Well, it wasn’t thousands of folks, as occurred in more congenial venues, but, with police estimates ranging from 350 to 500 protesters, on a weekday/workday in San Francisco, this was a pretty darned good crowd.
It was a calm crowd, but there was determination in the air.
Of course, there are always flies - or cockroaches - in the ointment. In this case it was a pathetic but typical band of four black-clad “radicals,” who were busily trying to convince the cop who had them “under detainment” that they had been assaulted by Tea Partiers because they had arrived with “the only black guy in the whole damned crowd.”
The cop wasn’t buying it.
Here is one of my favorite protesters:
By the way, odd as it may seem, your humble reporter’s name - or at least this weblog - was recognized with approval by some of those in the crowd. That’s always nice.
A final note: the local police I spoke with would do so only off the record, and didn’t let me snap them, but they seemed in general agreement with the tenor of the protesters’ message. Put it this way: I doubt if they were majority Obama voters, although I’m sure the politicians who run their department are.
So I don’t blame them for wanting to stay off the record.
UPDATE: More pics:
I like flags. Here are a couple, flying high, blowing free.
And another shot of one of the anti-Tea Party protesters.
“GI Resistance” is a program pushed by the likes of Iraq Veterans Against the War, (to which fraudster Jesse MacBeth belonged) and involves urging military people to refuse to obey orders and otherwise to “resist war.”
And here is some raw video footage of the SF Tea Party. Sorry, it’s pretty lousy, but it might give you a feel for the numbers.
If I’m going to do this, I suppose I’d better educate myself on how to shoot video and then edit movies. You think?
UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!
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Looks like a pretty nice Spring day - clear blue sky, and all - maybe a bit chilly, from the looks of the jackets, etc.
Interesting - the four black-clad yobs claimed they were assaulted, solely based on…what?…that they were the ones who showed up with a “token black guy”? Which gave them some kind of moral high-ground?…I confess to being a bit perplexed, here…
Most other locations that I looked at on-line appear to have scheduled their Tea Parties for after working hours (or set up for two sessions, one late in the day)…would that, perhaps, have drawn a better turnout, even in the “deep-blue” Obamaworship area around you?
Exactly. I think they were planning on smearing the whole protest as the work of a bunch of white racists, but they weren’t able to find any MSM reporters to listen, since this sort of protest news doesn’t get reported by the SF journo-whores.
I ran into a local photojournalist there, who told me that he’d offered pics to the local press, but was turned down cold, even though he sells them a lot of stuff otherwise. He said he’d probably end up posting them on Freep, since nobody in the MSM would pay him anything for them.
Thanks for the reporting and the photos. It was a fun ralley and a first of sorts for many of us there (being SF and all) More photos please? Buy the way, I walked back to the Bart Station with an African American who attended from the East Bay. It was her first prostest as well. We both had a great day.
Odd. The “GI Resistance” guys are the only ones that look like trouble. They’re the ones dressed in the militant extremist uniforms. It even looks like what ATF wore at Waco.
Thanks for posting the protest. I’m glad we are beginning, as citizens, to harness and focus our enormous power. I was (and still am) opposed to the bailout. However, I hope that we, as responsible citizens, are courageous enough to hold ourselves largely accountable for our national predicament. From the poorest of us to the wealthiest, we have undeniably benefitted from living in the (former) richest nation on the planet. As a result, we have allowed ourselves to grow hugely complacent politically and intellectually. Until now.
EZ and tofu - No, thank you for turning out.
Nobody I interviewed was willing to give their name, and few wanted to let me take a closeup. The fear is there - in SF, being marked a “conservative” (read “fascist, racist, enemy of the people”) is a good way to have job problems, car problems, vandalism problems, and assorted social problems.
The groupthink out here is frightening.
Which makes the turnout all the more praiseworthy. Would you, observers who live in happier states, like to have groups of black-clad thugs like those pictured camping on your doorstep, either figuratively or literally?
Hmm. I live in the Socialist state of San francisco and if I wound up with people clad like that on my doorstep in the Outer Richmond, they would be staring at the business end of a Remington Wingmaster…
And yeah, it was gusty windy today so they needed the jackets out there. Just typical SF weather. If it wasn’t as cold out, more trust fund leftists pretending that they’re anarchists would have turned up.
There was a tea party in Albany NY, attended by one of the local talkers and crew but, so far as I can tell, ignored by all of the “news” operations. (Or maybe the sneer quotes are misplaced; maybe the event simply wasn’t newsworthy.) I’d planned to go and take pictures, but a poorly timed crisis kept me home most of the day.
Did you see me talking on the bullhorn? i am the 14 year old, who protested near princess pelosi’s
Here some pictures I took today in San Francisco.
Feel free to link, embed or forward, if you like them.
Just surfin’ around, I saw a reference on Michelle Malkin’s site to there having been at least 800 Tea Party gatherings today nationwide -
If so - and if the average attendance was only 500 or so - that’s about 400,000 total participants/attendees…
Impressive - it appears that this buildup has taken place quite literally within the last month to six weeks…
Maybe we can keep this growing, build up some real pressure on the politickin’ fools in D.C. and various Statehouses…
400,000? Wow. That’s, like, .13% of the population. Of course, 69,000,000 people just voted for this guy that everyone’s protesting. And an even larger percentage like him, his job performance, and his response to the economic crisis. But, hey, 400,000 is 400,000.
Well, I guess we don’t really know if 500 is a good average. The average could be 1500! Or 100! We could make up numbers! Just imagine how many it could have been if there was a popular news network promoting the protests in primetime for several weeks!
My thing, though, is how painfully misguided the whole thing is. “Don’t Tread on Me” “Boston Tea Party” I mean, we do know that all these people were allowed to vote for their representation in our government? Just six months ago, in fact! How do you call for a revolution in a democracy with peaceful elections? What the hell is a silent majority in a democracy (or representative democracy)?
And I know I’ve gone on too long, but it would have been a LOT easier to take this whole thing seriously if every fourth or fifth sign didn’t reference fascism, socialism, communism, Mao, Stalin, Hitler, or Mussolini. If all these terms/names are interchangeable to so many, perhaps our government schools really are complete and utter failures.
And 60 million voted against him. Your boy beat McCain by a margin of a couple of points more than Bush beat your boy Kerry. And I’ll bet you weren’t hollering that Bush was justified in running roughshod over every bit of opposition due to his overwhelming mandate. Anyway, of the 69 million who did vote for him, I suspect at least ten million of them would have switched the other way, had he run on a platform promising to run trillion dollar deficits for the next twenty years.
As for the 400,000, it’s not a large percentage of the total American population, that’s true. It his, however, considerably larger than any popular demonstrations you mokes have been able to come up with supporting Prexy I Won since his coronation - despite him calling every number on his vaunted phone tree and spamming everybody on his email lists.
I’ll be looking for you to drop back in after the 2010 congressional elections. We may have some more startling news for you to chew on. I do want to thank you for your post, though. It reeks of your fear of this movement, and I find that aroma highly pleasing.
Bill,
Thanks for calling Kerry “my boy” even though I didn’t like him and didn’t vote for him. And I guess you have a point that there haven’t been mass rallies supporting the President in the first three months of his term…especially since he’s tried to set up so many of them. Then again, all those polls putting his personal and job approval around 60% (more than the percentage that voted for him) might suggest he’s doing just fine.
“I do want to thank you for your post, though. It reeks of your fear of this movement, and I find that aroma highly pleasing.”
Oh, God, I really love that response. Anyone points out how ridiculous someone or something is and they’re scared. I think the same thing was said when Sarah Palin became the laughing stock VP candidate. “They’re just scared of how she’s gonna energize the base! THE BASE! THEY’RE SCARED OF THE BASE!” How’d that work out? Where’d that base go? Is it the silent majority?
But does my aroma really please you? That’s kind of weird.
For God sake stop the incessant camera panning. It looks like Obama reading a teleprompter.
Who did you vote for, leftyboy? And if you didn’t vote, why not? No candidate far enough left for you?
Depends. The number seems to be falling:
Rasmussen Reports™: The Most Comprehensive Public Opinion Data Anywhere
Also, calculating another way, his approval cume is about to tip over into negative numbers”
Like I said - come back in 2010, after the Congressional elections. By that time it may be obvious that your boy Obama is an even bigger disaster for you guys on the left than BJ Clinton or Jimmeh Carter.
The aroma of fear evident in your post does. And yes, you would probably think that weird.
I told you my video sucked.
But I didn’t think it sucked that bad.
Crap. I came here from Instapundit’s link expecting a serious site. I read the post and responded (as commenters do). I was sarcastic about someone’s random and baseless assessment of “400,000″ participants and that that makes it a movement, but I also think I made a pretty good point about the absurdities seen at today’s protests (not understanding that we have taxation WITH representation; an apparent lack of education in what differentiates communism, socialism, fascism, Mao, Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler; the peculiarity of this happening just six months after an election when everyone had the chance to voice their opinions in free and peaceful elections in the most free country in history, etc).
You, the site owner (I believe), responded by calling me a “moke,” “leftyboy,” and alluding to my aroma. You then showed true maturity of thought by calling two former presidents “BJ Clinto” and “Jimmeh Carter.”
I guess I’m trying to apologize for wasting your time and mine on a site I had assumed was somewhat serious.
-Leftyboy the Frightened Moke
It looks like Obama reading a teleprompter.
Nah, Oba pauses more at the ends. Look left, pause, look right, pause, look left, pause, look right, pause, etc etc.
Moke, just because there was an election doesn’t mean that everybody has to shutup and be happy. If you believe in right and wrong, then you can believe the government is doing wrong, even if it was elected by 99.9% of the people.
Your comments do not ring true. They sound like a stance.
Thanks for the apology for wasting my time. Now go the hell somewhere else.
I dunno why so many dumbasses have been dropping by lately assuming that I give a rat’s ass whether they like this site, or think it’s serious, or think I’m “mature” by their standards, or even that I give a damn whether they live or die.
Fuck off, leftyboy. Trollhammer coming down in three…two…one…
Squash.
Well, I didn’t take a camera to the Richmond Tea Party. A couple of friends would have brought cameras, but they got sick and stayed out of the 45 degree rainy weather. I managed to get a few pics with my cell phone, but it’s an old phone and they pretty much suck. That said, it was well worth my time.
Some actors re-enacted Patrick Henry’s speech, which he gave just a few miles from yesterday’s Tea Party. Seemed extra appropriate.
I have to admit that I had low expectations going into yesterday. Too many in this country have become accustomed to bending over for the money ticks in our government and I wasn’t certain if enough spark remained to save this Republic. Yesterday’s turnout gave me hope. Now it’s on to the next phase, as people must not go back to sleep. Become active. Run for office. Support conservative/libertarian types for office at the state, local and federal levels.
I hadn’t really considered it in those terms - but, percentagewise, I suppose you’re correct. At this quite-early stage, I didn’t really see it as, y’know, a percentage thing - more of a “good start” sort of number…
Back in the late-60’s “counterculture” days, Arlo Guthrie (he of “Alice’s Restaurant” fame…) commented along the lines that, when one guy walks in singing a song, that’s maybe interesting…when two guys walk in singing the same song, that might be the start of a trend…but when three guys (or more) walk in, all singing that same song - well - what you may well have, there, is the start of a movement…
Get any two or three dozen people together, it’ll be tough to get agreement on where to go for lunch - 400,000 like-minded folks just seemed like it was sort of significant.
Which itself does seem significant - but, if we’re working the percentages, here, is still only about (using roughly the same overall population numbers used to get that .13% figure) 22 1/2 % - not exactly a majority of the U.S. population, now, is it?
Highly arguable - both as to percentage and as to approval of his “response to the crisis” thus far…after all, (and this has been mentioned hereabouts, frequently) the previous Oval Office occupant wasn’t exactly a hard act to follow. Also -
- is not exactly a rousing round of cheers. Since the mindset was detectibly that of “Let’s do something…” at the time of the inauguration/coronation - well - let’s just leave it that an ever-increasing number appear to be experiencing regrets. More and more folks appear to be saying “That’s not the ’something’ we had in mind”…
Actually, no, we don’t know yet - I just thought it was a fairly conservative number; most estimates from individual locations I’ve seen since I wrote the previous entry have been around 1,000 to 3,000 - maybe we’ll see a better average appear, as reports come in…
Well, maybe you could - Obamadevotees seem to be pretty good at that sort of lying…”practice makes perfect”, I guess…
Actually, it appears that just about all of the effective promotion (i.e., organizing and dissemination of info on locations, times, etc.) took place via online “word-of-mouth” - Fox News appears to have simply been doing their job (unlike the other four major broadcast “news” outlets and virtually all major print media) in reporting upcoming newsworthy events…
Again, for only about 5 or 6 weeks’ elapsed time in buildup, and as little coverage as it got in the MSM, 400,000 participants (estimated) seems like a pretty good start…
How about Code Pink and Cindy Sheehan, who managed to churn up all of a few dozen supporters and translate that into non-stop fawning coverage by the government-backed media? That’s, like, 0.0000013% of the population. Yet this mentality now controls the government.
0.0000013% is the tip of the bacterium on the end of the flea found on the last hair of the dog, yet it is able to wag the entire dog.
As a followup - most of the reports coming in from the majority of places not in California are listing attendance figures in the thousands - so far, the largest crowd claimed (of those I saw) is Atlanta, with an estimated 15,000…
My take on it is, the total over all of the some-800 Tea Parties would have to be well above 500,000, possibly fairly close to (or even above) 750,000 - a truly outstanding start…
Maybe it’s time to start planning for Independence Day (July 4th) ? It falls on a Saturday this year - just about everyone would be off work anyway, due to the national holiday - wouldn’t it be terrific to aim for something really spectacular, like…half a million at a Tea Party on the Mall in D.C. - in addition to even bigger Parties at all of the sites that had them yesterday?
The whole idea being, of course, that if this thing gets big enough, it becomes impossible to ignore or to disparage…
I just wanted to say Bill, I love you! thank you for your comments to the idiots that don’t want to face the truth. I am new to CA but was at the San Diego Tea Party and it was estimated there were about 2,000-3,000 people there. So anonymous (how brave) may sadly have to redo his percentages! Maybe me and some friends will have to make a trip to San Fran for the 4th and help you guys out! Its funny, I bought some bumper stickers back in November and was afraid to put them on my car for fear it would be vandalized but after the Tea Party I went home and put them on my car. It’s just a car and compared to losing my freedoms, having my car vandalized is a risk I am willing to make. I almost hope someone does so I can put a bumper sticker on my car that says that a liberal disagrees with my right to free speech!
Thanks, Stephanie. We plan to keep right on doing what we’ve kept right on doing for the past going on nine years now, as long as we can find a barrel of pixels and a screen to spray them on.