Posted on 08/06/2012 5:56:17 AM PDT by Kaslin
If the media reports an earthquake was a breeze in the forest, did the earth still move? I’m not sure TownHall Finance is the natural venue for that question, but I’m also not sure why the Denver Post—my local paper—put a significant political and cultural event on page umpty-something, in the business section. If you didn’t see it with your own eyes, you might have missed something big last week. Under fire by gay activists and their media amplifiers, Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy unapologetically confirmed he supports the biblical definition of family as he understands it. This modern heresy quickly went viral. Reaction was harsh. Big city mayors and councilors channeled Al Capone with a badge: “Don’t file no stinking permit applications in our town, Chick-fil-A!” Pundits nodded righteously. But, what happened next didn’t follow the script.
Backlash welled up, not just from social conservatives, but fiscal conservatives and libertarians, outraged that politicians would trample the First Amendment, brandishing political litmus tests for the right to do business. Social media and web commentary buzzed with rebellion. A great day of fried chicken and Chick-fil-A appreciation was proposed.
Last Wednesday, I met friends in north suburban Denver at about 11 to beat the rush. Fail. The lot was packed, the drive-thru and building tightly coiled by a boa of cars, tail extending to the street. Inside was standing room only, with a switch-back line that triggered post-Disney traumatic stress. Yet, amid the din, cheer was high. The besieged staff moved helpfully and efficiently, and the line shuffled like a smooth deck of cards.
The friendly mob cycled through, holding steady in size the hour I was there. Judging scientifically by anecdotal Facebook posts, it stayed that way all day and evening, at every Chick-fil-A around Denver, throughout the state, and across the nation. The outpouring was unforeseen, the magnitude unimaginable. The chain’s coffers got a short- and probably long-term boost.
After 20 years around politics, I’ve seen how activists can generate pretty good ink just from a press release and 50 people on the Capitol steps in front of a borrowed guitar amplifier. I also know how hard groups sometimes have to hustle to assemble their 50. So I was eager to see what the media would make of this human tide.
Thursday’s Denver Post business page answered: “Coloradans voice their opinions on Chick-fil-A; Outlets flooded by supporters and opponents.” Not even close. Without space to fully deconstruct, I’ll acknowledge the article did say the crowds were large and the protesters few. But the headline and details caught maybe half the story and missed the essence. A few thoughts, on the event and the coverage:
Especially without any central organizer or major media promotion, the numbers were staggering, and broadly replicated across the country. If a protest warrants a story, this event deserves a Pulitzer-nominated multi-part investigative series.
It wasn’t a forum about the First Amendment, Cathy’s marriage views, or even political bullying. Whatever their motivation, the crowd arrived as a smiling, hungry lunch and dinner crew. It was a massive show of implicit support and protest, for reasons that deserve examination.
My table included a friend who supports civil unions, one for gay marriage, and one who thinks government should get out of the marriage business, letting people and churches make their own agreeable arrangements. We didn’t discuss the fourth person’s view, or anyone else’s that day, because lunch was don’t ask don’t tell.
It’s clear many diners intended to rebuke bullying politicians and the un-American idea that approved political views are required for permission to be in business. Does this resentment go further, and reflect anger at transgressed lines between private and public management, corporate and government bedfellows sharing money, policies, and favors? Is that resentment building toward a November eruptian?
Another strong positive is rejection of a vicious double standard: One side airs views through a respectful media, while others get vilified for different opinions. It’s breathtaking that liberals seek to redefine fundamental cultural concepts and muzzle the opposition; those who question or disagree should be attacked and cowed into silence, even while they speak for majority opinion. That happened with California’s ballot measure on marriage, as more than one financial supporter was hounded from high profile jobs. Wednesday was a salutary fist at that ugly trend.
Finally, what to make of the subdued coverage. Did our scribes not recognize an important cultural moment? Because it doesn’t interest them or flatter their vision? That’s the fish-don’t-know-they’re-wet view of media bias. Or, do they know full well and work carefully to contain the story? Of course, either way, the effect is the same.
I think its a bit of both: They both failed to grasp the import of what occurred, and also instinctively sought to contain it. As the author says, in any case the effect is the same. You can’t unring a bell.
Good news alert.
Hundreds of aftershocks to come...
I was listening to the 7:00 news and morning edition on NPR on my way to work the following day. Not a peep. Nothing.
This thing affected hundreds of thousands of Americans and there was no “here’s what finally happened in the Chick-Fil-A event yesterday” story.
I posted it on a liberal site and the consensus was, “nobody outside of far right wingnuts cared.” Which is, of course bunk but the fact remains that it was completely missing from NPR.
My personal take is that liberals really want the story to go away. They lost this one, big time.
There is much conservative enthusiasm out there:
Entirely pi$$ed off and fed up with liberals and progressives
Not going to take it any more
Tired of high taxes
Hungry for Liberty
Unwilling to negotiate America’s enemies, foreign AND domestic
Sick of business killing regulations
Intolerant of RINOs
Aware of the danger
Sick of Mainstream Media Bias
Mobilized to finally do something about the left’s encroachment on liberty…
Makes me smile again just thinking about it...
This is the same Chick-Fila that I tried to get into last Wednesday and couldn't get near.
I was there from 9 to about 9:30. The place was *not* mobbed. I'd call business "steady" or "normal", prob 3-4 dozen people going through the restaurant while I was there. Plus whoever went through the drive-in, I couldn't see that.
I talked to the girl behind the counter for a bit. She said that she'd never seen anything like last week. Frankly, she looked like she was glad for a "break", if you'd call normal business traffic a break.
As a side note, probably 1/2 of the people who came through either asked the same question I did, or were talking (positively) about the prior week's events. IMHO, what's happening at Chick-Fil-A is a huge event, something that we might not see (or fully understand) the end result of for a good while. You wouldn't think that buying a chicken sandwich is an earth shattering act of political defiance, but I'm sure that other significant moments in history were only understood with hindsight, as well.
Woodstock for the Tea Party.
They are no longer in charge and waking up to this fact has terrified them.
heheheh this is great. This is the weakness of the left. They pretend the evidence is not there.. just because they do not acknowledge tsunami doesnt mean the potential energy is not present. In the mean time the wave grows larger and faster... let them dilute themselves.
I would agree, and they have ample reason to be terrified.
With this CFA incident alone already much has changed.
From all of the articles and OpEds I have read and from viewing hundreds of declines to gay events on Facebook, I would say that the CFA dibacle alone has accomplished the following:
1. Revealed the ground swell of support for first amendment rights and traditional marriage.
2. Revealed the Rainbow Agenda to be an over-reaching, obnoxious and selfish affair, and caused not only moderate conservatives and libertarians, but from what I’ve seen also a good number of liberal sympathizers, to lose interest in the gay marriage movement. I have noticed a whole secion of liberals who seem to have suddenly broken from the movement. This is good for social conservatives.
3. Sounded a note to many that the liberal gay agenda is dangerous and must not be allowed to hold sway. Ergo, Obama’s endorsement of gay marriage and the Democrats including the plank in the DNC now looks like bad, bad timing.
“Working in the newspaper business used to be great. 3 martini lunches, smoking cigarettes at my desk, knock out a sob story article and the readers lapped it up begging for more.”
“Stupid f’n internet. I hope Al gore rots in hell!”
(News propaganda writers across the country)
I think many propagandist’s are crushed by what they saw and didn’t report on.
That’s a great observation!
I still remember reading an article about how horrible LBJ was for bombing in Vietnam on page one of a news paper with the story continued on page 2. Right beside the continuation, with a nice large title, was a story about what a wonderful man LBJ was for trying to rebuild the cities and raise poor black folks out of poverty. All this while cities all over the country were condemning and taking control of the black business section of cities rather than paying black folks what their commercial properties were worth.
The fascist media has long advocated the elimination of both black folks and "poor white trash", they just periodically change the euphemisms they use for those two groups to keep up with the current democrat propaganda terminology. The media is just another part of the democrat fascist machine the same way the entire education system has become little more than a recruiting and brainwashing tool for the fascist machine.
The whole democrat fascist machine has to be brought down if we're going to take America back. Look at the horrible consequences of having had Carter in office and consider the fact that the democrat party suffered very little overall in spite of the Carter fiasco they sponsored and put in place. The democrat party was able to recover from and distance itself from Carter in because the dedicated academic machinery was there to provide good jobs for all the democrat pols who were voted out of office and begin to immediately revise history in a way that excused or ignored the blatant failures of not just Carter, but the entire party that groomed and supported him.
The democrat fascist party has to be eliminated as a national political force and that includes the democrat propaganda media heretofore called "the media" as well as the whole academic system that the democrat party has totally integrated into their political machine. It all has to be replaced and the democrat party has to be fought until democrat is only spoken in Hell. JMHO
—With this CFA incident alone already much has changed.—
One thing that changed is that I discovered Chick-Fil-A.
Their food is excellent and healthy for fast food. I’ve been there twice now since last Wednesday, and I gave up fast food back in 1997 (except for the rare trip to Subway - once or twice a year on road trips).
The greatest thing for me about all this is that it shows that normal America is starting to refuse to be bullied by our betters in the ruling classes.
Good way of putting it.
You wouldn’t think that buying a chicken sandwich is an earth shattering act of political defiance,
And, I guess people didn’t see that throwing tea overboard was a political defiant message either but as we know, it was.
IMHO, the Chick-fil-A stand was our tea moment. All it takes is that last straw.
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