Beltway Area Indymedia

Keystone State Skinheads confront OPP's Daryl Lamont Jenkins after Ron Paul rally

(FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM, Bullshit with English Subtitles)

Ron Paul and his followers onstage today didn't just talk from both sides of their mouths, they talked from every possible side of their mouths that they could talk from at once – like the guy who introduced Paul: generically handsome New Jersey State Assemblyman Michael Doherty, who couldn't quit bragging about his three sons in Iraq and who accidentally let slip that Paul wanted to Bring The Troops Home so they could be used to enforce immigration law at the borders (what tha...you wanna run that by me again, there, Mr. Strict Constitutionalist?) – and, of course, The Ron himself, who couldn't quit bragging about his love for the Constitution and individual liberty, except when he's voting for the Protection Of Marriage Act and authoring the Sanctity Of Life Act.

Even allowing for the fact that it was a largely "Conservative" event in front of Independence Hall on Veteran's Day Weekend, this rally also featured some of the sappiest, most overwrought, cloying, melodramatic flag-kissing tributes ever offered. Speaker after speaker proffered endless deep, wet, gulping, sloppy rhetorical blowjobs to Our Nation's Veterans. Perks for Our Heroes included several large rows of "Priority Seating for Veterans" in front of the stage. That's right, Priority Seating for Veterans, not the handicapped -- presumably as a poignant protest against the onerous provisions of the tyrannical and coercive Americans With Disabilities Act.

Anyway, happy Veterans' Day, and support our goddamn' troops, already.

Streaming out of YouTube, 07min 04sec

There was a lot of yelling and screaming going on as well about the mix of political stripes and the wide spectrum of support at today's rally – indeed, the thousand or so odd folks at Independence Mall truly represented a most diverse gathering of upper-middle-class white people from all walks of life. On the left, a smattering of disgruntled Liberals, desperate Greens and misdirected IMF/WorldBank protesters; on the right, a gaggle or two of pro-lifers, Birchers, NWO conspiracy loons and skinheads and, in the middle, the hugest, widest, pastiest swath of pissed-off yellow-ribbon-stickered SUV drivers who ever paid $3.50 a gallon to drive all the way to Philadelphia.

I counted – tops – three black people at this event. THREE. This included the now-obligatory woman dressed as the Statue Of Liberty – perhaps four, if you include our pal Daryl, who covered this shindig for One People's Project...and, at the absolute most, six, if you count the two plainclothes cops wearing tacky orange armbands reading PHILADELPHIA POLICE.

As a rather creepy coda to the whole nutty afternoon, Daryl Lamont Jenkins, covering the rally for One People's Project, had a rather tense get-together with a gaggle of old nemeses representing part of Paul's grassroots base, the Keystone State Skinheads -- including a couple of guys who attacked and beat Daryl at a Skinhead rally in Pennsylvania earlier this year -- exchanging a few quiet insults and terse pleasantries and finishing off with one Skin's quote of the day in a parting shot, "Y'know, Daryl, you're scum, and we'll see you another day..."

"Pay No Attention To That Fascist Behind The Curtain": Daryl Lamont Jenkins reports from Philly for One People's Project

Keystone State Skinheads confront OPP's Daryl Lamont Jenkins after Ron Paul rally

One of a handful of people of any kind of color at all does a meet'n'greet with Ron Paul's '08 running mate.

An enthusiastic, diverse cross-section of white upper-middle-class America greets candidate Ron Paul.