The weekend marked the begining of the Chester County Victory Movement's 7th month of standing up for our Troops and our Nation at the footsteps of the Courthouse in West Chester, Pa. Seven months...it could have been seven years. It seeems that my friends and I have stood together on that corner for ages, and we look forward to the years to come.
I had no inkling of this future on that fateful Saturday in September when I first visited Rich Davis and his one man protest. I almost did not make this rally, winding up in Paoli instead of West Chester.
A few weeks prior, September 8th to be exact, Rich Davis walked up to the corner of High and Market Sts and with a hand written sign of support for our troops. The reaction by the membership of the Chester County Peace Movement was anything but peaceful - he was jostled, cursed at and the peaceful folk repeatedly attempted to block his sign. Rich held his ground and his cool, but responding only with the statement 'Freedom of Speech'.
In her September newsletter, the director of the Chester County Peace Movement, Karen Porter, decribed Rich Davis as "he's a troublemaker, a war-monger, prone to violence, non-smiling, he had a blank expression on his face, almost inhuman." This acidic diatribe was just a bellweather for what was to come.
Picture the Civil Rights Movement - picture dogs on chains andwaterhoses on African Americans.
* Picture jack-booted guards in Nazi concentration camps.
* Picture jack-booted guards in the Soviet Gulag.
These people were trained by someone in vicious taunting, in vilelanguage, in cruel tactics. They are dogs on chains.
My guess is that at least acouple of them - if, in fact they were ever in the military, and wecannot even believe that - have been trained in the military or elsewhere(Blackwater-type organizations?) in the most vile interrogation tactics. They have been trained, folks, to do what they are doing - which is to break us down.
They are TRAINED by someone.
* Are they paid? that's my guess - no proof, but I doubt they're doing this free
The funding accusation was repeated by the membership and in a report of the rally composed by John Grant for his Veterans For Peace chapter.
Each week, our merry band of Patriots jumps into the breech to support our troops and add an informed and positive perspective on the weekly discussion of Iraq at the corner of High and Market. While we welcome home heroes, and pass on traditions, the Chester County Peace Movement is busy recruiting at United For Peace & Justice, Code Pink, and WIB.
This past Saturday, the Chester County Peace Movement membership demonstrated what peace looks like to them. Two of our female patriots stood on the opposition's corner with their signs - one of them simply asking the passerby's to support her husband who is currently serving in Afghanistan. As you can see in the photo above the close proximity of the traffic at this corner and the crowding of them both by the peace protesters. Both reported being bumped into the street with the oncoming traffic. * SIGH*
And thus ends another chapter in the ongoing saga of West Chester Victory Rally.
The video below captures the scene on the corner:
Now for some All American Goodness:
Group Photo by Neocon: A man with the very, very large lens.
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