Times Square New York City Protest Narrative
Me and the New York City sheeple had a tea party in Times Square. The sheeple in my vicinity were crotchety. I shouted out support for one speaker, and the woman next to me said, “Shhhh, let’s listen!” I was like, “You do realize this is a protest, right?” She bore a striking resemblance to Linda Hunt.
Subsequently the unpleasant couple behind me instructed me to lower my sign as it was blocking their view. Maybe we should have all shuffled single-file into a nearby library and sat silently with our hands neatly folded in our laps. Really show them we mean business.
I was not impressed by the speakers at all. This was really a missed opportunity. The Senate will soon be voting on Cap and Trade. What if the organizers had provided the protesters who attended with the NY and NJ senators’ information?
The speakers were on the whole lame and uninspired. With the exception of Deroy Murdock and Dr. Herb London who were good. Stephen Baldwin was good too, but a big tease. He got there late, and he didn’t speak for that long. He began by telling us that while he was getting ready to speak his co-host was pleading with him not to “go bananas,” or to get too radical. Some of us in the crowd, to the consternation of Linda Hunt and the Shady Pines crew, began shouting, “Go bananas! Go bananas!” Unfortunately, he followed the advice of his co-host. Also unfortunately, although his heart is in the right place, and he’s a compelling speaker and a sincere man, he could have used some fact checking. For example, this country has been going strong for more than 100 years. (Puzzled, I was trying to think whether it was that something definitive happened in 1909, and that was what he was alluding to? No, it wasn’t.)
As David Webb was filibustering for Stephen Baldwin, who he assured us was a “couple blocks away,” I felt an arm snake around my waist and clasp it tightly, and a woman whispered in my ear, “I love Stephen Baldwin.” I’m starting to wonder why I go to these things.
K.T. McFarland spoke, who also spoke at the first tea party. Whether other people are as convinced as she is that she is extremely clever and cute, I am not so sure. She gave us “Chinese lessons,” telling us the Chinese for “Can I help you?” and I think it was “Do you need anything?,” since the Chinese own our asses. Yeah, I don’t find the subject that humorous either.
What was absent, except for being implied in some heartfelt yet inarticulate entreaties by Stephen Baldwin, was rage. “It’s sad,” said Stephen Baldwin about what is going on. “Don’t be sad, get angry!” I shouted. (It was, after all, a protest, hello.) A girl behind me said something about anger not solving anything. This was not my crowd. I have more respect for Al Sharpton. He would have used the angry people there. He would have gotten them on buses, over to Schumer’s house, to howl outside his window.
That, and we heard a lot of “Vote the bums out!” Boy, is that a pat on the head. Margaret Hoover gave a textbook speech (I stood next to a guy who seemed excited she would be there, and when I saw her I knew why) with that moral. Vote the bums out in 2010, and meanwhile Cap and Trade is in the Senate. If it was as easy as “Vote the bums out,” this crowd of ill-tempered fussbudgets wouldn’t be converging in protest on Times Square, they’d be rolling up pairs of socks, or whatever they do for fun. Of course, I vastly prefer protesting with the squares to protesting with the freaks. Of course, among the squares, I’m a freak, and among the freaks, I’m a square.
The coup de grace was this speaker who got on stage and told us (1) he was a Democrat; (2) he voted for Obama; and (3) he would vote for him again. Fear of the opprobrium of my forbidding neighbors prevented me from hurling obscenities at him. I commiserated with the fellow next to me, and we agreed it was simply insulting to present this guy to all these people who had made an effort to come there. I didn’t listen to this speaker much, he said things like he hoped his money was being spent well. I have other, different hopes for him and his money. I can’t see what the point of this speaker was if not to insult us.
There were people in the crowd who were very sympathetic people. Everyone is very very concerned. There were a group of teachers there. You know it’s bad if the teachers are protesting against Obama. One of them had a sign that said, “Orwellian Bankrupting Appeasing Media-Grabbing Autocrat,” I think it was. I couldn’t have said it better myself. I carried two signs. One said, “No Banana Republic Totalitarian Socialism/ Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You We Were Angry/ If You Can Read This Sign… You Are Among the Many Not Watching NBC.” The other said, “No State-run Media, No Government Takeovers/ Waxman So Ugly/ Pelosi is a Botox Brain/ Obama *Heart* Chavez/ We the People/ Your Power Comes From Us/ Ignore Us at Your Peril/ Stop the Stimulus/ Healthcare Reform + Cap and Trade = Big Tyrannical Government/ King George Laughed Too. He Was Lucky To Be an Ocean Away.” That’s a mouthful, right? I probably could have used a copy editor.
They brought a couple people up from the crowd. The emcee David Webb, who messed up what state Senator Byrd is from, brought up this woman and introduced her as a “teacher and a single mother, we got two of ‘em here.” Then he brought up a 20 year-old African-American girl. The crowd cheered lustily to prove that they weren’t racist.
Oh, and during Baldwin’s speech, a heckler plant a row behind me began to shout, “What about George Bush? Why didn’t you protest George Bush? Why didn’t you protest the Iraq War?” He was pretty persistent. People began yelling at him, and I saw the cops begin to eye the problem, but he eventually subsided.
I saw some people I knew from previous protests. They did the thing where someone’s gaze keeps drifting past your shoulder while they speak with you, to keep an eye on whether someone more important is around. People do that a lot in New York City. I’m sure I must do it too sometimes. Although if I did catch myself doing that, I’d nip that shit in the bud tout de suite.
Was it worth it? Going to this tea party? I don’t know. There was a disconnect between the angry, despairing protesters and the slick, bantering speakers, who were using us to benefit their careers. Except for Stephen Baldwin. I don’t care if he does think that this country began 100 years ago, I’m sure that was just a slip of the tongue anyway. He at least expressed some of the hurt bewilderment, some of the anxiety, some of the betrayal, and anger we are feeling. And the crowd never gelled. At the first NYC protest, we were chanting “We are America!” up at the financial district buildings for what seemed like an eternity- because it had some magic, and some eternity to it. But this protest was all “standing on the verge of getting it on.” No magic.
Well, maybe sparks. Walking there, we briefly joined up with a woman business owner. “He’s gutting this country!” she shouted. I wish they had gotten her to speak.
Rosita,
I understand completely how you felt. Here is the problem as I see it. No one laid out a plan of action for how we are going to “throw the bums out”. Few of them have ever been really active at the local level.
This is the type of speech I think you would have wanted to hear:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdGLlXWUtRE
The action that followed was this:
http://nygoe.wordpress.com/2009/06/23/taking-the-tea-party-to-town-halls-bishop-gets-the-t-e-a-message/
If I could have gotten Steve Flanagan to speak at the Times Square Tea Party I think you would have seen an entirely energized crowd looking forward to taking direct action against their local “bums”.
This is absolutely what we should be doing. I also loved Flanagan’s approach that “People KNOW Pelosi is bad, Bishop is rubber stamped by Pelosi, Connect the two.” This is a very powerful, very simple tool.
He should’ve been at the tea party yesterday. Are you guys having tea parties in Long Island on July 4th? I’m looking for another tea party for July 4th. Ok! I’ll email you!
Rosita, drop me an email if you get a chance.
I included a link to this posting in my report and tied in what I included in my comment above.
I attened, though I did not stay long. You are right about London and the rest of the speakers.
Maybe the problem is that conservatives and libertarians just are not into protesting.
The whole thing leaves me a bit cold. When people ask what my problem is, I say it is not really the taxing but the spending, and then it is not really the spending, but the feeling that my relationship to government has changed.
Or maybe I am just naturally pessimistic.
I think that’s true that conservatives and libertarians are not into protesting, I think that’s part of why these tea parties are really evidence that things are really wrong.
Must be something in the water.
Missing from the debate for many years has been passion, and the associated theater and drama, surrounding issues and personalities that the progressives have so impressively integrated into their scripts. The first indications for me came with the nomination and subsequent sleep-fest that was the Bob Dole disaster. This thing is starting to feel like a fizzle.
Academic and polite discussions are the perfect way to lose elections. Not that a slugging match in the street is preferred, but without a large measure of visceral expression the flying monkeys will be in control for the rest of our lives. We need something on the order of the Whiskey Rebellion to combat the very powerful forces that dumped all this Hope and Change all over my breakfast.
Well, if we don’t get passionate and dramatic now, pretty soon it’s going to be illegal as a form of “hate speech.” Slugging matches in the street are what it’s going to come to, at the rate we’re going. Inflation is coming. Unemployment has hit men far worse than it’s hit women (who usually work in more state-friendly jobs like teaching). Civil unrest is a real possibility at this point.
This is also an important reason why we need to do something with the tea parties. We need to have a constructive, peaceable way for people to channel their anger.
We need to get a little “Al Sharpton” and we need to get a little “Acorn.”
Wait: the “parties” have no clear message or action plan? Who could have figured that out? Oh, sorry, I forgot I’ve been pointing that out since your “movement” started. For one specific case:
http://24ahead.com/how-stop-cap-and-trade-smart-and-effective-way
You’ve got a point that a person setting forth what’s wrong with Cap and Trade on you tube is a good idea- if it’s eloquent and/or compelling. But these tea parties are powerful stuff. There are a lot of people who’ve never protested anything in their lives out making noise, who are very concerned and angry. This is important. This can be harnessed. And this can be put on you tube too.
Tea parties are probably a good way of letting people vent their frustrations, but that doesn’t get the job done.
“Vote them out”? Not till 2010 or 2012 – and look at the damage they’ve done in only 6 months.
When even Helen Thomas gets crabbly about Obama’s orchestrated press conferences, we have to know that something’s rotten in the state of DC.
By the time it comes to vote them out, it will be too late. It may already be too late.
Start recall movements (sorry, New York) wherever they’re allowed. Start at the bottom, from city councils, and work up to state senators.
Let’s start taking back the country they took from us.
“This was not my crowd.” Have you tried being in some of the other side’s demonstrations? I hear they’re a lot more fun.
Yes, I “cut my teeth” on protesting going to pro-choice rallies. I showed up at the April 2005 Pro-Choice March on D.C. in a car full of Brooklyn anarchists. While they held up a giant banner with the name of their anarchist bookshop on it, I scrawled on a sign, “Roman Catholic/ Republican/ Pro-Choice” and held it over my head. I had tons of nice, normal-looking women coming up to me and thanking me. The anarchists were just par for the course. They got jealous, actually. Yeah, I think it’s a function of having the young people, that’s why lefty protests are more fun. But there are a lot of cute young angry Libertarians, I’ve noticed. It’s just a matter of getting them to congregate with other people. Even old people can have fun. Shoot, I’m not young. My friend I went with was in her 70s, and she was shouting and having a blast.
The reality is that most conservative/libertarian types just aren’t angry like the left seems to perpetually be and just like you get a bunch of odd people at lefty protest, you get some odd birds at the tea parties as well. Most of them I’m not likely to hang out w/ on a Saturday night but I love’em all the same.
I disagree. I think a lot of people are angry, and not just conservative/libertarian types.