My Pal Pat at the Palin Rally

Here’s my anti-war buddy Pat Alviso’s account of getting thrown out of yesterday’s Sarah Palin rally in Carson.  Pat runs the Orange County chapter of Military Families Speak Out, and her son, as she mentions here, is due to be sent out on his third tour in Iraq.  Last years protests at Loretta’s office are legend in the local blogosphere, and I’m always associated with them, but I was more of a bystander, it was mainly organized by Pat and her group, along with Iraq Veterans Against the War.  And, as I never tire of reminding people, those protests were a success, in that they helped Loretta decide to stop voting to fund the endless, pointless occupation of Iraq.  (One thing I would have done differently in the following essay is not to demonize “Republicans” so much, since I know not all of you are war supporters or Palin supporters.)

Confessions of a Palin Party Crasher
By Pat Alviso
Military Families Speak Out

Today I decided that I needed to see the great communicator Sarah Palin in person at the giant Home Depot Stadium in Carson, and voice my opposition to the  many public statements she has made recently about supporting the troops, implying that she in effect is ready to abandon them in Iraq and Afghanistan. You see, my Marine son, Beto, has already done two tours in Iraq and is about to be deployed for his third. This is why I found it particularly offensive when she said at the debate that we just can’t fly the “white flag of surrender”, and felt compelled to brave a sea of red, right wing republicans who were sure to throw me out of the arena. I was able to get a ticket from a passerby who didn’t want to use her ticket. I dutifully covered up my Military Families Speak Out T-shirt and joined the flag waving crowd entering the Home Depot Stadium. After all, if my son can just buck it up and go out for another tour, I can do this.

So here I was among  huge throng of Republicans who would normally be calling me names, and were telling the Palin demonstrators  to go back to Cuba and accusing even Iraq veterans of not knowing the words to the song “America the Beautiful”, while they sang their way into the stadium. I was really out of my element and quite worried as I found myself lost in a swarm of pro-war  and damn-the-torpedo people.  No one even batted an eye at the guy next to me with the “Guns, God and Glory” T-shirt. Just the whole wrong-headed thinking of this group filled me with enough indignation to get me through at least the airport-type security check.

I was beginning to wonder what had I been thinking when I decided to go all alone into this wild crowd of thousands of rabid Republicans? Had the whole Republican Party membership come to my community? This was not going to be pretty. My knees were starting to wobble, but because I was alone, at least it was easy to get a seat. It would be a long time before Sarah Palin to show up. I seriously thought about forgetting the whole thing and leaving because people were so hyped up.

A guy behind me was actually trying to impress his friends by joking that he tried to run over those Obama people on the way in, but didn’t and said if he had, he would have put the car in reverse and run over them twice. I cringed. Then I felt sad because the guy sitting next to me with his two pre-teen girls looked at their daddy and laughed after he laughed. They waited, but  got the signal. I knew it would take awhile before Palin entered and was actually amused by a conversation between a couple.

A husband told his wife to look across the stadium at this woman who was wearing pink. He was proud that he could detect that she was wearing pink, but it had no words on her shirt so she must be a protester.  He told her to watch the action. I knew that in this crowd could get ugly, and was starting to get cold feet, but then I looked up at the sky, and lo and behold, buzzing right over all those heads was a small pesky plane with the most wonderful banner that read, “ Sarah Palin, Thanks but no thanks.”

Ah- a sign from the gods, I thought. It has to be the Courage Campaign folks. Can’t overlook that message- COURAGE!

Then out  trotted my old nemesis,  my representative in Congress, Dana Rohrabacher- the one who promised that he would call for the troops to get out of Iraq when the Iraqis want us out, which we all know was several months ago. [That’s true – something else I haven’t written about – V] Also, the same caring guy who called military families, and a Gold Star family member traitors for wanting the troops home.  My newfound courage got me thorough that tired and broken accordion.

I considered moving my seat to another one, though, because there was a sweet old woman who was sitting on my right who was going to give up her seat to some much younger demanding woman who said she made 50 phone calls to get these seats, waved her tickets and none of those seats were  reserved!  How dare the Republican Party treat her like that! I knew that if I were tossed out, the old woman would be in the way and they might hurt her if the police had to stomp over her to get to me. There really wasn’t much aisle room, and she was having trouble getting up and down anyway. There wasn’t any place else to move, but I did tell her not to give up her seat, though.

Right before Palin came out, the LA Chapter leader of the National Organization for Women, Shelly Mandell of all people, pranced out to introduce Palin saying she wasn’t speaking for the organization, but as a private citizen. If she was speaking as a private citizen, one would have to wonder why they felt the need to introduce her with that title. When she said she was a lifelong Democrat the crowd booed her loud and clear. As if wasn’t bad enough to be labeled a traitor by other women. Then she actually said, “This is what a feminist looks like”, twisting a favorite line of real feminist activists, “This is what democracy looks like!”  Sadly, one guy said,” I can’t believe she actually admitted to being a Democrat!”, missing the whole point of getting someone on the other side to speak out for you to make you look non-partisan.

Anyway, in sails Sarah Palin fresh as a daisy. She started talking about a slogan “written on her Starbucks coffee,” (sorry all of the peace activists I know don’t think the giant Starbucks corporation is very folksy), and for me it was the moment of truth. I could just sit there and who would know the difference? But the sound of her voice- that same one that I knew would soon start talking about sending off our families to fight in an endless, pointless war and dare to call it patriotism, would soon be singing the same song. I couldn’t stand it. I just couldn’t let her use her son’s name again to justify this war. She would be sure to mention that because her son got the orders to go to Iraq, just like mine did , that it’s patriotic to keep sending them. That’s it. That’s the only reason to continue the war- because they are already there. The lesson for them is  say nothing, let the senseless slaughter go on indefinitely or your don’t support the troops.

That was it for me. The crowd got quiet. I held my sign up and took off my outer sweatshirt. I was surprised how long it took for them to catch up with me. About two applause lengths. My neighbors started asking me to put down the sign. I did off and on, but when others put their signs up, mine went up too. Then two staffers in the red shirts and brown khakis trod  past the dear old lady and put their sign over mine and a man, also a staffer, sat in my seat. I couldn’t sit back down. One person grabbed my, “Troops Home Now” sign, and tearing part of it. Then the crowd started turning on me like a McCarthy party on a commie. The rest of the sign got ripped out of my hands and someone hit me with a red pom pom!  Two quite older men started yelling at me to leave. One kept screaming right in my ear , “USA”, trying to hurt my ear.

Then the seat stealing staffer asked me if I had a ticket.  I told him I had one. When he asked me to give it to him, I went to get it from my purse  and then thought better and said , “ No, I have one all right,  but you took my seat and they took my sign and you will take my ticket. Besides, I am not doing anything disruptive!”  Then the two other staffers tried desperately to put their McCain signs over mine. I was familiar with this dirty trick, because that’s what the Schwartzenegger staffers did to me when I showed up at another republican rally in Placentia.  Maybe because it was taking away from the limelight, but at least  Arnold had the courtesy to tell them to leave me alone.

Not so with the Palin lions. They wanted blood. To hush my sole weak  “Troops home now” shout, a whole slew of angry Palinites began yelling  in unison, “USA! USA!”  This caused Palin to have to stop and make some remark about how free speech was why her son was fighting in Iraq. [Good for Sarah – V] Clearly the mob was having none of that! A really nice young African American cozied up to me and said to trust him and that the Palin people wanted to talk to me and it was a good thing. I wasn’t biting. One woman said her son was in the military and I said so was mine. More folks screamed for me to go, making more noise and fuss than I ever could. Even the sweet old lady turned on me. “Get her out of her.  I don’t want her here”, she said in her new found authoritative voice.

Finally, Mutt , (or was if Jeff?) showed up asking me to leave or they would get the sheriffs.  Once again I reminded them that I wasn’t doing anything wrong. The man, the daddy of the pre-teens, told them to leave me alone and that I was entitled to my opinion and he just wanted to hear Palin.  But no, the sheriffs came. I ignored them. Then tromping across the re-energized old woman they plucked me right out of my seat. I knew it would be stupid to go limp, (Protest 101), so I started screaming, “Bring out troops home. Stop the war. Bring our troops home!  All the way up and out of the stadium. I was completely surrounded by at least three sheriffs- they had to be sheriffs because they had very shiny badges and greenish uniforms. All that work and all you can see of my big party crash is one single hand slightly above a group of sheriffs, raised in the classic peace sign. They can’t take THAT away from me.

http://www.cbs2.com/video/?id=79229@kcbs.dayport.com


About Vern Nelson

Greatest pianist/composer in Orange County, and official political troubadour of Anaheim and most other OC towns. Regularly makes solo performances, sometimes with his savage-jazz band The Vern Nelson Problem. Reach at vernpnelson@gmail.com, or 714-235-VERN.