Flash honk-and-wave on a busy intersection in Bozeman at rush hour. About nine folks show up, brought together only by text messages, to hold signs with pro-reform messages. The response was about 50/50... half of the drivers honking and giving the thumbs up, but the other half grew so agitated by a sign that said "Health Care Can't Wait" that we get called "Communist F*ggots" and are told to return to Russia. A red pickup truck continues to drive by again and again, calling us "f*cking retards" and asking us if we are with ACORN or AmeriCorps. Yes, you read that right. ACORN or AmeriCorps.
Get to the rally early to get a good spot to stand with folks who think that health care shouldn't just be for the rich, the Americans, or just for the white. About 100 pro-reform organizers have already gathered by 9:30am, brought together from all over. Many friendly and recognizable faces. Folks who I grew up with in Bozeman, from Billings, from Missoula, Butte and Helena. The Tea Party crow is dominated by a couple twenty- and thirty-something males who constantly complain to security (both airport and Belgrade PD) that we're "in their space" - but don't seem to be able to show that the space is, in fact, "their own."
A giant water tanker with the word "FREEDOM" in red letters shows up, horn barring and an angry driver shouting at us to move out of the way. An angry man runs around pro-reform activists demanding we "leave his corner" or else he'll "dispense some Montana-style justice," his face red and so angry that he's visibly shaking. Pro-reformists stand in front of the tanker and refuse to give ground. The man eventually begins pushing them around and is escorted out by police, and does not return. I assume he was arrested.
I walk back to my car to get my sign, despite already being covered in pro-reform stickers. I am called a "n*igger lover" by a hot-headed man with a sign that says "Obama bin Lyin'" and told to "get the f*ck out of my area."
The bull horn is passed between pro-reform organizers and our chants continue. We tell each other to not engage any of the Tea Party supporters, to bite our tongues and turn the other cheek when harassed. It proves difficult as they get more aggressive and certain pro-reform supporters of the crowd, including myself, stand between protesters as things escalate.
One organizer operating a bull horn asks me to stand next to her and keep an eye out. Middle-aged men form circles around the young women holding bull horns, grinding their hips into the young women's, and groping them while shouting anti-reform messages over their chants.
Meanwhile, Tea Party supporters claiming to be "half-indian" shout at Native members in the pro-reform crowd that "Obama doesn't give a s*it about indians" and that they are "gonna be screwed by Obama." They target anyone with brown skin, shouting this at folks with Middle Eastern and Latin American background.
Two men wearing white supremacist identifiers and skined heads, enter the crowd and head to the water tanker to watch the Tea Party presentation. They stand around folks with 2nd amendment rights signs, states' rights signs, racist caricatures of President Obama and a sign that says something about Kenya and another demanding a birth certificate. One sign says "Congress, we have you in our sites" and targeting-sites are drawn into the O's.
I grab the bull horn to shout chants to the crowd and it's punched into my face, loosening a front tooth.
A nine year old boy, brought to the rally by his pro-reform mother, kicks over a porceline toilet brought to the rally by Tea Party supporters with anti-Obama messaging on it. A forty-something man proceeds to scream and yell at the boy, pushing him several times until he falls on to the ground.
Throughout the day I hear the words "n*gger" "f*ggot" and "d*ke" tossed around by Tea Party supporters.
