Comrade X's run-in with the Read Hat Ladies, who, by the way, are NOT Revolutionaries, despite the color of their hats

Comrade Y's recent terror while confronting a gang of Red Hat Ladies is well understood by this Revolutionary, as I, too, have had an experience with a similarly thuggish mob of sartorially-challenged individuals. Last summer, while on an excursion to Victoria, Canada, which Comrade X had heard was a hotbed of potential revolutionary activity (these reports proved false, by the way -- there are no more complacent people in the northern hemisphere than Canadians, it turns out [but more on that later]), Comrade X and his not-so-revolutionary parents stopped in a tiny tourist town on whatever back road it is that brings you to the town in which is located the ferry to Victoria. This town, which consisted of maybe twenty buildings -- businesses and "historic" domiciles -- was essentially merely a strip of the back road and a turn-out that contained the "downtown" area. After eating at the local ten-dollar sandwich place (whose standards of sandwich-making ran somewhat short of Subway's), Comrade X was driving back to the thoroughfare when he spotted four fat old crones dressed in shapeless purple gowns and wearing the most hideous red hats he had ever seen seated on the porch of the local tea house (more on tourist traps later, and whether or not they have revolutionary potential or are even MORE bourgeois than the most bourgeois business). Astounded by the sight, Comrade X stopped the car (a full thirty feet away from the crones), said "Oh, I GOTTA get a picture of this!", and leveled his phone at the four women when one of them, noticing this, turned to him and screamed, "Hey! It's ILLEGAL to take my image!" Take my image? Nonplussed not only by the particular language used but by the aggression of these now riled backwoods hags who were beginning to get out of their wicker chairs, Comrade X said, "Oh, shit!", snapped a quick and blurry photo, and began to panic while putting the car in gear. But the crones were more agile than he thought -- they had left their chairs with astonishing speed and were approaching the car, malice shining like the Morningstar in their eyes. "Hey! Hey! Come here! You need my PERMISSION to take that picture!" Meanwhile, his mother said from the back seat, "Oh, I think you've made them mad!" while his tough-as-nails step-father, who had twenty or more years of naval service under his belt, similarly panicked and said, "We'd better get out of here!" when Comrade X finally managed to put the car in gear and step on the gas, spraying dirt and gravel as he screamed down the short dirt road and took a sharp right onto the thoroughfare, the rear end of the car fishtailing with the abuse of physics he was applying to it. He hit 70 in mere moments, and looked back, saying, "Are they following us?" (sure that he had seen something moving in the rear-view mirror, a blur of purple and red looming ever larger despite his increasing speed) and his mother replied "No, but you might want to go faster." "What the hell WAS that?" said Comrade X. Neither parent knew, and only later did we discover that these gorgons were part of what might be considered an international conspiracy: The Red Hat Society. Imagine: an entire organization built upon the foundation of a hat color.

What? Why? And how do we make them go away and stop scaring innocent civilians?