Protest Warrior

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Protest Warrior is an Austin, Texas-based group formed in March 2003 in reaction to protests against the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

ProtestWarrior.com is "a website created to help arm the liberty-loving silent majority with ammo -- ammo that strikes at the intellectual solar plexus of the Left. ... Encouraged by our successful crashing of the February 16th [2003] San Francisco anti-war protest, we decided it was time for the Left to put down their megaphones, peel off their bumper stickers, and listen to the people who believe in the core values of this country. It's time to start making a little noise," its website states.

The group's slogan currently reads Fighting the left... doing it right. In December 2003, the slogan read Doin' whats Right, Fightin' whats Left [sic].

Initially formed in San Francisco in March 2003 by Alan Lipton and Kfir Alfia, Protest Warrior was registered as a Limited Liability Company (LLC) in Texas in July 2003.

The most recent Protest Warrior announcement dates from December 16, 2006. The most recent Protest Warrior HQ announcement dates from August 15, 2005.

Ideology

Protest Warrior believes that left-wing politics and statism constitute a threat to the future of freedom and individualism, and that the left's ideas if taken to the extreme can lead to totalitarian police states. Seeing 'liberals' (in the United States usage of the term) as morally bankrupt and needing to be confronted head on, they feel that the voices of the left "are heard disproportionately, demoralizing our troops, and emboldening dictators around the world."

The stated purpose of the Protest Warriors is to provide an alternative ideological viewpoint to that of left-wing anti-war protesters and organizers.

[Note: Source unidentified.]

Methodology

The group's primary method of activism is "crashing" left-wing events and counter-demonstrating left-wing protests, actions that the group itself gives names such as Operation Eagle Strike, Operation Liberty Rising, and Operation Wolverines (a reference to the film Red Dawn). The group engages in protests of their own, often against what it considers to be organizations in support of terrorism in the USA and around the world.

Protest Warriors often carry large signs with sarcastic or mocking messages. After large operations, videos are posted to the website documenting the events. The videos include confrontations with protesters and the unwelcoming, sometimes violent, reactions of the protesters. Protest Warriors claim that these videos show the hypocrisy of the protesters in their claims to being pro-peace and pro-freedom of speech.

Those who conflict with the Protest Warriors generally see them as acting in a provoking or aggressive manner towards protestors, and that the Protest Warrior signs are offensive. Many feel that the Protest Warriors are deliberately confrontational and hostile to antagonize the otherwise peaceful protestors. Some see the Protest Warriors' criticism of Islam as bigoted. Others feel that the Protest Warriors, by choosing groups likely to be agitated by their rhetoric as targets, are causing the very problem they intend to demonstrate.

[Note: Source unidentified.]

Mission Statement

The following is posted on PW's Our Mission page:

"War IS an ugly thing, but as long as nations and leaders exist that detest freedom, sometimes it is the only way to secure a lasting peace. Most leftist anti-war protesters and pundits don't understand this. They state that this use of force is always unnecessary -- that war, ANY war, is never good. Some of them, born into the luxury of American freedom, believe that liberty can exist passively, that somehow the world's natural state will always settle into utopian harmony. Others, in an attempt to absolve themselves from the unearned guilt they harbor living in a nation of prosperity and wealth, try to buy morality on the cheap by pronouncing themselves for the 'good'. To them, the derivation of the 'good' is based on a simple, yet peculiar standard: the powerful and competent are wicked, while the feeble and impotent are innocent - regardless of the context. That is why they defend Iraq instead of America, and the Palestinian 'resistance' instead of Israel.

"These leftists usually carry the loudest megaphones. And left unchallenged, their voices are heard disproportionately, demoralizing our troops, and emboldening dictators around the world - dictators who dream of the day the 'Great Satan' disappears from the face of the earth.

"However, their self-righteous messages go silent quickly when the truth of history and reality is thrown back in their face. It's time to turn up the juice on OUR megaphones, as we will never keep our supreme values of liberty and justice without the will to fight for them."

PW tshirts

Slogans posted on PW tshirts include the following: [1]

  • "Except for Ending Slavery, Fascism, Nazism and Communism, War Has Never Solved Anything"
  • "Right-Wing Extremists"
  • "WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER! UNLESS YOU'RE A SOCIALIST GUERILLA"
  • "The IRS Tax Code - Now that's a living, breathing document!"
  • "END RACISM AND SEXISM NOW! Kill All White Males"
  • "WHITE RACISTS FOR THE LEFT..."

Recommended Links

PW recommended links include but are not limited to: [2]

Website

Domain Name

The domain PROTESTWARRIOR.COM was created February 21, 2003, less than one week following the San Francisco counterprotest.

The domain contact is Siliconvalleyheadhunter.com, Kfir Alfia.

Use

PW maintains a website as an organizing and information hub. The website is often zealous and confrontational. Although the Protest Warriors have been influenced by the right-wing website Free Republic, slogans such as "Saddam only killed his own people.. it was none of our business" and "Communism has only killed 100 million people... let's give it another chance" clearly set them apart in both style and attitude.

A motto from the website states:

Welcome to ProtestWarrior.com, a website created to help arm the liberty-loving Silent Majority with ammo -- ammo that strikes at the intellectual solar plexus of the Left. [3]

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, provided that they do not threaten the perceived moral and intellectual integrity of the Protest Warrior founders. However, it is often alleged that comments are deleted and users are banned from the site based on the opinions which are expressed. While some participants claim that such opinions are unfounded, offering as evidence the fact that members of many differing ideologies frequently post there, they fail to recognize that the range of allowable difference is minimal, that self-selection for ineffectual or mockable individuals is rampant, and that ProtestWarrior critics such as RocknRev's claims can be independently verified through exhaustive use of www.archive.org to compare the claims of site critics to those of site founders. [Surprisingly, said critics seem unaware of this resource.]

[Note: Source unidentified.]

Chapters/Leaders/Affiliates

Also see List of Chapters.

  • Kfir Alfia
  • Alan Davidson (a.k.a. Alan Lipton)
  • Gil Knobrin [4]
  • Tom Paladino (New York)
  • Jason Taylor (Dallas) [5]
  • Steven Thunander (University of Wisconsin)

Alan Lipton

Alan R. Lipton and his "childhood friend" Kfir Alfia co-founded Protest Warrior in March 2003. [6]

Lipton also goes by the name Alan Davidson, as Davidson is referenced as a co-founder with Alfia here, here, here, here, and here.

The PW photo at the bottom of this page shows Alan as "Alan Lipton". The same PW photo posted here shows Alan as "Alan Davidson".

Lipton "was a political science major who is now a graduate from the USC film school. He currently lives in L.A. pursuing a career in film," the Protest Warrior website states. [7]

Kfir Alfia

"Kfir graduated with two degrees, computer engineering and film production and was recently working for a startup in Silicon Valley designing networking chips. He currently lives in Austin and works on Personal Maestro, a business started by Kfir and his brother," the Protest Warrior website states. [8]

According to the Wikipedia:

"Alfia's family moved to Dallas from Israel when he was two years old. He attended Hebrew school at Akiba Academy and proceeded to J.J. Pearce High School before attending the University of Texas at Austin. As a teen, he read many libertarian texts by writers such as Friedrich Hayek and Ayn Rand, as well as conservative publications such as National Review. He was a fan of talk radio and he was a published source at Contumacy.Org (web) as well as the Austin Review." [9]

Donations

The PW donations page links to PayPal.

Checks can also be mailed to:
ProtestWarrior
8816 Honeysuckle Tr. [10]
Austin, TX 78759

Contact details

Protest Warrior
4600 Seton Center Parkway Suite 821
Austin, TX 78759
Website: http://www.protestwarrior.com/
Website: http://hq.protestwarrior.com/
Forum: http://forum.protestwarrior.com/
E-mail: Kfir Alfia kfir AT protestwarrior.com
Alan Lipton alan AT protestwarrior.com

Resources and articles

Related SourceWatch articles

External links

By / From Protest Warrior

Background

External articles about Protest Warrior

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