Anyone else faintly chilled at the numbers of people at the Beck rally?

[riderinthestorm]

I have to admit to being astonished that this many people showed up. And paid.

The Tea Party movement has gone from attracting a few fringe elements at any one gathering, to many, many thousands at the Mall in under 2 years.

With Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin and Dick Armey out front, and Fox News throwing their (not inconsiderable) media weight behind it.

They've done this without any real, solid "issues", just co-opting fairly nebulous things like "freedom", "liberty", "smaller government", "support the troops", "God!", as well as just plain old opposition to this Admin of course - paraded under the banner of these other issues but mostly just disguised racism. They've adopted a flag (the Gadsden flag) and are armed.

I'm reminded of Gandhi's quote: "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."

We've exhorted ourselves to ignore Sarah Palin! (well, not me per se - I've always believed she was dangerous from the first moment she stepped on stage), we've ridiculed all of these people. But the movement is surely growing. And it's clearly serious. Are we at the stage where we have to (verbally) "fight" them? I believe we are. Their fascist ideals are deeply troubling and need to be confronted.

But where does that leave us on Gandhi's time line? An obvious rhetorical question but I'm worried. I don't like the "drift" that's occurring in this segment of the population - the ones who are susceptible to this kind of inflammatory rhetoric, the GW Bush 25%ers plus some (racists etc.).

[Skittles]

1. doesn't surprise me at all

there's a lot of stupid, racist people in America, and Obama's presidency is like a light being turned on and all the cockroaches being seen; the only difference now is the cockroaches have leaders

[JuniperLea]

10. And benefactors with deep pockets

Busing people in took a lot of money and organization. We will probably never see the real numbers on cost and how much money trickled down to the charity.

[undeterred]

2. Not really.

Do these people vote? Do they work on campaigns? Do they have people in Congress who represent their views? Will they?

There are a lot of disturbed nonsensical people in this country and its only natural that they would be inspired by Beck and Palin.

[spanone]

3. television is a powerful medium....that's what makes faux so dangerous

[ProgressiveEconomist]

9. Yes--the real thing to be scared of is RWTV. Today was like a Hannah Montana

concert for adult morons who feel compelled to watch an hour a day of Beck's non-sequiturs on Fox "News".

What really scares me is what the morons will do on Election Days this November and into the future.

Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes have found a way to create moronic zombies who'll vote against their own interests. And it involves kaleidoscopic bright colors and repetition, repetition, and repetition.

[bluestateguy]

4. No

.

[w8liftinglady]

5. maybe you have to live in a Klan neighborhood.I was.

[PDJane]

6. leaves me feeling faintly ill, truthfully........

to think that there are that many people who want to go back in time to a kind of America that never was.

[guitar man]

7. Not really

Assuming there were 90k people there, that's 0.0003% of the population of the US. Pretty small potatoes actually.

[seattleblue]

35. If you play with statistics like that any rally by anyone is "small potatoes"

BTW your math is wrong. It would be .03%.

[liberal N proud]

8. See America the Ignorant an article by Newsweek

http://www.newsweek.com/photo/2010/08/24/dumb-things-americans-believe.html

Obama is a Muslim

Evolution

Witchcraft

Death Panels

Saddam Hussein - 9/11 and WMD (still)

That the sun revolved around the Earth

History of Religion (there is only one right?)

Supreme Court and the Seven Dwarfs

World Geography (if it isn't in their back yard, they don't have a clue)

Three Branches of Government and the Three Stooges

Freedom of Religion (you can worship any way you like as long as it is the same as me)

http://www.newsweek.com/photo/2010/08/24/dumb-things-americans-believe.html

Yes, I can believe that many morons follow Beck and will do what ever he tells them to do!

[CrownPrinceBandar]

53. That was scary.......

The heliocentrism one was the most astonishing.

[tavalon]

11. There is anger in our country

Unfocused anger. Beck is attempting to cash in on that anger by telling people what they are angry about. Many people have more money than sense in these troubled times, it seems.

[amandabeech]

32. Unfortunately, as more people have less money, Beck may end up looking better.

People with secure jobs and secure homes are too happy to hate.

Of course, the right wing is happy to spend money encouraging hate instead of hiring people here, but that's not going to calm anyone down.

Many historians believe that the economic crisis in Germany in the '20s and early '30s contributed greatly to the rise of Hitler.

Somebody better send Obama, Summer and Geithner a book about the period.

[Blue Meany]

12. It's nothing compared to the anti-war rallies that preceeded

the invasion of Iraq, though you would never know that from the TV coverage. Still, it was a respectable number and I would have felt better if were tiny.

[xultar]

13. They kept saying it was going to be hundreds of thousands. I'm more concerned

about the ones who are hiding and agree.

[riderinthestorm]

14. And that's a big point. So 300K show up, what percentage of the US is home agreeing?

We don't have accurate numbers but face it, there were a LOT of people there. Diminishing those numbers because WE want them to be small, is dishonest and is a huge disservice to those who need to truly understand what we're facing.

These are the folks who are really motivated. The ones who will phone bank, knock on doors, be messiahs for the Tea Party cause. And there are a hell of a lot more of them than I thought there would be 2 years down the road from Sarah Palin's nomination.

This movement is real. These people are ANGRY and ARMED. They have charismatic "leaders" (cough), they have $$ (Koch brothers and Rupert Murdoch), they have a media outlet (Fox News) that amplifies their news. I don't like it one bit.

[Bgno64]

16. Absolutely,

the movement is growing in numbers - but as you said, what's it really about? Has it actually articulated any real agenda besides these nebulous concepts, freedom, honor?

The Koch/Fox agenda, of course, is lower taxes, less regulation - things that will directly impact these people's lives. They like to think it'll just be the sponging minorities who will be affected, will have to go out and get a job etc. But what will happen is this: They'll vote for certain candidates, a certain agenda that will impoverish THEM. And then they will FURTHER blame progressives/liberals/minorities etc. for their own impoverishment, because Koch money/Fox's cable signal will continue to shape their perceptions.

[Hannah Bell]

17. 300K? i don't think so.

[proud2BlibKansan]

21. Aerial photos say 80,000

[Hannah Bell]

28. that would be nearer my guess.

[Bluenorthwest]

29. That sounds about right

And not that impressive for free show with a few famous people in it. Central Park has seen large numbers, and this link is very interesting about recent actual headcounts vs estimates past.

http://www.newyorkhistoryblog.com/2008/07/historic-central-park-concert-numbers.html

[Steely_Dan]

41. Exactly Right!

We do ourselves a huge disservice by trying to minimize the numbers. These people are the dedicated ones. They will go the extra mile and then some. We had better be honest. No fear card being played here. It's just the truth and a truth that we better face now.

-P

[Caretha]

15. no, not even slightly

There will be alot of buyers remorse from the Pee Baggers rally today. They weren't able to get their mojo on, and are scratching their heads about now, and talking to the "little lady" about how much they spent to attend this non-event.

[riderinthestorm]

18. I live near Chicago. I've been to a LOT of anti-war rallies

both locally in my home town, and in Chicago.

We desperately want "numbers", and we will convince ourselves of them in order to justify our attendance.

For me, personally, I don't care how many showed up. I know I did and I'm satisfied that I did my part. But I'm an idealogue, a partisan, a person who cares. Frankly, these people are the same. They won't even think about "buyer's remorse", they are THERE baby. There is a mojo for the tea party movement and they are convinced they are "right" (heh). They are the ones who will be passionate about getting out there to spread the gospel.

We may believe their rally was "little", or stupid, or shallow, or that Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin weren't inspiring. But these folks don't care about that imho. They spent bucks to show up and so they are now full fledged members of that tribe. There are too many of them to dismiss. I'm worried.

[Caretha]

45. You are comparing

apples to oranges. You had a defined cause when you attended anti-war rallies. You also had a defined idea of action to support that cause, ie, end the wars & bring troops home.

Please pray tell what the people attending this rallies cause was/is and what action do they want to influence?

Liberty? From what? The government? Government is not going away and they certainly can't overthrow it or replace it.

The right to practice their religion? No one is stopping them, so therefore there is no line of action that needs to be taken....Oh wait, Beck told them to get on their knees and pray with their door open so their children can see them. And that will accomplish what? Less government, more liberty, show they are honorable? How?

They weren't even allowed to carry their hate filled mis-spelled signs.

Hate is all they got riderinthestorm, and to keep that flame of hate burning, you have to feed the fire. Palin, Beck and the rest of them are on notice. Their attempts to cause hate and dissent have already had an effect, and it's called mindless violence. If they continue to cross the line, and cause more mindless violence, they will get the finger of accusation pointed at them in a very serious manner.

Go ahead and be worried, but this so called "movement" is going to do little more than divide the GOP, that's not to the parties benefit, and the Big Boys that are really in control know it.

[lib2DaBone]

19. They are trying to escape the Stench of G.W. Bush....

.. They are aware that their man Bush ran the entire country into the ground.

They know that their Republican party is devoid of Ideas and logic.

They are desperate to regain a foothold.. some semblance of reality.. in their broken miserable world.

The Teabaggers know what they are doing.. they are RUNNING away from the Republicans... but evrytimne they look in the mirror... there they are...the same stinking rotten human beings as before.

[Brickbat]

20. Out of 310 million? No.

[underpants]

22. No, he has the #1 news network in the country promoting the hell out of him

he should be able to scare up 100,000,000 or whatever it was

[GoCubsGo]

52. Yep.

With an audience that size, 87K was the best he could do? And, from what I understand, they bused a bunch of those in themselves.

[UTUSN]

23. The "UP" side of the BecKKKers for us

is that that audience was TOTALLY DISAPPOINTED in what they saw up there on the stage. The C-SPAN cameras pans of the crowd showed them all being DISAPPOINTED and bored, the tall bearded White dudes in ballcaps (their prized demographic) STARING DOWN AT THEIR FEET while all the minorities on the stage were doing their rousing things. What little arm waving there was was really embarrassing. The OLD White ones in wheelchairs and lawnchairs stared stonily ahead.

[riderinthestorm]

26. I really hope so but I don't discount reality-disconnect.

No matter how disappointed these folks are with THIS performance, they are still hard core believers in the Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin motif. They don't care how much this rally may have sucked, that doesn't diminish their belief in the "cause".

I put out there about my own experience with the anti-war rallies - no matter how many came to those (and every year it was diminishing numbers), I was a hard core believer. Which translated into a really pro-active person for my local poilticians, for Barack Obama etc. These folks are fervent. They have real numbers, and they are motivated.

[Caretha]

49. What cause?

What is their cause? What are they protesting? What is the outcome they would like to see from their protests? What is there plan of action? :shrug:

[riderinthestorm]

51. Valid questions. All of them.

Unfortunately, it appears that Tea Partiers like to shift the goal posts on the answers to suit themselves. And as has been reported in the news several times, these followers aren't quibbling over policy differences - they're just angry. I'd like to believe they actually HAVE policy answers but I'm thinking a lot of their anger is really over the fact that a black man is in office - that's the real crux of the matter. Their issues are more or less, a cover for racism.

But to try to get specific:
1. What cause? As far as I can tell, it's "smaller government". No "socialized government". More "God" in government - the Christian God of course.

2. What are they protesting? This Admin and it's "overreach". The TARP bailout is almost universally (incorrectly) "blamed" on Obama, Wall St. bailouts, the health insurance "reform" (cough).

3. What is the outcome they would like to see from their protests? The installation of more "Tea Party" candidates to office who (they presume) will do their bidding. For their first shot out of the box at influencing national campaigns, they are doing damn well. Too damn well for my liking. I HATE that any Tea Party candidate is even close to winning, let alone several. Now will the people they elect actually advocate for smaller government, less taxes, etc. etc.? I doubt it - they will fall into the Congressional trough right along with their compadres already in office but the more candidates this movement is successful in electing, the more "powerful" they become.

4. What is their plan of action? For Koch or Rupert Murdoch who are funding this or the peons they have on the streets? For Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck? I believe ALL of the elements that make up this movement have very different agendas that aren't stated up front. Even the peons are probably split on a variety of different ideas of what they want to happen - from the racists who simply want to see Obama gone, to the dimwits who oppose HCR. That's why they have adopted such a vague platform of "issues" that's presented under their "Don't Tread On Me" flag, backed up by guns. The issues can be anything they want really. A gun is persuasive like that.

[elocs]

24. no

But when you say "anyone else" it is very highly likely that there will be someone else. So the "anyone" in your subject question is pretty useless.

[Hubert Flottz]

25. I hope it was loud enough to wake up Obama's "Brain"

Bipartisanship with political gangsters is total bullshit!

[riderinthestorm]

27. Heh. Okay, a shameless kick but your post is spot on. nt

[XanaDUer]

48. Ditto.

nt.

[proteus_lives]

30. No.

[applegrove]

31. Weren't they all given discounts for travel and hotel?

[a kennedy]

33. and does it mean the "tan" man for speaker???

If they all get out and vote, will he be speaker??? :cry: :cry: :cry:

[XemaSab]

34. I've been to Tea Party meetings

Half those people are going to be dead in 10 years.

[uponit7771]

46. +1!!!!

[niyad]

36. very much so--unlike some, I will not write them off as irrelevant. their numbers are growing, as

I witness daily in even overheard conversations.

have been rereading "eyes right: challenging the right-wing backlash" which was published around 1996. prescient and scary and sickening-- the chapters on white supremacy pretty much predicted exactly the things we are seeing today.

I used to worry about waking up to "the handmaid's tale"--I am beginning to think that would be mild compared to what these lunatics want.

[niyad]

37. somebody un'rec'd this? seriously????

my rec brought it up to zero.

[uppityperson]

38. so did mine. While I am glad there weren't more people than there were, still it was too many

[hugo_from_TN]

39. A storm is brewing.

[OnyxCollie]

40. "They've done this without any real, solid 'issues'

just co-opting fairly nebulous things like 'freedom', 'liberty', 'smaller government', 'support the troops', 'God!', as well as just plain old opposition to this Admin of course - paraded under the banner of these other issues but mostly just disguised racism."

You nailed it. That's tax-deductible image advertising in all its glory. Tax-exempt foundations use these vague concepts as a front for their real agenda, influencing legislation and affecting elections.

If there is any solution to this, it's to have RWers discover that they are being played. Their main concern is money. Ask them if they would spend money on something that's worthless. Ask them how much they, personally, would spend on "freedom". Ask them what kind of a return they can get on "liberty". You can't sell it, you can't profit on it, so why buy it?

Then ask them, why do you think these foundations spent all this money on freedom and liberty when it's worthless? You wouldn't pay for it. It's throwing away money . Why do you think they are? (This may be the moment when the gears start turning.) Ask them if maybe these foundations are doing it because they found a way to make money off it, a way for them to get us (use "us" and "we" instead of "you") to vote for something that benefits them.

(Go for the kill.) They've got a lot of money, and they're putting it into these tax-exempt foundations, and they're using tax-deductible advertising to sell us worthless bullshit, so we can vote for something that gives them money and fucks us over, and then they'll tell us some bullshit and it'll start all over again. We need to pull our heads out of our asses and realize we're being played.



I doubt this will help. Frankly, I think we've crossed the Rubicon and there's no going back. (I get criticized for being less than optimistic.)

[mwb970]

50. Education is the key.

"If there is any solution to this, it's to have RWers discover that they are being played."

This is the only solution that can ever work. We are not going to "talk them out of" even their most idiotic, asinine beliefs. They need to have the scales removed from their eyes (somehow) so that they themselves can see that they are being used as pawns in the quest for corporate fascism.

It's already happening to some degree - there have been threads on DU about one or another conservative who has "seen the light" and bolted from the wretched movement.

The trouble with conservatives is that they only seem to "get" the truth when it personally hits them over the head with a 2x4. Remember all those right-wingers who said "waterboarding isn't torture, I'll prove it, go ahead and waterboard me"? Every single one said afterward that no, they had been wrong, it was torture. And yet no RWers would believe them or change their minds, since they hadn't experienced it themselves.

There are simply too many conservatives for us to go to each one individually and open up their eyes. But I don't see any other way to get through to them.

[Steely_Dan]

42. I Hate To Say This...

...but this movement is for real.

As I stated earlier, this cannot be ignored by any of us, especially the President.

I also feel that some of this could have been prevented (perhaps delayed) or diminished if the President had gotten ahead of the curve...anticipating the mood of the country. I think this is what some of us were trying to say here on this board. President Obama had the momentum, a mandate...more than that, an historic opportunity. Why they did not take command of the message, to frame the arguments is beyond me. I fear that it is an indication of either inexperience or political naivety.

If you wish to call this Obama bashing...so be it. I try to interpret things giving President Obama the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly more difficult.

I would hope that President Obama would take charge of the message. He certainly has the skills.

-P

[Golden Raisin]

43. More than faintly chilled.

[Warren DeMontague]

44. No. What bothers me is the media acting like it's a huge deal, when they ignore much larger marches.

[TBF]

47. It is up to the democrats -

our party will find a way to help people or they will look elsewhere. Jobs, jobs, jobs ... find people jobs somehow and the votes will follow.

[DeschutesRiver]

54. Actually I am relived at the low turnout (80-90k) given the amount of smack talking

right wingers I hear both online and in my local community. They talk a big story, they whine incessantly about the .gov, Obama, and what they are gonna do about it, but given the amount of smack I've heard vs. these pitiful turnout numbers (I'd say the same if there were 300k there), they apparently have no interest in taking it any further than talk from the comfort of their communities, homes and computers.

Yes, they might crawl to a ballot box later this year, but if dems participate instead of staying home, neither house nor Senate will be lost. The idea that our country could be "taken back" by that meager display of white and white haired folk at the mall is nothing I am even remotely concerned about now. In a sense, they are right that this isn't their America any more - I mean, they are welcome to be a part of it, but it has moved past anything that they will ever 100% control or even shape into some fundie's illusion of what life was like "back in the days of old."

Those costumes I saw on some were just freakish - old people dressing up like little kids at Halloween. No, I don't see them starting a "revolution".

[seabeyond]

55. no. i am glad as low as it was. three months of nationwide free advertisment on

fox news.

a month of advertisement thru controversial coverage on EVERY news program leading up to it.

no, i am not surprised or bothered by the number. it was well orginized adn well promoted.

[livetohike]

56. No. It was heavily promoted and even the appearance of

Sister Sarah didn't bring out the crowds on a beautiful summer day. She is losing her rock star status and exposed for what she is - just another money grubber.