Right off the bat, a young representative from the local chapter of ANSWER, the organization that organized this Anti-War demonstration, approached us and told us that we would have to take our banners to the back of the march. Bruno Bruhwiler from WeAreChangeLA immediately confronted him about trying to kick us to the back of the bus. He said that Answer has the permit for the march, and they can tell us what to do. Bruno reminded him that they do not have a permit to trespass on our Freedom of Speech, and went on to advise the young man to go back and tell his team that they do not want to incur the liability for trespassing on our First Amendment Rights. The young man walked away after warning us that we would have to deal with the Police.

It wasnt long before he came back with four more gentlemen, one of whom began barking at us about a mish mash of reasons why we had to go to the back of the march, and Bruno explained to him why we did not. Was I done talking?! Dont interrupt me! I am not done talking, the agitated man barked or something to that effect. Bruno says. We dont really want to hear what you have to say. One of the gentleman said to us that our message is not conducive to the message of the march, so Bruno asked them all What reason did Obama give for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen?

We dont want to have a conversation about this. The reason he gave was because of 9-11! Our message is THE anti-war message. There is no message that is more important to the anti-war movement than 9-11 Truth. You could see what looked almost like shame on their faces, and they had nothing to say in dispute.

Bruno alerts them, I need to see IDs from everyone. As far as we know you could be anybody off the sidewalk. How do we know you are actually the organizers? They refused to show IDs, and instead began stating their names, one of which is Jim Lafferty. Jim Lafferty! exclaims Bruno with a smile. Jim Lafferty is the president of the Lawyers Guild in Los Angeles, and also one of the primary aholes at the local radio station, KPFK, who has been instrumental in pushing 9-11 Truth out of the programming over the past couple of years. Jim, are you prepared to incur the liability for trespassing on our First Amendment Rights, today? Jim had absolutely nothing to say, and began taking steps back. He was then verbally accosted by a KPFK employee who kept right in his face wagging his finger as the two of them walked away. That left 2 gentleman with us, one of whom was quite level headed. The other seemed no older than 20, wearing an orange vest, who apparently was the head of security. He said to Bruno something along lines of We are not violating your rights, this is our march. Bruno corrected him, Just by talking only to us, and not everyone here today, you violated our Constitutional rights because you picked us out for our message. Well, you will have to deal with the police, he says to us. Great! Send them over. We talk to the police all the time. We love them, and they love us. Needless to say, not one police officer confronted us the whole day.

Watch the YouTube video, and you will see that our participation in the march was an extreme success. Nelson Martins made a genius move by having a table at the beginning of the march where he handed out 911 Truth signs, and stapled them to sticks, back to back. He even stapled the signs to the sticks of other signs, so folks who came with one group or another, added 9-11 Truth to their message. Throughout the march, everywhere we looked, we saw people carrying those 9-11 Truth signs! We also passed out all of our hundreds of brochures and cards from ae911truth.org. Those went really fast. Folks love those.

One final note, Cheryl Gaskill came up with the message, 9-11: What you dont know is killing people a couple of years ago at our brainstorming meeting for the banners. It turned out to be a very humble but effective message for outreach. We get lots of compliments for that one.

Peace and love to all!

Photos: Mike Chickey, Amy Ultch, Nelson Martins

Video and edit: Steve Wright

March 28, 2010

VIEW VIDEO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMiqPQdWvo4