( – promoted by SFBrianCL)
(cross-posted at The California Courage Campaign)
Military Families Speak Out’s Operation House Call came to California last week to pay a visit to Republican CA-46 Congressman Dana “Warbacker” Rohrabacher. The last thing they expected was to get into a shouting match with him, but that’s exactly what happened on Saturday outside his home in Huntington Beach.
First a little background.
MFSO, which describes itself as “an organization of people opposed to the war in Iraq who have relatives or loved ones in the military,” launched the summer-long action on June 22 to protest Congress’s June 15 vote to “stay the course” in Iraq. June 15th was also the day that saw the 2500th US soldier die in Iraq. Their goal? To demand that Congress “End the occupation, bring our troops home now and take care of them when they get here.”
More over the flip.
The D.C.-based protest ran through August 7, when Congress left on recess, and consisted of daily vigils, speaking events and a display of combat boots representing US soldiers slain since the “stay the course” vote.
On June 22, the display reflected 11 pairs of combat boots and shoes representing the deaths of 141 Iraqis. As of August 1st, the display has grown to include 78 pairs of combat boots and shoes representing the deaths of 1,594 Iraqi children, women and men.
But that was just phase one of the protest. When members of Congress dispersed to their respective districts in August, MFSO took Operation House Call on the road.
The second phase of Operation House Call follows members of Congress and Senators to their home states, as MFSO's 26 local chapters and over 3,000 military families prepare to meet their Senators and Members of Congress and demand an answer to the question: "Whose names are you willing to add to the growing list of casualties?"
Having gotten nowhere with Rohrabacher in Washington, MFSO decided to protest outside his home district office in hopes of getting a meeting. Pat Alviso, proud mother of a Marine and one of the leaders of the protest, told me that about 50 of them, including several with sons in Iraq, gathered outside Rohrabacher’s office to read the names, ages and hometowns of local soldiers (from Orange County and Long Beach) who’ve died in Iraq. As with the DC protest, they displayed combat boots representing the soldiers whose names they read off and as people passed by, the protesters would hand them daisies to place inside the boots as they sang Where Have All The Flowers Gone?
While there was some media present, the protest drew no reaction from the Congressman’s office, so they decided to head up to his office to make sure they knew they were there. A receptionist informed them that she had indeed been watching (“you’re doing a great job!” ) but that Rep. Rohrabacher was busy at speaking engagements. Where? “I can’t give out that information.” Will he meet with us? “I’m afraid he’s booked until he heads back to Washington on Tuesday.” The group then asked if someone would call them if he could spare just a half hour to meet. The clueless wonder proceeded to take the names and numbers of all of Rohrabacher’s constituents in the group and they left.
Having not heard from his office throughout the remainder of the week (shock!), Alviso and the rest of her MFSO crew, decided to gather at a park near Rohrabacher’s home and pay a more literal house call to the Congressman. Leaving a few folks behind to watch the boots, about 35 of them walked the block and a half to the Congressman’s home and gathered on the sidewalk outside it, some carrying signs saying “No More War For Oil!”
Rohrabacher’s front door and garage were open but no one answered when they knocked. At one point, they could see a shadow of someone they figured was Rohrabacher just inside the house. They decided to knock again but once again got no response. They retreated back to the park to get the combat boots and returned with reinforcements: a Tammy Faye Bakker look-alike and Monopoly’s money man there to hand the Congressman a gigantic replica of a blank check representing the blank check he’s given Bush for a war without end.
They knocked again, and again got no response so they left the check on his front porch, gathered just off his property, arranged the combat boots on the ground and began to chant
“Bring Them Home Now!”
“Bring Them Home Now!”
“Bring Them Home Now!”
It was at this point that Rohrabacher bolted out of his house…barefoot and started yelling at the protesters.
From The Orange County Register:
"You just woke my damn babies!" Rohrabacher said.
He and his wife, Rhonda, have 2-year-old triplets. Rohrabacher said he was on his back porch when he heard crying over a baby monitor.
"I am going to get all of you arrested if you don't leave right now."
"My son is in Iraq!" responded Tim Kahlor, 48, whose son is on his second tour of duty in Iraq until January 2007. "And he does not get much sleep!"
"Did he volunteer?" Rohrabacher yelled back.
Alviso told me that he yelled this at them several times, displaying not only great insensitivity but also a lack of imagination. “Is that all he has to say to us?”
Rohrabacher continued yelling.
"Wait a minute, man, you are standing on my property. You are violating my rights… And you are violating my family's rights!"
Pat Alviso, a teacher whose 30-year-old Marine son will deploy in Iraq for his second tour of duty next week, said the activists tried to visit the congressman in his office last Wednesday, but were told that his calendar was full.
"Did somebody call my office ahead of time?" Rohrabacher asked. "I met with people all last week, I talked to them about the war…. But unlike you, they were courteous, they were not arrogant."
So this is what they mean by compassionate conservatism. Alviso informed me that they left shortly after he’d retreated back toward his house threatening to call the cops. When they got back to the park, they were approached by a policeman who told them that as far as he was concerned, they had acted fully within the bounds of the law. “He must be a Democrat,” she laughed.
As for the protest, Alviso hopes that it makes Rohrabacher think twice next time there's a vote on the war. "He should remember what happened to Lieberman in Connecticut," she said.
The activists said they felt their 50-minute protest was a success.
"We came here out of desperation. Now, we hope, the congressman has something to take back with him to Washington," said Alviso, who organized the "house call" with her husband, Jeff Merrick, 59, an Air Force retiree who served in Vietnam…
"We are protesting because our sons in the military cannot. We are doing it for them."
