Teabagging

[KukriKhan]

Anybody attended one of these events today? Looks like the ones in D.C. never got the proper permits to do much of anything.

Just got back from one of three(!) in my town. About 60 people, outside the Post Office (safely off federal property), hand-made signs, a little chanting. No speaker.

There's another planned in about a half-hour. I'm thinking of going - it may be larger, being after folks' work-hours, and it's gonna be in what we loosely call "downtown", outside city hall. Wifey took the still-camera with her to her Mom's, so all I can get are cell-phone photos, but I'll try to pull them off that device via bluetooth.

signed,
your intrepid reporter
Kukri

[Lemur]

Cool stuff, Kukri.

Meanwhile, somewhere n America, a dump truck full of tea is driving down an empty road toward an uncertain future ...

Protesters, using a rented truck to haul the million tea bags, began unloading their cargo at the park this morning but were told by officials that they didn't have proper permits and must move the tea . They complied with the order but are still considering what to do with the load.

What will become of the tea truck? Nobody knows. It's like the Flying Dutchman. But full of tea. (I think Lipton's is making out like a bandit on all of this.)

[Gregoshi]

They can't toss it into the harbour either - that would be littering. Trouble is brewing...with cream and two sugars.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Ok-

1. Partisan political organizations "spontaneously" generate an organized and planned event where thousands (not millions) turned out in protest of an increase in taxes of 3% for the richest of Americans, which obviously did not include them. Turns out, the people at these events were ordinary people whose taxes would actually be cut or remain the same under Obama.

2. People show up with signs that say Obama=Hitler and show images of Obama's face over an image of Hitler, and one that said that taxpayers were the "Jews" for Obama's "ovens".

3. Fox News, in its fair and balanced coverage, promotes the event and greatly exaggerates how many people showed up, and dedicated many of their top "journalists" to cover this propaganda and present it as legitimate news. Fox News, today, (not just today...) was nothing more than a political advertisement with commercial sponsorship.

4. MSNBC, the liberal network, poked fun at Fox News and their single minded coverage of a Republican political stunt with their usual journalistic objectivity.

Why is it called news, when the news is generated by the noise organizations themselves and presented as news? It's nothing more than childish taunting and some taunting which crosses the line of being not just REALLY STUPID, but uncivilized hate speech. I particularly liked the Nazi references and the "lynch Obama" references. I also loved Rush Limbaugh's flip flopping on the issue... first Obama didn't do enough, then Obama did his job, and now Obama, IF HE WERE WHITE, would have been a racist killer of innocent black teenagers on the high seas.

Rush Limbaugh makes me gag. MSNBC makes me laugh, but at least I know it isn't news, it's commentary. I hope no one takes Fox "NEWS" as anything more than political commentary from the Republican party, because it has nothing that even remotely resembles news on it.

[KukriKhan]

Well, this is the best I could get with the cell-phone: my sidewalk "neighbors":

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

This event was larger, about 1,500* people by my unofficial estimate (the PD guy I asked said 2,500; I think he doesn't know how to count a crowd; it was about a mile of city sidewalk, with people 2-deep), with lots of enthusiastic car-horn honking by drive-bys. Plenty of American flags, about a dozen "Don't Tread On Me" flags.

Pretty diverse crowd age-race-sex - wise. More younger folks than I expected. All well-behaved and orderly. The guy with glasses in the above pic made up a hand-held sign for his son that read: "I DIDN'T KNOW A SECOND GRADER COULD BE IN DEBT!"; there were mostly hand-made signs, and a few 'professional'-looking ones. I didn't see any signs displaying "hate" slogans, or hear any such talk or chanting.

I was there for about an hour. I have other pics, but they're mostly cars in the foreground that the cell-phone focused on - I'll try to enhance/edit them with my ancient PaintShopPro software, so you can get a better feel for crowd size.

-edit-
*for reference, Escondido's population is about 125,000

[Lemur]

Yeah, Kukri, from what little I read today, it sounded like the protests in Cali were bigger than in Washington.

Meanwhile, the saga of the ghost tea truck continues. Somebody really ought to write a ballad about it:

"We have a million tea bags here, and we don't have a place to put them because it's not on our permit," said Rebecca Wales, lead organizer of D.C. Tea Party. [...] A local think tank, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said it would allow the dumping of the tea bags in its 12th floor conference room instead. Not quite the same impact, though.

[Banquo's Ghost]

1. Partisan political organizations "spontaneously" generate an organized and planned event where thousands (not millions) turned out in protest of an increase in taxes of 3% for the richest of Americans, which obviously did not include them. Turns out, the people at these events were ordinary people whose taxes would actually be cut or remain the same under Obama.

It doesn't matter, this is democracy. Ordinary people feeling so strongly about something that they march out on the streets.

Just what I was bemoaning the lack of a week or so back. It's wonderful.

[Askthepizzaguy]

It doesn't matter, this is democracy. Ordinary people feeling so strongly about something that they march out on the streets.

Just what I was bemoaning the lack of a week or so back. It's wonderful.

Hey, people can do what they want. But when Fox News tries to pass it off as a "grassroots" movement that they didn't champion and sponsor, and objectively covered as news... I gotta say, that's a...

well, was going to say new low, but it's Fox News! There is no bottom to that canyon of shame.

[CountArach]

A sign at one of the rallies:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

But seriously... it seems like there was quite a significant turnout overall. About 112,000 in the major rallies across the country.

[Banquo's Ghost]

Hey, people can do what they want. But when Fox News tries to pass it off as a "grassroots" movement that they didn't champion and sponsor, and objectively covered as news... I gotta say, that's a...

well, was going to say new low, but it's Fox News! There is no bottom to that canyon of shame.

I couldn't care less about Fox News, especially since I don't have to watch it.

But they, and this movement, must have hit a nerve otherwise the protesters would stay at home. If people like Kukri are organising and marching, that's democracy and whether I agree with them or not, it's great to see.

[Xiahou]

Hey, people can do what they want. But when Fox News tries to pass it off as a "grassroots" movement that they didn't champion and sponsor, and objectively covered as news... I gotta say, that's a...

well, was going to say new low, but it's Fox News! There is no bottom to that canyon of shame.

What would qualify as a valid grass roots movement in your mind? If it immediately becomes tainted the moment it receives and support (or exploitation) from media outlets or politicians, I'd wager we've never had a true "grassroots" movement. These people aren't professional protestors- most of them are organized via blogs, social networking sites, etc. So what if Fox News promotes them or politicians try to hitch their wagons to it? Why the disdain?

You're also completely missing the point if you think they're only upset about Obama's tax increases on the top bracket.