So this happened today:
Thousands of people converged on the World War II Memorial on the National Mall on Sunday morning and tore down the barricades blocking it off, protesting the closure of the memorial during the federal government shutdown.The crowd eventually moved to the White House:
Protestors of the government shutdown began at the World War II Memorial early Saturday morning and ended at the White House gates and fence Saturday afternoon....The rhetoric was about as high-minded as you'd expect:
Video from cameras on the White House lawn showed people carrying barricades, presumably from the WW II memorial, to the fence....
NBC News desk assistant Brittany Marshall reported a sizable police presence moved protestors away from the White House fence.
One speaker went as far as saying the president was a Muslim and separately urged the crowd of hundreds to initiate a peaceful uprising.And there was the inevitable Confederate flag:
"I call upon all of you to wage a second American nonviolent revolution, to use civil disobedience, and to demand that this president leave town, to get up, to put the Quran down, to get up off his knees, and to figuratively come out with his hands up," said Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch, a conservative political advocacy group.
Pro tip: If you want to express your love of US Army & its monuments … leave the Confederate flag at home. pic.twitter.com/dyByu9av51
— davidfrum (@davidfrum) October 13, 2013
Big names showed up -- Sarah Palin, Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee -- but this was a Fox-recruited crowd. Since the shutdown began, Fox has been all World War II memorial, all the time. Fox recruited this crowd to protest an inevitable result of a government shutdown that came about only because of the political power of the previous mobs Fox recruited to the tea party starting in 2009.
Do you doubt that Fox brought about this protest? Let me just give you a sample of Fox's government shutdown coverage:
* Radio.FoxNews.com, September 30: "Elderly Veterans Barred from WW II Memorial"
* FoxNews.com, October 1: "Lawmakers, World War II vets rise up against government slimdown at war memorial"
* FoxNews.com, October 1: "'Greatest generation' veterans sweep past barricades at memorial in their honor"
* FoxNews.com, October 2: "New wave of WWII veterans move barricades to access DC memorial"
* Fox Nation, October 3: "Fox & Friends: Obama Sent More Security to WWII Memorial Than Benghazi"
* FoxNews.com, October 4: "Lawmaker says barricade of WWII memorial is 'Chicago thuggery'"
Tea party? What tea party? Yes, obviously these are many of the same people, and they have all of the same attitudes, but the right-wing propaganda machine is trying to rebrand wingnuttery again. Just as the tea party was promoted to make you forget about the years of George W. Bush, this is meant to make you forget angry Obamacare protesters braying that the GOP had to shut down the government if the health care law isn't defunded. These people aren't interested in any of that -- they're simply patriots! I don't know if anyone's going to be fooled, but that's the ruse.
Steve
ReplyDeleteYou are forgetting Murdock's origins. He was in a "Conservative" Australia.
From there came the colorful concept of "feeding the Chooks (chickens) to get the eggs to sell".
The occasional self righteous feeding frenzy is good for ratings....good for advertising rates.
PS Chooks aren't stupid rather instinctive... that's all they need to survive in the wild...pity about the modern reality ....KFC (business)
Yes, OBUMMERcare will be the death of the USA!
ReplyDeleteWitness the health care hellhole that is MA!!
It has bankrupted that state!!!
Haiti is sending the poor people in MA food, Bangladesh is gathering its resources to send CARE packages, and the poor children of Mississippi are petitioning UNICEF to come to MA’s aid!
OH, THE HUMANITIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wait…
What?
Oh.
Yeeeeeesh.
NEEEEEEEEEEEver mind...
How does one "figuratively" come out with his hands up?
ReplyDeleteOne correction-I don't there were even thousands of "protesters" (or, to sensible people, clowns). There were about 200....
ReplyDelete