Saturday, March 20, 2010

Health care protest

I went for about 45 minutes. Observations: unlike a number of the anti-war protests I went to, I didn't see one sign or t-shirt that featured a swear word on it. Also not single one "birther" reference. In fact, one speaker, getting ready to introduce another speaker, said "How many of you were born here in the United States?" and I started to think "Oh dear, here we go..." But he then followed that with "Well, our next speaker chose to become a U.S. citizen" and introduced a woman from Bucks County, PA by way of Brazil.

I also recall only seeing one or two signs which referenced Christianity. I'm not particularly gifted at estimating crowd sizes, but the 30,000 I read on Instapundit I think strikes me as a bit high. Then again, people were still arriving when I left around 1pm. Here are my pics. You can find more here.

Ration politicians, not healthcare.  

Yes we can! Vote you out!
Proctologist-in-chief
Remember in November

12 comments:

Paradigm Shifter said...

You know, I was going to make a sarcastic comment that your experience notwithstanding, the media was going to spin it as a bunch of birther racists. But they beat me to the punch.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/03/20/2234644.aspx

Atticus said...

Colin, you must have missed these - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/20/tea-party-protests-nier-f_n_507116.html#s74976

Colin said...

Atticus, it's instructive that even the HuffPost could only find one, possibly two (the voo-doo sign) which referenced Obama's race or the birther issue.

As for racial epithets, here is some actual video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPoJGNhWB-s&feature=player_embedded

Let me know if you can hear the n-word being shouted, b/c I certainly can't.

Atticus said...

I'm sorry, Colin. I thought you meant to suggest that the Teabaggers did not evoke his race or citizenship. I guess the Huffpost just stuck around longer than you did.

And, thanks for the video. Frankly, it wasn't very helpful. Am I supposed to be convinced that because the slur wasn't shouted during those 22 seconds, it didn't happen?

Colin said...

What I suggested -- no, actually what I said -- was that I didn't see one sign or t-shirt which referenced Obama's race or the birther issue. I stand by that. I never claimed to have surveyed the entire protest and not seen one.

The fact that the HuffPost could only find one or two signs which raised the birther issue out of the hundreds of signs being held really speaks volumes as to what a non-issue it was.

vince said...

why are they against government health care? dont' their parents and grandparents have Medicare?

Colin said...

Some $30+ trillion in the hole, Medicare is an excellent demonstration of the failure of government health care.

Atticus said...

the protest itself is about to become a non-issue..

Colin said...

Get back to me in November and tell me if you still believe that.

Atticus said...

I'm not sure exactly what you mean. Yesterday's protest will affect elections in November?

Colin said...

Yes, they will. Unless you think all of the people who came out to protest will suddenly disengage from the political process and sit on their hands come election day.

Atticus said...

ten bucks says there were very few swing voters in that crowd.

but fair enough, elections have consequences and November will be a test. 7 months is an eternity in politics, amigo.