About Us
Mission Statement
Rules of Conduct
 
Name:
Pswd:
Remember Me
Register
 

How NOT To Protest
Author: clintster    Date: 2014-06-05 12:30:05

Ah, the protest. The people's way of expressing their dissatisfaction with their government and its policies. It's been used by disgruntled citizens for thousands of years, sometimes with disastrous results (see the Boston Tea Party and the Tiananmen Square Massacre). Many times, however, it can result in positive change for a nation in turmoil (see the March on Washington For Jobs and Freedom).

In past years, American conservatives have pish-poshed the idea of protesting, claiming that such activities were the work of lazy bums who didn't have to take precious time off work to do stupid things like protest war in Iraq or show support for GLBT couples wanting to get married. However, since the inauguration of Barack Obama in 2009, they have suddenly found plenty of reasons to get out and march.

At first they seemed to come out of the gate strong. They organized under the Tea Party banner and held rallies across the nation speaking out against... well, taxes, even though the Obama administration had not implemented any taxation policies yet. They also seemed rather concerned with the location of the President's birth certificate.

http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll270/sweetchinmusical/Barack%20Obama/BirthCertifict.jpg


Eventually, however, the protests fizzled out and conservatives had nowhere to go to vent their opinions except for FOX News, talk radio, The New York Post, The Washington Times, most medium-sized and small-town newspapers, Yahoo! comments, Free Republic, Red State, American Thinker, National Review Online, Breitbart, and more than a couple of Facebook groups.

That didn't stop the protesting spirit of some hardy souls, however, and in the past few weeks we have seen some outstanding protesting done by the proud, the few, the extreme right wing.

The first was "Operation American Spring". It was organized by Harry Riley, a retired Army colonel from Florida, with the goal of repeating the success of the Arab Spring movements of 2012. In interview after interview, Riley and his subordinates proclaimed that millions would pour into Washington DC to take it over and demand the removal of President Obama, VP Biden, John Boehner, Harry Reid, Eric Holder, and others for vaguely stated threats that they posed to the US. One spokesperson claimed "1.8 million militia members" were ready to march. Another estimated the turnout would be as high as 30 million.

When the fateful day came, much to everyone's surprise who showed up to protest, only around a hundred showed up for the protest. Organizers claimed that the rains had bogged down those who had allegedly camped out outside of the city. Some blamed the threat of drone missiles for keeping the turnout low. Others insisted that the movement was just starting and that it would grow. As of June 4, there are still apparently a few protesters continuing to mill about, but it seems that their main thrust is to stage a picnic on June 14. No arrests, no storming of the White House, no takeover of the government. It appears that Operation American Spring has come to an undignified halt.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/sites/default/files/OASTerrorist.jpg


Maybe what they needed were more people carrying giant semi-automatic rifles. Unfortunately for them, it appears that those guys were busy staging another protest of their own. Over the past couple of weekends, a group of Texans have decided that merely having the ability to conceal a weapon when they walk into restaurants, bars, schools, churches and amusement parks was not enough to prove their manhood. The group Open Carry Texas has been protesting this grave injustice by bringing their Bushmasters, AR-15s and whatever else might look scary to places where people gather to eat and shop.

A couple of weeks ago, one such protest did not work out well for them. Protesting the "no open carry" policies of Starbuck's, Applebee's, Chipotle, Jack in the Box, and Sonic, the open carriers arrived at these restaurants in San Antonio, in order to demonstrate that the customers there were free. Because nothing says "freedom" like having a bacon cheeseburger while someone stands nearby fondling his military-grade weapon.

To their surprise, some people did not take kindly to this sort of "reassurance", and dared to actually come up to them and say it to their faces (in Texas, no less!)

This past weekend, they tried it again, this time at The Home Depot. It appeared to create more negative attention to the group and the state, including from an unexpected source. On Monday, a representative for the National Rifle Association criticized the Open Carry group, saying:

“Using guns merely to draw attention to yourself in public not only defies common sense, it shows a lack of consideration and manners...That's not the Texas way. And that's certainly not the NRA way.”

For a moment, it seemed that some common sense had snuck into the organization that has fought tooth and nail for the rights of any idiot to carry high powered artillery anywhere he damn well pleases. It was a truly shocking statement.

The warmth that it produced was short-lived. The next day, the NRA retracted the statement, blaming it on an overzealous staffer who had been let go. Apparently, the sight of Open Carry Members burning their NRA cards and threatening to withhold funding jolted them back to what was really important: freedom children safety money. Thus even the most powerful lobbying group in America can be forced to cow to the lunatic fringe.

There is a right way to protest, and there is a right-wing way to protest.
 

20 comments (Latest Comment: 06/06/2014 02:56:42 by Raine)
   Perma Link

Share This!

Furl it!
Spurl
NewsVine
Reddit
Technorati

Add a Comment

Please login to add a comment...


Comments:

Order comments Newest to Oldest  Refresh Comments

Comment by Raine on 06/05/2014 12:43:54
Excellent work Clint! Thank you! Good morning.

Comment by Mondobubba on 06/05/2014 14:01:41
Morning mon peeps. Spiffy blog, Clint. Well said.

Comment by Scoopster on 06/05/2014 14:14:46
Comment by Mondobubba on 06/05/2014 14:24:19
Quote by Scoopster:
Mornin' all..

WE'RE NOT GONNA PROTEST!




Well played, Scoop! Well played.

Comment by Will in Chicago on 06/05/2014 14:35:29
Good morning, bloggers!! Clintster, thanks for a great blog. I fear that the right wing is running out of gas in their outrage machine.

Comment by wickedpam on 06/05/2014 14:35:52
Morning

Just running through on the way to the dentist - ick

Comment by Scoopster on 06/05/2014 14:47:31
So I haven't exactly hidden the fact that it's been a tough week all around, and an absolutely miserable and frustrating time in our political world. It all kinda mushroomed over the past two days with mounting pressure at work and with family and friends.

Later in the day yesterday things turned around. The latest update from my friend out in Seattle was that her daughter was eating solid food again, and now that she's definitely out of the danger zone her doctors want to go back to her spinal injury and do a more thorough diagnosis to see if there's a chance for her to recover mobility in her lower body.

Then I got a call from Jess. I haven't spoken to her in almost a month, and our texts have been rare for a couple weeks because her phone was shut off (it was on her cousin's plan, and that got shut off because her fiance ran up the bill). The last thing we talked her friend was about to complete a round of chemo for stage 4 small-cell lung cancer and the docs were gonna review his progress.

Well.... they did a MRI.... and the 6in-diameter tumor he had in December was GONE. The slightly smaller tumor near his pancreas? GONE. The small metastasized tumors below his liver? GONE. There is a lot of relief, and happiness, and cautious optimism for the immediate future (SCLC has a 3% survival rate at five years). He is still in a state of shock over the whole thing and knowing he has more time left than he had started planning for, not to mention the fog of neuropathy and strong narcotic medication.

Comment by TriSec on 06/05/2014 14:51:00
Morning all. Again our gun friends don't get it. Private companies can do whatever they want. If my business says "NO GUNS", that's not unconstitutional.


Comment by Scoopster on 06/05/2014 15:04:46
Yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaah....

Young Adults Pastor Keith Lewis eventually explained that the video “was meant to be a humorous introduction for the incoming 7th graders.”

“After posting this video online, several folks alerted us to a perspective that we had regrettably overlooked,” Lewis wrote to one person who complained by email. “These friends expressed their concern that the video demonstrated a disrespect toward women, a trivializing of abuse, a depreciation of victims, and an undermining of the edifying grace of the gospel.”


Comment by TriSec on 06/05/2014 15:36:01
Yeesh. Some of the news this week makes me glad I've given up on organized Christianity.

Comment by TriSec on 06/05/2014 15:41:25
It's curious to ponder what my great- uncles who went ashore might have been doing 70 years ago this eve...

Comment by Will in Chicago on 06/05/2014 16:09:35
Quote by TriSec:
It's curious to ponder what my great- uncles who went ashore might have been doing 70 years ago this eve...


I imagine that when the orders finally came, there was a mixture of eagerness and trepidation among many.



Comment by Mondobubba on 06/05/2014 16:12:05
From our open enrollment email from HR:

There will be no premium increases for web.com employees this summer.


THANKS, OBAMA!

Comment by Scoopster on 06/05/2014 16:12:37
Quote by TriSec:
Yeesh. Some of the news this week makes me glad I've given up on organized Christianity.

Heh that's a little funny.. the major cancer turnaround I mentioned below has both me and my Jess re-examining our belief systems.

Comment by TriSec on 06/05/2014 17:36:00
Quote by Scoopster:

Heh that's a little funny.. the major cancer turnaround I mentioned below has both me and my Jess re-examining our belief systems.


Cancer makes you do that, yes. Allah Hu-Ackbar.

Comment by Scoopster on 06/05/2014 17:52:16
Quote by @AP:
BREAKING: Officials: Congress not told of swap because Taliban threatened to kill Bergdahl if it leaked.

Okay here's the deal. We already know, thanks to the McCain CNN clip from February, that Congress was in the loop at least three months ago. So why would the Obama Administration stop updating them?

It all seems so clear now.. Obama didn't want some partisan asshat in the House shooting his mouth off during a campaign stop, because he knew if that happened this kid would get his head hacked off and they'd STILL try to paint it as a foreign policy blunder. The most positive outcome, both to save this kid's life & bring him home AND politically, was the course he took.

Comment by TriSec on 06/05/2014 19:12:42
And in other news, John McCain is a total tool.

Comment by Mondobubba on 06/05/2014 20:05:52



Scoop, how did I know you were talking about the awful Oliver North even without clicking on the link?

Side note, I want to high school with Robert McFarlane's daughter. She was very nice. He's a nice guy too.

Comment by Raine on 06/06/2014 02:56:42
AWESOME NEWS SCOOP!

HEy everyone, saying hello from Alpharetta tonite!