Street drama will get you ejected, placed under arrest, prosecuted...
Waco Tea Party activists are flooding their website and Facebook comments with the news that election officials are turning away voters wearing “patriotic” apparel.
Hats and T-shirts emblazoned with political messages - costumes of any type – are grounds to be told to return in more appropriate dress for purposes of voting.
They are considered by state election officials as “electioneering,” according to Tea Party announcements.
In fact, the entire experience of all such activism throughout the past year has carried the stamp of classic street drama practitioners from the CIA to the Bolsheviks, or any other practitioners of insurgent/counterinsurgent strategy.
Men and women of an age will remember Vice President Richard M. Nixon's late-50's visit to Caracas, in which he and Mrs. Nixon were spat upon by tobacco-chewing activists on a balcony from under which they were forced to walk to their limousine.
At one point during that long, hot afternoon more than half a century in the past, a machete-wielding goon emerged from the crowd to brandish his weapon in Mr. Nixon's face. Those who were there remember that old Tricky Dick maintained his composure, as if he were waiting for an elevator to arrive or for a traffic light to change.
Maybe he was displaying the icy resolve of a naval officer.
Perhaps he had read the playbook and attended the briefings, got the memo, etc.
Watch a street demonstration anywhere on the globe and you will see the same plays, as well honed as any screen pass, trap, wedge or end run you will ever see with your NFL Sunday Ticket.
Certain individuals are equipped with signs stapled to laths, all the same color and typography, sometimes resembling those of the opposition.
Others are outfitted in outlandish costumes, photogenic for their unusual or comic vaudevillian style.
These people serve as easily identifiable rallying points and are moved from place to place, as needed, by the direction of a captain. The sign-bearing troops serve as the signalmen.
The captain, who is wearing a brightly colored shirt and carrying nothing special in his hands to identify him, directs his troopers with hand signals. The umbrella, the bandana, the clipboard – these all have their uses. Left-wing SDS captains of the 60's affected the bright red wool CPO shirt. Today's right wing captains have chosen the knit golf shirt for its comfort and wearability in the extreme heat of this area and these seasons.
He and a select goon squad isolate and confront or contain any infiltrators or troublesome individuals who may attempt to disrupt the merriment.
According to a classic CIA psy-ops manual widely distributed during the Contra wars in Nicaragua and other lovely locations throughout Central America during the 80's, in rougher neighborhoods or in conflicts bearing a higher potential for violence, certain individuals armed with clubs, straight razors, knives and stun guns occupy the second echelon behind a more vulnerable rank which they shove and push into the arms of the opposition to provoke them.
Left-wingers of the sixties often equipped the women with plastic baggies of feces and urine, which, on signal, they would fling into the faces of the police riot or tactical squad phalanx.
It's a practice run, a scrimmage, a run-up in the knife fight of 2010 that is prelude to the full dress bayonet charge of 2012.
Liberty walking is a lovely creature to behold, but remember this, summer soldiers and sunshine patriots, sea lawyers and outlaws alike, it is written that woman is a vessel.
Good luck to those who sail in her. And all that jazz.
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