…I spent four hours at a pro-troops demonstration at Federal Plaza, which was the final destination and gathering place of an anti-war march conducted by the usual crowd of fake Americans.

We right thinkers were in the profound minority (I’m not sure how many of us showed up, but I think fifty to sixty would be a reasonable ball park figure), whereas the marchers, when they arrived, numbered somewhere in the mid to upper hundreds, maybe a thousand and change (again, my own estimate — I’ve never been all that good at estimating the volume of a huge crowd of people). Of course, had it not been for an emailed announcement from Merrilee Carlson at Families United, I never would have known about it at all. It would seem that the media’s main interest was the port side of the equation.

As always, it was a fun event, meeting other patriotic Americans in a city brimming over with liberals, talking, joking and laughing at the wingnuts. There was also a gay guy in one of the conversation groups I was in who flat out said that the liberals across the street were distressingly misguided, and there were a couple of “obvious” lesbians on our side of the street, one mega-butch, which demonstrated that not all {a little PC here} alternative lifestyle folks are as naive as their mainstream.

The starboard side of the rally was organized by Airborne Ranger (82nd) mom Beverly Perlson, a really nice lady who is understandably proud of her son’s service to his country.

The lefteez had a stage set up, complete with this horrible live “band” fronted by some guy who thought he was a cross between Edwin Star and the lead singer of AC/DC circa Highway To Hell. He led off with “War-huh!-What is it good for?…” and from his first ultra-loud, terrifying gutteral assault, I kept on waiting for his tonsils to come flying out of his mouth. Some really funny guys with bull horns on our side of the street harangued the hell out of him and had the rest of us laughing our asses off.

I met a couple of Republicans who are running for the U.S. Senate, Andy Martin and Michael John Psak (Martin struck me as pure lawyer/politician — it was a Saturday at a demonstration and he was the only entity in sight wearing a suit and tie — while Psak, an MBA who drives a truck for a living, seemed more in touch with the common man than did his same party competitor — I’ll have to examine their websites before I form any further conclusions on either) and the whip from Minutemen Midwest, Ev Evertsen, great guy… I was majorly gratified to learn that like me, his organization are staunch supporters of Presidential candidate and Republican House member Tom Tancredo.

And along came the marchers, bearing the usual “Impeach Bush” (and Cheney on several), “Bring The Troops Home Now”, “Bush Lied, People Died”, “Send The Twins To Iraq”, etc, signs, along with a number of signs laced with the profanity we can always expect to see at any liberal demonstration (no doubt “for the children”). One sign said, “Bush Eats Babies”. Another, sported by a spacey looking young woman with multicolored hair, a code-pinker I believe, held up a sign that said, “Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed” (a line from the Beatles song Strawberry Fields Forever), and that one amused me as I thought that she had plagiarized the Magical Mystery Tour track in an autobiographical context.

Once all the marchers were settled in, one of their mass activities was the singing of We Shall Not Be Moved. I left at about 5:00 pm as there was some stuff that needed to get done, and can report, as surprising as it may seem, that Kumbaya had not yet been sung.

There was a dude in an Army uniform among the anti-war folks proclaiming “I am the troops!”, and he was regalled by our side with shouts of “Traitor!” until an older cop on a Segway singled out one among many and snarled that he was inciting violence, “…One more word and you’re coming with me!” The other officers in the immediate vicinity shrugged and indicated via rolled eyes and so forth that they had no idea where he was coming from. There were, naturally, scores of uniformed and a few plainclothes CPD, Cook County Sheriff’s Dept police and also quite a few firemen, I would guess because firefighters are superb first responders. All of them, except the dude on the Segway, seemed to be enjoying the event immensely.

For our part, except for maybe a handful of signs featuring civilized vocabulary, everybody waved American flags.

I heard a good joke there:

A U.S. Marine boards a commercial airplane and sits down in the aisle seat beside two Arabs. He removes his shoes so as to be more comfortable. After the seat belt sign goes off, the Arab in the middle seat says, “I’m going for a Coke.”

The Marine says, “Here, let me get it for you.”

After he leaves, the Arab picks up one of his shoes and spits in it. The Marine returns with the Coke and the Arab in the window seat says, “I, too, wish to get a Coke.”

“Let me get it for you.” The Marine goes off to get him a Coke. This Arab picks up the Marine’s other shoe and spits in it.

The Marine delivers the Coke and retakes his seat.

Later, as the plane is landing, the Marine puts his shoes on and frowns.

He turns to the Arabs and complains, “As fellow human beings, we should really try to understand each other and get along. All this spitting in shoes and pissing in Cokes gets us nowhere.”

will be arriving here in Chicago on 11 September, a date that holds major significance for all of us. For liberals (and Democrats in general), it’s an anniversary of the day we “got what we deserved”. For patriotic Americans, it’s a reminder of the tragic day that Islam consummated its declaration of war against America in no uncertain terms.

I missed their last Washington, DC rally due to concerns beyond my control, but there’s no way I’ll miss this one, they’ll be in town and while I tend to travel a lot, so will I, no matter what.

The itinerary listed at their website doesn’t indicate where they will hold their local rally, but I will be keeping on top of that.

One of their radio spots promoting the tour is here.

When we talk about supporting our military personnel who are fighting in Iraq not only on our behalf and that of the Iraqi people, but on behalf of the free world — do some reading on the history of Islam, get real about the threat posed by the now neutered Saddam Hussein, not just the “Bush lied, people died” malarkey spouted by a bunch of airheaded, anti-American, ignorant, marxist or a combination of all four people who are evidently information challenged — we are talking about actively notifying the politicians (such as they are these days) that represent us in the House and Senate as to our support of the troops and their mission (You cannot support one without the other. Either you want them to accomplish their mission and come home safe, or you don’t. Those who claim to support the troops and then protest the war they’re fighting are what we call shameless, lying liberals, like the men and women with spines of cooked asparagus who stand before Walter Reed on Friday evenings and let the permanently disfigured heroes within “know” that they sacrificed “for nothing” :men and women alike, I call these people toilet cakes) — we are talking about about explaining reality to those who haven’t yet grasped it — we are talking about honoring those brave service personnel, about praying for their success and survival, about thinking of them as we enjoy the trappings of living in this great country while they are living in constant physical danger and discomfort, engaging in mortal combat to ensure that we continue to enjoy those trappings, not least among which are a whole slew of rights Iraqis never dreamed of under Saddam. Hell, a convicted felon here in the U.S. has more rights than most Iraqis did under the Husseins.

Before I go off on the major rant I feel coming, I’d better hand you off to blog buddy G.M. Roper, who has a post up that you’ve really got to read.