I’ve no idea where I was yesterday afternoon, but it couldn’t possibly have been at an energetic, 3000-person strong pro-healthcare reform rally in Westlake Park, because I couldn’t find even the tiniest mention of it in this morning’s Seattle Times, so apparently, it never happened. And I have absolutely no idea where all those photos and videos on my camera came from.
It’s like my own personal Twilight Zone.
Of course, whatever didn’t happen in downtown Seattle yesterday, the picture above doesn’t even begin to do it justice, with a sea of bodies extending building to curb, and all the way back under the cover of the trees. Aided by a live band and the wafting aroma of food from street vendors, there was a party atmosphere to the rally which made it feel kinda like a Bumbershoot pre-event. Or at least, it would have felt that way, had it actually happened.
There was also, apparently, no counter-protest yesterday. No really, there wasn’t much of one, with only a couple dozen angry teabaggers at most, cordoned off along a four-foot-wide strip of sidewalk in front of the Starbucks across the street.
This was the most flattering picture I could find, and it’s pretty anemic:
But like I said, since our paper of record didn’t bother to report on it, none of this actually happened. 3000 people of all ages, races and walks of life didn’t crowd into Westlake Park to rally in support of health care reform. A congressman didn’t join business, labor and civic leaders in encouraging the crowd to make their support known. And a well-organized effort by counter-protesters couldn’t muster up much more than a bullhorn and a handful of signs.
None of this happened yesterday in downtown Seattle because no ex-marine angrily yelled down a congressman and nobody got the tip of their finger bitten off and nothing apparently is going to get the media to move from the well-entrenched meme that support for reform is steadily slipping as the public turns against Obama and the Democratic Congress… not even a show of force by the public itself.
UPDATE:
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one imagining yesterday’s health care reform rally, and like me, they managed to capture their hallucinations on camera too. Weird.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouYXq5tSXb0&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Astroturf – zzzzzzzz.
thanks, goldy.
seatimes also has yet to answer my letter either to me or in the “paper” afaik:
Dear Editor: Thanks for sending Hal Bernton to cover the Afghanistan quagmire and best wishes for a safe assignment for Hal. But please tell your readers if (1) Hal will be “embedded” with military forces (private or public) or will be an independent reporter and (2) if Hal was vetted by the Pentagon for favorable or unfavorable views toward the invasion/occupation as a prerequisite to the assignment and, if so, what was the Pentagon’s profile of Hal.
The leftist, liberal, drive-by media hard at work…
Oh, great…just the recipe: wingnut bile plus a plentiful supply of caffeine.
I’m surprised that the pro-reform folks weren’t pelted with soggy tea bags.
And there wouldn’t have been any WTO protests either if there hadn’t been any civil disobedience. That is the next step on health care.
…only a couple dozen angry teabaggers at most, cordoned off along a four-foot-wide strip of sidewalk in front of the Starbucks across the street.
No, not THAT Starbucks. The other one. No, wait… Yep. That’s the one.
With all due respect, Goldy, I don’t know why you focus on the Seattle Times. Neither the Seattle PI, The Stranger nor The Weekly gave it much if any mention from what I can see. All three have blogs for real time coverage.
What it all boils down to is some folks think this country is the private property of the One Percenters and everyone else is just slave labor for their factories and cannon fodder for their war machine.
@5 Civil disobedience? Yes, the healthbaggers should all refuse to sign up for Social Security and Medicare! More for the rest of us!
Seattle is a no-newspaper town. This is news?
Thanks for this, Goldy. I wanted to attend but couldn’t. Your blog is the 1st place I stopped after I discovered there was NO COVERAGE by the old media, um, anywhere.
News or not, Mr. Rabbit, this is truly a no-newspaper region.
Anyone:
Just heard on Hartmann that Bellevue SD is taping O’s speech to the kids for potential broadcast after screening and potential edits for “politics”.
More Background / Comments?
I suspect that the only real newspaper in Seattle will have something on this when they publish again. I am of course speaking of Real Change. Too bad we don’t have a daily in Seattle.
@11 I’m old enough to remember when the traditional presidential pep talk to schoolchildren, which has been going on since at least Eisenhower’s time, wasn’t a partisan issue. Things sure have changed in this country.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that America’s best hope for the future lies in 70% of the people concluding that Republicans are hopelessly zany and simply writing them off. I don’t like the idea of a one-party country; but we’re already a de facto one-party country because the other party has morphed into a lunatic asylum.
No press coverage, that is strange.
Did you know that cindy sheehan was in marthas vineyard to protest obama and she also didn’t get any press coverage.
I don’t remember you complaining that cindy didn’t get any press.
#11, IMHO, it’s cause the school district doesn’t want to risk the lawsuits from the terrified parents having their kids to the image and words of a marginally progressive president that happens to be (whisper)black. If the president is not parroting Reagan, it’s not acceptable to them.
And we wonder why our school system is teaching our kids to be stupid?
obama edu speech and bellevue school district:
http://www.bsd405.org/Default.aspx
President’s Speech: The Bellevue School District curriculum department has decided to tape President Obama’s September 8 speech. It is our understanding that the President will be advising students to work hard in school, persist, and stay focused on achieving educational goals. Following this, the tape will be made available to any teacher who wants to use it in a balanced discussion, so long as it fits within the education objectives of the class.
I remember going to a Pride parade with friends and there were thousands of people there and hundreds in the parade. The Seattle Times had an inch or so devoted to the 50 who walked in the parade and the hundred or so who came to watch. With a picture of the religious nuts who come to protest the parade as the only picture.
While this was before the anti-discrimination laws and before the Times opined that gay people maybe have rights too, it’s why I never went to them for facts.
Looks like they haven’t really changed.
@14 Three thousand people gathering at Westlake is more newsworthy than one person visiting Martha’s Vineyard; but, yes, I can see how that would fly over a person of your intellectual abilities.
@17 The Seattle Times is, and always has been, a propaganda flyer for the Republican Party. It was even worse under Frank Blethen’s predecessor.
@14. Also, for the geography challenged, Westlake is much much closer. I’d much rather know what happening in Seattle from a paper that is supposed to cover…you know…Seattle.
Stop making sense Marvin. This is liberals we’re talking about. Being consistent would require honesty and that is not a common trait within modern liberalism.
I’ll give him credit though, Goldy always seems to know how to serve up the red meat threads to his loyal minions- ie. attack the Seattle Times newspaper.
It’s always interesting to see the seething rage that spews forth in the comments as they sit in their soiled diaper reigning down blows upon the highchair with their plastic spoon in feigned indignation because a failed dead tree newspaper hemmorhaging money because of its left wing propaganda is no longer in circulation. My Advice? Grow up
@21, did you bother to read #18 or 20?
@20, I guess they have not offloaded covering “metro” yet to a blog like they have the neighborhoods.
Welcome to a one “metro” daily newspaper town.
@14;
Possibly you missed this press coverage:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/polit.....eyard.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2.....2036.shtml
http://wbztv.com/local/cindy.s.....39608.html
http://www.capecodonline.com/a.....-1/NEWSMAP
http://www.washingtonexaminer......06107.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....68225.html
And even our old favorite the Seattle times.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....bogey.html
@21…
Learn the difference between ‘reigning’ and *raining* if you’re going to go all prolix on us.
I was at Bagdad Jim’s forum at UW on Tuesday. I sat in the first row. There were video-camera folks and photographers (Seattle Times, etc.) scattered all around the 900 or so assembled citizens. The shutters were clicking and the cameras rolling when and only when one of the nine or so nutjobs in the hall tried to shout down the Congressman. I saw none of them filming anything Jim had to say. Get it now. Substance schmubstance. Give us nutjobs. Who cares about actual debate and facts.
Yawn. Just the usual astroturf whipped up by well-funded shadowy far-left string-pullers.
Hardly newsworthy, sorry.
Marvin at 14: Sheehan got coverage for being at the Vineyard. I heard about it, and I’m in Pittsburgh.
Not entitled to your own facts.
Forgot to add this:
If 3,000 tea partiers didn’t get media coverage, it would be the fault of the evil left wing media.
The hypocriscy of the right has no limits.
Baghdad Jim is in the communist section of Seattle so I’m not surprised for the lack of normal citizens. Besides that conservatives work during the day.
Ummm. Bagdad Jim is re-elected time and again with the highest plurality of votes in Congress. Mark, do even know what a communist is? Are you a normal citizen or just some ignorant, impotent white boy pulling his own putz publicly? BTW, Bagdad Jim was right about the war in Iraq, wasn’t he, Mark? If your answer is “no”, than explain to us communists in Seattle why you haven’t volunteered. You’d get to play with guns, Mark. Really big ones. By the way, the town hall meeting was at 7:00 pm. So, it wasn’t the time of day that kept you away. I suppose it was the venue at UW. Ignorant people are afraid of school. Pity your kids.
@32 You needn’t pity Mark’s kids for long. On September 8th our president will reach into the classroom and with a mere handful of words about doing well in school he will turn Mark’s lovable munchkins into murderous little commie-facist progressives spouting the virtues of single-payer healthcare.
32, 33
As good secular humanists (or whatever it is that Mark might consider us), don’t you think we should extend whatever aid we can to Mark as he confronts this troubling time in which he just doesn’t seem to be winning at anything? The boy ain’t happy. Shouldn’t we give him a pat on the back and an “attaboy”?
the media was scared off because they knew y’all were bringing your guns. The only difference between you and the birthers/deathers/black helicopter crowd is they have better PR, evidently.
of course, you were only rallying to pass a bipartisan 2-sentence Bacaus-Wingnut Obamacare bill that says “We now have health reform without changing anything. Aren’t we good legislators?”
But they still can’t get any Republicans to vote on it cause it had the word “Obamacare” in it. White House negotiators are working on that.
When did things change?
2 clues- gephardt – bush
So parents whose children are part of the hip-hop generation, imitating rappers and all that are going to complain about a black president?
Good point. Who cares what the parents want. What do those kind of people think, that we’re living in a free country or something.
No wonder, it’s the liberal policies and union support for democrats instead of working to help the students.
Maybe the school system is failing because the wishes of the parents are being ignored.
It’s not as if anyone could claim that schools are run by right-wingers, so the blame lies at the feet of the democrats.
How conservative of you to want to personally help someone. Kudos.
Most proud leftists would rather give the government the power and responsibility of helping people. Say, isn’t the obama working to get rid of tax deductions for charity?
This has been picked up by both the HuffPo and Daily Kos.
Personally I’d rather read used toilet paper than the Seattle Times.
I posted a reader blog on talkingpointsmemo.com reporting on the rally with a link to photos on Thursday. I was stunned, and very annoyed, that there was no media coverage of it anywhere that morning except a very lame post on kuow.org with a picture of empty seats from two hours before the event, WTF? Thanks for your post, now the Huffington Post has a story on it. Here are some pictures from the event http://s844.photobucket.com/al.....gitatious/.
Just one more additional note – this rally appeared to be put together in about two days. I heard about it the Tuesday before at Jim McDermott’s town hall and got an email on Wednesday from Organizing for America. Pretty good for two days notice.
Marvin Stamn, the Seattle Times, which is the only ‘media’ newspaper, not ex newspaper turned blog is not based from Martha’s Vineyard. This event happened downtown Seattle, it was a major event for the city requiring police presence, politicians were guest speakers and it was attended by thousands yet not one blip in the newspaper the next day, not even one line.
Clearly, the next rally of 3000 should be outside the offices of the Seattle Times itself. Let’s see them try to ignore _that_. :-)
Clearly, the next rally of 3000 should be outside the offices of the Seattle Times itself. Let’s see them try to ignore _that_
That is actually a very good idea.
@15 not sure but this seems to be press to me
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com.....46262.aspx
and this
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2.....2036.shtml
oh and this
http://www.washingtonexaminer......06107.html
seems like Faux news missed the boat.
This reminds me of the news the teabaggers once put forth… They had a photo that supposedly showed thousands, when in reality there were maybe 300 people there.
Aren’t there any better photos? I see maybe 300 people there. Besides, some of them may be teabaggers. Does anyone have a better aerial shot?
300 people having a rally in a city of around half a million is not that newsworthy.