Click here for DaTechGuyBlog.com Same Fedoras, Same Cannoli different domain.
Please Help DaTechGuy pay Da Bills
Click for the latest show
If like the NYT you count the numbers of people at either event and combine them with the folks at Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor rally we get hundreds of thousands of people in attendance.
Between the two events, hundreds of thousands of people could swarm the Mall.
I hope we have enough food this year for all those folks.
The sad thing? Thousands of readers of the NYT around the world will never know the truth. The sadder thing? That is by design.
Question: What do Bob Herbert of the New York Times and a six year old child afraid of Monsters in her closet have in common?
What is the reliability myopic Bob Herbert afraid of that doesn’t exist? Why Tea party violence of course:
But I worry about the potential for violence that grows out of unrestrained, hostile bombast. We’ve seen it so often. A little more than two weeks after the 1963 March on Washington, the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan and four young black girls were killed. And three months after the march, Jack Kennedy was assassinated.
Well yeah you know what happens when conservatives get angry, there was the Bill Sparkman murder, oops that was a staged suicide, they stab Muslim cab drivers, no wait that was a supporter of the park 51, or they firebomb democratic congressman’s offices, oh wait that was a liberal blogger who is suspected of that, well what about the death threats and shots fired at a party office this week? Sorry those were fired at a GOP office and the death threats were against Freedom Works a pro tea-party group. Ok so they aren’t all that violent but they do throw eggs at buses of people who oppose them, oh wait…
Where is he getting these delusions? Why the Southern Law and Poverty Center of course and they do have a history of seeing growing threats:
How did this story line grow? Many of the claims that extremism is on the rise in America originate in research done by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based group that for nearly 40 years has tracked what it says is the growing threat of intolerance in the United States. These days, the SPLC is issuing new warnings of new threats. But today’s warnings sound an awful lot like those of the past.
In 1989, the SPLC warned of the growing threat of skinheads, saying, “Not since the height of Klan activity during the civil-rights era has there been a white supremacist group so obsessed with violence.”
In 1992, the SPLC warned of the growing threat of other white supremacist groups, which it claimed had grown by 27 percent from the year before.
In 1995, the SPLC warned of the growing threat of right-wing militias.
In 1998, the SPLC warned of the growing threat of Internet-based hate groups that, according to one press account, had “created the biggest surge in hate in America in years.”
In 1999, the SPLC warned that the growing threat of Web-based hate groups was growing even more, with a 60 percent increase from the year before.
In 2002, the SPLC warned of the growing threat of post-Sept. 11 hate groups, which it said had grown 12 percent between 2000 and 2001.
In 2004, the SPLC warned (again) of the growing threat of skinhead groups, whose numbers it said had doubled in the previous year.
In 2008, the SPLC warned of the growing threat of hate groups overall, whose number it said increased 48 percent since 2000.
And in 2010, just a few weeks ago, the SPLC warned of the growing threat of “patriot” groups, which it said increased by 244 percent in 2009.
In the world of the Southern Poverty Law Center, the threat is always growing. Ronald Reagan’s policies led to a growing threat. The first Gulf War led to a growing threat. The election of Bill Clinton led to a growing threat. The Internet led to a growing threat. Sept. 11 led to a growing threat. The war in Iraq led to a growing threat. Is it any wonder that Obama’s presidency has, in the SPLC’s estimation, led to a growing threat?
Well mathematically sooner or later there is bound to be an incident they can point to (lemon soaked paper napkin anyone?), perhaps he can write the column in advance like an obit and wait until something happens and then he can sub in the place and date.
memeorandum thread here.
Mike Forte hosted gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker in his shop Forte’s Parts connection, however when I interviewed him there we didn’t talk politics we talked shop:
If you want a better perspective on how the economic climate has effected his business, the Framingham Tab profiled him in January.
“Trips and expensive cars — they’re the first to go,” he said. “Since 2006 I’ve been feeling it, but since autumn 2008 we’re off by about a third.”
“I’ve cut back everything,” he said. “I’ve been getting killed.”
Forte isn’t alone in his struggles.
This has been a difficult year for small businesses. In the first quarter, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 400,000 businesses with fewer than 100 employees ceased operations, eliminating one million jobs. Some experts are describing 2009 as perhaps the worst year for small business since the Great Depression.
As they say, read the whole thing.
I’ll never forget an event I covered where a crowd was padded by union members ordered there by their steward. I remember the man scanning the crowd to make sure the people he ordered to be there showed up.
I’m very curious how many of Sharpton’s attendees will be “ordered” and bussed to Washington. I also wonder how many are professional paid protesters after all it was a year ago this month that we had this moment:
This clinic is adjacent to Denver’s day laborer pickup street, Park Avenue. Being fluent in Spanish, El Marco asked these guys “¿hablan ingles?” “casi nada” was the reply from our amigo on the left. I asked him if he could tell me what the signs said. “¿Quien sabe?” (who knows?) was all he said to me, with a big grin. I’m kicking myself for not asking them how much they were getting paid to support the grassroots.
The base post is here
I can’t help but remember the Cuba scene from Godfather II
Like in Denver I suspect we will have a set of protesters who are paid to be there (Sharpton’s) vs those who are coming of their own accord (Beck’s). Make sure you take a look at the photos that are run. You won’t see as many wide shots of Sharpton’s crew, particularly not as compared to Becks. The media will present them as equal and opposite. One voice here one voice there. In all things visual you won’t be able to tell the relative sizes of the groups.
Last year’s unbelievably huge 9/12 crowd defied attempts to lowball it:
This year the plan will be to over-count Sharpton & co. I wonder which crowd will leave a cleaner area.
One caveat here, For many in the tea party movement two trips to Washington within two weeks is prohibitively expensive. Don’t be surprised that this march is smaller than the 9/12 one since many tea party groups are going to Washington on 9/12. And the reverse is of course true. In that sense Beck’s Restoring Honor rally is about the power of Beck.
Update: The NYT reports on “parallel rallies” even though the Washington post reports live from the Sharpton event that he has drawn “hundreds”
As town hall says:
There is no equivalence between these two rallies. That won’t stop the MSM from trying to portray them as ‘competing’ gatherings, though.
Guess which narrative the MSM will use?
memeorandum thread here.
Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog 