Posted on 09/18/2009 8:05:52 PM PDT by shechem_usa
As many of you know already (and am sure you are tired of hearing about it like I bet my wife is), I traveled to Washington DC with 2 fellow Christian/concerned citizens to participate in the protest march on September 12th, 2009.
I didn’t know what to expect when I went. From all the town hall meeting videos I had seen, I would not have been surprised to see some angry folks screaming and yelling with a furrowed brow for much of the day. What I actually saw was refreshing.
In no particular flow, that would make any English professor cringe, I am going to spill out my thoughts, feeling, and new perspectives that I came away with from this rally in our nation’s capital...
Firstly, I could spend 2 weeks in Disney World with all my expenses paid for and not feel as much joy and happiness as I came away with from only a few hours with over a million like-minded people in DC. Please know I am serious. I can't site any proven study, but it seems to me that if you surround yourself with angry people, you will feel anger. If you surround yourself with sad people, you will feel sad. And if you surround yourself with happy people, you will feel happiness. I don't want to go all new age on you with "positive energy" but I seriously can't describe the power of over a million people being around me who were all pleasant, happy, and in a good mood. Even stepping on someone’s foot in the huge crowd got you a pat on the back and a "Hey, no worries, where ya from?" I didn’t listen to a word of the speeches, I was drawn by some odd force to walk around and randomly approach people, shake their hands, and ask where they were from (My excuse for this was to get at least one person from every state to sign my lab coat... I didn’t get every state, but I got Hawaii, Alaska, Cuba, and Ireland, among many other states.) It was like summer camp meets church meets family reunion. I don't know. I am still trying to wrap my head around the wonderment of the feelings from the event. The people I met and saw and surrounded myself with are who the media has called racist, brown shirts, full of hate, angry, and referred to them as a “mob.”
There was NO negativity. Sure, I saw 2 or 3 posters of Obama with a Hitler mustache.... I saw some signs saying "Bury Obamacare with Kennedy" which I thought was in poor taste, but something I didn't realize till I lfet was I didn't see any "republican" signs... pretty much everyone was disgusted with Congress and the Senate as a whole. Though I did see many "Joe Wilson" signs due to his outburst during Obamas speech. I can't count how many signs I saw leaned towards wiping them ALL out and starting over. And of the "leaders" of the conservative movement (I use that word loosely) the only name I saw was Glenn Beck.
As for the crowd demographics... name an age, race, occupation, sexual preference, sexual orientation, or religion, and you had it there. I must have spoken with 200 people, and that’s low balling it, like I said I spoke with many to try and get signatures on my lab coat. Also, at least 50 people asked to take my photo and I took that opportunity to talk to them. Yes, I met gays, yes I saw a cross dresser (only one, thankfully), I saw goth-esque folks, I saw teenagers walking around without parents, I saw old folks, in wheel chairs, farmers, doctors (lots of real doctors), black men and women, Cubans, Latinos, Asians, really, I can't say anymore than, if America has it, they were represented there. And think about this... I know about 100 people or more who would have loved to have gone and be represented... if the 1 million + who were there had 20 people they know who couldn't make it, that’s a large segment of America that needs not be ignored anymore. Bear in mind, anyone opposing Obamacare is a racist… according to the media, and even some elected officials… I saw many black folks who were racists towards, well, blacks I guess (According to that logic).
The media... For some reason, I didn’t expect to see a lot of media trucks and people there. I passes an NPR lady with her recording equipment on her person as she marched, and I saw a Fox News van (not sure why they were there, their coverage stank.) but they just weren't there. But after the march, as we traveled back home, we huddled around our phones checking the internet to see the news reports... our happy-high ended soon. What it sounded like was the AP printed a story, and a bunch of other news outlets copied and pasted or reworded what they said.. The main change they did was the numbers... "Tens of thousands" was batted around a lot, 70,000 was a number used by ABC, 2 million is what the UK said, and the numbers went on from there. Well, I was there. And friends, I have seen 100,000 people at a football game... this was 10 times that if not more. I came away no longer able to rely on the media for information. I had participated in a national event only to have it reported no better than some moose being caught in a frozen river in Minnesota. What happened to journalism? Why is it that YouTube, Blogs and (yes, I will say it) Talk Radio are now the only reliable places to get news? Now, I listen to talk radio enough to know that they exaggerate information. Sure, some even make things up. I listened to Neal Boortz today and while he made me feel good by reporting the event, he exaggerated some of the happenings. If you rely on the alphabet soup media outlets, they are held to no more of a standard any longer than someone’s blog or a youtube video channel. For some reason, this idea of dead journalism in America caused me to cry as I talked about it on a local talk radio show this morning and had to be put on hold till I got it together.
Lastly, my perspective of our leaders has changed. Though to the naked eye, it would appear to be the same... There I was, in our nation’s capital. I saw the flags, I saw the Preamble etched on the side of a building. I saw monuments dedicated to great events, to great men, to our great military. I thought of the Statue of liberty and the Liberty Bell and what they stood for. Pride swelled in my heart and my soul. I heard that tacky song by Toby Keith that came out soon after 9-11 and actually puffed my chest out a little as I listened to the words. I saw happy people, Americans from every walk of life. Then I kept seeing the Capital building in the background of the entire event... and I thought of all the men and women who work in there 'representing us' with their suits that run near $2,000, wearing their high dollar jewelry, there catered parties and get-togethers, living in their million dollar homes in exclusive estates, driving fancy cars few of us could afford, much less be able to have the privileged of having a private jet or limo drivers... and I kept thinking "THEY represent US?" They will be forgotten. They deserve not an ounce of historical remembrance as all the other monuments in our nation’s capital and other cities around the country represent. They fight against us and we have to fight against them. They act as though we are the enemy and we reluctantly have to fight back.
I want a government I can be proud of, that I can respect, and that I can trust. I truly DESIRE this. I don't have it. "Easy to say when 'your guy' didn't get elected" I will hear some say. Maybe that's true, but I do know that from now on, as long as I live, I will NEVER vote for the lesser of two evils ever again.
One sign at the rally summed it all up to me, it wasn't the cleverest and it was on yellow poster board written with magic marker... it read: "We have two political parties in power: Fascist and fascist LITE"
I was there too and I’m tired of the state-run media and phonies like Bill O’Reilly deliberately understating teh attendance.
Bookmarked and saved. Good post! Thanks for sharing that with us here. Welcome to FreeRepublic.
I was there, too. I would not argue with anything you said. I cannot understand why Fox, particularly Bill O’Reilly wants to focus on the “nasty” signs about Obama. They were far and away in the minority and not at all representative of the crowd. As a point of extreme emphasis, I too met and talked to many people. Without exception, ALL were extremely nice, well behaved, lacked overt anger, and just seemed to be salt of the earth people.
Based on what I saw too, being one who has attended many college football games, the crowd was generally low-balled by the media. From what I could see, dividing the crowd into stadium-like sectors, the best I could tell, there very well could have been a million.
Aside from the fact that I saw absolutely NO overt signs of hostility and anger other than the messages on the signs, I think there is one point that has been ignored:
People are angry enough to take the time, put their lives on hold, spend the money, to drop what they normally do, come from all walks of life from all over the country, to come to Washington to voice their displeasure. EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE VERY WELL BEHAVED AND VERY CIVIL AND POLITE WITHOUT EXCEPTION, THEY WERE ANGRY ENOUGH TO BE THERE!!!!!!
I join the others in welcoming you to FR. Beware, it’s addictive. FR has some wonderful, clever posters, and there are ‘trolls’ or others who won’t be fun for you. Overall, it’s a great experience.
So glad you enjoyed the march. We were there, shared similar experiences of friendliness, easily talking with people from all over the use, and found it exhilerating.
Welcome to FR.
You experienced America’s truth. It was a vivid demonstration of why America is the light of the world.
It’s not the leaders of this country who show the rest of the world a new way. It’s not our government that is a beacon for the world, although our constitution shows how a government can step out of the way of a resourceful people.
It is the people of this country who possess a vision of a better world; an American population who loves our Creator, who readily sacrifices for fellows in need, who cherish family, and who prize the soulful comfort of peace, but who despise the intrusion of wrong doing, and who, when once aroused to act, will not stop until the source of their oppression is removed.
Great start - we need five million people there next year. But we need to do it on a weekday, not a Saturday, so we can shut down D.C. That should get Congress’ attention.
Don’t count on it, they willfully undercounted the crowd on Saturday, BOR is stubbornly sticking to 75,000 and correcting even Chris Wallace who said over a million to him tonight.
Welcome.
Yeah...what’s with BOR doing that?
Now, go call those 20 people who didn't make it, get them over here and get them active, locally.
beats me..... he blows hot and cold who can tell where he is coming from.
Yeah, sorry it took me so long everyone... Ive been a Drudge fan for over 10 years, and when I learned he was/is a FREEPER I had to join :)
Hello FRiend! I see your first post and you did well. :) I am trying to find your youtube video but this is all I found. Ok, so you became a freeper because of Drudge and not me? What’s up with that? ;) I pinged my hubby so now you have both our freeper names. I will ping some more freeper friends when I find your you tube posting.
jonny shechem_usa is my friend I was telling you about. Just pinging some of you to welcome him. If you know anyone else that would be good to meet please invite them along. :)
jeff, share with him your constitutional thread. Thanks!
Okay, I replied to this post with about 6 pics I had hosted on photobucket. when I went to post, i got my posting privs revoked. I emailed the webmaster and got them back... so, before i get banned AGAIN, what am I doing wrong? I am no dummy when it comes to this sort of thing, I am sure I did it ‘right” but may have broken an unknown rule...
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