And these may show up too big, I am a newbie, forgive me....
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"
And these may show up too big, I am a newbie, forgive me....
LOL, well, I KNOW of the FR BECAUSE of you, but you telling me Drudge was a former (or present?) Freeper pushed me to go all the way into this 1998-esque underground web site :)
No, I said there was a link to Drudge, don’t know if he is a freeper. But Tony Snow was a freeper. And he was a very good, kind man. Your pictures look great. I have to admit that was a really fun day! Now where to next?
I agree!
Welcome to FR! I think you stated your thoughts just fine. My favorite line:
“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.”
God bless America & good Americans.
Those are great pictures! We all shared a great experience that historic day. Welcome to FreeRepublic!
Welcome aboard :)
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