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Protest Warrior is a right-wing political activist protest group. It is an international organization with mostly American members; its main focus is on the U.S. and Israel. The group was formed in 2003 by Alan Lipton and Kfir Alfia in Austin, Texas. Its slogan is "Fighting the left... doing it right".

Motivation

Protest Warrior believes that left-wing politics and statism constitute a threat to the future of freedom and individualism, and would inevitably result in totalitarian police states. Seeing "liberals" (in the U.S. usage of the term) as morally and politically bankrupt and having a monopoly of media attention, Protest Warrior believes that the voices of the left "are heard disproportionately, demoralizing our troops, and emboldening dictators around the world".

Generally accepted ideas in the Protest Warrior community include support for the Global War on Terror and Operation Iraqi Freedom, opposition to Islamic fundamentalism as dangerous, threatening, oppressive, and calling Islam itself "addicted to war and mayhem", opposition to illegal immigration and current immigration proposals of the Bush administration, support for free enterprise and fiscally conservative economics, general support and respect for military institutions as the "defenders of freedom", and support for Israel.

Protest Warrior is generally characterized as pro-Bush in terms of foreign policy (namely the GWoT), although the Bush administration draws criticism from many members of the organization due to certain of its policies regarding immigration, the economy, and domestic security.

Methodology

The group's primary method of activism is trolling other online forums which is a much more popular activity that their stated goal of infiltrating left-wing events, chiefly anti-war protest marches, and counter-demonstrating within their ranks. Their 'command and control' forum shows that most of counter protests planned are never attended. For instance, Protest Warriors have attended rallies against Halliburton, Caterpillar Inc., Israel, and George W. Bush, displaying support for these causes. When doing so, the Protest Warriors carry large signs often designed to appear similar to those held by the participants of the event they are crashing, enabling them to mingle until observers are close enough to read their signs' sarcastic fine-print.

After large operations, videos are posted to the website documenting the events. The videos include confrontations with other protesters and the unwelcoming, sometimes violent, reactions of those protesters. Protest Warriors claim that these videos demonstrate that anti-war protestors are hypocritical in their claims of being pro-peace (or anti-violence) and pro-free speech.

Examples of the wording of some of the Protest Warrior signs used at protests

• "Communism has only killed 100 million people. Let's give it another chance!"
• "Saddam only kills his own people. It's none of our business!"
• "Say no to war... Unless a democrat is president"
• "Fight overpopulation! Support Socialized medicine!"
• "Socialists against the patriot act. Trust us, you don't want a patriot act when we're in charge!"
• "Besides Monotheism, Code of law, philosophy, mathematics, literacy, chemistry, physics, modern medicine, sanitation, electricity, transportation, electronics, computers and space travel, WHAT HAS WESTERN CIV (civilization) EVER DONE FOR THE WORLD? (shows picture of ancient Greek building in background)"
• "END THE OCCUPATION FROM IRAQ TO PALESTINE! (shows an asterisk, then a picture of anti-war protesters, then another paragraph below the asterisk which reads): Does not include Tibet, Hong Kong, Lebabnon, or anyone else under Communist or Islamic subjugation. They need to stop bitching."
• "Black children belong in black schools (shows picture of an African American in a low quality school) Say no to school vouchers!" (note this sign does not reflect the views of Protest Warrior, but is meant for political satire against school voucher opponents)
• Socialist Action Network. Working to perfect the ultimate police state"
• Screw the Kurds! No war on Iraq!"
• Stop the vicious spread of wealth creation! Vote GREEN and let's all be poor and miserable equally!"
• Liberating Iraqi children from tyranny (picture of waving, happy Iraqi children) It's costing too much!"
• Except for ending slavery, Fascism, Nazism and Communism, war has never solved anything!"

Reactions

Anti-war protestors who have come in contact with Protest Warrior usually have a negative reaction towards their signs. Those in agreement with Protest Warrior tend to find their signs and slogans humorous. Rush Limbaugh, a conservative talk-show host, once featured their signs on his Web site.

According to Indymedia's San Francisco affiliate, a group of Protest Warriors led by founder Kfir Alfia were the target of animosity at a conservative counter-Cindy Sheehan rally in Crawford, Texas. Despite the Protest Warriors' assurances that they were on the same side, the other protesters repeatedly shouted "Go home!", destroyed the Protest Warrior signs and forced the Protest Warriors to leave the rally, mistaking them for anti-war protestors.

Website

The group maintains a website as an organizing and information hub. It also acts as a source for the many slogans and signs presented by Protest Warriors at protests, as well as offering various tutorials on sign creation. A shop is also run from the website, to help cover the costs of keeping the website and organisation running.

The active forums of Protest Warrior have a large selection of topics for discussion; the group prides itself on permitting people of any ideology to join in on the discussions. According to Protest Warriors, very few users have been banned, but when they have been banned it was typically for posting obscene material such as pornography, repeated spamming, and for deliberate personal attacks, but racist speech and threats of violence against others not members of the group are not bannable offences.

Future campaigns

Kfir, the founder of Protest Warrior, was quoted saying that the organization will be expanding its operations to counter-protest at pro-choice rallies, gay rights rallies and other rallies to show strong support for social conservatism in the future, according to an interview he has given with some conservative figures.

When this was brought up on the organization's message board, questions were raised as to whether ProtestWarrior was going to abandon its religiously neutral point of view. Kfir responded publicly, declaring the article a misquotation. His response was:

"This is a misquote. Though it's been a while, I do remember this interview. The interviewer asked me about our involvement with regard to the abortion issue, and I mentioned that some PWers attended the anti-abortion rally in DC that spring. It was by no means an official PW operation.

"It did seem that the interviewer was interested mainly in our stance on religious issues, and I did tell him that the PW membership is made up of conservatives of all stripes.

"I can't directly speak for Alan, but abortion and gay rights is not a burning issue for me. Obviously this is not the case for some conservatives, but it certainly isn't a litmus test for PW membership.

"If you want to get a good idea of the issues PW has taken a stance on, the PW sign gallery is a good place to start."

See also

• Free Republic

External links

• Official Protest Warrior Site
• MSNBC: "Partisan Protesters"
• Washington Times: "Protest Warriors fuel rage on left"
• Right and Right
• Protest Warriors or Protest Losers?
• Protest Warrior Harmful to Campus Right
• Moonbats Target Protest Warrior
• Indictment in ProtestWarrior Hack Case

• Activists
• Anti-communism
• Internet forums
• Political websites
• Politics and technology
• 2003 establishments
• Electronic advocacy