The Phenomenon of Crowds Around American Political Leaders And Advocates

Submitted by Alice Ann Stern (United States), Nov 11, 2008 at 17:22

I'm about 8 years younger than you, Daniel Pipes. But I remember the crowds, which formed around John F. Kennedy and his brother, Robert Kennedy. When I was just four years of age, my father and mother took me to see both John F. Kennedy and his brother, Robert at the Long Island railway station in Wantagh, New York before JFK was elected president of the United States. Hundreds-of-thousands of people gathered that day just to hear him speak and to shake his hand. My parents and I along with others walked the route where his car would be passing as he left the town of Wantagh. Sure enough, JFK and his brother, Robert drove past where we were standing, both waving and smiling with their bronze tans and white, brillant smiles as they sat in their American, convertible-topped, white car.

As for Ajami comparison of the crowds conjugating around Barack Obama with those of Egypt's crowds around Nasser. His specious argument would be the equivalent of comparing the crowds around JFK and Martin Luther King to those surrounding Adolf Hitler of the Third Reich. In fact, crowd gathering is very common in the United States. The phenomenon of crowd gathering in the Middle East is a isolated incident rather than one that is common. In fact, the American constitution clearly stipulates the right to conjugation. Even former President Clinton remembers personally meeting and shaking the hand of JFK along with millions of other Americans, who actually went out of their homes to meet their next president. If anyone wants to compare the crowds of the Middle East, I would look back to the Third Reich or some other debauched, fascist regime, who fabricates their own crowds.

In the United States, we crowd around those, who we love and support. The crowds of the Middle East are fabricated by the debauched dictators of each respective regime. The ordinary folk stay indoors. Here in American, we all conjugate, because it is our inalienable right as stipulated in the American Constitution. As a thirteen-year-old, I attended the infamous 1968 peace demonstration in Washington, DC with my next-to-oldest brother. Buses were provided within every township of South Jersey. My former next-door neighbor was one of the lawyer's assigned to help any busload of people stopped and/or arrested en route to the demonstration in Washington, DC. As you might recall, easily over a million demonstrators showed for the 1968 demonstration, waving their two fingers to form the infamous peace sign, as they all sung along with people like Leonard Bernstein, "Give Peace A Chance," by John Lennon.

Evidently,... Fouad Ajami, an immigrant, do not understand the American politics or American culture. You missed the boat, so to speak. As for the Vietnam War, ... my daddy made sure neither one of my brothers were drafted. Unfortunately, my oldest brother was at the top of the list, so he was forced to work for the U.S. government at one ot the arsenals, designing and testing bombs in New Jersey, when he first graduated from one of the top two engineering schools in the United States. To this day, my brother is still ashamed of what he was forced to do to save himself from the draft and being sent over to Vietnam. ...

All I can say is that Professor Ajami's colleagues over in the department of political science in Baltimore, Maryland must be slapping their foreheads and/or laughing their heads off. Professor Ajami is totally ignorant of the American constitution, the American culture, American history, and American politics. I would strongly suggest that he stay in his field of Middle Eastern history and leave the United States to those who know it best unless he wants to continue to make a fool of himself. Boy, does he need a lesson in social studies, American civics and politics! ... The only rallies, which promoted violence, were those conducted by McCain and Palin, where cries to kill Barack Obama were heard.

If you attended McCain's rally in Philadelphia, PA, you would have heard those cries to kill Barack Obama. At my dog training club in the immediate area, one of the handlers was dismayed and ashamed at what she had witnessed at the McCain rally. As a Republican all of her life, she quickly disavowed her allegiance to the Republicans and threw all of her support behind Barack Obama, our new president. Barack Obama's election to the White House was an historical landslide. He won more electoral votes than any other candidate in U.S. history.

... Get a dog and join the local dog training club! Perhaps we'll bump into each otherI would strongly recommend either a Bouvier des Flandres or a Black Russian Terrier dog. A friend of mine in Delaware just had puppies a few weeks back. Interested? Joining a dog training club is an excellent way to get to know your community, especially since these clubs are actively involved in the community. The dog just leads the way, plus training a dog is extremely cathartic ...

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