The revolution, brought to you by…
Failing in AM/FM
I’ve lived in central Portland all of my life, and downtown much of that, and during that time, I’ve attended innumerable rallies, protests, and whatnot. I still remember last fall, when a friend and I were contemplating going to the Obama rally, hours hence, and from my balcony noticed a line forming below. It took two hours to get to Tom McCall Waterfront Park, ten blocks away. I also fondly recall the Peace Rally, the largest in the country, before Gulf War I, just after our Republican Senior Senator, Mark Hatfield, had spoken forcefully in the Senate as the lonely voice in his party that wanted to give peace a chance. That day flagged us for eternity on the right as the treacherous residents of “Little Beirut, a circumstance in which I repeatedly take pride, like I did today. The teabaggers, unfortunately for them, picked the same spot, and the difference was palpable. In a bad way, natch.
Walking down the park, where the Duomo-like rows of elms that I consider my front yard are just leafing into their corridor-like canopy, it seemed a bit surreal that I was going to a rally. Where were the people? Where was the traffic? More disturbingly, given some of the peculiarities of the teabaggers themselves, where were the cops? A block away, I finally began to hear the canned sound and responses. Pioneer square, reclaimed by the city after the gorgeous Victorian Portland Hotel had been felled for a parking garage that blighted downtown for thirty years, is the site of many gatherings, big (real) and small (fake). This was one of the small ones, and fake as the day is long, and its weak, lackadaisical attempt to disguise the fact was drearily apparent. Like any contest or promotion, this one had a strong presence of corporate sponsorship, in this case KPAM, which is the furthest right of the Clear Channel “family” that dominates local radio as the media component, and something called “clear,” which I have every reason to believe is that same company’s bid to dominate the internet, too. Clear.com. Hmmm.
The small, rather listless crowd, which was nonetheless spurred to yell on cue, had a hapless, otherwordly feel; they were in hostile territory, but somehow disappointed that the experience wasn’t scarier. The speaker I first heard was talking about God’s wrath, and after a few others it wasn’t readily apparent things were going uphill from there. It isn’t easy, in a place that considers a 50,000 crowd average, to look big and consequential when there’s about fifteen hundred of you. They bravely held up their signs, “Barack Obama is the Black Jimmy Carter, Honk if I’m paying your Mortgage, and, Atlas is Gonna Shrug,” my personal favorite, but the whole thing felt so, well, sad. Normal people walked the perimeter, eyed and eyeing warily. The media/ observer vs. participant ratio would have astonished me had it been greater than 1/1.
The choppers that had darkened the skies and made life downtown feel like Vietnam for hours were already gone by 6:35, when I, too, fled for wetter pastures. I hope they all find their way home. A rough and disappointing night for everyone but me… It was about the easiest and least time-consuming event I’d ever attended.
Pictures to come; my computer stupidity would have held off this report for hours had I put them in first.
With that title, Tony, and those tags, you almost don’t need any more text, just pictures.
But… we would have missed your amusingly turned phrases.
Wow, thanks for that. I wasn’t able to pass by my local demonstration. I’m sure it was pretty frightening.
I look forward to the pictures…
It was a stinker, Jim. Trust me. Just the way I like them.
You were serious about the helicopters. Damn.
But marvel at the lameness they had to shoot. The picture is up. I have more, but they seem unnecessary.
Wasn’t Charlton Heston there with his flintlock?
What a drag.
Hell, I guess they couldn’t get Hayley Mills’ body double, for a little celebrity gloss. This crowd was frumpy. lumpy, and dumpy. A preacher who was height/weight proportional was good enough. So send in eight.
Here is a TV report on the Teabagging in the Chicago area. It is the #1 story. Our young Repugs even pirated the three-master Windy to throw empty tea boxes into a small boat so they wouldn’t be fined by the EPA. My way of protesting was to do my taxes today instead of going to the demonstration in Naperville. Rep. Jan Schakowski in the report is a Dem and one of those vying for Obama’s senate seat.
Protests over taxes all over Chicago area
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/index
I couldn’t even find it RMP, which says something about your sensational and dumbass ABC (M$M) affiliate. But I was able to marvel at Blago’s hair, repeatedly.
You’re too slow. It is the first story that comes up and if you don’t click quick, it goes to the next story. Guess being around those teabaggers slowed your reflexes. What exactly did you do when you hung around them? No teabagging I hope. If you try it again and are still too slow on the draw, there is an arrow where you can back up.
Well, to put it delicately, I didn’t see anyone with whom I’d like to do a teabagging thingy, either way. But I readily admit to being slow. I think I just got lazy (surprise) and repelled (surprise) and therefore cut my research program off a bit early. Your TeaBag Network stymied me at that moment. I’ll look again, more carefully. Dang. Running a News Network is a lot of work.
And what did your sign say?
I was signless; here at CHNN we try not to be the news, only cover it. I carried only my camera. despite the fact that it would have been more fun with a flask of something, and a sign that said, “Go, Nads!”.
“Go, Nads!”
Hahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!
Sadly, you could have set off a neutron bomb and not vaporized anybody I’d teabag.
Maybe “No, Nads” would have been a better choice of words.
I think a “God Hates Bags!” or “Who Would Jesus Teabag??” sign would have been entirely appropriate.
I would have been much more nervous with a sign like that; as it was I spent my entire circuit suppressing giggles. I was a tad disappointed that, bookish town that we are, even the teabaggers seemed to be pretty good spellers.
OT Here is a story about the young man who is a Dem and my district county board member and who I helped get elected. I saw something special in him from the moment I met him and he has far exceeded my expectations. Quite a different character from those teabaggers.
Quarter of Michelassi’s salary going to charity,/b>
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=286819&src=2
Nice story, RMP; you obviously supported a good guy.
Hag,
I am still tied down a bit being a care-giver and using this stupid Winderrrs portable, but I had to write and ask a question.
How much should the government get in taxes from the working poor (or the middle class if you want to go there)? In all taxes, fed/state/local, I have always paid more than half my paycheck to a government that uses it to build a vast killing machine. Hence the question: how big should the central government be?
Well, Heru; such questions are purely academic, since we both agree that a good way to reduce the tax burden would be with drastic cuts in military spending, which thanks to the MIC, will never happen. A much higher minimum wage and a very high marginal rate at the top would spread the burden more evenly, and would diminish the corrosive power of the super rich. Nobody is worth more than a few million a year, and paying people that much is crazy; it’s a ripoff for the shareholder, customer, and society.
Yes, but we tax the income of working people and not the wealth of rich people. I would think that treating all gains, from any source, the same would be a more fair plan.
Anyway, I’ll not be able to read any reply for some time.
See-ya.
If the Bush era proved anything, it’s that tax levels don’t correlate to government size or its level of intrusion into the lives of private citizens.
Also, that tax levels for the middle classes do not change. The differences are all at the top.
What about athletes? We won’t even go there.
Regarding the tea parties, I agree that the tone is sad, if not pathetic. I watched a video of the nearby downtown Cleveland rally posted by a local blogger and I was mostly nonplussed, if not embarrassed once again for the locals who are so stupid and mean-spirited and clueless.
http://bloggerinterrupted.com/
While they are no worse than any other cross-section of “baggers” in videos around the ‘nets, when they are your townfolk, you are stung by their miserable stupidity.
I almost went to the Palin rally in Strongsville last fall, but I would have gotten into a fight if I had been there; same with this tea bag event: It would have started off with my challenging someone’s sign and asking them what they wanted to accomplish. Then, I’d be correcting their ignorant remarks and crappy right wing talking points, then they’d get hostile and start frothing, and then I’d have to punch them.
Oh, I can’t afford bail and lawyers right now. So, thanks for letting me go vicariously through you, CH. You’re much more mature and restrained than I. heh.
Ewwww. Creep-o-rama, Retzilian. Oddly, the people there looked just like they did here. Middle aged, working class, and equally clueless. Maybe they’re being trucked from place to place.
I chose not to engage for the same reason you wouldn’t have. It doesn’t do any good, and things get scary pretty fast.
I’m like you Retzilian. I have always had a hard time not calling crap, crap and refusing to let the stink just pass by. Although, I also agree with Hag on how useless it might be. I suspect that you could pick and chose and only have a discussion with the farts who just take too simplistic a view and ignore the turds.
Your great line, CH.
“… somehow disappointed that the experience wasn’t scarier.”
Somehow? Cortex O.D.’d on Fearstupid addiction, that’s how. Not only does the brain damage evermore deprive them of a sense of ’scarier,’ the same goes for ‘experience.’
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In terms of Pioneer Sq. coverage with 5 W’s and How: When We Were Wonderfully Welcomed by the Dalai Lama in it, not long ago, there must’ve been 25,000 of us. How? In standard English.
At the big peace rally before Gulf War I the streets were filled with people for blocks around, and surprise, no corporate sponsor was required for this.
You banked my angle on the streetbaggers, for media to shout out and holler back comparisons of crowds for Peace — at Gulf war One, at the Dalai Lama, at pre-Iraq invasion — versus yesterday’s goofoff tea-cozy circling jerks. Here’s the tepid tea numbers, counted at the place that does politics rightly best — FiveThirtyEight.COM (# of US Rep.s + Sen.s)
The same number as FUX News audience ratings — 300,000.
Versus Peaceful millions and millions and millions …
Ah, but in their minds they’re sweeping the nation….. Good luck to them with that.