9-12 Project/Tea Party Express

[Cerise]

The success of the Tea Party movement shows that there's no monopoly on "community organizing."

The cross-country march culminating in DC on Friday turned out over 1 million people against the big spending, big corruption, big government.


A live cam shot showing the estimated crowd:

Issues-based advocates:

9/12 Taxpayer Tea Party March on Washington, DC

 

[Gonz]

Wonder what Obama thought as he exited stage left while the march was taking place? He should have stuck around & brought change & hope.

 

[spike]

Cerise your picture and crowd size has already been debunked as fake. You're spreading more lies.
http://www.osborneink.com/2009/09/teabaggers-lie.html

I watched Beck's show yesterday. It was disgusting and predictable.

Hitleresque propaganda: Check
video showing battles, moon landing, and emotional shit that has nothing to do with anything that follows. Show the morons a bunch of good stuff, rattle 'em up, and now you go fight good health.

Fake cry baby routine: check
Well it's Beck after all

Religious Fear mongering: check
He actually had some idiot on that said the health bill would lead to religious persecution. Really? And then there was the claims that the nation was founded on judeo christianity and christianity is under attack by atheists and other undesirable religions. Geezuz.

Communism bullshit: check
OMG we're fighting commies

Fear, fear, fear: check
I've never seen so much nutcase fear mongering in so short of time.
OMG the atheist, communist, darwanistic, heathens are coming to depopulate the baby boomers and fuck with your god.

I really like how they worked in darwanistic and killing baby boomers in there.
If anyone reading this didn't see it, I'm not exaggerating. Crazy shit.

Bible quotes: check
Something about "a spiritual wickedness in high places". OMG Obama is the antichrist, go assassinate him!

Token black guy: check
Two of them back to back! One specifically to say "they're not racists.

Anyone know where I can watch this again online? I gotta take better notes on these psychos.

 

[Gonz]

Communism bullshit: check
OMG we're fighting commies

How is the curent direction of our nation not related to communism?

State run companies. CHECK

Government Health Care. CHECK (in process)

Share the wealth. CHECK

Are we currently, or immediately in danger of becoming a communist nation? No. Is the path being created? Yes. I believe that it was Breznev that said incrimentalism will turn us into commies. He was right.

 

[Altron]

OMG Obama is the antichrist, go assassinate him!

The truth comes out. The house of lies you have been building over the past 3 years has fallen - you have now admitted that you were wrong!

Meh, I didn't really see the museum or lack thereof as being concrete evidence - the photos are from different elevations, and there's definitely buildings in all the right places. I didn't see anything in the inaugural photo that wasn't in the 'fake' photo. And the last 2 photos in the OP look either real, or very well photoshopped, since the signs are correct for the subject of the protest, and they're definitely by the capital building.

 

[spike]

Everything is fear of communism to some nuts. It used to be not segregating whites and blacks was communism.

These nutbags don't even know what communism is. It's a fear tactic. You try to argue by name calling and it's childish.

Pot luck dinners would be communism by your irrational logic. Or barn raisings, or fire and police departments, or federal roads. Why don't you give this babble a rest rationally discuss shit without the name calling drama queen slippery slope crap.

Maybe you can respond to the rest of the nutjobbery that I saw last night.

Hey look below, there's even an "antichrist" sign. You guys haven't changed your gameplan in quite awhile.

 

[spike]

ABCNews.com reported an approximate figure of 60,000 to 70,000 protesters, attributed to the Washington, D.C., fire department. In its reports, ABC News Radio described the crowd as "tens of thousands."

Not surprising that Cerise fell for the vastly inflated lie.

 

[spike]

I'm going to start saying Republican are on the slippery slope to Straussianism. It's more fitting. Especially with the Beck nonsense.

It is now commonly acknowledged that numerous key players in and around the Bush administration''s planning of the Iraq invasion were connected through a common background in the political philosophy of Leo Strauss, a German-born University of Chicago professor who died in 1973. These Straussian neocons were held responsible for exploiting the September 11th attacks in order to further their own foreign policy agenda. Cloaked in Virtue is the first book to take a critical view of the political ideas of Leo Strauss himself by careful attention to his own writings before and after his emigration to the United States. The result is a critical examination of the political theory of Leo Strauss, lifting the veil of intentional obfuscation, and its influence on the neoconservative foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration.

http://www.buy.com/prod/republican-...d-the-american-regime/q/loc/106/31206428.html

Strauss noted that thinkers of the first rank, going back to Plato, had raised the problem of whether good and effective politicians could be completely truthful and still achieve the necessary ends of their society. By implication, Strauss asks his readers to consider whether it is true that noble lies have no role at all to play in uniting and guiding the polis. Are myths needed to give people meaning and purpose and to ensure a stable society? Or can men dedicated to relentlessly examining, in Nietzsche's language, those "deadly truths," flourish freely? Thus, is there a limit to the political, and what can be known absolutely? In The City and Man, Strauss discusses the myths outlined in Plato's Republic that are required for all governments. These include a belief that the state's land belongs to it even though it was likely acquired illegitimately and that citizenship is rooted in something more than the accidents of birth. Seymour Hersh observes that Strauss endorsed noble lies: myths used by political leaders seeking to maintain a cohesive society.[4][5]
Prominent critic of Strauss Shadia Drury says that Strauss believed that dissembling and deception "is the peculiar justice of the wise", and while Plato believed that his Noble lie was based on a moral good, "Strauss thinks that the superiority of the ruling philosophers is an intellectual superiority and not a moral one (Natural Right and History, p. 151)." and then as she puts it: "Strauss is the only interpreter who gives a sinister reading to Plato, and then celebrates him."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_lie

 

[Gonz]

Says Strausses daughter.

“He was a conservative insofar as he did not think that change is necessarily for the better,”

I can go for that. It sounds as if this UMass professor has an agenda to push (a book to sell)
http://www.logosjournal.com/xenos.htm

 

[spike]

Yes, Strauss encouraged leaders lying to the people for their own good. I've seen that you do like that kind of thing.

There is a certain irony in the fact that the chief guru of the neoconservatives is a thinker who regarded religion merely as a political tool intended for the masses but not for the superior few. Leo Strauss, the German Jewish émigré who taught at the University of Chicago almost until his death in 1973, did not dissent from Marx’s view that religion is the opium of the people; but he believed that the people need their opium. He therefore taught that those in power must invent noble lies and pious frauds to keep the people in the stupor for which they are supremely fit.

Not all the neoconservatives have read Strauss. And those who have rarely understand him, for he was a very secretive thinker who expressed his ideas with utmost circumspection. But there is one thing that he made very clear: liberal secular society is untenable. Religion is necessary to provide political society with moral order and stability. Of course, this is a highly questionable claim. History makes it abundantly clear that religion has been a most destabilizing force in politics—a source of conflict, strife, and endless wars. But neoconservatives dogmatically accept the view of religion as a panacea for everything that ails America.

Using religion as a political tool has two equally unsavory consequences. First, when religious beliefs become the guide for public policy, the social virtues of tolerance, freedom, and plurality are undermined, if they are not extinguished altogether. Second, the use of religion as a political tool encourages the cultivation of an elite of liars and frauds who exempt themselves from the rules they apply to the rest of humanity. And this is a recipe for tyranny, not freedom or democracy.

It sure helped get us into Iraq

Strauss thought that the best way for ordinary human beings to raise themselves above the beasts is to be utterly devoted to their nation and willing to sacrifice their lives for it. He recommended a rabid nationalism and a militant society modelled on Sparta. He thought that this was the best hope for a nation to be secure against her external enemies as well as the internal threat of decadence, sloth, and pleasure. A policy of perpetual war against a threatening enemy is the best way to ward off political decay. And if the enemy cannot be found, then it must be invented.

For example, Saddam Hussein was an insignificant tyrant in a faraway land without the military power to threaten America. And he wasn’t allied with the Islamic fundamentalists who attacked the World Trade Center in 2001. But the neoconservatives who control the White House managed to inflate the threat to gargantuan proportions and launched the nation into a needless war. Even though they are not hardcore Straussians, neoconservatives share Strauss’s view that wealth, freedom, and prosperity make people soft, pampered, and depraved. And, like Strauss, they think of war as an antidote to moral decadence and depravity. And this should make us wonder if they purposely launched the nation into a needless war because they were convinced of the salutary effects of war as such.

...............

The fact that so many of the most powerful men in America are self-proclaimed disciples of Leo Strauss is rather troublesome. For example, Abram Shulsky, the director of the Office of Special Plans, which was created by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, was a student of Strauss. Shulsky was responsible for finding intelligence that would help to make the case for war in Iraq. We know now that the intelligence was false and misleading. Shulsky tells us that he learned from Strauss that “deception is the norm in political life.”10 But deception cannot be the norm in public life without subverting democracy and robbing people of the opportunity to deliberate freely in light of the facts

I know you guys are all about this one.

Strauss endorsed Machiavellian tactics in politicsænot just lies and the manipulation of public opinion but every manner of unscrupulous conduct necessary to keep the masses in a state of heightened alert, afraid for their lives and their families and therefore willing to do whatever

was deemed necessary for the security of the nation. For Strauss as for Machiavelli, only the constant threat of a common enemy could save a people from becoming soft, pampered, and depraved. Strauss would have admired the ingenuity of a color code intended to inform Americans of the looming threats and present dangers, which in turn makes them more than willing to trade their liberty for a modicum of security.

http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=drury_24_4

 

[spike]

Fear

Fear

Fear

Fear

 

[Cerise]

Cerise your picture and crowd size has already been debunked as fake. You're spreading more lies.
http://www.osborneink.com/2009/09/teabaggers-lie.html

Is "debunked" your favorite word?

I was offline for most of the afternoon and early evening — and just learned that the nutroots are claiming that the screenshot of the 9/12 march in D.C. that I posted — taken from a livecam of the event that I linked to here — is somehow “fake.”

The claim is that the shot came from the Kennedy procession or a previous left-wing protest and that the flag at half-mast proves that it was “fake.”

Newsflash for the clueless: Flags were still at half-mast earlier today in honor of the murder victims of the 9/11 jihadi attacks.

Guess the 9/11-was-an-inside jobbers are still that much in denial.

Unbelievable.

9/12 Protest Washington DC Time Lapse Footage 0800 - 1130


Strange how the librul nutbag site you link to has a photo they "claim" is from the same camera, but it doesn't have street location and source at the bottom of the screen. Even stranger yet is the fact that the flag is fully raised, the day after 9-11, when flags, especially in DC, would be at half-mast.


This link refers to the day the Messiah was crowned, and how the Ntl. Park Service estimated the inaugural crowd attendance.

It is not an unreasonable to use the Ntl Park Service's estimates as guide to use for judging crowds in the Ntl. Mall.

If the National Mall is densely packed from Third Street to the Washington Monument, and if the area from the monument to the Lincoln Memorial has an average density, the space could contain 1.5 million people, Barna said. Average density is one person per 5 square feet. A tightly packed crowd has a density of one person per 2.5 square feet, an area slightly larger than this newspaper.

This conservative mob thing is just gonna blow over. Yeah, that's it.

 

[Cerise]

Fear

The only smell of fear that day was coming from 0bongo as he skipped out of town.

 

[spike]

FreedomWorks Makes Shit Up, Michelle Malkin Uncritically Repeats It, Wingnuts Uncritically Link to Malkin — Then Blame Media

By: Blue Texan Sunday September 13,
2009 11:30 am
Here's a fascinating little case study in wingnut BS transmitting.

The Anchor Baby got the ball rolling.

Police estimate 1.2 million in attendance. ABC News reporting crowd at 2 million — tweets Tabitha Hale from D.C.

Teeny, tiny fringe, huh?

Wingnut bloggers from Glenn Reynolds to the Pajamas putzen to Newsbustards start jerking off excitedly link to the Anchor Baby.

Estimates for crowd sizes are starting to come in. We're talking at least a million people, folks.

Wingnut "experts" confirm the Anchor Baby's "reporting" with super-scientific analyses.

I did a back-of-envelope based on the photos and reports. A pretty dense crowd is about 1.8 people per square meter, and the National Mall alone is about 125 hectares, 1.25 million square meters. So that would be 2.3 million people.

Wingnut BS is then, rather predictably, exposed as total BS.

Conservative activists, who organized a march on the U.S. Capitol today in protest of the Obama administration's health care agenda and government spending, erroneously attributed reports on the size of the crowds to ABC News.

Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, the group that organized the event, said on stage at the rally that ABC News was reporting that 1 million to 1.5 million people were in attendance.

At no time did ABC News, or its affiliates, report a number anywhere near as large. ABCNews.com reported an approximate figure of 60,000 to 70,000 protesters, attributed to the Washington, D.C., fire department. In its reports, ABC News Radio described the crowd as "tens of thousands."

Wingnuts, with egg on their faces, blame media.

I’ve been talking all night to people who are there and involved. The 2 million number was generated by the media, but truly seems to be a gross inflation of what is there.

Damn liberal media. Always exaggerating the size of right-wing protests, just to discredit wingnuts.

Thers has more.

http://firedoglake.com/2009/09/13/f...uncritically-link-to-malkin-then-blame-media/

That conservatard nutbag with the site you linked to is pretty mad for being found out huh?

 

[spike]

The only smell of fear that day was coming from 0bongo as he skipped out of town.

Nope, it's all over their signs for everyone to see. They must reek of it.

 

[Cerise]

A million march to US Capitol to protest against 'Obama the socialist'

As many as one million people flooded into Washington for a massive rally organised by conservatives claiming that President Obama is driving America towards socialism.

The size of the crowd - by far the biggest protest since the president took office in January - shocked the White House.

 

[spike]

Looks like another outlet picked up on the lie.

approximate figure of 60,000 to 70,000 protesters, attributed to the Washington, D.C., fire department

OOPS!

Anti-war protests were getting 100's of thousands.

ABC fights back against Tea Party protest size falsehoods


ABC News has released a news report saying it was "misquoted" on the size of the Tea Party protest that took place Saturday in Washington, DC.

The network says that, at some point during the protest, FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe -- the head of the organization that organized the demonstration -- stood before the crowd and announced that ABC News had said the crowd at the protest was between one million and 1.5 million people.

ABC said no such thing. As Josh Marshall reported at TalkingPointsMemo, the fire department estimated the crowd at 60,000 to 70,000 people -- a "respectable" size, but nowhere near the order of magnitude that ABC says Kibbe claimed.

All the same, Kibbe's claim spread like wildfire during the day. From Kibbe's mic it went to right-wing activist Tabitha Hale's Twitter account -- where, somehow, the number grew again, this time to 2 million -- and from there it made it to conservative writer Michelle Malkin's blog. Once it appeared there, there was no stopping it, and the claim was repeated at numerous --mostly right-wing -- blogs.

"Conservative activists, who organized a march on the U.S. Capitol today in protest of the Obama administration's health care agenda and government spending, erroneously attributed reports on the size of the crowds to ABC News," ABC News reported.

"In its reports, ABC News Radio described the crowd as 'tens of thousands,' ABC said.

http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/09/abc-fights-back-protest-size/

 

[Cerise]

That conservatard nutbag with the site you linked to is pretty mad for being found out huh?

Yeah, what does the National Parks Service know about crowds at the National Mall, anyway?

 

[spike]

Did they estimate this crowd? No.

But the fire department did. What do they know about it anyway?

 

[spike]

Tens of thousands of protesters fed up with government spending marched to the U.S. Capitol on Saturday

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32811199/ns/politics-more_politics/