Posted on 09/12/2009 3:44:52 PM PDT by greyfoxx39
Up to two million people marched to the U.S. Capitol today, carrying signs with slogans such as "Obamacare makes me sick" as they protested the president's health care plan and what they say is out-of-control spending.
The line of protesters spread across Pennsylvania Avenue for blocks, all the way to the capitol, according to the Washington Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency.
-SNIP-
FreedomWorks Foundation, a conservative organization led by former House of Representatives Majority Leader Dick Armey, organized several groups from across the country for what they billed as a "March on Washington."
Organizers say they built on momentum from the April "tea party" demonstrations held nationwide to protest tax policies, along with growing resentment over the economic stimulus packages and bank bailouts.
-SNIP-
Many protesters said they paid their own way to the event - an ethic they believe should be applied to the government.
-SNIP-
Today's protests imitated the original Boston Tea Party of 1773, when colonists threw three shiploads of taxed tea into Boston Harbour in protest against the British government under the slogan 'No taxation without representation'.
The group first began rising to prominence in April, when the governor of Texas threatened to secede from the union in protest against government spending. Waves of tea party protests have crossed America since.
Today's rally, the largest grouping of fiscal conservatives to march on Washington, comes on the heels of heated town halls held during the congressional August recess when some Democratic lawmakers were confronted, disrupted and shouted down by angry protestors who oppose President Obama's plan to overhaul the health care system.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I heard the rolling sounds too. It gives me chills even now, thinking about it and hearing it again in my head. It was an awesome sound, an awesome experience and I’m so glad that I was part of this historic event.
At the banquet, the Washington Times reporter received a call. She said her source at the DC police said that the crowd was estimated by the DC police to be 2.6 million. Obama’s inaugaration doesn't come close to this estimate.
She mentioned one of the parameters used for estimating the crowd was the metro ridership for the day. We need access to all the normal ways of estimating the crowd, metro ridership, number of buses, train capacity, airlines, the best photos for density. number of people, depth of the crowd marching across one spot per second on Pennsylvania Ave, How many were already at the Capitol(some camped out all night to get a good spot) and any other ways they have to measure the crowd.
Why are the estimated so low? We need to get the truth out about the size of the crowd.
On our way out of town, I went hunting for a Washington Times paper. I found one at a 7-11. They had gone along with the same low estimates. I know for a fact that they had received much higher estimates from their sources.
We also heard around 11 am from others in the crowd that Fox, CNN, and ABC gave a 2 million estimate.
Why did Fox, the Washington Times, and the rest of the news media end up low balling this historic turnout?
From what I understand the reason why we don't have official estimates is that the Park service has been forbidden to give out estimates since the million man march which was actually only a few hundred thousand.
I guess the inauguration is a ticketed event, so they can claim, all the tickets they gave out.
Washington doesn't want us to know how many people are really protesting the government.
Let's get the word out. Surely, we can find experts in crowd density to look at the photos we have, and the size of the area, to get a reasonable estimate.
Can't we as citizens find out what the ridership on the metro was that day?
Ping.
I don’t think we could ask for a better place to be than here.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.