America Awakes: Reflections on 9/12
One can only imagine that this is what Washington and the rest of the country might look like if the original Jeffersonian trend had not been brutalized by the modern influx of leftist ideologies. In a way, the tea party movement is an effort to revive America’s classic libertarian tradition. That ideal appears to be pretty much out of place in today’s political culture. Even as I’m writing this, the “mainstream” media is dismissing the starry-eyed tea partiers as close-minded racist bigots. In print, on radio waves, and on TV screens, champions of the “liberal” racket are writing off the tea party protests as a shameful inability of white America to accept a black president — as if the desire of individual liberty has anything to do with skin color and as if there exists a race of people that, in the long run, gains anything from a government tyranny.
The extent to which tea parties are being rejected by the media and cultural establishments can be used a yardstick to measure the damage done by the leftist penetration of America’s institutions.
Even the refreshing presence of tea partiers failed to sanitize the sleaze of our hotel’s perfectly shiny lounge with its pretentious, larger-than-life portrait of Barack Obama slotted between the portraits of Gandhi, Nehru, and a handful of other world leaders. The only U.S. president deemed worthy to adorn The Liaison, Obama smiled enigmatically from the dark canvas, as his piercing eye surveyed the rebellious taxpayers gathering at the Hyatt Regency across the street.
The much larger and friendlier Hyatt was bustling with activities. It seemed to be a tea party headquarters, with a welcoming “Tea Party Express” sign at the entrance, crowds in patriotic T-shirts, and buses depositing one group of protesters after another. That evening the Hyatt was hosting a busy sign-making event in a spacious conference room downstairs, which eventually transformed into a boisterous celebration inside the hotel’s airport-sized lobby. All TV screens at the bar and the seating area were tuned to Fox News, as hundreds of upbeat marchers mingled excitedly with a drink in one hand and a poster board in the other, conversing in a jovial manner with complete strangers as if they were old friends, and proudly exhibiting their freshly made signs.
The space at the adjacent liquor bar was so jammed with people that the patrons had to hold their signs high above their heads so they wouldn’t be crushed. As a result the bar crowd looked like an agitated political rally, only it wasn’t going anywhere in particular. Their undisputed leader was the bartender, who provided the logistics for their progress towards the common goal of getting smashed, which seemed to be the only clearly defined agenda. The participants proactively worked on the advancement of that objective, while at the same time raising everyone else’s awareness of the issues. The dreamlike effect could be best summed up with the sign “Government off our backs now,” which kept popping up against the rows of colorful liquor bottles. It was the most surreal drinking party I have ever seen. It was also the friendliest and most relaxed.
On Saturday morning September 12, protesters started gathering at Freedom Plaza two blocks away from the White House, eventually filling the whole of Pennsylvania Avenue all the way to the Capitol. At about the same time President Obama fled Washington to seek reassurance and support from union organizers in Pittsburgh. The president’s helicopter reportedly flew over the gigantic crowd, offering him an eyeful of America’s reaction to his statist agenda — something to mull over on the way to the AFL-CIO Convention.
I was walking all day, taking pictures with my big Sony camera and trying to get to every corner of the rally. The People’s Cube signs and shirts were visible in the crowd and I faithfully documented that. The level of wit, creativity, and theatrics was overwhelming. If a picture is worth a thousand words, consider my tea party gallery an epic novel.
As I stopped to chat with the protesters, people shared with me their joy over the spirit of love, connectedness, and camaraderie that seemed to be sweeping the rally. Maybe not in these exact words, but their tone and lit-up faces suggested that much. No doubt the event was unprecedented.
“It’s like Woodstock, only without the smell,” one man quipped, referring to the massive euphoria that allegedly overcame the three hundred thousand stoned attendees of the 1969 rock festival. That, of course, is more of a myth fabricated by counter-culture marketing entrepreneurs. It can’t be real because nothing real is gained by escaping reality, especially with the help of drugs and outlandish psychobabble. Real love and connectedness can’t be achieved through theft, destruction of private property, and indiscriminate sex with strangers in the mud — all of which was typical of Woodstock.
At this tea party, however, the legendary euphoric spirit was real. Apparently, to experience it in a sober, secular setting is an opportunity open only to those who live by their minds and adhere to true human values.
I wish I could have attended that weekend in DC, but I found myself way out on the left coast on a trip planned more than a year in advance and could not make it.
Part of me promises to make the next DC TEA Party. Part of me hopes we won’t need another one.
The author echos my experience at a local tea party: like-minded patriots calmly protesting against a government that’s ignoring the people it’s supposed to represent.
For many years, we trusted our representatives to handle things for us in Washington while we worked and raised our families. However, along the way, our elected officials became obsessed not with doing the peoples’ will, but gaining power over their fellow citizens and advancing outrageous idealogies. This led to our current class of insulated politicians who hold open disdain for those who dare to speak out against their out-of-touch agenda. One look at the list of upcoming bills is evidence that our “leaders” no longer consider the benefit of a majority of Americans a priority. We now are besieged by lawmakers who are actively working against our best interests as a country and want desperately to diminish our standard of living, while enriching theirs.
Their arrogance has awakened a sleeping giant. The days of unresponsive government are numbered. My tea partying friends are counting them down.
excellent piece …
Thanks, Oleg.
1. Peter the Bubblehead:
“I wish I could have attended that weekend in DC . . . ”
Yeah, me too. But I was busy that day painting my toenails, something I’d had planned for a year. Maybe next time. Meanwhile, thanks, all you marching patriots, all 70,000 of you.
Ah, Now and Then, your ridiculously inaccurate and tired quote of 70,000, one that has been discredited not only by the person who erroneously and unofficially started it, but by every single responsible attempt to calculate the real numbers, is second only to the ridiculously tired progressive agenda our failing president seems to love so much…
It’s a good thing progressives are such silly idealists…the real world will prevent them from truly achieving their goals, and they’re too steeped in their own false religion-of-ideology to see it.
/sigh
What a nice article. Notice the press never went nuts about the peaceful right wing prolifer that was killed?
Or the man who was beaten for carrying a yellow flag?
Or the one who got his finger bitten off?
Or the one who was attacked outside the town hall in NH but ended up on Harball being excoriated because he open carried like so many of us do here in NH?
Journalism is dead.
Oops please correct typo — that should be HARDBALL.
If it takes Nowa and than a year to plan on painting her/his/its toenails, it’s no wonder they have trouble achieving ther goals.
7
Ah, don’t let the idiots get you down. Follow them home from bars when they’re drunk and beat the crap out of them when no one’s looking.
Thomas Sowell has it right,
“Someone recently pointed out how much Barack Obama’s style and strategies resemble those of Latin American charismatic despots — the takeover of industries by demagogues who never ran a business, the rousing rhetoric of resentment addressed to the masses, and the personal cult of the leader promoted by the media. Do we want to become the world’s largest banana republic?”
Obama is a pathological narcissist. His only focus is on Himself. This focus, in his present situation of almost unlimited power, is exponentially increasing. That narcissistic need must be ‘fed’ constantly and with increased attention. He’s on every talk show, late nite show, union-meeting, whatever..all carefully screened and programmed to isolate him from criticism.
His foreign policy is a disaster, including his support for Zelaya, his ignoring democratic desires in Iran, his insults to Western leaders. Faced with real problems, he pontificates – as he’s done with Iran. Or utterly ignores it – as he’s done with Afghanistan.
Internally, his agenda of inserting a socialist infracture into a democratic republic is being attempted within a mass of blatant lies, misinformtion, racial manipulation and a rejection of Congress and the People.
What can we do? Continue to speak out, protest in Tea Partie, write Congress, and vote the Democrats out in 2010.
One negative note. If the tea partiers conclude that all will be well after the Congressional elections in just over a year, they are taking an
awfully large risk on what will happen between now and then.
I challenge any of those tea partiers to contemplate a rival government, so that real power is taken away from those who abuse the power they currently have.
#10.
Please define goals.
There is quite a difference between realistic, responsible goals and socialist goals.
Dear Now and Then,
The simple fact that the Public Rail lines in Washington D.C. showed an exceptionaly high usage for Saturday September 12 2009, by a delta of 210,000 riders, blows that 70,000 nonsense out of the water.
Of course liberals always make up their own facts (or redefine words) for everything they do. So why should you be different.
jd
7. Patrick Sarsfield:
I notice you didn’t offer a number. And I know why. You can’t prove it, whatever it is.
@13, David W. Lincoln:
One civil war was enough, thank you very much. We don’t want to create a new nation, we rise to the urgency of stopping the subvertion of a great nation. We still have the right to vote and freedom of speech, to be used wisely, diligently, and earnestly, and there is no reason to depart from civility.
We are not going ballistic: Barney Frank is the one who’s trying to escape from the grips of ACORN’s gravitational pull. Not bad, for a bunch of unhinged goofballs!
16. No, he didn’t offer a number, but he set a lower limit much higher than your inane report. Based on the fact that most of the TEA party attendees wouldn’t even have ridden the METRO, I’d say considering any number below 500,000 to be absurd. 1 million is reasonable. And FYI, since the march was an all day event, anyone who lived more than a few hours away would have had to spend two nights in DC, which is expensive as well as time consuming. It would have been a good twelve hours for me here in Ann Arbor to get to DC and twelve hours back. Sorry, there’s no way I could do that.
#16 N&T
I’m sure you have proof of the ridiculously low number you claim. They said so on KOS. Effin Idiot.
One civil war was enough, thank you very much. We don’t want to create a new nation, we rise to the urgency of stopping the subvertion of a great nation.
You have about as much chance of convincing the parasites of the country from subverting it as a Northerner had of convincing a Southerner to give up the institution of slavery. It is in the material self-interest of the parasite to remain a parasite. That is why people (and I use the term loosely) like Now and Then will fight to keep parasitism alive and well.
Hmmm, that gives me an idea.
Instead of 1 protest, have 2 or 3 the same weekend. Like Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Support the Troops
Protest Big Government
Support ________
Something everyone can get behind, like fair taxes perhaps. Next time, have better on the ground coverage, and def. find the best vantage points to photograph the crowd.
“… the tea party movement is an effort to revive America’s classic libertarian tradition. ”
Yes, well said! Time for a Libertarian Party to take its place along side the Democrats and Republicans who are both guilty of expanding government in pursuit of their own particular ideological objectives. Government should serve the public with a bare minimum of functions. In order to create any new program, tax, regulation or any other intervention into the private sector or private lives, the need and the cost/benefit must be achingly obvious to nearly everyone. How did we get to this situation where so few are able to control so many? The difference between our system and a monarchy or politburo is only a matter of who is in charge and what keeps them there.
Thanks, Oleg. Another masterpiece.
“The president’s helicopter reportedly flew over the gigantic crowd, offering him an eyeful of America’s reaction to his statist agenda —”
I wish I could’ve been on that flight, watching as Obambi’s bowels turned to water and a cold sweat broke out on his saintly brow . . . . and Michelle cursed the patriots in that special way she has.
The CFR, and Soros will tell Obama to hurry up with the Marxist agenda before these same Americans storm the gates.
Maybe the next Tea party should be in Texas, assuming everybody isn’t down at the free clinic.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/thousands-texans-attend-largest-free-healt
Independence! Patriotism! Secession! Maybe some other time.
It was a great read up until the end where you had to go and take a swipe at Woodstock. It would have been a 5-star piece if you had left out that paragraph.
Deaf Frogs from Now and Then.
Offer free oil changes and see how many people show up.
Does that mean we need oil change reform?
Offer Free family sized pizzas and see how many people show up.
Does that mean we need pizza reform?
The conclusion reminds me of the old joke about the scientest and the frogs. Sometimes people will reach the wrong conclusion no matter how the evidence points to something else.
jd
Oleg, this is the first 9-12 article I’ve read that on some level transported me there. Since I was unable to actually go, I’m very grateful.
OMG, I’m so happy Pajamas got you, dear Oleg! The PEOPLE’S CUBE IS AWSOME! And all the people posting there are as funny as you are. I miss “Bush” in “babushka” though (although it’s still there actualy… weird).
Well, G-d bless you and all your friends from the People’s Cube.
Good article. I wish I could’ve been in DC. I also wish I could’ve been at Woodstock. Alcohol / pot – no big difference. In fact, the true hippies of that time should be appalled at DOH-bamma’s (and King George 2) attempts to push the fedgov monster down our throats. I still (in a way) consider myself to be a hippie and the main tenet to me, of hippiedom, was that the government has no right to tell you how to live your life as long as you are not stepping on the rights of your fellow human being. In other words, hippies did (and should) embrace small government. Leave me the heck alone !!!!
@17. Professor Guvinoff:
With all due respect, given the mess the world is in financially, thanks in large part to putting people in houses they could not afford, and then bundling those toxic deals into securities that just lay waste to portfolios and markets, your response simply isn’t good enough.
If you think the world can wait until a new President is in the Oval Office, then you and those who think like you have a lot to learn about what goes on outside of the United States.
Friends of the United States, like this one who has a Canadian passport and birth certificate, are frankly dismayed with what is going on in Washington, and all that is done to counter it is
tea parties (because whatever the Republicans are
trying to do in the House and Senate makes as much headway as trying to cross a desert in ice skates), what else is there to deal with the coming second wave to swamp banks that hold toxic
instruments that belonged to banks which went under in the first wave, plus the rogue nations laughing at the United States with contempt dripping with the laughter (which, as Michael Ledeen reminds us that Machiavelli says is the most deadly position a tyrant can be in).
Expect the United States to have to deal with a weak hand, like that of Great Britain at the Yalta Conference when the Second World War was winding down, regardless of how much military power the United States has.
Things are happening too fast for an orderly transition of presidencies, so alternatives have
to be looked at. One is an alternative government, namely a government-in-exile that does more than pay lip service, like the current deformed souls with their grubby paws on the levers of power, to what made the United States a force to be reckoned with.
The rest of us, outside the United States, who agreed with what was said in “United we stand” back in 2003 will carry on to do what needs to be done, but we do so with anger and regret knowing what the United States did to itself.
Yes, I am reading the riot act to you, but I figure you deserve it.
Don’t let me, and the rest of the world, down.
Thank you all for your comments. Please don’t forget that this is only Part One. The story was long and had to be split in two parts. So stay tuned for Part Two tomorrow and you won’t be disappointed!
DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS…especially about the 1,700,000 attendees of 9/12:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/19743935/The-Real-Number-of-Protesters-Zac-Moilanen
33. Ed Wallis: “DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS…especially about the 1,700,000 attendees of 9/12….”
Once again it’s the Trolls vs. the A-holes. And Eddy, you must be taking your number from the years-old photo circulated on the web as a photo of the 9/12 rally (it didn’t contain recently constructed monuments). As to the true number, I believe the observer who said, “I’ve seen more people at a Montreal Expos game.”
34. biblio44:
Yes biblio, in actuality, there were less than an Expos game! This 9/12 protest never actually occurred. The photos and all were manufactured by the vast right wing conspiracy using photoshop 7, and you’re right about the old photo too, that was what was doctored.
15. jd:
“Public Rail lines in Washington D.C. showed an exceptionaly high usage for Saturday September 12 2009, by a delta of 210,000 riders, blows that 70,000 nonsense out of the water . . . Of course liberals always make up their own facts (or redefine words) for everything they do. So why should you be different.”
Here you go, from the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority: Sept 12, 2009 Rail ridership 437,624 compared to same day previous year of 362,773, a difference of 74,851. BTW, the 9 12 09 figure was exceed many times recently when no event was occurring in DC. You might want to recalibrate your delta, Gray Squirrel. Wishing don’t make it so.
27. jd:
Offer free health care in Texas and see how many people show up. Does that mean we need health care reform?
http://wsws.org/articles/2009/sep2009/heal-s28.shtml
Stick with frogs, they taste better than the crow you’re eating right now.
Now & Then:
The Tea Party was well over a million at peak density and may have topped 2 million from 9/10 through 9/12, a fact that was reported in several foreign media outlets, given that they don’t have an agenda; as the majority of the US media does. (There’s only one mostly honest TV station, and it’s easy to figure out which one. It’s the one that Dear Leader Mahatma Bama refuses to speak to.)
I could cite the foreign outlets I mentioned, and in fact I started to pull up the links I had bookmarked to do just that.
Then I realized something…
There have been a LOT of heavily photographed events in Washington DC over the past century, and up until the failed “Million Man March”, the Park Service issued official crowd estimates.
The 9/12 tea party was also heavily photographed.
Any HONEST person can simply compare photographs and see for themselves. On the other hand, dishonest people such as yourself will always find some excuse to dismiss the evidence of their own eyes.
Therefore, there really isn’t any good reason to attempt to prove ANYTHING to you. If someone from what you consider to be the “wrong party” told you that the sun was shining at high noon, you’d find a location experiencing a rainstorm and offer it as evidence that the person was a liar.
So basically, your denial is irrelevant.
More importantly, it benefits US. By “us” I mean REAL Americans. I know that you THINK you’re in that category, but you aren’t. WE on the other hand, are. And the truth is, it is to our advantage that you don’t take us seriously.
You see, WE know how big our movement is. YOU and your ilk do NOT.
This is a GOOD thing.
Now you might say, “Hey! Doesn’t the fact that you just TOLD me that negate what you’re saying?”
Hey, right again kid… Can’t get anything past you!
And you, and all the other hippy wannabees at Dumb-O-Craptic Underground, Daily Kooks, Puff-Po and all the other left-wingnut hangouts can go right on laughing at us. That’s suits us just fine.
Keep laughing.
38. Eric:
I’ll keep laughing. You keep lying. Tell me, how did you vote in the Obama Facebook poll? You voted, didn’t you . . . or were you afraid George Orwell would visit you in the night if you clicked “yes”? Don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of chances for a REAL American like you pass up an opportunity to wave your passive aggressive pee pee around?
“You see, WE know how big our movement is. YOU and your ilk do NOT.” So tell me, how big is it? You’re loud and you’re proud. Put a stake in the sand. Make a commitment. How big is your movement? 1 million? 100 million? Eleventy zillion? Stay with Fox News. There just your style. Ignorant. Arrogant. Irrelevant.
33. Ed Wallis:
Hey, Ed, that’s really keen photo-graphy stuff . . . lots of really neat pictures of big crowds . . . everything but the 9/12 event. I think it might have been more persuaive if you’d had photos of that.
Thanks anyway.
There is nothing that Barry Obama and his group of thugs would prefer more than violence in our streets which would givew him the opportunity to declare martial law and suspend all elections. I’m convinced that by early next summer there will be orchestrated violence in the streets of our United States; not caused by proven peaceful patriots such as those who attended on 9/12, but by agents of our underworld government intent on overthrowing this great nation from within. It will be then that the MSM will have one more chance to redeem themselves. Let’s hope they still have some love for a free America. May God bless those who protest in peace. With that being said, if that devious plan is successful, then God bless the protectors of freedom. It’s time to roll…
Great stuff, on to part two!