Viet protesters are WHAT again?

The ongoing, once-a-week-every-week Vietnamese-American protesters targeting Viet Weekly magazine today got a surprise sprung on them by a number of business owners on Garden Grove’s Historic Main Street.

The first irony is that, while Nguoi Viet newspaper was targeted by protesters and accused of being communist tools, Nguoi Viet itself every week would print the call-out by a different group of protesters accusing Viet Weekly of being communist stooges.

Confused? Geez. Where would you be without the Bolsavik? Let’s do it again.

First, you keep the two publications apart. Nguoi Viet is a daily published in Westminster; Viet Weekly is a weekly published in Garden Grove. Now, on to the situation at hand:

Group A accuses Nguoi Viet of being communists. All the protesters previously mentioned by the Bolsavik – Ky Ngo, Trong Doan, Cung The Tran, etc., they’re all in Group A.

Group B accuses Viet Weekly of being communists. Before today, the Bolsavik has not said a word about Group B.

Groups A and B used to be friends but now they ain’t talkin’.

Every week, Nguoi Viet prints Group B’s announcement calling people to join them in Garden Grove. This practice actually dates back from when the Bolsavik was still there.

For that matter, in an interview with the L.A. Times’ Dana Parsons here, Nguoi Viet‘s editor Anh Do also called Group A communists.

If everyone’s right, then that leaves Group B, the people outside Viet Weekly, as the only non-communists in town.

But the Bolsavik is digressing.

Back to Historic Main Street, where Group B has been holding weekly protests at 3pm each Saturday since last summer. Numbers vary from a dozen to close to a hundred, depending.

As more than 20 protesters assembled outside the empty offices of Viet Weekly, a handful of business owners gathered across the small cobblestoned street. They watched, and they waited.

At 3 o’clock, the protesters began playing Vietnamese patriotic songs on their speaker. Immediately, across the way, the business owners blasted American patriotic music, starting with the Stars and Stripes Forever.

Thus began the battle of the speakers.

Then the business owners unfurled the banner

And it read:

Well, that took care of Group B. Now everybody’s a commie.

John E. Scott, EA (circled), who runs a tax preparation and accouting office and is the owner of the banner, explained his action to the Bolsavik:

“It’s my banner, because I’m the one most affected by this disruption of my business. With their noise and their protest, I cannot get any work done on Saturday. My customers can’t come, we can’t hear ourselves talk in my office.”

Scott Weimer (first photo, standing next to speaker), the owner of the building housing Viet Weekly’s offices, said that the protests have “disrupted everybody’s livelihood, their businesses, chased away customers. We have been in this area for a long time and we have never seen behavior like this.”

Between Mr. John E. Scott and the Bolsavik, however, they have a huge point of disagreement. The Bolsavik maintains that “protester” is the correct spelling.