We the People eat Fruit Salad ...

Invitation found stuck on my front door regarding a neighborhood rally: "WE THE PEOPLE invite you to join your neighbors for an informational meeting about protecting your rights. Learn about our constitution and government. Don't miss this opportunity to get involved. Fruit salad will be served."

Suspecting this "WE THE PEOPLE" group to be a spawn of the Tea Baggers or Birthers, I had no interest in attending. The Tea Baggers held local rallies here over the 4th of July weekend featuring T-Shirts, bumper stickers and coffee mugs sporting old tired propaganda about Obama not being an american. yessiree. time warp.

But as fate would have it, tonight the D.K. family found themselves walking our dog near the neighborhood park where the "Fruit Salad" being served by WE THE PEOPLE was already in progress. We witnessed a small gathering of people rapturously listening to a lively speaker. As we drew closer, our ears began picking up isolated words like, "Hitler" and "Propaganda Machine".

Taking our time walking the dog around the perimeter of the gathering, we were able to hear more than we cared to about how Obama is worse than Hitler, about how socialism and communism are taking over america, about how it is now up to the people to revolt and take back their government. Hoping to hear HOW they intend to this, something that eluded democrats during Bush's 8-year reign of constitutional assault, we hung around long enough to understand that their insidious plans include, gasp, the compilation of an email list in order to alert fellow like-minded people of further Hitlerian activities as they occur!

Jeez, we thought, is that the weapon they intend to fight Hitler with, an email list? Needless to say we did not eat any fruit salad, which in any case had attracted more flies than people to the rally. The lack of people who showed up did not go unnoticed by the speaker who taunted, "your neighbors are AFRAID to show up because they are anti-christian." REALLY? In the most religious state in america, my neighborhood is full of christian-haters? Good to know!

I think what we witnessed is an example of the mental break-down of right-wingers who just cannot stand it anymore. It's happening in every state to those who follow the ravings of Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, et al. I feel kind of sorry for them because they are apparently experiencing the same feelings of powerlessness that many of us felt for eight long bush-years ... not sorry enough to suppress my inner glee, but as long as they stick to verbal or email rallies, they are not violating any laws, assuming they are not promoting violence.

I didn't always feel so tolerant, but after viewing the HBO documentary, "Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech", I feel pretty good about resisting my urge to shout at my fruit salad eating neighbors ... where was their constitutional concern when Bush was suspending Habeus Corpus, extending Illegal Wiretaps, invading a Foreign Country based on a pack of lies, setting himself up as a Wartime President with unprecedented powers, using fear to enact The Patriot Act, implementing free speech zones and loyalty oaths, etc/etc/etc????

{Link to 1-minute Promo YouTube for "Shouting Fire"} ... produced by Rory Kennedy and Liz Garbus. The whole documentary is definitely worth seeing, especially the conclusion about how our first amendment rights will continue to be adversely affected for at least the next 30-years by Bush's "young" Supreme court appointments. And yes, that is Prof Ward Churchill saying 'kiss my ass' in the promo (click his name to read the "manifesto" that got him fired from Univ Colorado Boulder).

Final D.K. thought of the day: avoid the fruit salad at any neighborhood rally, especially if Hitler is being discussed! Luckily we had already eaten our dinner, which included the salad pictured, and so were able to leave the rally with our brains still intact.