You have to confront hatred and bigotry. These ideas, more than most, are poison to any society. When they are expressed, they must be countered, not with force, but with firmness and determination.
On January 21, 2012, we (meaning Occupy Charleston) went down to the Citadel to glitterbomb Rick Santorum. We got into the event in force using 'flash mob' tactics. We met at Andolini's Pizza prior to the event but then broke up and arrived in separate cars. So when Val threw glitter at the hater, kicking off the glitterbombing, everyone was taken by surprise.
Von Clausewitz famously said, "No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy." True here. We had intended to sing a few mocking lines, set to the tune of Steam's classic 'Na-na-na-na hey-hey Goodbye', but it didn't work out that way. We were too scattered at the time. So we voiced our message in small groups and got kicked out individually. The effect was a near riot, with a great deal of confusion and pushing and yelling and shoving.
I'm a passionate man. I'm not used to being pushed and generally when someone pushes me, I push back. My immediate reaction to being pushed by one of Santorum's sweater thugs was to utter an expletive – one which not only starts fights, but also describes an act which Rick Santorum is decidedly opposed to.
Now the thug, of course, yelled something similar back, or maybe he yelled it first. When I watched videos of our action later, my first reaction was, 'that's not what I remember happening!' It seems that, in a mob situation (which we helped to create) it's easy to confuse the order and severity of events as they go by.
http://youtu.be/...
As we were being escorted out of the Citadel last week, I heard someone, a young lady yell, "suppose your kid was gay?"
Hey, suppose Rick Santorum is gay? Gay men have fathered children before, and those sweater vests are, at the very minimum, iconic. Of course, who am I to judge Rick Santorum's sense of fashion? If he chooses to dress like Wally Cleaver, that's his business I suppose. And if he chooses to dress his teddy-boy thugs that way, well, I guess it's a uniform ...
The main point here is that we did it. This proved first, that the Michele Bachman mic check was not a fluke. We did it before and we can do it again. Yes, it's somewhat riskier here in Charleston than elsewhere. But let me give credit where credit is due. The young folks of Occupy's Direct Action group planned and executed both events with passion and courage. Both garnered excellent press coverage. More importantly, they served notice to conservative candidates : This is not a rest stop on your campaign trail anymore. Your lies and hate will not stand unopposed here.
Understand, the Santorum event was deep in the heart of the Citadel – a bastion of social conservatism if there ever was one. They did not expect us there, nor did they believe that we would have the nerve to go there that night.
We did. Expect us.