Fort Lauderdale Tea Party Part Two & CAIR Protest

The die-hard patriots came out and stood on the corner of US 1 and Oakland Park Blvd. once again to show their support for freedom, capitalism, the US Military, national security and Israel. This past week, the group was a little smaller, but no less enthusiastic, with plenty of new faces and even bolder, more creative signs. Many have vowed to make this a weekly happening, including yours truly, who has decided she's not going down without a fight!

I also participated in a conference call with the National Tea Party folks on Friday, and was pleasantly suprised by the number of people on the line from several different states including California, Florida (which was one of the most organized and active...yay!), Texas and Arizona. The national team is ready and eager to help, with multiple resources on their site for folks to take advantage of, from press release templates to sign slogan ideas. And while they want this movement to roll into some sort of national event in D.C., they were also pretty adamant about retaining the grass-roots foundation. Their main concern was having everyone's contact information, so as citizens from around the country email them for information about happenings in their state, the national group can refer them to local organizers. (Hey, does this mean I am now a "community organizer?")

Stay tuned for details about the orchestrated April 15 events, coming to a city near you. Here in Florida, there are protests in the planning stages for Tampa, Miami and West Palm Beach. I'll post details here as they become available.

Finally, I just wanted to mention that the tea party moved down to the Broward County Convention Center later in the day yesterday, to protest the CAIR (!) meeting taking place inside. We joined with other protestors on the corner, waving American and Israeli flags. Most people driving by honked their support, and Joe Kaufman from Americans Against Hate gave a rousing, passionate speech during which he excoriated Broward County officials like Mayor Stacy Ritter, for their outrageous support of Hamas. To quote Sean Hannity, Joe is truly "a great American." I just pray for God's protection for him, as there's definitely a target on his back.

One last point: I am more than happy to support Israel because it is the right thing to do. For me, it has nothing to do with religion, but a Middle Eastern democracy's right to live in peace. It's not a Right vs. Left thing but a Right vs. Wrong thing. So in that sense, I was in full agreement with all of the protestors there. However, when I saw a white car bearing the bumper sticker "No More BUSHIT," I was, to say the least, pretty damn angry. Turns out, the car belonged to the event's organizer, a man who presumably voted for Obama.

Can someone please explain the logic of voting for the Hamas-endorsed candidate, and then going to the trouble of putting together an anti-CAIR rally? Or of harboring obvious hatred, even after all of these years (Bush after all, wasn't even running in this past election) for a President who has demonstrated the strongest support for Israel of any of his predecessors?

More on this later, as I am certain, based on my own anecdotal evidence, that for way too many Jewish Americans (my closest friends excepted), everything really does boil down to Roe vs. Wade and the right to murder the unborn. Many of these same people view their closest allies - Evangelical Christians - as right-wing extremists in the tradition of radical Islam. Yes it's ludicrous (when was the last time an Evangelical slammed a jetliner into a building, or beheaded a Jew?), and certainly ire-inducing. And it's beyond disappointing that many of the folks I stood in solidarity with yesterday outside the convention center wouldn't in a million years join my group at US 1 and Oakland to protest the Obamanation of America.

But stand we shall, until we bring this country back to its roots. God bless America!