organizer I don't know started getting the crowd to scream that they wanted the troops home "Now!" I hate to yell, but I yelled with the crowd. It was fun.

There were a couple of vendors, including one guy selling blow-up Flightsuit Bush dolls with Pinocchio noses and "Impeach Me" signs on their backs. Lots of different factions. I couldn't find any DUers, which I really regret. I liked the Peace Parasol display and the casket display.

Five thousand sounded about right for crowd size.

Now let's talk the counterdemonstration--the freepers. Using my rule of thumb, it wasn't a real freeper rally because there were no portapotties. There was one guy giving this huge speech about Michael Moore. There was the mandatory anti-Hillary sign. And a few "support our troops" banners. But while hundreds of people filed into the demonstration while I was there, no one went to the freepers' area at all. No one except cops, and you could see by the looks on their faces that they thought the freepers were some of the sorriest things they'd seen all week.

On the way back to the car, a family stopped me and asked about the situation down there. I started discussing the really peaceful peace rally and the freepers across the street from it. One gentleman piped up with "and they seem much more illiterate than normal." (Turns out he was a very occasional DU lurker and a regular Bartcopper. Didn't get his name, though.) The family asked if there were any problems; I said no, but you might want to not drink soda while walking past the freepers, for when it sprays out of your nose they might want to turn you in for exorcism.

I enjoyed myself. Wish I could have stayed longer.

[babylonsister]

1. LOL! Loved your last line, and thanks for

sharing your experience today!
Makes me wonder how Fayetteville gets more than Houston? Is that because of military bases down there, or are people just more aware? Houston's numbers were around 100, I'm thinking?

[jmowreader]

25. Just a few reasons off the top of my head...

First is our location. The exact halfway point between New York City and Orlando, Florida, is National Welders Supply on Route 301 in Fayetteville. It's exactly 863 miles from National Welders Supply to either of those two cities--you can make it in a day if you drive your ass off; before the war started, hotel owners in Fayetteville lived for summertime tour groups that stopped here on the way to Orlando and on the way back. If a protest was held in...oh, Norfolk...the South Carolina and Georgia libs would skip it. Hold a protest in Atlanta and everyone north of the National Capitol Region will take a pass. Oh, and we're right off I-95, which is THE main conduit between North and South on the east coast.

It's also fairly cheap to get a room around here. Granted, with all the military traffic in town you're probably not going to get a room in Fayetteville, but Smithfield/Selma is an hour away, Dunn is close, Lumberton is even closer...and all of those communities have a lot of hotel rooms.

Fayetteville is home to Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base. That is an extremely potent symbolic reason to protest in the 'Nam.

And we have a nice little park to hold it in.

Next year's protest will be on March 18. I'm making myself a "reminder" wallpaper for my computer, so that I can be sure to set up a Democratic Underground table at the protest.

[annabanana]

2. Thanks for the post..

I love to hear people's experiences from the rallies... Posting might encourage more people to get to the streets!

[dweller]

3. no DU'ers??

yeah there were....thousands.

they just don't know it yet. :D

good report. My daughter was there, she told me some of the same details. Heard of some minor violence (crossing a police line) but didn't see it, so couldn't confirm. I expect it will be singled out on the local MSM-CON.

:thumbsup:

dp

[jmowreader]

22. Hopefully more soon!

I stopped off on my way to work and bought a pack of index cards. On it I wrote the URL for this website and passed the cards out to people I spoke to.

In the direct-mail advertising business they figure that ten percent conversion (send out 100 letters, get ten orders) is a wonderful rate, so if the 80 cards I managed to pass out get us a ten percent conversion, we'll have 8 new DUers.

Next year, I'll make a big banner with democraticunderground.com on it. Maybe I'll even print out some Top Ten Conservative Idiots lists and put them in a binder. Lots of other groups recruited there, why not us?

[BrklynLiberal]

4. Thanks for the report....Sound s like it was basically good news, not that

we will see it on the US MSM.
Heard someone on the radio saying UNIVISION was giving it great coverage. He said he did not speak Spanish, but he was watcing it because at least he was able to catch some views of what was going on.

[KoKo]

5. Thanks for your report. The "parasol guy and people" have been at this

since before we invaded Iraq. We've stood with him many times here in Raleigh on "Grassy Knolls" where we could get permits, and he's here every week at the vigils downtown.

The "parasol guy" has a cool truck he drives around with fun stuff dissing Bush painted on the sides. He got a ticket when Bush was here just for driving buy where we all cheered him.

"Painted Parasols for Peace." what a real trooper he's been for the Anti-Iraq Invasion folks. He's kept us going since the beginning..

Anyway, glad you were there. I had to miss this one because of packing to go out of town for reunion.

[ncrainbowgrrl]

6. Here's one of the "counter-protestors."

More pictures to follow!

[crispini]

7. oh, that's pathetic

and funny!

great story!

[SoCalDem]

8. If Reagan were alive he would have sued over that Alfred E Newman pic

on the shirt..:)

[ncrainbowgrrl]

9. From the march and rally

[Tigress DEM]

10. I'm recommending all 3/19 Protest Threads today!! MN pics >

Minneapolis pics taken by MN DUer Dodger 501 at http://www.dodgerdigital.com/rally

At the speaker rally afterward, they announced the head count leaving Loring Park, Minneapolis, MN was 1,500. As far as I know we got zero news coverage, although I think there was a reporter from Kare11 taking pics.

We were lucky. There were 2 cop cars (purely to handle traffic) and there was one freeper. I drove by and told her "You're on the wrong side of history, babe."

My friend and I never did find a parking place until after the march had ended. We are one of the gold cars in the huge traffic jam on Lyndale. We kept chasing the protest march around thinking we could park and jump out and get in line, but there were NO parking places available.

[magellan]

15. Wow, good crowd!

I'm diggin' the cherry in the spoon. (Is that Freudian?? lol) And I'm ROTFL at "You're on the wrong side of history, babe." Nice one!! :)

Sorry you didn't get to march but thanks very much for sharing these pix From MN.

[Robbien]

11. Thanks for the very entertaining report

:thumbsup:

[Spiffarino]

13. Kick

As a person from NC who lives over 5 hours away, I'm sorry I couldn't be there. Thanks for the firsthand report.

My cousin just came back to Bragg a couple of months ago after serving an extended tour in Iraq. 15 months of hot, dusty Hell. He had a few close calls, but thankfully he's OK.

He thinks Bush is a huge chickenshit.

[proud patriot]

12. I have a bushochio

He's been on my Front Porch for over a year :D
right next to my Support the Troops sign and Yellow
ribbon .

I love my bushochio :D

[ncrainbowgrrl]

14. I also have one.

In fact, he was our precinct's mascot for election day. We have pictures of our leadership team sitting around the table doing phonebanking with the hot-air inflated Bushochio.

[proud patriot]

16. LOL

I love it

[Clark2008]

17. You know... cops are smart.

They knew they had to do the Constitutional thing and protect the minority!

Thanks for your report. Loved it! I'm in Tennessee! Howdy, neighbor! :hi:

[AuntiBush]

18. Great Story; Hysterical Endpoint!

Thank you, fellow Du'er Protestor :loveya:

And glad the words getting out around our country. That last line about the soda spraying out and the Freepers exorcism taunts was hysterical!

P.S. Sounds like your police officers are very intelligent!

:bounce:

[Tsiyu]

19. Kick

:kick:

[loudsue]

20. "it wasn't a real freeper rally because there were no portapotties"

I totally spewed my Clos du Bois Chardonnay all over the computer!! Get over here and clean it up, you pinko commie freak!!!

Loveya! Thanks for the report!!

Sue

:kick::kick::kick:

[burrowowl]

21. Had you stayed longer

the report would have been longer and too many of us would have spewed seltzer through our nose on the keyboard.
GOOD JOB!

[Iterate]

23. Yes! Our new standard for reporting

Journalists beware, if it's big enough to require port-a-potties, it's big enough for the front page.

[GreenInNC]

24. I was there

The freepers had a giant banner that said something to the effect that Code Pink was helping kill US troops and that they were giving money to terrorists.

You should have seen the look on the face of the lady who was holding the banner when Madea Benjamin, who I believe is one of the founders of Code Pink, confronted this woman. The woman was blathering like an idiot.

It was a great rally. The march was lead by veterans of the war, one wearing his full dress Marine uniform with medels.

I got kind of nervious at one point because my van was parked between the freepers and the rally but seeing there were more cops than counter protesters I was not too worried.