Bando
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Post by Bando on Apr 15, 2009 15:56:26 GMT -5
Anyone see/attend one? Did they adhere to the Boz-Bando Law of Protests?
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Apr 15, 2009 16:14:51 GMT -5
I haven't seen anything too silly picked up on the wires yet, except that someone in DC threw a box over the fence at the White House, but the protesters were allowed to re-assemble after the box had been inspected. HuffPo has video, and everything seems pretty calm. I would keep my eyes on Atlanta this evening. I might expect some nuttiness there, if it is going to happen anywhere. I heard reports of ACORN might try to do some counter operations, but I haven't seen anything of that nature either. Grover Norquist gave a chat on WP.com today after he spoke at one of the events in DC that I thought was interesting. www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2009/04/15/DI2009041501193.htmlObviously, you can agree or disagree with his opinions, but I thought the chat was an interesting discussion, mainly because he seemed to be responding mostly to skeptical and/or hostile questions (and there was only a small bit of childishness, both from the questions and some from Nordquist himself). EDIT: Oh, and someone at one of the events had an "Obama=Hitler" sign, which proves that person is an imbecile (as it proved the same of people who made the same equation with Bush). Photo gallery also available at HuffPo.
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Bando
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Post by Bando on Apr 15, 2009 16:20:31 GMT -5
Dave Weigel (full disclosure: he's a friend) is covering for the Washington Independent, and he seems to have found the nuttiness: LinkHow stupid do you have to be, no matter who's president, to throw something at the the White House. The Secret Service does not have a sense of humor.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Apr 15, 2009 16:24:57 GMT -5
Dave Weigel (full disclosure: he's a friend) is covering for the Washington Independent, and he seems to have found the nuttiness: LinkHow stupid do you have to be, no matter who's president, to throw something at the the White House. The Secret Service does not have a sense of humor. Hey, jgalt was there. Cool, man! ;D Yeah, some of the signs are pretty dumb and nutso (enough with the birth certificate already). On the other hand, some were pretty funny (not so much on your link, Bando, but on HuffPo). And to answer your question: pretty damn stupid.
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Cambridge
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Post by Cambridge on Apr 15, 2009 16:36:58 GMT -5
I think the right wing is about to learn a lesson about just how cruel media attention really is in the end. I mean, the left was moaning and whining about media coverage forever, and then every time they actually got it, the media managed to find the wackiest representatives which only embarrassed everyone involved. How many Bush = Hilter people did they find? Or people who talked about the corporate conspiracies? Unfortunately for those making sincere, thoughtful and much needed protest, the media will focus on the wackos and their dubious conspiracy theories. After which, the right wing will further draw from the script penned by lefty protesters and claim that the media coverage was unfair.
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Filo
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Post by Filo on Apr 15, 2009 16:39:57 GMT -5
A friend emailed me about one of the tea parties he was watching from his office building. It was at city hall. Funny part was that the protesters were getting power for their event at no cost from a government building.
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Bando
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Post by Bando on Apr 15, 2009 16:55:49 GMT -5
Even in the HuffPo link, though, the topics covered by each sign vary. This is another reason why mass protests generally suck, your message is bound to get completely diluted.
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Post by jerseyhoya34 on Apr 15, 2009 20:00:35 GMT -5
I have been paying these Waste of Food Protests very little attention, but I guess my question is what the protestors feel is owed to them at this time.
The less government/lower taxes angle has merit, but why start now, considering that most of the food wasters likely voted for Bush. I am a bit concerned to think that the Bush tax cuts were not enough.
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jgalt
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Post by jgalt on Apr 15, 2009 20:10:23 GMT -5
Dave Weigel (full disclosure: he's a friend) is covering for the Washington Independent, and he seems to have found the nuttiness: LinkHow stupid do you have to be, no matter who's president, to throw something at the the White House. The Secret Service does not have a sense of humor. Hey, jgalt was there. Cool, man! ;D Yeah, some of the signs are pretty dumb and nutso (enough with the birth certificate already). On the other hand, some were pretty funny (not so much on your link, Bando, but on HuffPo). And to answer your question: pretty damn stupid. ;D Nope not me! Haha I was too busy watching my portfolio recover nicely from Obama's Kamikaze speech yesterday! I may support what these people think but I really dont see the point of this type of action at this time. During an election, yes definately, right now working to change real people opinions (which protests dont do) is a better use of your time. It would have been alot better if all these people had just gone out today and started a conversation with someone and tried to educate them to the advantages of limited government. if everyone of these protesters had done that and convinced just ONE person then their numbers would have doubled- thats pretty powerful. I think this same thinking could be applied to almost any movement. The only time a protest really works is when there are millions and millions of people working together, like when King spoke at the Lincoln memorial.
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Post by AustinHoya03 on Apr 15, 2009 20:13:39 GMT -5
Texas' illustrious Governor and new Drudge darling Rick Perry has been acting like one of the people Janet Napolitano wants watched at these events today. As y'all might have guessed, there is a reason behind his antics: startelegram.typepad.com/politex/2009/02/poll-hutchison-leads-perry-by-25-points.htmlPinning one's electoral hopes to the lunatic fringe is never really a good idea. (Of course, there are a lot of lunatics down here.)
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Post by strummer8526 on Apr 15, 2009 22:44:23 GMT -5
Another seemingly sedate protester, Brian Smith, a marketer from Greenville, S.C., who was in Washington on business and came by the rally, wandered equally off message. "I love my country and I don't like what's going on," Smith said. "Government -- to be honest with you, and this will probably be misquoted, but on 9/11, I think they hit the wrong building. They should have gone into the Capitol building, hit out, knocked out both sides of the aisle, we'd start from scratch, we'd be better off today." I pointed out that "they" did try to hit the Capitol. "Yeah, I know, they missed," he said. "The wrong sequence. If someone had to go, it should have been the Capitol building. On that day I felt differently, but today that's the way I feel."The real genius is that when you get down to what he said, it's, "I love my country, . . . but on 9/11 . . . [t]hey should have gone into the Capitol building, hit out, knocked out both sides of the aisle, we'd start from scratch, we'd be better off today." Wow. I understand he's fringe. I'm just pointing out one of my favorite crackpots of the day. www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/04/16/tea_party/
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Apr 16, 2009 10:15:44 GMT -5
What are the odds, you think, that Brian Smith hasn't voted in an election in the past ten years? 70%, 80% chance?
Whether right or left, articles like these are fun, until you realize that this isn't The Onion. I mean, these are real people. Real people who think the Federal Reserve is stealing their money.
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Cambridge
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Post by Cambridge on Apr 16, 2009 10:44:37 GMT -5
I mean you want media coverage, but when more people like this show up...you just cringe:
Two things I loved -- the conversion to HDTV is a brainwashing initiative and the shouted "Burn the Books!" Just wow. They sound just as wacko as the libtard protests of the last decade. I guess crazy has no political affiliation.
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TC
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Post by TC on Apr 16, 2009 11:05:43 GMT -5
If the conversion to HDTV is Socialist brainwashing, how come Pelosi tried to delay it? I didn't quite get the logic there.
There was so much to love about that clip - that McCarthyism didn't go far enough, that George Soros is a Communist, that no one should send their kids to college because dumb is the new smart....
My favorite part was the lady yelling "This meeting is supposed to be non-partisan!!" when the two guys were mentioning third parties and then nodding like a bobblehead when the guy started talking about Obama and brainwashing.
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Jack
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Post by Jack on Apr 16, 2009 12:32:44 GMT -5
A personal favorite of mine, the following exchange between David Gergen and Anderson Cooper on CNN:
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Apr 16, 2009 12:42:29 GMT -5
I think the fact that network anchors are willing to use and giggle like teenagers about this term on national television is a far bigger sign of the apocalypse than people wearing blue jeans.
Blogs are one thing, but that's pretty ridiculous.
It's Always Sunny? Very funny. The Daily Show? Sure. CNN? Ummm, no.
And don't think for a minute Anderson Cooper didn't know exactly what he was saying. I won't even get into the little children over at MSNBC.
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Bando
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Post by Bando on Apr 16, 2009 12:48:24 GMT -5
I think the fact that network anchors are willing to use and giggle like teenagers about this term on national television is a far bigger sign of the apocalypse than people wearing blue jeans. Blogs are one thing, but that's pretty ridiculous. It's Always Sunny? Very funny. The Daily Show? Sure. CNN? Ummm, no. And don't think for a minute Anderson Cooper didn't know exactly what he was saying. I won't even get into the little children over at MSNBC. Sure, but it surely says something that the tea partiers themselves used the phrase teabagging with liberal abandon. So either they're hopelessly naive as to the general meaning of the word or they're ridiculously crude.
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TC
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Post by TC on Apr 16, 2009 13:03:30 GMT -5
To be fair to Anderson Cooper, it was a wrap-up throwaway comment that was somewhat out-of-character - not the same as a 15-minute Rachel Maddow routine on the word "teabagging". I think it was meant as somewhat of a self-effacing "meta" comment (one of the YouTube replies is Rush Limbaugh going into a whole "Anderson Cooper would know what teabagging is" shpiel, I think Rush is missing the fact that that was part of the joke) :
But your overall point is good - I can't see Dan Rather or Walter Cronkite saying that. Maybe Brokaw - but he'd mush-mouth it and no one would understand what he's saying.
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Cambridge
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Post by Cambridge on Apr 16, 2009 13:04:47 GMT -5
To be fair to Anderson Cooper, it was a wrap-up throwaway comment that was somewhat out-of-character - not the same as a 15-minute Rachel Maddow routine on the word "teabagging". I think it was meant as somewhat of a self-effacing "meta" comment : But your overall point is good - I can't see Dan Rather or Walter Cronkite saying that. Maybe Brokaw - but he'd mush-mouth it and no one would understand what he's saying. All the more humorous considering the rampant rumors regarding his own private life.
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thebin
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Post by thebin on Apr 16, 2009 14:09:07 GMT -5
To be fair to Anderson Cooper, it was a wrap-up throwaway comment that was somewhat out-of-character - not the same as a 15-minute Rachel Maddow routine on the word "teabagging". I think it was meant as somewhat of a self-effacing "meta" comment : But your overall point is good - I can't see Dan Rather or Walter Cronkite saying that. Maybe Brokaw - but he'd mush-mouth it and no one would understand what he's saying. All the more humorous considering the rampant rumors regarding his own private life. Those are not rumors. It's completely open among all NYCers I know that he's out.
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