Category: creating a movement

We were there — among hundreds of thousands in Washington

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I got home a short time ago from the 912 March in Washington. Ann and I went, along with my daughter, on a bus from Hagerstown. Eight buses went from the Hagerstown area, and that’s a little sample of what was happening from all over the country.

You’ll hear widely varying estimates of the number of people there. I’ve been on a lot of demonstrations in Washington (because I used to be a leftist), starting with a civil rights march in 1958 and continuing with other civil rights demonstrations, and then peace marches (until I came to my senses in 1967).  I could hardly believe how large today’s march was. The original meeting place, Freedom Plaza at 14th and Pennsylvania, filled up so fast that the march to the Capitol had to start much earlier than planned to make room. Pennsylvania Avenue was packed, and it took hours to get all the people into the Capitol area. No, that’s wrong, because not everybody fit into those huge grounds in front of the Capitol and there were always people on the Mall and on the sidewalks blocks away.

I was at the famous 1963 civil rights march, where Martin Luther King gave his “I have a dream” speech. That was estimated to be 200,000 to 300,000 people. In my opinion this one was bigger. I don’t think there were a million people, as some have claimed, but there were at least 350,000 and possibly many more. That is huge.

It was also the politest demonstration I’ve ever been to. Nobody was angry. I mean, they were angry at the government, but nobody seemed to have the kind of chip-on-the-shoulder anger that so many leftists have. It was good-humored. Also — and this was astounding — there was no trash on the ground. None. Unlike the Obama inauguration, unlike Woodstock, unlike even an ordinary crowd standing around, this event was as clean at the end as at the start.

Maybe that’s because there were no journalists strewing trash, or almost none. There was a Fox truck and a CNN truck and that’s all the TV we saw. When Ann and I went to a counterdemonstration to an ANSWER peace march in 2007, the streets were lined with trucks from every media outlet we’d ever heard of, and some we hadn’t. We were interviewed by Australian and German reporters. And that was a march of about 5,000 on ANSWER’s side and about 15,000 on ours. I know some people were interviewed today because I read some reports, but there was nothing like the coverage that peace marches routinely get.

I’ve just heard a few reports that lead me to believe some reporters accidentally went to Mars instead of the Capitol. One said there were Confederate flags in evidence, and Ku Klux Klan type signs. We spent a lot of time walking around looking at people and their signs, and we commented that there were no confederate flags. And I don’t even know what is meant by Ku Klux Klan type signs. Maybe the one that said “I’m not a racist — I hate Pelosi and Reid too.”

That was typical of the signs — original, and often funny. There were no mass-produced signs, and not more than a few of any one type. Here are some we saw:

      Spread my work ethic, not my paycheck.

     Chicago gangsters go home.

     Give me liberty, not debt.

     Thank God for Glenn Beck.

     Right wing extremist: Jefferson, Adams, Madison, me.

     Capitalism delivers what socialism can only promise.

     Read the bills or get off the Hill.

     Constitution: read, learn, live it.

Lots of signs about czars — 44 czars; Czar wars; Czars czuk; You’ll be czarry; and more.

Lots of signs about ACORN — ACORN: bringing brothels to your community; Congress investigate ACORN; shut ACORN down–cancer on our republic; and more.

I kept calling my husband at home to see what the media were saying. He didn’t go because he doesn’t walk well. He’s a bit crippled from his 5-1/2 years as a guest of the North Vietnamese government during the Vietnam war. But he also didn’t go because he was so moved by the idea of all these Americans coming together to oppose socialism and big government that he was afraid he would cry. He was thrilled to hear the reports from Fox during the afternoon.

Now I’m going to look for more reports. I hope some of them are true.

Addendum, 9/14:  After looking at aerial photos I have to update my estimate. I think there were a million people there, maybe more.  It is harder to estimate this than the usual demonstrations on the Mall. The Mall is a plain rectangle and you can just photograph from above and count, or count a small area and multiply. The west side of the Capitol has a lot of trees and you can’t see what’s under them unless you’re on the ground. The area is far from rectangular and is not continuous. And the crowd was spread far and wide beyond the west lawn.

Note from Ann:  On Judy’s point about how clean the Tea Party demonstrators left Washington, see Gateway Pundit’s photo essay on clean conservatives vs. filthy liberals here.

CAST: Taking a stand against the spread of Shariah law

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update August 14th:  Protests continue, here.

Amid all the very large and angry demonstrations occurring over the last week and planned for the coming weeks on Obamacare, a small cheerful band of patriots stood outside the JBS Swift meatpacking plant  in Greeley, CO on Saturday to declare that Shariah law was not going to get a foothold in America.   Coloradans against Shariah Task Force (CAST) maintain, as do we, that when meatpacking companies and other employers give in to religious demands by Muslim employees for special workplace accommodation that is the beginning of the Stealth Jihad.  See my first report about CAST here.

This protest in Greeley (the birthplace of Al-Qaeda) in advance of Ramadan, the Muslim holiday which surely portends another contentious month in meatpacking towns across the country, is believed to be the first time that citizens have stood up to tell the public of the dangers they see with employers caving to Muslim (Somalis mostly in this case) demands.  By elevating Islamic requirements to the highest concern in workplace functioning, these demands are detrimental to other ethnic and religious workers in the plant.

Although the Greeley Tribune interviewed CAST leader Michael Gale, little mention was made of the real purpose of the demonstration.  See the Greeley Tribune coverage here (very strange, I know the paper had more the other day, I saw it!).   Read Jerry Gordon’s reports here and here.

Here is my recent post about Greeley and the Somalis filing Civil Rights complaints against Swift.

To catch up on this contentious issue, visit our entire category on the Greeley/Grand Island Swift controversy going back to last year here.

“You magnificent bastard, I read your book.”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

What a fabulous line from George C. Scott in Patton and used to illustrate so appropriately the points David Stokes makes in his piece at Townhall today.    Hat tip:  Paul

Stokes, writing about the shock the extreme leftwing is experiencing when real grassroots America does some community organizing of its own, begins in “Rules for Witnesses:”

There is a scene early on in the movie Patton, where the feisty general watches the forces under his command do battle with those led by the legendary German Panzer leader, Erwin Rommel. To prepare for this particular skirmish, “Old Blood and Guts” studied the writings of his adversary, prompting the memorable line uttered in a gravely voice by actor George C. Scott: “Rommel, you magnificent bastard, I read your book!”

Stokes goes on to describe Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s sputtering and muttering about Nazis and how she relates Nazism and vile people to middle Americans who have had it with the Obama Administration and Congress’ attempt to seize the health care system of the entire country, and are organizing opposition.

Stokes says, we have read your book!   He is talking about Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” and the seminal writing that all community organizers , including Obama, study when they sign up to “change” America.  All I can say is it’s about time everyone reads it.  I myself should have read it 40 years ago, but then in 1969, that tumultuous year for college students, I sadly would not have understood the significance.  [Historical note:  The earlier version of Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” was published in hardcover in 1969 by Random House under the title “Reveille for Radicals”]

What Nancy Pelosi is seeing is her side being on the receiving end of some of the kind of methodological medicine the left has been forcing down the country’s throat for quite a long time. I recently got around to reading Saul Alinsky’s book, Rules for Radicals. Yes, I know I should have done so long ago, but I thought I had a good enough grasp on what the man said back in 1971 via the thorough treatment his musings have received from the conservative punditry.

I was wrong. My bad. Every American should read it. It’s chilling.

I believe what we are now witnessing is a case of people being, as the saying goes (and as is actually used in Alinsky’s book) “hoisted with their own petard.” Fire is being fought with fire. The reflexive dismissal of angry citizens showing up at town hall meetings these days to give Washington insiders a piece of their mind as somehow orchestrated, notwithstanding.

This is not a top-down campaign with a few sinister puppeteers pulling the strings. The opposition to liberal health care machinations and other stuff is very real. What they see as orchestration is actually mobilization.

I have been laughing all week watching the radical Left twist themselves inside out as they watch conservatives do real community organizing!  Now, it seems the strategy is not so cool, right President Obama!  Right Mr. Axelrod!  Right Nancy!

What about immigration?

Now that conservatives are understanding community organizing and reading Alinsky, I look forward to the day when we begin to understand the connection of the Alinsky model (create chaos to bring about change) and how it relates to immigration.

Alinsky began his work in ethnic neighborhoods in Chicago.  In order for the entire Alinsky strategy to work organizers need angry, poor people (with a little racial tension thrown in for good measure) to continually demand more of the government.    The original minorities Alinsky agitated gradually became middle class citizens basically content with their lives and often very patriotic.  Darn, there went the army of the revolution—right into decent jobs, their own homes in the suburbs, sending kids to college or proudly to the military.

For all of us wondering where the  common sense is of the open borders leaders who continually demand that we import millions of poor immigrants who won’t have jobs and will thusly depend on government support, they are building  (or re-building) an Alinsky army.  The poor immigrants are just cannon fodder and the humanitarian do-gooders are their cover.

We have been talking about Alinsky in our Community Destabilization category since Obama was elected, here.

A different kind of refugee arrives in New Hampshire

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A Tea Party times ten!  That’s what you  might call this event for ‘refugees’ of big government and over regulation!    Check this out!  In a story entitled, ‘Free Staters Go Camping in New Hampshire — With Rifles, Swords and Defiance,’ we learn that  hundreds of people, feeling the time has arrived, are headed to New Hampshire and some are even moving there in an effort to carve out one place where they can be free (well sort of free) of big government.   Hat tip:  Blulitespecial.

LANCASTER, N.H. — There’s no escaping the long arm of big government — even here at the far edge of a state whose license plate decrees that without freedom from oppressive authority you might as well choose death.

But for a group of about 500 in a tent colony here, the Porcupine Freedom Festival is about as close to Libertarian Nirvana as they’re likely to get.

Held in June, the four days are about beer, burgers and bonfires. But more importantly, participants aim to carve out an enclave of less government and more liberty to do as they wish.

They aim to show a lost nation the way back to its political roots.

Please go read the whole article.  Here is one of the many things in the story that interested me, besides the fact that the movement was started by a Yalie.

Flapping overhead, on lines between spruce trees where others might dry bathing suits, Free Staters fly the Gadsden flag, with its serpent and warning to government: “Don’t Tread on Me.”

Hundreds of the Gadsden flags were handed out at our local 4th of July Tea Party.

Who do we complain to about a refugee issue?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That is a question we have been getting with more frequency.    So, here is the answer!

Eric P. Schwartz, the new, just sworn in, Assistant Secretary for Population, Refugees and Migration in the US State Department.   I first told you about his nomination here, and just this past week he was sworn in at the State Department, here.

If you want to tell him what you think about the program for any reason— refugees not being cared for by their federal contractor, too many refugees in your city/state, any criminal elements, news clips about unhappy refugees from your local papers, incompatible religious/cultural practices you see going on, health issues and so on and so forth—write to him.  You can be angry, but be polite!

Eric P. Schwartz

Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration

US Dept. of State

2201 C St. NW

Washington, DC 20520

AND DON’T FORGET!  Any letter you send to him should be copied to your Senators and Representative in Congress, with a question.  That is, you need to ask your elected officials to do something, answer a question for you, not just copy the letter otherwise they will ignore it.   Well, they might ignore it anyway, but you have a better shot at getting some action if you ask them to take action!