tea parties – Page 4

How to ruin a professional agitation group’s day.

It’s actually not that hard.

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.

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.

Crossposted to RedState.

Tea Partiers get apology for insult by town.

Hey, guess what? This show up en masse stuff works!

PORT ST. LUCIE — After a week of complaints about a sign at Freedomfest on July 4, city officials apologized to the Treasure Coast Tea Party.

“It was not our intent to interfere or cast dispersions on the tea party,” said City Manager Don Cooper, who took responsibility for what he called a “bone-head decision.”

About 75 members of the anti-tax group attended the City Council’s Monday night meeting looking for an apology.

Via Instapundit. I have to say, this ‘getting out and marching’ thing is jolly good fun, isn’t it? We should do it more often. As in, ‘whenever we get annoyed at something.’ It certainly seems to get results.

Moe Lane

PS: Still think that it was a good idea to give the American Right a taste for activism, kids? – because ‘high inertia’ is a double-edged sword.

Please, by all means: laugh.

Crossposted to RedState.

I guess Obama knows about the Tea Parties now.

“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.” – M. Gandhi

[UPDATE] “Say what you will about George W. Bush, he had a skin whose thickness wasn’t measured in Planck lengths.” I really wish that I had written that.

Because he’s sounding just a little bit self-conscious on the subject:

Obama targets tea bags at town hall

At his 100th-day town hall meeting in St. Louis Wednesday, President Barack Obama took direct aim at the anti-tax “tea party” demonstrations that have cropped up over the last month and took a veiled shot at the Fox News Channel, the cable news network closely associated with the protests.

[snip]

“Those of you who are watching certain news channels on which I’m not very popular, and you see folks waving tea bags around, Obama said, “let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term, how we are going to stabilize Social Security.”

See also (originally noted via FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog) the video below the fold: Continue reading I guess Obama knows about the Tea Parties *now*.

‘I’m a subscriber to revival.’

[UPDATE] Welcome, Instapundit readers. The video that the quote’s from is at the bottom, and via Hot Air. And it’s why we love ‘Zo so.

—–

While the GE shareholders meltdown is interesting – see here for the basic story (H/T the Rhetorician), Ace of Spades for an observation on how the market is voting, and Hot Air for what was either a prescient or instigating Bill O’Reilly segment – we’re going to segue over to Little Miss Attila instead. Mostly because she has what was really the proper take on the Garofalo interview that might have spawned this mess for GE:

Janeane Garofalo is absolutely right: the tea parties are racism straight up. Because if it had been racism on the rocks, PJM would have gotten someone else to do interviews that day, instead of asking Zo to do two jobs. And if it had been racism-and-water, the organizers of the event wouldn’t have imposed upon Alfonzo by asking him to the podium. If it were racism-and-soda, they wouldn’t have recruited Zo to work for PJTV at all, but would have allowed him to continue commenting on events from his living room in the SoCal desert.

Continue reading ‘I’m a subscriber to revival.’

Don’t expect to see Jon Stewart to whale on Susan Roesgen again.

You probably remember Susan Roesgen from yesterday: she was the one who got so peeved when the person that she interviewed turned out to be not on-script. Voluntary propagandists often aren’t, when dealing with messy reality.

Anyway, she’ll probably be lionized by CNN for her “bravery” to standing up to people yelling back at somebody with a video crew trying to browbeat them, so watch this clip while you still can:

Cynthia Yockey has some excellent Tea Party interview advice…

… as Houston the Raven would say, hold it, peruse it, read each rune of it.

Classical reference.

See you on the flipside.

Crossposted to RedState.

Today’s Podcast: Tea Parties, the Bush Six, and International Affairs.

I did my twice-monthly radio podcast with Fausta today – we discussed Tea Parties, Cuba, the “Bush Six,” pirates of Somalia, the Vatican’s rejection/non-rejection of pro-choice ambassadors, the DHS rightwing extremist issue, and even a quick mention of IL-05. And, oh yeah, I sneered at the pro-torture Left. Just because I felt like it. Podcast and the various links mentioned after the fold.

I would like to note that the stories “The Bush Six to Be Indicted” and “The Practice Of Law Is Under Indictment — Where Is The ABA?” are of particular importance. To recap: the Daily Beast is reporting that six members of the Bush administration are going to be indicted in a Spanish court for offering legal advice. I was, shall we say, rather vehement in my commentary, which can boil down to “If the Obama administration does not make it clear that this is intolerable, the current people in government had best hope that the Democrats stay in power for the rest of eternity.” With a lot more angry stammering, but then this topic annoys.

Not to mention makes me worry more about the future of our democratic system more than anything else going on right now.

Moe Lane

Continue reading Today’s Podcast: Tea Parties, the Bush Six, and International Affairs.

So, how did the Left’s New Way Forward protests go?

Let me put it this way: you might as well read Instapundit, because he’s doing a better job covering this than the New Way Forward people are. At least he has pictures – although that’s not really great news for the NWF, given the way that Glenn is cheerfully contrasting them with the various pre-Tax Day Tea Parties also scheduled today (which are pretty much destroying the NWF protests in terms of attendence). When one group is getting more people in Lincoln, Nebraska than the other is getting in Chicago, Illinois, there’s a problem. For the latter, at least.

That being said, this report of the Washington DC NWF is worth special consideration (and not to mention, mockery):

I’d promise to personally check every person in the crowd on Wednesday’s DC Tax Day Tea Party to find out if they work for Fox News, except that there’s no way that I’d get to even a tenth of the attendees by the time that the Tea Party was over.

Moe Lane.

Crossposted to RedState.

One week until the April 15th Tax Day Tea Parties.

Welcome to activism. Yes, we know, it is probably your first time.

If you haven’t picked one yet, pick one. I’ll be at the DC affair. Erick and Jeff E of RedState are helping set up Macon’s. Take a couple of hours off, find a gathering that’s close, and go. If you never go to these things – but you’re also kind of mad at the way the government is throwing away your money – well, that’s sort of the point of you going.

And remember:

“First they ignore you…
…then they ridicule you…
…then they fight you…
…then you win.”
– M . Gandhi

Continue reading One week until the April 15th Tax Day Tea Parties.

Obama: standing between bankers and pitchforks? Really?

Permit me to be the first to call the President’s bluff.

This Politico story has been making the rounds – see here and here and here and shoot, Memeorandum in general – and it’s mostly because of the passage below, in response over attempts to explain salary bonuses:

But President Barack Obama wasn’t in a mood to hear them out. He stopped the conversation and offered a blunt reminder of the public’s reaction to such explanations. “Be careful how you make those statements, gentlemen. The public isn’t buying that.”

“My administration,” the president added, “is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”

Really? Continue reading Obama: standing between bankers and pitchforks? *Really*?