I’m still waiting for the Seattle Times editorial board to take me up on my 5,001 protester challenge. I promise to bring 5,001 protesters to Olympia to rally on behalf of an income tax, if they promise to credulously editorialize in favor of our populist movement should we hit the turnout target.
Yeah, sure, I know that a mere 5,001 citizens out of a state population of over 6.5 million may not seem like much of a “movement,” but that’s still one more than the low bar set by the Times in regards to last week’s teabagger rally:
… when organizers get 5,000 people to come to Olympia on a workday, it is evidence of a strong feeling.
Funny thing is, the Times hasn’t always sold populism so cheap. When 40,000 people peacefully marched in Seattle to protest WTO, only to be met with tear gas and billy clubs (and yes, the overwhelming majority of marchers were peaceful), the Times didn’t embrace the populism of the moment. No, they demonized and ridiculed labor leaders and environmentalists for their “narrow point of view,” calling their message “shameless,” “dishonest,” “distorted, “canned,” and “99-percent fact free.”
When in years past, tens of thousands of people have turned out to protest education cuts or immigration policy or the Iraq war, where was the Times editorial arguing that this should be enough to stop lawmakers in their tracks? Likewise, where is the populist embrace from the Times when labor manages to turn out teabagger-plus-sized crowds at the state Capitol?
Agreeing with the teabaggers is one thing. The Times’ editors are entitled to their opinion. But in light of the much larger rallies the ed board has either willfully ignored or contemptuously mocked, spinning this unimpressive made for TV event into some sort of populist rebellion is disingenuous at best, and delusional at worst.
If it had been the far left like you guys putting on the Tea Parties, you’d all be cooing about how great they were, extolling the virtues of free speech and assembly.
But because the theme doesn’t suit your point of view, the Tea Parties must be evil and should be demonized by the far left.
Fairly typical behavior on your part.
@1 If the left was talking about revolution or secession I’d flat out call them crazy or treasonous. Instead, it’s the right that’s entertaining such thoughts – during a time of WAR!
On no, the tea-parties are NOT evil, they even have some good points. It’s just that they do NOT represent some populist movement…just a tiny percentage of people whipped up by a corporate (non-grass root) effort to reduce taxes. The POINT was that if 5,000 people is a indication of a ‘strong movement’, what is 200,000 folks showing up for gay pride? A “fringe”?
1
The timing of the tea parties belied the motives of the organizers. There was no tax increase to protest. The teabaggers just wanted to protest that they lost the election. Oh, yeah, and a lot of racists jumped on board to express their vileness. The tea parties were, in the long run, proof of nothing but that we have a small sliver of crazies in this country who like to gather with other crazies so that they can bask in a community of insanity.
#2 Good point! We are at war, as the right as reminded us throughout the Bush administration, so Ann Coulter and Rush and all the folks attacking the Commander in Chief at a Time of War(tm) are traitors! Their attacks on our Commander in Chief is an attack on our troops AND gives comfort to our enemies, or so we were told…is that no longer true? LOL
Today at a Republican media availability the organizer of the “teabagging” protest said only 1,800 people showed.
Who should I believe on turnout numbers the lead organizer for the event or the Seattle Times?
@2 I think we should cut this country in half and one half would be you tards and the other half would be us tards. The conservatives could
sit back and watch you libs have your nirvana.
Think about that, you guys could have everything you ever wanted in your society except one thing. NOBODY TO PAY FOR IT! Lets
flip that fucking coin soon so I can find out if I’m moving or if I’m helping your dumb ass move cause I would help just to be rid of your dumb ass. You losers would starve to death in two weeks. Guaranfuckingteed.
7
About 25-30% of American citizens would want to live in your world, the rest would come with us. You’d get the paranoid, racist, lunatic, petulant, illiterate, aging white fringe group that currently constitutes the Republican base. We’d get the creative, productive, cosmopolitan adults who drive this nation forward. Oh, and by the way, we’d get both coasts, and you’d get Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and a few southern states. Go for it. How about you folks quit talking about splitting up the nation just because you can’t win elections? Sour grapes never got anyone anywhere. Get over it.
re 1: No we wouldn’t. We’d be expressing diappointment at such a low turnout. Your ass must be raw from all the stuff you pull out of it.
@8 “just because you can’t win elections?”
That’s it in a nutshell. I recall Dems being really pissed after the 2000 election, but revolution or secession as recourse wasn’t being thrown out there by them.
re 5: Truth has nothing to do with it for Teabaggers. It’s all about winning — which I never tire of reminding them is a thing of the past.
There is not a Republicanalive who will ever see their party in power again. There just aren’t enough Teabaggers to make that happen.
@1: No one is “demonizing” the tea parties – even idiots are free to express their point of view in this country. If a tiny bunch of corporate-led fools, with racist tag-alongs, want to protest the tax cuts they actually got this year – let them make fools of themselves.
As far as ridicule – we don’t need to ridicule those bombastic morons – they do a fine job of themselves. Thanks for the laugh politically stupid – you seem to generate lots of funny stuff.
@12 Speak for yourself. I am indeed demonizing and ridiculing the teabaggers. The whole event was a setup created by Faux News. The racist signs, the fools who didn’t know why or what they were actually protesting and the outing of hypocrites who didn’t mind George Bush’s regime and their creation of the largest deficits in US history.
Their so-called movement is nothing but a “bowel movement!”
Goldy,
Well, the Times is just a corporate shill. As always, follow the money.
Don’t follow puddbutter or KKKynical. They are lemmings, useful idiots.
@3…what is 200,000 folks showing up for gay pride? A “fringe”?
Well yes, it is. Ask anybody on the right who has a firm moral compass and derides leftists for succumbing to “moral relativism”.
Because drawing absurd conclusions from agreed upon facts is not stupid or wrong, but both intellectually rigorous and morally correct.
Little lickspittle Stalinists, the lot of them.
7 Great job, Mark. You just admitted that you and your ilk are actually a bunch of fucking freeloaders.
As I type this, I’m also logged into a chat room where some troll is spinning an inane straw-man fairy tale about the mythical chiseling “welfare mother”. If you nutbags can spout that kind of garbage, I don’t have any problem at all spreading the far more accurate stereotype of the money-grubbing neocon corporatist spouting Grover Norquist’s nonsense while sucking mightily at the governmental teat.
Whine fucking whine. If you don’t like the paper’s views, don’t read it.
That’s what the teabaggers did to the PI and look what happened.
Same shit as usual from the nutroots, delusion is only ok if it’s got your flavor of stink eminating from it.
AFT Washington delivered petitions with around 10,000 faculty and student signatures to the legislature today protesting the huge cuts to higher education. I wondered how much that counts at the Times?
Are you talking about welfare reform under the clinton administration. How clinton said that having more babies wasn’t going to increase the handouts and birth rates dropped?
Hey confirmed child molester Stammerin’ Marvin is back. Hey Marv you pervert now that Iran is threatening the world you wanna explain the brilliance of that fool Ronnie Raygun selling arms to Iran? Not such a good idea maybe???
I wonder if Goldy will remain silent on his Mayor excusing the retaliation against that whistle blower?
Good work. Between you, the rabbit and steve the goat sex expert you are doing a better job of keeping this blog in the sewer. Kudos.
Sitemeter shows that Sound Politics is still getting more hits every single day. Without the trio of you, the rabbit and goat man it never would have been possible.
Keep it up byebyegoober, I couldn’t drive traffic away from here like you do.
@22 I see that you’re still overreacting after all this time. So someone accusing you of being a perv pushes your buttons, huh? How revealing. It looks like we were right about you all along.
Don’t u just love the fact that the cowardly right – which can’t win an election, has to resort to schoolyard “My blog got more hits than your blog” tactics in order to feel relevant?
Hey Marv the pervert – how bout you try to win votes for your ideas at the polls you Aids-infected, child-raping, piece of dogshit? How’s that working for you cunthead?
I’m guessing you misquoted the post number.
Post #22 was mocking you.
I think you mean post #14. There’s some serious angst going on there.
Working out great for me, thanks for asking.
I would ask how things are for you but you still seem pretty bitter and hateful about obama being elected.
@25 Geez, now you’re acting like you’re in a state of denial. You must surely have some issues about farm animals.
Sorry. No denial, I was clearly mocking you.
@28 “I was clearly mocking you”
Nah, I bet you’re just trying to win this week’s Golden Goat. You should know that I’m not a member of the HA Awards Committee. I really have no say in the matter. But I bet you’re a contender for this week’s Goat, seeing as how Puddy is off his game, Truth and manoftruth haven’t been around much, and Mr. Klynical has already won twice.
Hey Goldy
If you are going find 5000 useful idiots to bus down to Olympia would you make sure that at least a few of them have a full time job, unlike you!
By the way, are you still campaigning for a Seattle and King County income tax? If it’s good for the state it would be great for the Emerald City.
Still a reading comprehension problem?
I said I was mocking you.