Watch/listen to the alternatively heartening and disgusting Crawford interviews to Democracy Now! Don’t cheat yourself. Besides covering Cindy’s speeches this weekend, DN! interviewed pro-Bush protestors, Gold Star moms and Iraq veteran Sean O’Neill. DN! also talked to Bill Johnson, the owner of the Yellow Rose in Crawford, a store that boasts the largest collection of George W. Bush paraphernalia in the country.
YORUBA RICHEN [Democracy Now! interviewer]: You mentioned that – what do you think about Reverend Sharpton coming this weekend?
BILL JOHNSON: I think that’s great, because I’ve got a man ready to debate him at 2:30 when we get through with Cindy. So invite him out. We’ve got a gentleman coming in here from Washington, D.C. And I won’t give you his name right now, but he will be here. He’s a black guy, and he’s the right answer to Mr. Sharpton.
YORUBA RICHEN: Anything else you want the public to know about what you are doing here and why you are doing it?
BILL JOHNSON: Yes, and I want to finish up with Reverend Sharpton. You know, welfare isn’t the way. In the last verse of Thessalonians, it says “If a man will not work, let him not eat.” That means these people need to get off welfare and get out and get to work. And it says “Take care of the widows and orphans,” and we should do that through the churches. But the answer is we’re having a grand opening tomorrow, and we invite everybody to come and hear America. The silent majority will begin to speak tomorrow.
YORUBA RICHEN: Just one clarification, when you say they need to get off welfare, who are you referring to?
BILL JOHNSON: Anybody. Anybody. I mean, the thing is we’re talking about people that are standing for the wrong values that was America was built on. It needs to be that we all do our very, very best, and you know, the small business people like me or like this gentleman over here that’s in the photography business, we can’t carry all of these people. Everybody needs to do their part and be responsible. And it doesn’t matter who you are or what you are, everybody needs to earn their own wages. …
Racist asshole. (Changed from “racist pig” because it’s an insult to pigs, who are highly intelligent, sensitive, wonderful creatures.)