Just follow Moe Lane’s handy tips, cross-posted on his own blog and at Red State.org:
- Figure out which professional agitation group typically runs faux-populist demonstrations in your area.
- Subscribe to their email list and/or website.
- DO NOT ENGAGE THEM IN CONVERSATION AND/OR DISCUSSION. You merely want to keep up with what they’re doing.
- When they announce a protest, note the time and date.
- Contact your local, actual conservative grassroots group.
- On the day of the event, swamp them ten to one. (Via Instapundit)
- Nicely.
- Politely.
- Smile a lot.
- Bring cameras
. Because they’re going to violate 7, 8, & 9 themselves, and you want that recorded.
I can certainly vouch for step number ten. Here’s more Moe:
These groups use strategic camera shots, a largely disinterested local press looking for local color, and a general lack of counter-protesters to come across as more powerful and effectual than they actually are. Right now they can get away with getting twenty people out to a local event and calling it “grassroots activism.” Make it clear that they’re ridiculously outnumbered, and they’ll have to start spending more and more resources to accomplish their goals, such as they are.
Moe Lane
PS: None of this should stop people from having their own protests, of course. But counter-protests are much easier to put together… if you have the people to do it. We do. They don’t.
Moe writes of “a largely disinterested local press looking for local color”, but if there’s a protest group they’re sympathetic to, the legacy media will go out of their way to stage shots for the news, as Tom Wolfe mentioned in an interview 21 years ago, referring back to his days as a workaday newspaper journalist in the 1960s:
Well, one of the things is what I would call “media ricochet”, which is the way real life and life as portrayed by television, by journalists like myself and others, begin ricocheting off of one another. That’s why to me, in Bonfire of the Vanities, it was so important to show exactly how this occurs when television and newspaper coverage become a factor in something like racial politics. And a good bit of the book has to do with this curious phenomenon of how demonstrations, which are a great part of racial and ethnic politics, exist only for the media. In the last days when I was working on The New York Herald-Tribune, I’ll never forget the number of demonstrations I went to and announced that to all the people with the placards, “I’m from The New York Herald-Tribune,” and the attitude was really a yawn, and then, “Get lost”. They were waiting for Channel 2 and Channel 4 and Channel 5, and suddenly the truck would appear and these people would become galvanized. On one occasion I even saw a group of demonstrators down in Union Square, marching across the Square, and Channel 2 arrived, a couple of vans, and the head of the demonstration walked up to what looked like the head man of the TV crew and said, “What do you want us to do?” He says, “Golly, I don’t know. What were you going to do?” He says, “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. You tell us.”
In contrast, faced with a Tea Party, the legacy media will cover that protest only grudgingly, then attempt to smear them as extremists, as we’ve seen from the credibility meltdowns by Susan Roesgen and Anderson Cooper regarding the April 15th Tea Parties. On the other hand, the sheer numbers that Moe refers to can make those efforts look silly, which helps to explain more recent outburts from CNN journalists such as this.
Good tips: We used a similar strategy a few years ago. The klan (yes the klan) was going to hold their second rally in our fair Alabama town. The local newspaper which covered their first rally the previous year noted that their photo investigation found almost everyone at the event was from northern Indiana. The previous years event was marked with tv news coverage of tight camera shots of robed and nazi dressed members spliced with shots of police looking on. It made the event seem much larger than it was.
In preparation for the second year event we talked with local churches, law enforcement and the local media. While they were still allowed to have their ‘protest’ and the media still showed up, they were relegated to a barren parking lot of a closed down supermarket. No counter protest happened as local groups had agreed just to host a ‘friendship day’ at the major park. While the media still covered the rally, all of their camera footage was taken from the far end of the parking lot. When seen on television the whole scene looked like 12-13 people.
Those damn racist yankees haven’t been back since.
Unfortunately the American press is largely a propaganda industry.
Sometimes they’ll they’ll “inflate” just to sell papers, but any “progressive”/leftist group, they’re a free PR division.
Long shots expose the true size of groups, so make sure someone with a camera is positioned to take wide-angle shots.
I’m actually surprised ACORN supports health care, as the more deaths there are, the more potential ACORN voter registrations.
The San Antonio Tea Party has already done some counter-protests, with very gratifying results, turning out equal numbers or more. The ironic thing is that we only got news coverage when Moveon was there. For our mass protest on July 17th, where we turned out 40-50 demonstrators in front of every local office of our senators and representatives? Nope. And this on the day when the Tea Parties were protesting across the nation. It was almost as if the traditional news media didn’t really want to see it happening, didn’t want to acknowledge what was happening right under their noses.
Cancel your newspaper subscriptions. No profit – no propaganda.
Maybe UNEMPLOYED journos will join ACORN, but we don’t care.
SUPPORT EACH OTHER AGAINST TYRANNY.
There is no doubt that the media have taken a side. I live in a small mountain town in central Colorado. On the day of the first major Tea Party here, April 15, there were 200+ people demonstrating at the park at the intersection of the highway and our main cross street. This location is where anything political happens here. When a candidate gathers a half dozen supporters there, it is front page news. 200 is an amazing turnout.
Our local paper is owned by Lehman Communications, which in turn is owned by a larger Texas-based newspaper chain. When one of the Tea Party organizers talked to the editor before April 15; he was told that orders had come down from Texas not to cover anything to do with the Tea Party because: “Protesting about taxes is rebellion against the lawful government.”.
We had more at the July 4th Tea Party, including a candidate for state office who was braving the wrath of the state Republican party by supporting the Tea Party. Not one word or picture by the local paper. Mind you there were pictures taken. There were 4 men with cameras with long lenses taking pictures of us from different angles from across the street from the park.
It is pretty apparent that there is eventually going to be some sort of physical reaction from the government and Obama’s supporters. Moe Lane’s comments about bringing cameras and lawyers are on point. Because things are going to get nasty. At which point our papers, including our local one, will print whatever the government line is.
I have recommended that any constituent meeting by any Congress-critter or Senator be attended by large numbers of Tea Party people with specific questions from the Cap and Tax and Healthcare bills. I won’t fill Mr. Driscoll’s bandwidth with suggestions, but the first 1018 pages of H.R. 3200 is available from Congress at thomas.loc.gov; as is the Cap and Tax. One could also ask them why we are sending them to DC, when they vote on bills that nobody, including they or their staffs, have read.
Eventually, at either public demonstrations or at constituent meetings you are going to see ACORN/COI, gang members, and/or union thugs assaulting citizens. Bring cameras, bring tape recorders [including to tape what the Congress-critter and staff says at the meetings,] bring lawyers, be prepared for what will happen. You will need the documentation, because as far as the media and government are concerned, it is the people who are the problem.
Subotai Bahadur
Subotai, let me guess — your local paper is owned by Belo.
Your advice is both chilling and all too realistic.
#8 Oh,bother:
I checked, and Belo thankfully does not own anything in Colorado.
“chilling and all too realistic”
Sadly, that is an apt description of where the country is heading. I had planned to have a relatively quiet retirement, and have a good chance of dying peacefully in bed surrounded by multiple generations of descendents. Somehow, I think the odds have shifted in the last few years.
#9 TheRealityIs
Sorry, it wasn’t Ryan. If he is a Navy Vet, that’s points in his favor. Our County Chair [I still can say "our" because I have not yet told the Republicans to shove it, but the day is getting closer.] is running for the state senate. He is a decent sort, and totally unlike the self-serving egoists normally put in that job. He supports the Tea Parties, and that does not go over at all well with the “Owens/Wadham/Beauprez Colorado Country Club GOP”. That group of lops tried to unseat our incumbent Congressman, Doug Lamborn, because he is an unrepentent conservative. He was the incumbent, and the state party froze him out of his own nominating convention by refusing to give him the names of the elected delegates and alternates. He had to petition to get on the primary ballot. They tried to replace him with someone named Jeff Crank, who at the convention in his acceptance speech promised to reach across the aisle to work with the Democrats. I’ve never before heard a nominee get loudly booed by the convention that just nominated him. Lamborn slaughtered him in the primary.
Doug is one of the good guys. He has voted against all of that scheiss and fights them tooth and nail. He is short, soft-spoken, and has a streak of stubborn about principles a mile wide.
Subotai Bahadur
“…they’ll have to start spending more and more resources to accomplish their goals…”
Er, their “resources” are from us courtesy of our Dear Leader on behalf of you and me. He “stimulates” ACORN (whatever its newest name is) with hundreds of millions of our “stimulus” money. When the money finally shows up in time for the 2010 election, they will bus their agitators (or even fly them since they have our “resources”) from all over the country, and will out number you at least 100 to 1. May be it is time for us to file our names with them as professional agitators to make a quick buck in this “Greatest Recession”. The Greatest Recession provides the greatest opportunity for the politicians to fleece us sheeples.
Moe Lane is an ignorant asshole. In other words, he’s a conservative Republican.
Ed: Now that’s tolerance for diversity!
What role and how much more taxpayer monies will be handed to ACORN or an affiliate in this proposed legislation , both in Cap and Trade and Health care whatever it is called today ?
To those die hard lib posters , keep telling yourself its the Repubs , we Independents are enjoying assisting Repubs and 17 % of your own Party in backing up and down your leader on this , at least he is smart enough to read polls , and knows he is losing the battle , thats why he is giving in on a public option . Don’t be loyal to a Party be loyal to America and Americans . America never failed us , politicians did and are .