Mike, are you on the verge of a great American awakening again? You sounded just as enthusiastic about your tea-bagging event too, but you have never told us whether it came up to your expectations.

75 K demonstrators from all 50 states you have? Poor show. I have been on demonstrations with a far larger participation, although we have far less inhabitants here.

What will be fun to watch are the Canadians who learn from the 9/12 project and launch one of their own.

http://www.the912project.com/

Here's another 9/12 marcher with a poignant message for our President and congress. Clearly this man was coached in a vast right wing conspiracy.

Liberals...are you listening?

75,000 white dudes flaunting their racism and ignorance is just not a revolution

That sort of denigration, trivialization, and minimization of an opposing viewpoint does not eliminate the opposition, nor de-legitimize it. Your characterization is just the flip side of a racist saying, "Obama only got elected because n***gers voted for a fellow n***ger." Both versions are equally despicable. Yours is just worded slightly less offensively, because there is no "white dudes" term on a par with "n***ger." The sentiment is the same in both statements, however.

Reminds me of the UK's Countryside Alliance 3 million march in London a few years ago to defend fox hunting. It took them 18 months to organise it, most people arrived on free transport with lunch provided,some with the threat of losing their jobs and homes if they didn't turn up. A few weeks later we actually upstaged them with a bigger march against the Iraq war with a few days notice and we had to pay our own bus fares.

There are two reasons why reactionaries (these are not conservatives) do not demonstrate. First of all they mostly get their own way because they're rich so they don't need to. Secondly, there are so few of them them it would usually be embarrassing. Do you really think that 75,000 is impressive for a national rally Mike?

Mike,

Perhaps you might want to revise your "75,000" figure:

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/09/12/celebrating-the-912-rallies/

http://www.jillstanek.com/archives/2009/09/photos_of_dc_te.html

http://tinyurl.com/pzbnzo

Alan,

Of course we know that the Clintons tried a health care reform too. And we know that they are white, not black. But they had the same opponent: insurances and pharmaceutical industry who have enough money to organize a campaign.

And yes, a rally gains credibility and impact by numbers. Have you ever seen a rally with 60 participants? Pathetic. That’s why the organizers usually tend to exaggerate the numbers.

I looked at the photos in the articles you linked to, and I am afraid they don’t convince me. What was the largest demonstration you participated in? Look at the empty side streets at the edges of the photos: they wouldn’t be empty if there really had been a crowd.

Alan,

I'm glad you effectively debunked the issue of race. As one commentator recently observed, when critics are forced to engage in racial politics, it demonstrates a level of desperation and inability (unwillingness) to address the issues.

No matter what your politics, it is inconceivable to me that anyone could look upon a gathering of that size and fail to respect the passion which brought them together, especially when there was no central figure responsible for organizing them. And unlike some pro-Left demonstrations, no evidence the participants were hired to be there off of Craig's List.

Momo,

And, finally...

What was the largest demonstration you participated in?

You don't understand. I am part of the government. I don't protest against anything. People protest against things I do. The largest protest against something I was trying to accomplish was about five thousand. Luckily, it was broken into four different public meetings. Have you ever stood in front of over one thousand angry farmers while you're the only one with a microphone? I have. I still think they were wrong, and I was right. But, they managed to kill a great project. (At least, they killed it in my part of the world. We just moved the project and stocked elk in the other end of the state).

You see, I think we have a fundamental difference in our approaches to life, you and I. You believe the best way to make a difference it to protest, or join some little band to pick coffee beans. I will give you credit. It's very noble, and requires a degree of personal sacrifice. And, I'm sure you honestly feel you are making the world a better place.

On the other hand, I work from within the system. And, even though my main motivation is the joy I get from the work I do, people benefit. I don't really do it to benefit others (in some small way, maybe I do). I do it because it's fun. And, while I am having fun, people DO benefit.

You see... I do things. You bitch when people like me do things you disagree with.

I asked once, what others here have done to feed people in third world countries. But no one asked me the same question. I'll tell you anyway, just to show you one way my "fun" benefits others. There is an endangered species of fish in my state, called the alligator gar. Only a couple had been seen, in Tennessee, in the past 50 years. I talked to a guy with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and we decided it would be fun to try to bring them back. I would figure out where to put them, and he would raise them. At the beginning of the project, it was just the two of us. Here is a link to a story about the project, third story down:

http://library.fws.gov/birdscapes/sprsum02/wetensp.html

Here's a picture to explain why I like messing with the critters:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alligator_gar.jpg

Anyway... We got to wrestle 150 pound fish, spawn them, hatch the eggs, and release little fingerlings all over the place. For three or four years, it was just Ricky at the hatchery, and me picking release sites. It was fun, and we were bringing back an endangered species. It turns out, Ricky learned to raise them, I provided a project, and others started seeing potential. Some people realized how fast these fish grow (some of our biologists think they may be the fastest growing fish on earth). After others saw what we were doing, other states got involved in their own restoration efforts. And some Central American countries got involved. There is now an annual, international symposium, part of which is devoted to alligator gar aquaculture in Central America. See:

http://www.nicholls.edu/bayousphere/GarSession/GarBiologyandCultureSession.htm

Scientists in Central America are learning to raise the gar in tanks in little villages as a good source of protein. The Lepisosteid Research and Management Committee consists of scientists from the US, Mexico, and Costa Rica. The Central American contingent is working hard to develop methods to raise gar as an easy, reliable food source. All these other people are working their butts off. I was just having fun.

Another little deal I was involved with, for ten years, was as the deer biologist in my part of the world. I set seasons that led to about 50,000 deer being taken by hunters annually.Granted, the hunters were not living in poverty, but the deer did provide a lot of meat. I tried to get a rough idea of just how much meat was provided over my ten years. If a deer (very conservatively) has 50 pounds of edible venison, 50,000 harvested deer will produce 2.5 million pounds (1,250 tons) of venison. Over ten years, that's over 12 tons of edible meat. Certainly, I was only a minor part of the programs which produced all that, but I was involved. In that ten years, I was also the turkey biologist, and turkey harvests produced an additional 5 tons of edible meat.

And, it sure was fun.

The idiot Bush, a war criminal, did not win the popular vote. He was given the Presidency by his dad's friends on the supreme court.
Brendan

First, of what crimes has he been convicted? Seems like we had a very good poster quit one time after being threatened with legal action for accusing someone of murder, because he was only convicted of manslaughter. Not that GWB is going to take anyone to court.

Second: We do not elect presidents based on popular vote (thank god). We elect presidents state-by-state, through the electoral college. We elect electors. We are a nation of semi-autonomous states. We, especially those of us in smaller, rural states, do not want a national popular count. The electoral college system protects us from being trampled by high density states.

Third: Do you honestly believe, just because Georgie Senior had a beer with Sandra Day O'Connor, and chased her around the desk in a frisky moment, or did tequila shots, using Pancho Villa's skull, with David Souter, that the Supreme Court Justices would willfully abandon all their values, morals, and beliefs, and they would disregard a lifetime of working to support and defend our laws and Constitution, and base a decision on "he's the son of a good buddy," rather than base a decision on case law? Do you really think they conspired to give away the Presidency of the United States as a "favor to an old school chum's son"? Gimme a break. Do you even realize how far in the outfield that comment is? It's on the warning track.

Statements like yours make me want to have a deep, lengthy conversation with my redneck co-worker who is only a half notch from a full blown skinhead, just so I can reach a proper counterbalance.

Yes possibly millions. There's always a multiplier. If there had been millions though then it would have been tens of millions at home and something to take notice of. Just look at the faces Mike. I couldn't see one black or hispanic face in any of the photographs and there's a definite age profile too. These are people who voted McCain and can't accept the election result. They're reactionaries, not conservatives. Obama's main worry from these people is a high powered rifle with accurate sights. They're politically irrelevant.

Brendan: On the issue of racial overtones in the opposition, I tend to agree with Maureen Dowds view of recent events.

Not surprising at all. Like you, she is a classic Liberal who finds racism the easy answer.

But Wilson’s shocking disrespect for the office of the president — no Democrat ever shouted “liar” at W. when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq — convinced me: Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it. NYT

What a short memory Dowd has and perhaps you share her amnesia?

GOP Rep: Democrats Set the Precedent for Yelling at Presidents

I talked briefly with Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) at an early-morning House GOP briefing by Republican members of Congress on the impact of the August recess, and asked him how he’ll vote on a censure resolution against Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.).

“I’m voting against it and I hope every Republican votes against it,” said Broun. Did he worry that the Democrats were setting a precedent by targeting Wilson. “They set the precedent by yelling at Bush and calling him a liar. They’re still calling him a liar.”

Michele Malkin explains succinctly the psychology of the nut-job Maureen Dowd and her acolyte Brendan...

Democrats, Joe Wilson, Maureen Dowd, and the “R” Word

Dowd, et al, are not claiming that Wilson is actively engaging in segregation, white supremacy, or racism by shouting at the president; they don’t think he would be perfectly happy with Obamunism if Obama were white.

Rather, they attack Wilson, et al, for engaging in passive discrimination by not treating Obama with greater deference than they would treat a white liberal president: They’re not accusing us of not treating a black president as equal to a white president… they’re accusing us of not treating him as “more equal” than a white president. The accusation makes perfect sense — given the premises of the accusers.
As usual, it all comes down to axioms. Therein lies the great gulf between individualism and collectivism.

Alan,

What are these people marching for, the status quo? There is a damning article by David Frum, a George Bush and stanch Republican supporter, in today's National Post that you really ought to read.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/09/15/david-frum-healthcare-costs-destroyed-the-bush-economy.aspx

'Ron Brownstein ably sums up the Census Bureau’s final report on the Bush economy.

in every major measurement, the Census Bureau report shows that the country lost ground during Bush’s two terms. While Bush was in office, the median household income declined, poverty increased, childhood poverty increased even more, and the number of Americans without health insurance spiked.

Over the years from 2000 to 2007, the price that employers paid for labor rose by an average of 25% per hour. But the wages received by workers were worth less in 2007 than seven years before. All that extra money paid by employers disappeared into the healthcare system: between 2000 and 2007, the cost of the average insurance policy for a family of four doubled.'

The full article from the Atlantic is a must read, and cements Bush's legacy as one of the US's worst Presidents ever.

They are marching to STOP something.

Nicely put Alan! I suggest that explains how people of different political ideologies and agendas can come together to peacefully demonstrate. What binds them is their opposition, not racism as Brendan and Maureen Dowd suggest.

In fact, I find their race-baiting to be offensive and racist in itself. When Rep Wilson called Obama a liar, the only issue for discussion should have been whether it was true or not. Bringing race into the issue is not only a red herring, but it's inherently racist. Came across this article on point.

Worse than the stench of the stable

By A.J. DiCintio

"...Maureen Dowd was moved to write an entire column not only informing us that "what [she] heard" from Representative Joe Wilson was "You lie, boy!" but also that the racially demeaning term she hallucinated reveals the real motive of the opponents of the president's policies.

That's right, in a perfectly anti-intellectual, disgustingly irrational assertion, Dowd implies that the opposition to Obama's policies is composed of a xenophobic (former DNC chairman Don Fowler's idea) "loco fringe" given to a "shrieking lunacy."

That venom, however, only winds her up to mock protestors as a repulsive bunch of secessionist crazies.

First she quotes Fowler, a SC resident: "A good many people in South Carolina really reject the notion that we're part of the union."

Then, she invokes Congressman Jim Clyburn, D-SC, who continues the race motif by opining that the only purpose of the protestors is "delegitimizing" a black president.

Next up providing all the opinion fit to print is Frank Rich, who correctly bemoans the fact that the president turned the job of proposing a healthcare plan over to Congress.

Too bad Mr. Rich doesn't equally condemn "brilliant," transformational Obama for failing to use some of his genius to explain in exquisite honesty and simple detail exactly how he envisions paying for healthcare reform and the rest of his mad spending — and not just over the next 10 years but the ten or twenty that follow.

However, to return to the subject at hand, the following quotes sum up how Rich characterizes an opposition that has produced nothing more than a "silly summer."

inmates [who have taken] over the asylum, trivializing and poisoning the national discourse

[perpetrators of] incendiary faux controversies

[a] hard-core base of a leaderless minority party

[a] right-wing fringe . . . so deranged . . .

[participants in] crazed town-hall sideshows

There you have it, Frank Rich standing enormously shallow beside the infinitesimally small Maureen Dowd, who, in addition to sliming Obama's opponents as racists, reacted to ideas that have been hotly and honestly debated in America since the days of the Constitutional Convention with this hateful, ugly, supremely stupid comment:

Democratic presidents typically have provoked a frothing response from paranoids — from Father Coughlin against F.D.R. to Joe McCarthy against Truman to the John Birchers against J.F.K. and the vast right-wing conspiracy against Bill Clinton.

Ah, liberals and the triumph of reason. What a beautiful thing to behold!"

Brendan, are you sure THIS is the company you wish to associate yourself?

Now you know what it feels like to be called an anti-semite or Fascist Mike - though this is not nearly so unfair. While many, possibly most of the people in that demonstration may not have been racists, I'd bet folding money on there being more xenophobes per acre than you'd get in most gatherings. There's certainly not a lot of black people in the photos.

DeCintio ought to read Gulliver's Travels again by the way. Does he not understand the concept of satire?

Mike,

You might like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4r6YCUtxfs

It's a means of shutting down discussion because it becomes all about refuting motivations that cannot be proven or defended...which is not an uncommon tactic of the (Fascist) Left over here (and in Canada apparently).

Why can't they be proven or defended? I can understand where Brendan's coming from here. There is certainly a pretty strong racist contingent amongst these sad people. He is just being a bit unfair in not allowing that some of them aren't racist.

I think it's a bit audacious of you to make the closing down debate accusation Mike . Heckling at public meetings doesn't exactly move the democratic process forward.

Ultimately all this is a side show. These people represent a tiny reactionary constituency who can and should be ignored. The only real danger they present is a physical one to Obama himself.

I'm gobsmacked that you want anyone to be denied health care. Do you think an epidemic will know who is insured and who not?

I was talking about the general accusations of racism rather than the obnoxious quasi fascist (attested to by his other activities) Wilson's blurtings.

“You're kidding, right? Anytime people are opposed to anything, they are "by identity defending the status quo"? That is, by identity, logically absurd everywhere but Momo's universe.”

There is only one universe, Mike. You must have lost touch with it thoroughly, if you don’t know that.

If I join a protest against a proposed bill, I am saying that I prefer the laws as they are, logically. I could try to convey an additional message, but (being an experienced demonstrator) I won’t, because it doesn’t work. Alan is right there: it’s stopping something (for instance “no stationing of nukes”), not changing something (for instance “out of the NATO”).

“What "status quo" do anarchists support in their protests?”

I’ve no idea, there are too few of them here. This isn’t France. A demonstration with 60 participants is pathetic, a demonstration of German anarchists would be more pathetic.

I like lively debates and that includes heckling. A half forgotten art, and that’s one of the reasons why the debates in our Bundestag are so boring nowadays. The last real outrage happened 25 years ago, isn’t that incredible? It was “By your leave, Mr Speaker: you are an asshole.” Joschka Fischer had to apologize the next day, although nobody (excepting the Speaker) doubted the truth of this statement. Nobody has ever said the same thing to our Bundespräsident though (our current one is an asshole too): it’s not done, true or not.

As I understood it, the main reason for the outrage at Wilson’s “blurting out” is that traditionally your president isn’t heckled either, isn’t it?

Now, what’s different in this president? Why doesn’t the rule apply to him? And what’s Joe Wilson’s political history? Of course everybody is thinking of racism. Even if Wilson’s intention was something else, a man with his record of racism should be extra careful. And if he doesn’t know that, he must be too stupid to be a Congressman. His constituency has made a terrible mistake.