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...here's one account of it straight from the mouth of a D.C. freeper, Angelwood:
Once upon a time, the D.C. Chapter of Free Republic decided to hold a rally so patriotic men and women could take a stand for all that is good about America and to support our troops fighting for us in the war on terrorism.
The organizers decided that there must be porta-potties available for use by the event staff and all those courageous individuals who dared to gather together in the midst of the anti-war, anti-American masses bused in to cause disruption to our nation’s Capitol. And so, the story unfolds:
The stage was delivered at 5:30 a.m. to be greeted by faithful FReepers who didn’t get much sleep. At 7 a.m. the sound crew arrived to set up the magnificent speaker system that could reach out 8 blocks or more. Busy FReeper volunteers showed up early to set up tents, tables, chairs and organize supplies.
Jiffy Johns was on time and delivered six regular and one handicapped porta-potty, all in pristine condition. The FReepers busily placed placards on them for PATRIOTS -- 3 for Men and 3 for Women, with one specially equipped for the handicapped. There was even special attention given to provide a bucket for the opposition labeled, "Commie Commode and Bath." Were they grateful? Nooooooooooooooooo!
We sensed a problem with our porta-potty location almost immediately. While our group was steadily arriving, the ANSWER buses were beginning to pull up near 16th Street -- one block away from the Patriots Rally. Unfortunately, most people after a long trip in a car or bus need to visit restrooms pretty quick and a helpful police officer pointed out our porta-potties.
Needless to say, the rush was on and we realized we would have to fend them off or our porta-potties would be at capacity before our rally even began. We tried to move the porta-potties back from the street, but it was too difficult and we ended up moving enough to make a 90 degree angle L shape that was easier to defend. The doors were definitely on the wrong side -- facing the sidewalk and street.
We were polite, but adamant, that attendees of the other rallies could not use our facilities. We were told that they were patriots, too, and they had a right to use our porta-potties because they were on public land. When we pointed to the ones provided by ANSWER directly across the street and about 3 times as many as we rented, the others would sometimes get agitated and belligerent about our refusal to let them use the potties.
The excuses were many, varied and quite astonishing. One person said they had a medical condition, unpronounceable, of course, and we should let them in -- they also had assistants with video cameras filming their attempts to get past the porta-potty FReepers on duty.
We had some real concerns about safety, sanitation and damage control regarding people from the violence- and vandal-prone leftists, who had brought their reputations from demonstrations/protests in Seattle, San Francisco, New York and D.C., being allowed to use facilities for which we had paid and for which we were responsible. There had even been reports circulating that people were roaming about the anti-war rallies with pipe bombs in their backpacks.
Principles don’t mean much to those on the left. The hoards of bused-in attendees for the anti-war, pro-Palestinian rally didn’t care about the facts that we had a valid permit which they were trespassing on or that we had paid our own hard-earned dollars to provide porta-potties for our rally guests. They came expecting everything for free -- no, they actually demanded to use our porta-potties rather than walk across the street to the ones provided for them.
Sad to say, we allowed some of those with hard-luck stories, children and elderly to use the facilities and found that they abused the privilege by urinating on the seats, throwing garbage and bottles in to reduce capacity, tearing off toilet paper and sticking it everywhere, and rendering the only handicapped station we had useless and distasteful by urinating on the TP, seat and floor.
The porta-potty war continued throughout the afternoon. There were deliberate and concerted attacks by the leftists. Many of us took turns manning the front lines in the porta-potty duty. Some who had been turned away sent others to test our fortitude. A camera crew stopped to record the doings at the front. Great, huh, here we had a great line-up of speakers to inspire our patriotic spirit and the camera crew thought it was more important to film the dispute at the porta-potties. So I gave him an earful and all the reasons why we had the right to limit their use of our rental property paid for out of our own pockets.
When the leftists started to surge on our lines and rumors of an imminent rush began, the Park Police pulled in reinforcements along our perimeters and brought in the mounted police and their magnificent horses. Soon, things got better. The police deterred any thought of overrunning the Patriots Rally for America and they formed a barrier which protected the porta-potties.
The ANSWER leftists finally left to march through the streets of D.C., a light rain started to fall and soon we were ending our rally and beginning to clean up. Porta-potty duty slacked off as people began to gather their belongings and go home. The organizers had to wait for the rental companies and their crews to pick up their equipment. So, we set up chairs and finally sat down to rest and recap the day.
Stragglers or people returning from the various marches began to again appear and make a beeline for our porta-potties. Oh, I forgot to mention that those on the other side of the street disappeared somewhere around 2 p.m. never to be seen again.
I did have the satisfaction after the rally of seeing two Arab women leave the handicapped porta-potty looking down at their hands and rubbing them vigorously with a look of disgust on their faces. They must have used the urine-soaked toilet paper. (icky-poo - SMILE).
An Arab woman stopped to use our facilities and left her young sons outside. They ran through the middle of our group who were sitting in chairs and over to the tables that still had supplies stacked on them. They saw all the great flags and wanted to buy one (we can only surmise what for) and we emphatically told them the flags were not for sale. On their way back, Kristinn called out, “Don’t grow up to be suicide bombers.” One of the smart-aleck kids yelled back, “I think I will and I’ll come back and kill you.” Enough is enough. I followed them back and told their negligent mother what her children said. As I left, she was still asking them, “What did you say, what did you tell those people?”
The stage crew was back on-site breaking down the stage and equipment. The crew chief had some extra strong plastic ties that he offered to us to lock down the porta-potties. We accepted and locked them up only to have some of the stage crew unlock two again. We finally got them locked and turned door to door.
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