INSIGHTS - by Joe Howard Crews- Sep. 15, 2009Tens of thousands marched on the D.C. Mall last Saturday to declare they did not want “Obamacare”. Quite an enigmatic phenomenon that perplexes even social scientists who study public hysteria. ABCNews.com reported an approximate figure of 60,000 to 70,000 protesters, attributed to the D.C. fire department. NO WAY! I saw a photo in the North County Times, and would have said at least a couple of hundred thousands. But those of us who have demonstrated for peace and immigrant rights over the last eight years are familiar with this numbers game. The “official police estimates” were always way on the low side. I knew we had at least 5,000 demonstrators at Balboa Park at a peace demonstration at the start of the Bush War, but the SDUT stated 1,000. I was annoyed. The UT did report, however, 65,000 marchers in San Diego in April of 2006 for the giant immigrant rights march. There may have been 100,000. I was there, and was blown away by how many marchers came. That was the largest protest in San Diego since the Vietnam war. So how many demonstrators came out for the right-wing fringe event in D.C.? Organizer Matt Kibbe of FreedomWorks stood on-stage and declared that ABC was reporting that 1 million to 1.5 million people were in attendance. That’s a lie of course. ABC never said any such thing, although there were certainly way more than 70,000 people there, wouldn’t you say? Michelle Malkin, in her character for wild exaggeration, claimed 2,000,000 people were there. Neither the Pope nor Rush Limbaugh could attract a crowd that large. The only event in the world that can draw that kind of crowd is Gay Pride in Sao Paulo, Brazil. But that’s a party, not a protest. Brazilians love a party.Conservatives on twitter distributed a fake picture of the rally showing the entire mall filled with people. The only problem, the picture shown was ten years old. Daily Kos proved it, by showing the identical photo for the “Promise Keeper’s March in 1997. Both photos are identical, showing the flag at half mast. Now perhaps the death of Rush Limbaugh would have been reason to fly the flag at half mast last Saturday, but he is still ranting on the air today. Furthermore, the old photo shows the sun shining brightly, whereas the Tea Party event was pretty overcast. Check out on Daily Kos. They document everything. I don’t mean to belittle the Tea Party, mind you. We all know there are millions of angry fringe lunatics out there in America. In fact, there are millions right here in California. See more like this at www.ProgressivePost.com |
