Washington (CNSNews.com) - In cold, snowy Washington, about a hundred protesters gathered outside the "Black Tie and Boots" inaugural ball on Wednesday night, comparing President George W. Bush to Adolph Hitler because Bush is "exterminating the Muslim race."

"It is no different in that Hitler killed so many Jews, and George Bush, you know, is exterminating the Muslim race and others," said a man who identified himself only as Don from Florida.

Don held up a sign with the words "Vote Republican" written over a Nazi swastika.

"It's just a form of fascism -- the Patriot Act and everything -- they stole the vote. Diebold (the electronic voting machine company) and their money stole the electoral vote of the people," Don told Cybercast News Service.

The group of counter-inaugural protesters gathered near the entrance of the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, where the inaugural ball hosted by the Texas State Society was taking place.

The groups sponsoring the protest included Billionaires for Bush, Code Pink (a women's peace group) and a group calling itself the Ronald Reagan Home for the Criminally Insane.

Party-goers arriving for the ball were greeted with megaphone-amplified jeers decrying them as "pigs," chants of "Bush Lied, Soldiers Died" and "Stop the Celebration, End the Occupation" and signs asking, "Are You a Corporate Whore?"

Another protester -- Steve from Vermont -- was among a dozen activists carrying signs linking the GOP to Nazis. Steve told Cybercast News Service that the Bush family's ties to the Nazis go back a long way.

"George Bush's grandfather - he did business with the Nazis, they were partners with him (Hitler), and that is all Bush is. He slaughtered people in Iraq. If that isn't fascism, what is?" Steve asked.

According to Steve, people attending this week's inaugural balls in Washington "are basically a bunch of rich, filthy, selfish people who are out of touch with the real world.

"They don't care about other human beings on this planet, and they are destroying the planet," he added.

Steve also accused Bush of stealing the 2004 election.

"[Bush] stole the last election [and] he stole this one," Steve charged. Steve said Bush could not have won the election, given the "mass hysteria running rampant through the streets that they had to get rid of Bush."

Molly from Massachusetts accused the Bush administration of "putting out fake science -- fake pseudo-science and having Nazi doctors -- the same way Nazi Germany did in a lot of ways. There are a lot of parallels now between America and Nazi Germany," Molly said.

But one of the Inaugural Ball attendees dismissed any comparison of Bush to Hitler.

"If you want to make a World War II comparison, then the proper comparison for Bush is [former British Prime Minister] Winston Churchill," said Joe Biles from Lubbock, Texas.

"These people ought to be comparing [former Iraqi dictator] Saddam Hussein to Hitler," Biles added, dismissed the protesters as "the extreme fringe."

'Our country is suffering'

Many of the protesters expressed outrage that Americans are celebrating the Bush inauguration at what they call a time of tragedy.

"How can anyone who has a heart come and pay thousands of dollars to do this when the tsunami wave just knocked out so many people and there are over 100,000 dead in Iraq?" said Sam Joi from the group Code Pink.

Joi said the United States is in dire straits: "Education is going, all our social services are going, unemployment is soaring, people are suffering here in this country. How can they have a celebration tonight for this obscene amount of money when our world is suffering, our country is suffering?" asked Joi.

Joi said the inaugural partygoers were "greedy, they are hogs, they are pigs. How much do they need?" Code Pink members passed out bumper stickers with "Hallibacon" written on them, a mock reference to the defense contractor Halliburton, formerly chaired by Vice President Dick Cheney.

Molly from Massachusetts slammed capitalism: "This is a perpetuation of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. We are dividing the country into two classes, and that is disgusting; and there are starving people all over the world and they are having this absurd, excessive party," Molly said.

"Capitalism right now is just making rich people rich," she added.
' Shame on you'

At one point during the protest, Green Party members and supporters of former Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry clashed.

"John Kerry is the richest f*** in the Senate. You voted for John Kerry, shame on you," a Green Party supporter told Kerry supporters.

Representatives from an organic farm commune also took part in the protest.

A woman named Neyci from a 40-member, West Virginia-based commune wore a button proclaiming "Stop Bitching, Start a Revolution."

Neyci explained that her commune's goal was to "try to change in the culture through our art, to get out a different kind of like holistic philosophy that's about finding out the truth of what the hell is going to work, because frankly we are up against some really raunchy sh**."

Most of the inaugural party-goers walked past the protesters without comment, but Mike Scott of Texas told Cybercast News Service that the protesters "need a job." A woman making her way past the protesters declared that she would have "no comment for such a stupid group."


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