There’s a Catch-22 to these Barber Monday Circuses. If you believe “the media” you might think the screeching Barber-ians are your friends and neighbors aka “people like you”.
OTOH….. If you believe me and others, you have another image of Bill’s motley mob. Who ya gonna believe? I can’t help you there. Me and my lying (crazy right-wing) eyes are a tad partisan.
NOTE: Is this lovely lady a co-worker of yours? ….. a cul-de-sac neighbor perhaps? ….. your child’s godparent? ….. sitting next to you in your church pew? …… someone you might invite over for a backyard cook-out… or to a football tail-gate? ….. No ?
Maybe there IS a way you can meet her.
If YOU go down to Mob Ground Zero on a Monday to see for yourself it is 100% likely you will be photographed and show up “above the N&O fold” or on WRAL’s 11 o’clock news. Trust me….. “they” would LOVE to have documented evidence that “see, there are too normal people participating in this”.
If you look like you are gainfully employed and self-sufficient and your eyes are not “beady” and you don’t have a permanent snarl of your face and you have bathed recently….. and have EVER voted for a Republican in your life……. you will stick out like; well, you can create your own analogy.
Maybe there IS a way.
Pretend its Halloween and dress up like THESE PEOPLE (who attended this past week) and you’ll fit right in. The Barber-ians will embrace you and the photo-journalists will be darn sure NOT to “shoot you”. “These people” don’t exist in the make-believe world of WRAL’s Laura & Binky Show or in the world of the dozen or so still-employed (this week) by GangMcClatchy.
I’ll “take a poly” that every one of these pics were taken on Halifax Mall at a recent Barber Mob rally. These were NOT poached from a “People of Wal-Mart” You Tube.
I have no problem with these people practicing the Barber version of civil disobedience. Dress them up like Indians and they might dump tea in Boston harbor….. or they might march thru downtown Selma behind MLKJr. My problem is how “the media” totally and purposefully misrepresents WHO these people are.
If you live in the Triangle I bet you’ve picked up a free copy of The Independent at some point. It’s an “alternative newspaper” and every metro area has one or two. You thumbed thru it and thought “Good Lord, who ARE these people?” They are the Barber-ians.
“The media” CANNOT / WILL NOT be honest with you. That would totally negate this entire charade. Barber and his advisors knew they had to “de-black” this group. Barber’s usual bunch of 300-400 AfAms bused in from Southeast Raleigh could not be used for this. They needed white faces and white voices….. so they trolled thru the Carrboro Commune and crammed as many old hippies into as many old VW buses as they could gather.
Oh come on Pierce, they’re not ALL from Carrboro.
My bad….. no, they are NOT “all from Carrboro”. Many are from Chapel Hill and recently a caravan of old VW buses have come in from Carrboro West aka “Haight-Asheville”. Mix in assorted “wilted flower children” from various other weed patches within several 100 miles and you have your garden variety Barber-ians.
Why doesn’t Barber simply hold a rally on Franklin Street and claim 50,000 showed up? He’d likely be correct. Whenever I venture “over there” I know I’m on enemy turf. An entire city that really really hates Conservatives is more impressive than 1,500 “withered flower children” on Halifax Mall. Think Big Bill!
They don’t have a common address but they have a common ideology – they really really really hate Conservatives / Republicans or, as they like to portray us – “bigoted, racist, homophoblic, nazi Tea Partiers”. To their “credit” this gang hated us loooong before Tillis, Berger, McCrory showed up in Raleigh.
Remember 1,500 is much less than attend a Garner High School football game. It is only “a lot” because “the media” is telling you “it’s a lot”. Go to The Food Court at SouthPointe Mall on a Saturday noon. THAT is about the size of Barber’s Mob. Is that REALLY “a public mandate” ??
“Back in the decades” when Basnight, Black, Rand, Easley et al were doling out tax-payer dollars for votes….. and creating a bloated UNC System….. and turning public schools into indoctrination centers….. and shackling AfAms to the welfare plantation….. and building a “state employee bureaucracy” so ineffective and so fetid that it makes The Gordian Knot look like childs play……. yes, “back in those decades” these very same beady-eyed Barber-ians despised us with their every rancid breath.
These are “those goofy Chapel Hill people” that have been protesting and chanting and demanding and leaving their trash for others to pick up for decades.
Many of us may have had a few tie-died tee-s and a coupla pair of bell-bottoms back in the late 60s-70s. Most of us listened to Bob Dylan or Joan Baez or even The Grateful Dead “back then”. Most of us questioned the war in Viet Nam (but always supported the troops). And “most of us” grew up and moved on into productive responsible adult lives……
…… and then there are those who never did. Meet the Barber-ians.
IF “the media” cared, and it does not, a survey of the occupations of the actually employeds among the Barber-ians would trend very strongly to “government employees”….. exemplified by “you can’t fire me and you can’t make me do a good job or give a damn because …….” Even “government employees” have a negative opinion of “government employees”.
For every example of the above that can be refuted I can find 100 that fit exactly. The exception proves the rule.
You will believe what you want to believe. Hopefully that will not be what “the media” and Barber hope you will believe. But….. it’s up to you.
REPEATING FROM ABOVE:
Remember 1,500 is much less than attend a Garner High School football game. It is only “a lot” because “the media” is telling you “it’s a lot”. Go to The Food Court at SouthPointe Mall on a Saturday noon. THAT is about the size of “Barber’s Mob”. Based on “the who” and “the how many” is that REALLY “a public mandate” ??
