The neo-nazis came a-marchin' on the Capitol today. So did a contingency of people who think they're absolute scum... and that their ideology sucks.
Watch for the "Ain't No Enchiladas Here, Boy" marcher. He's my favorite (sarcasm).
It was ugly at times. I must say, most of the ugly came from the opposite side of the street from where I stood. The NSM probably had about 50 guys there, including their fuhrer, Jeff 'Massively Overcompensating for SOMETHING' Schoep, and Phoenix's own resident nazi sympathizer, J.T. Ready. (Oho, sense another blog topic? I do!) They were there on the guise of anti-illegal immigration; however, the rhetoric swiftly devolved into overt racist propaganda, re: the "ain't no enchiladas here, boy" gem, among other, similarly inflammatory globs of verbal diarrhea flung at all manner of different ethnic groups.
Notice I'm not using the term 'ignorant'. Ohhhh no. These guys knew exactly what kind of reaction they wanted, and they knew what to say to get it. I should note that under no circumstances were there ANY coherent arguments made for the case against illegal immigration on the part of the NSM. There WERE non-NSM individuals present who still stated they were strongly against illegal immigration... however, these people were standing on OUR side.
Which brings me to the fun stuff... the NSMers were met by a large, diverse crowd of counter-protesters who came out to voice their extreme disapproval. City residents, students, senior citizens, anarchists, pacifists, hippies, Democrats AND Republicans, concerned citizens of many different racial and ethnic backgrounds. It was a powerful, united, direct challenge to the scheisse being regurgitated from the creepos waving their swastika flags and getting their tighty-whities (no pun intended) in a bunch over their hateful propaganda.
Telling the NSM to kindly leave.
I'm a little torn about the fact that the events were covered and aired by so many of the Phoenix news stations (see the video in Exhibit A). I mean, these societal throwbacks are so delusional they'll take this "free publicity" and exacerbate the holy bejeezus out of it. That was a concern expressed by many of the local civil rights groups. But for the people who showed up today in counter-protest, something more vital was at stake: the chance to look straight into the face of evil and tell it to get out... to take a stand for our community. We were there because we needed to be. It really wasn't a choice.
