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Indybay Feature

Brownshirts in White

by A Peacemaker
As the June 5th peace march and rally approach, will you be prepared for the "Brownshirts in White"--the pro-Bush, pro-war "Protest Warriors" who tagged along in the March 20 peace march and rally? On March 20, they carried signs reading "Leave Saddam alone; he only kills his own people" and "Give communism another chance; it's only killed 100 million people so far."? What will you do on June 5? Will you talk with these guys? Will you ignore them? (And have you read Thom Hartmann's excellent article about Hitler's reign, entitled "When Democracy Failed"? If not, check out the Common Dreams web page listed at the bottom of this article.) And let's make June 5 both a day for peace and a day of peace.
BROWNSHIRTS IN WHITE

In San Francisco on Saturday, March 20, they marched among us.

We were tens of thousands marching for peace. They were ten or fifteen guys who joined us midway in our march to City Hall.

They looked like many of us, with white t-shirts and blue jeans; clean-cut guys in their twenties and thirties who might have been on their way to the ballpark or the local diner.

Like us, they carried signs.

But their signs were not like ours. Their large white signs trumpeted slogans like "Leave Saddam alone; he only kills his own people" and "Give communism another chance; it's only killed 100 million people so far." Their signs carried references to http://www.ProtestWarrior.com and bore bumper stickers proclaiming "Bush/Cheney 2004."

We, the marchers for peace, were surprised.

Many of us ignored these Men In White. A few of us encouraged them to "Go Away." Some of us went for on-the-go dialog, engaging them in conversation while walking alongside them.

The dialog was chilling.

My brief chat with a Man In White went about like this...

Me: "Are you supporting Bush?"
Man In White (smiling): "Yes, I am."
Me: "Why would you support Bush when so much he's doing seems to come right from Hitler's playbook?"
Man In White: "Given my answer to your first question, isn't your second question redundant?"
Me (after a pause): "I see. But keep in mind that you'll be outnumbered in November."
Man In White (with a knowing grin): "Well, yeah, we are outnumbered--in San Francisco."

These Men In White--these "protest warriors"--didn't wear brown shirts. They probably won't wear brown shirts on June 5, when citizens across the country march again for peace.

But the Men In White will probably march among us on June 5.

Will you talk with them? Will you ignore them? Have you visited http://www.ProtestWarrior.com to see what they're planning and to read what they've written?

And have you read Thom Hartmann's outstanding article about Hitler's reign, entitled "When Democracy Failed"? If not, please give it a read at http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0316-08.htm
Add Your Comments

Comments (Hide Comments)
by Peculiar
...where'd all the comments go?
by Grateful (formerly Peculiar)
That's what I was looking for, thanks a lot!
by upton sinclair
Please be civil in your posts; if an editor sees a flamewar starting that seems to be overly personal or to just contain insults, the comments may be hidden. We want to keep this site a friendly place for people to post news and discuss issues and our goal is to facilitate that. Feel free to email us any suggestions. This site is here to serve your needs and we would love to hear from you.

For more info on why posts are hidden go to -
http://www.indybay.org/news/2002/08/139500.php

Sorry folks but I hid these posts because y'all should be keeping it civil and not threatening each other, and most of these posts contained stuff that goes way beyond what we believe should be allowable according to our principles.

So PW, Freepers, and "lefties" of all colors should be aware that we do not condone threats and flame wars on our site. If you want to discuss things cool, but keep it civil and please no threats, whether they are just sick jokes or really intended against either side of the argument. That is why all comments are hidden.
by why?
>stuff that goes way beyond what we believe should be allowable according to our principles.

You hide citations of threats made last year against all of us, you yourselves included, but you continue to publish racist propaganda that supports the murderous aggression of the Zionist entity. That, you allow. Why?
by as reported at freep, lgf, indymedia
Beware -- the common cold cometh!
Dick cheney's death squads will be on the streets of S.F. Tuesday June 8th coughing and sneezing! riot coppers, biotech executives and hippy wackos alike, please pack some dayquil.
by Kristen209
This is all censorship. it has nothing to do with policy. NOTHING AT ALL. Flamewars start at forum.protestwarrior.com all the time. Give me a break.
by upton sinclair
Nessie, you know as well as I do that all editors at Indymedia are volunteers and that we can't keep up with everything that is posted to our site. If you would like to help us keep track of things that you think should be hidden..feel free to bring all the posts to our attention.

Better yet, why not stop insigating flame wars with those folks and help us solve the problems that we have with right wing and zionist trolls.

PW, Freepers...Our website is not here as a site for yr flamewars, comments, propaganda, or threats. I am sure that you have figured that out by know. You may be able to get away with slipping certain posts below our radar sometimes, and we are ok with discussions that do not automatically result in threats or any of the stuff mentioned above....But we do not operate to give space to the so called "silent majority" and we do not operate for people to get off on creating debates and flamewars that do not actually go anywhere, other than taking our site away from it's intended mission.
by cp
I decided that I'm not going to the ANSWER march tomorrow. This isn't necessarily how the spokesman might have said it, but this quotation in the Chronicle doesn't draw me there:
The demonstrations aren't pinned to any specific event, except "to keep the movement going," said International ANSWER organizer Bill Hackwell. "We just feel that the movement is strong enough to have this type of event."

On the other hand, I think the 'really free' free market in Union Square could be one of the highlights of the next few days. They're very sensitive about Union Square, if you will recall various events where police commanders devoted dozens or hundreds of police to a small protest by Neiman marcus. For instance, the photo on the 'donate' button on sf.indymedia is a picture of an officer on a horse beating back people trying to walk towards union square. That is where you will want to be with your video camera.
by mark
i cropped it from this photo: http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/02/1574666.php
by peacenick
so if some one comes to a protest in a style of dress you don't like you feel free to verbally abuse them and as you stated to (deal with them physically when the cops aren't around) you sound like one of the pow guards abusing Iraqis!
since this is your self described style how can you state that you stand for anything other than the same old thing. rule by force. so much for pretending to be a noble progressive out to change the world. you are just another thug out to inflict pain on others when ever you see a chance to get away with it.
by Brian
This is truely sad. I understand that war is not right. I understand war leads to death of many. I understand it's scary. However, I also understand that sometimes it is necessary. What would our life be like had we not fought for our freedom in the American revolution? What would our life be like had we not had a Civil War? You people cry and complain because we are at war...but I'm sure you would cry and complain if we were attacked again but did nothing. Perhaps we should all go hug a tree and invite terrorists over for dinner? Seriously folks, what would you do if you were out with your family and someone attacked your children...would you just sit there, let it happen, and let the person run away? Or would you defend your family? Let's say your local government decides to make a law that says if you aren't jewish you aren't allowed in the city. Yes, I know we have laws that prevent this. But lets say judges decide to ignore that law like some are ignoring same sex marrage laws. Would you just pack up and leave? Or would you fight for your freedom? I'm going to assume you would fight for your freedom. Right now our soldiers are fighting for the freedom of Iraqi(sp). They are also fighting for our freedom. There are people out there that don't like us for our freedom. They don't like the fact that you have the right to sit here and complain, and they are willing to kill you and I for it. So while you sit here and cry and complain against a war that is trying to help an oppresed people, remeber there are men and women dying for your right to cry and complain.

As for the idiots that want to resort to violence to get their point across. Well, that's just stupid. That makes you no better than the people we are fighting. Grow up, get an education, and get envolved the right way. I'm tired of seeing my nation split apart by words like left wing/right wing. We are one nation, under one God, created to give us a freedom that most people in the rest of the world may never know. There is no more African American, Chinese American, Mexican American, Caucasian, from now on it is American. Open your eyes and see this. Quit fighting amongst yourselves. Support our troops, Support our nation, Support freedom!
by Brian's true words
Brian - that is all true... but many of the posters here are anti-Semites and anarchists. You are preaching to idiots who needed more hugs as a baby.
by anarchist
hate each other.
by Falcon
And you say we right-wingers are the "intolerant" ones?
People on this board make actual threats against us ProtestWarriors and yet we're the "intolerant" ones? Threatening to kill people simply because you don't agree with them is deplorable, left or right.
I'll never get you Indymedia people, no matter how hard I try. You say showing our signs threatens your credibility and yet showing the :ahem: "peace" signs is perfectly okay.
What about the Fairness Doctrine? What about equal time?
by eastbaywatch
Why don't you admit, you people don't invite any discussion at all here. This is a really old topic. When it first started, I posted a few comments, which I thought about and wrote with consideration. I had some thoughtful responses. They were all quickly deleted (within the hour if I remember). If anyone is reading this site and is not familiar with the comments policy at indybay.org, note that this site is very, very hostile to discussion, particularly with folks who exist outside of the very narrow political views of the moderators. It ain't even like Democratic Underground, Daily Kos or others, I do get the impression that the mods here are highly inexperienced, young and in typical leftist fashion, childishly reactionary. The SF left is really bad news these days, bad news for Democrats and bad news for other progressives. You guys are predictibly exhibiting your fascist, heavy handed tendencies for all to see. There simply are not any rightish sites that operate in this manner, none at all! PW and FR do not ban users or discussion threads. This is a big problem with these collective efforts (indybay, sf.indymedia), your aversion to anything capitalist-flavored causes you to miss out on the benefits of decent standards and boundaries.
by please stop
"PW and FR do not ban users or discussion threads"

LOLOLOLOLOL


by knows better
It's a sick, evil system that starves thirty to forty thousand people to death a day, almost all of them children.

Anyone who supports that is and enemy of justice.
by eastbaywatch
The fact is that world poverty and extreme poverty levels have dropped dramatically since the 70's, despite exploding birthrates in the third world, worldwide.

http://www.ncpa.org/iss/int/2002/pd102302f.html

This is due to capitalism and *gasp* globalization, as well as the collapse of communism worldwide.
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