Written by a SCLoS member who was there:
Spartanburg, S.C., July 28, 2007
An email arrived in the inbox on Friday evening, July 27th, announcing McCain would be in S.C. and needed to be flagged. He visited three locations in S.C. on Saturday. The email targeted the Spartanburg event as the one to flag in the Upcountry. (As far as I know, no one flagged McCain at the Stax Restaurant in Greenville at 8:45 am.)
Most of the demonstrators arrived before 11:00 am at the Beacon’s parking lot. Flags and signs were distributed.
Someone had already put up a couple of “Ron Paul” banners on the chain link fence in front of the Beacon. We then realized we were not alone. There were some Ron Paul people there to take on McCain face-to-face. All total I estimate (10) were there to protest McCain. But, I may not have counted all the Ron Paul folks.
We know not how or exactly when McCain arrived. It was not in a campaign bus.
He started his little chat-with-the-voters thing on the restaurant patio. We could see his runt-like diminutive form in a black suit with his back to us. We started shouting things at him like: “John McCain, Down The Drain” and “S.C. does not want John McCain”. Other things were shouted about his liberalism and communism, etc. and how we weren’t interested.
We were sufficiently loud to drive the McCainanites off the patio and back into the restaurant.
At that point, some of the flaggers put their stuff away and went in to the meeting to call McCain a traitor and other things. This was recorded on a flagger’s video, BTW.
They (the flaggers) came back out after a while and resumed demonstrating. We had Confederate flags flapping in the breeze the whole time.
A short time later, McCain came back out on the patio to make the rounds greeting people before he left. “Dixie” was played on a musical bullhorn to add some atmosphere to McCain’s departure and remind him we had not forgotten about what he said about our flag.
McCain departed in a SUV to the tune of “Dixie” and Confederate flags.
A couple of McCain supporters cursed one of the flaggers. A campaign manager came over and was visibly miffed and angered at our presence and tried to say that McCain didn’t say what he, in fact, did say, about the flag. He left in a huff.
The demonstration was a success and the Greenville County SCLoS was there.
Many thousands of people passing by got a clear message on how S.C. feels about McCain.
We had no problems with the police or the restaurant management. Most of the flaggers bought food and drinks at the establishment. We kept our receipts to prove we were customers if a problem should come up.
We departed about 1:45-2:00 pm.
1 comment:
Good for people to know.
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