US Patriots Flood Washington, DC
September 12, 2009
A Photo Essay of a TEA Party
By Ralph Iver
(UPDATE 9/14/09: “As many as one million flooded Washington…” here at Daily Mail online.)
At the moment, there is a debate on the size of the 9-12 march in Washington DC today. ABC came out saying the 1-1.5 million attributed to them at the march is incorrect, and they estimate the numbers at 60,000-70,000. However, the National Park Services seem to be placing that number much higher, and you can see the crowd shot from the middle of the march here.
I came in from the back of the rally at the Capitol around 1pm. There was more than 70,000–I have witnessed many rallies and marches, been to some with as many as 300,000 and one estimated at almost a million. At that late time of day, my eyes saw more than ABC’s official estimate. Check back at Malkin’s site to see what she comes up with.
I joined my fellow “White malcontents” (Maureen Dowd) to express my “cultural and racial anxiety” (Paul Krugman) over the tax burden faced by future generations on behalf of the present one. I suppose that because the current president is Black I am not supposed to be in disagreement with him because he is Black–that might be racist. You see, being Black is apparently a handicap and a Black POTUS needs to be treated with kid gloves. It turns out that while there weren’t a lot of them, there were also some “Black malcontents” at the march. Perhaps they also had “cultural and racial anxiety”, but I couldn’t tell–they seemed to be more concerned with such oddities as the constitution and the money being blown by the government. I did wonder what all the Black police officers thought about this right-wing conspiracy happening all around them.
Yes, the vast majority of the march attendees were White. They were mostly middle class, clean cut people. Many of them older and elderly. I saw quite a few of the elderly with wheeled-walkers. I also saw on wheels babies and small children in strollers. I noticed that at least half were women. In spite of the “malcontented” “racial anxiety”, the crowd was laid-back and mostly paid attention to the speakers at the rally. As bizarre as it sounds, a million or more smiles and friendly conversations were exchanged between people in this “threatening…mob“.
Aside from the tens of thousands (to possibly a million) individuals who traveled from all over the country to show their patriotism, many groups were represented: TEA Party Patriots, Campaign for Liberty, Ron Paul supporters, Rand Paul supporters, Townhall, the Council of Conservative Citizens, the American Patriots Committee, Give Me Liberty, 9.12.09 March on Washington, Libertas, and a million more organizations.
You’ll see the sentiments people voiced in their signs in the photographs. Many of them referenced very real concerns about the growing socialism in the US government at the expense of individual liberties and freedoms. One recurrent theme needs to be addressed, however. I saw the word “czar” on signs all throughout the crowd. For Americans, we see that word and think back to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (it has always interested me how we dropped that word “Socialist” and simply called it the “Soviet Union”). While we can all understand the reference is to socialism, the mention of “czar” is an error I would like to see corrected in all our American minds. It was upon the murder of the last tsar, Nicolas II, when the communist Bolshevik coup occurred. Tsar Nicholas II, nor any previous czar, ever had anything to do with Marxism or communism. Czars were old Europe–they were kings and queens–not Marxist killers.
Instead of “czar”, a more correct reference would be to the Bolsheviks–for indeed, we Americans have gone from the Neo-Cons of the Bush administration to the Bolsheviks of the Obama administration. They are sometimes called Neo-Libs. They are simply the same people. I explained to a few folks there how 60 million ethnic Russian–Christians, that is–were murdered by the Bolsheviks, and encouraged my listeners to do their own homework on who the Bolsheviks really were. If you’ve been doing your homework, you already know they were Jewish and Jewish-controlled terrorists and murderers. The czars of European ancestry didn’t do all that–the biological and political ancestors of the people who are and have been in the White House did that.
Enjoy the photos. –Ralph Iver
Continue to the photos:
Note: A few of the faces were smudged to protect individual identities.
