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April 10, 2006
Montezuma's Revenge
DATELINE: Pensacola. Yes, I went to our local rally.
(To be honest, I didn't even know we were having one until we passed them on the way to the airport. I shot back home and grabbed the camera.) There were couple hundred souls, 95% Hispanic, shuffling around the median. As I passed by on my way back the first time, I noticed several white contractors, each with a gaggle of Mexican workers in tow behind them ~ all with clean hair and faces, wearing identical new blue jeans, pristine white t-shirts and new hats. Clean illegals are a whole lot less threatening than how they usually look, I guess. Pretty frickin' calculated.
Maybe I should have titled this "Ivan's Revenge" instead, because if this was being held in April '04, there wouldn't a' been but twelve of them out there.
There was some half-hearted chanting. Hardly a Mexican flag to be seen.
Scattered among the crowd were isolated juedo faces...
...who, of course, carried the fancy printed, all purpose solidarity/protest banners.
Can you tell the local news mobile just showed up?
Half the group surged toward the center of the grassy area, gesturing, hands in the air. (There were handlers/cheerleaders coordinating the whole thing. Nothing spontaneous about it.)
And then there were the scenes that reminded me of the Parque El Centenario in Merida ~ loads of fellows hanging out, following the shade around under the trees as the day went by.
No counter protests to be seen ~ in fact, I was the lone prowler on the edge of it. (I figure most citizens had to work on a Monday, n'est pas?) Anyone on the sidewalk was a courthouse worker taking a cancer break, folks waiting on the ECAT bus to come along, bystanders doing and going somewhere else. Most looked sort of bemused by the whole 'foreign' thing ~ I would see them lean over to the person beside them as if asking 'Huh? What'd they just say?' An older fellow I was standing next to asked me "Do you know what it's about?" I explained and he said "well, they must be starving in Mexico." I replied "There's starving folks in Serbia and Sudan waiting to get here legally. So what do we say to those people?"
He couldn't answer.
UPDATE: Well, the local media doesn't disappoint. They're claiming over a thousand people showed up, even though the reporters on the scene say "hundreds". Another reason to scoff? Instead of crowd scenes, they interviewed individual protestors and did the old 'lay the camera on the sidewalk to catch the feet walking by' shot. What you see in my pics is the crowd. I'll stand by my 'couple hundred' original estimate.
FLORIDA UPDATE: I'm so with this guy:
David Caulkett, founder of the Floridians for Immigration Enforcement, questioned the strong showing of American flags at more recent protests, after many demonstrators waved Mexican flags at protests in Los Angeles last week."This week the theme is American flags and citizenship. Why the sudden change of loyalty? What is the true sentiment?" he said. "Who is financing all of these protests?"
Caulkett also criticized South Dade Senior High School in Homestead which offered students buses back to campus after they walked out of classes last week and protested at City Hall.
Read the WHOLE artricle ~ there's plenty to get angry about AND agree with.
Posted by tree hugging sister at April 10, 2006 01:19 PM
Comments
Nothing this large happens so fast without substantial organization.
Just like the World Trade Summit in Seattle and the subsequent riots around the world wherever they went, I think we'll find these are organized by the same people.
But the press rarely looks into who is behind these things. They just don't seem curious in the least to understand how these massive protests happen in such a vacuum.
I believe we'll find that they are organized by the same labor unions and other pseudo-communist organizations that organized the Seattle riots.
Posted by: Mike Rentner at April 10, 2006 01:25 PM
You're absolutely right, Mike. The contractors showing up with their work crews all spiffed for protesting, the fellows at the head of the marchers turning and cajoling them to follow him around the circuit...oh, yeah. These guys weren't there following their hearts. They were following orders.
Posted by: tree hugging sister at April 10, 2006 01:33 PM
Nothing here in Charlotte. Really odd, considering how many illegals we have in the state.
Posted by: Crusader at April 10, 2006 02:02 PM
Maybe they're not in your (red)neck of the woods?
Hundreds of Latinos in North Carolina prepared to skip work or boycott all purchases on Monday to demonstrate the financial impact of the Latino community on area businesses. In Charlotte, some employees planned to skip work, including some with the blessing of their Latino bosses."We're hoping that employers stop to consider what this is all about," organizer Adriana Galvez said. "That if you need people here to do the work, to buy, then give them a legal channel to get here."
Posted by: tree hugging sister at April 10, 2006 02:07 PM
It's funny how they fairly easily let Mexicans into Florida, but make a big deal about deporting and turning back Cubans who are much worse off - are the Democrats trying to offset the voting imbalance?
Isn't it the ANSWER Bolsheviks running these show-and-tell sessions?
Posted by: -keith in silicon valley at April 10, 2006 04:10 PM
ANSWER is not big enough to organize this. They are just the front for a bigger organization.
I remember the ILWU was a big force behind the Seattle riots, and I suspect that they were just secondary organizers, and brought a lot of people. I think a much larger organization is needed to do this. Something along the size of the old CommIntern.
Posted by: Mike Rentner at April 10, 2006 04:15 PM
Oh they are here, but I saw a bunch at work on all the construction that is occuring here in Charlotte. Maybe they need to have a group of INS agents checking green cards at all these protests? Not that it would do any good...
Posted by: Crusader at April 10, 2006 04:17 PM
Mike, ANSWER is a front for Workers' World Party, or whatever it is they call themselves. So yes, there's your ANSWER.
Posted by: Ken Summers at April 10, 2006 05:34 PM
And, of course, the lovely Workers' World Party are the ones who broke with some other party because they (the WWP) SUPPORTED the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. Or at least that's my understanding.
Posted by: Dave J at April 10, 2006 05:49 PM
"We're hoping that employers stop to consider what this is all about," organizer Adriana Galvez said. "That if you need people here to do the work, to buy, then give them a legal channel to get here."
There already IS a legal channel to get here, you sanctimonious twit. GAAAAH!
Posted by: Nightfly at April 10, 2006 06:22 PM
So why isn't this WWP being exposed in the news?
Oh, wait. I almost forgot. The people doing the exposing are also communists.
Posted by: Mike Rentner at April 10, 2006 07:07 PM
Lots in Fort Myers... I can't vouch for the crowd estimates (70,000???) but I know the area - they marched down a street I once lived on - and they were doing 'eye in the sky'. My guess is 'a helluva lot,' since I know street lengths/widths and saw that huge mass of bodies.
Tied up traffic major big-time (interstate too). Plus managed to strand a few people in the march area in their houses - none of which was appreciated by the locals (many of whom are Mexicans themselves).
Well-behaved, at least until the local news stopped covering it and went to their game shows. More US (and Florida) flags than Mexican. Didn't see any signs of leaders except at the front of the march - and those were mostly just walking in the right direction.
Ummm... Nightfly? The legal channel is a pinhole where we need a water main (and that's from an 'our' point of view, not a 'their' point of view - we need them - we couldn't keep things going without them). So we should let lots more of them in here legally. With proper documentation. AND we should build a great big wall along the border too, while we are at it.
Posted by: Kathy at April 10, 2006 09:25 PM
I caught a bit of coverage of one gathering on MSNBC: "hundreds of thousands of protesters today in (insert city name here). blah blah blah. one was seen wearing a shirt that said (insert catchy and inflammatory slogan here)"
So maybe I paraphrased a bit.
Posted by: nobrainer at April 10, 2006 11:10 PM
Odd, nb...I saw that same broadcast...
Posted by: tree hugging sister at April 10, 2006 11:22 PM
Kathy - I know how long it's taken some of my friends to get green cards, so I know that it's byzantine and pointlessly drawn-out. BUT it is still there. Why then do all these illegals suddenly decide to protest the proposed reform of INS?
Any way you slice it, immigration reform is going to involve a crackdown on border jumping and deporting serveral hundred thousand or so who are not only here illegally, but have criminal records back home. I can't see how that should be protested. If I were your average Jose Lunchpail who skipped across the border for a better life, I'd WANT those things, because the guilty are A) giving me a bad name by association and B) competing for my job.
Posted by: Nightfly at April 11, 2006 09:43 AM
Nightfly, the problem I have with the proposed legislation is making it a felony. That's too much.
For practical reasons I'm on the fence about mass deportation, but I still consider amnesty a slap in the face to those who followed the rules.
Posted by: Ken Summers at April 11, 2006 11:38 AM