I haven’t written anything about this, mainly because I was waiting to see what happened. But as today approached,it became obvious that, no matter the numbers that turn out, this is definitely something.
It has to be; just look at all the enemies lined up against it. Lefty bloggers are almost hysterical attempting to “prove” it is not a ‘grassroots’ movement, but instead is all part of that good old Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. MSNBC’s evening assholes has devolved to making “teabagging” jokes ad nauseam (or asking “if this is all about FOX News wanting to overthrow the government?”), while CNN seems to be convinced this is the beginning of a violent, neo-Nazi revolution, and seek out the people with the most “extreme” signs so they can say, “See? They’re a bunch of crazies! And they hate CNN!”
Yet CNN don’t say a damn thing about stuff like this, since this is “acceptable” protesting.
The VRWC claims of whackjobs like Oliver Willis and Crazy Janey from Firedoglake is bloody asinine. Sure, some groups, like Newt Gingrich’s outfit, FOX News, and radio talkers like Hannity, Beck, etc., have climbed on board, but they ain’t the ones driving this bus. A lot of these different gatherings have been pretty blunt about telling politicians of all stripes that they were welcome to attend, but they were NOT going to be allowed to address the crowd….Because the anger crosses party lines.
So when I see all these different groups lined up to attack and denigrate the people attending these rallies–rallies spread across the country and numbering in the hundreds–as either mindless dolts or potential domestic terrorists, it tells me they are afraid that this thing might really become a movement, and not a one shot deal; a movement they have no control over, so they have to do everything in their power to trivialize or flat out destroy this thing before it gets enough momentum to become a real force in the nation’s politics.
The more you shit on the people who are attending these events (and combined I’d estimate the final number is gonna be at least in the mid six digits) you are just going to make the next time this happen draw even more participants.
Honestly, doing all this kinda crap is just fueling the fire. If they can draw a half million or more people on a mid-week work day, how many folks you think they’re going to be able to pull on the Fourth of July, when they’ll have their networking apparatus better organized?
UPDATE: DESPERATE TO DISMISS THE TEA PARTIES
MOAR 2.0: Tea Parties, Code Pink and the sickness of the MSM
