Leaders of the St. Louis Tea Party, including Bill Hennessy, Jim Hoft, Darin Morley, and Ben Evans, went to the arch grounds after the main Restore Sanity satellite rally was over to take pictures pretending that the crowd size was small. Here's a picture Hennessy took with the caption: "tens rally for democrats on steps of the arch:"
The St. Louis tea party official Twitter account also posted this picture with the caption"Restoring Sanity 10 people at a time"
Except that, unfortunately for the tea party, the Post-Dispatch was there during the actual rally, and they reported that 1,000 people were there:
(image credit: Post-Dispatch. BTW, this crowd is roughly half of what the tea party had when they hosted a rally for the entire middle third of the country)
For the life of me, I don't even understand why they would care about a comedy rally. Isn't it obvious that their best option would be to focus on Get Out the Vote efforts and simply ignore Stewart and Colbert? I think they look incredibly petty by getting so upset about a rally by a couple of Comedy Central comedians (however great those comedians are) asking for sanity in political discourse.
Posts
Yet more deception by the Kool Aide Party. BTW, some "9/11 was an inside job" idiots showed up near the end of the televised portion of the event. More than likely, there be your Tea Party Crashers as 9/11 Truthers.
ReplyDeleteOver all the event was great. The beer was good (Thank you Schafly and R.T.R.S./M.T.K.F.A. staff for not letting us drink Budweiser!) and the company hospitable. The Weather was nice. I do regret not stopping by the Arch Museum to visit the builders, but I just didn't want to strip down to see them. (Metal Detectors have no business being in the Arch!)
Consumerism is the driving force behind politics. Stewart has become the same kind of consumer product that Obama has become. He "defines" his viewers. They went for themselves, not for him. Those people would not GOTV anyway.
ReplyDeleteBut outside of the Tea Party, what was the actual political nature of this rally? I attended only because a friend of mine was going, and it was as I expected: some humor, signs that made jokes of fear and sanity, vendors trying to make a quick buck, and people watching a large tv. Perhaps I am incorrect, and I would really like to know, but when we left a little before 12pm, all that had been discussed were "the wave," some sort of seismograph experiment, and Steven Colbert releasing bees. The Tea party, despite being insane(ly conservative), is serious about its ideas and does want to gain power. I felt like this rally was a waste of time and more comedic than anything else. At least the October 2nd rally in DC was arguing for a point. I really would have been happy to see some political messaging, some actual content being discussed. How about some anger about the situation of our country/world...not simply at the Tea Party/Republicans who are likely to win many elections, but also at the DEMOCRATS who have accomplished so little, with them to blame (not Republicans) and who ultimately seem to think that they will receive the populace's vote simply because they are less disgusting than the Far Right. Instead of laughing when we're sinking down a drain, maybe we should be fighting back against the whole political establishment that is maintaining this repetition of a lack of priorities. Still we see more poverty, rich getting richer, and war. No justice, no peace. And to simply think that voting for the Democrats -which is how I feel the rally/attendees seem to argue - is going to solve any of these problems, is delusional from the outset.
ReplyDeleteyeah Democrats are weak for sure, but like Bill Maher said on his show: "I have problems with my cell phone company but I don't drop them and go rub shit into my teeth".
ReplyDeleteVoting in the Tea Baggers, or any GOP candidate, because you're unhappy with the Democrats, is sickening. We need to get or keep the GOP & Tea Baggers out, then we start throwing the "Blue Dogs" out and get real progressives in there.
Once they get in they'll lock step right in with the rest of the lobbyist backed corp funded BS going on in DC, they're not fooling anyone except their supporters.
Left, right, it's all part of the oligarch distraction to keep us separated. The more divisions there are the less chance we'll think for ourselves, unite and start throwing the real assholes out of power.
The Tea Party was created to block a real 3rd party from showing up in American politics. It's a rebranded GOP snaking its way in on a fake radical platform when in reality it's just the same ole crap in a new tea bag, and I'd rather die than rub some of it on my teeth. Rather take my chances with a Democratic candidate, at least they seem to exist in the same reality I do...