Great coverage of this outrageous event. I have been at many rallies and marches in the same spaces. Your coverage, with all these signs, really brought home to me how divided we are. How did we every stray so far from our heritage?

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cause i agree with the idea that free traders are traitors to the American economy.

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b>BoldLarycham asked a question: here's my 2 cents' worth of an answer. b>Bold

The reason the million to two million people showed up today –

Italics(you didn’t REALLY expect a liberal writer to admit the crowd’s size did you?) – Italics

Is that the heart of the country, the people who vote Demo one time & Repub the next, looking for a leader they can follow, feel like they have totally been lied to and abandoned by their government.
We’ve had wacko leaders before from both parties. What the people who built and love this country didn’t expect is for the whole federal government to go crazy on spending
WHILE letting millions of people lose their jobs in less than a year WHILE seeing power-grabbing laws like the cap & trade and this health bill come up and be talked about like they were logical choices. Neither of these two thousand-page bills would have lasted a week in any Congress we’ve ever seen before, and one is already law. There is so much economic control-seizing in the health bill that has nothing to do with insurance that people feel abandoned.

Something no one blames on Obama is the other thing that has been around for decades – the conviction that the media refuses to give not only fair editorial treatment of both sides of issues, but even refuses to cover news or events honestly. Depending on party affiliation, news outlets ignore moral disasters like Charley Rangel or blow things totally out of proportion.

(Representative Rangel is not going to get anyone killed, but can you imagine his treatment in the media if he was a conservative?)

This is part of the reasoning that filled the Mall in D.C. today.

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These are the people who let GWB lie them into war, excuse the rich from paying their fair share, and trample on the constitution. These are the people who will run to their government if they get sick or caught up in a natural disaster. These are the people who drove to Washington on public highways, demonstrated in public places, and expected protection from public employees.

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A crowd in the 1000's used their Constitutional right of free speech much like millions have in the past for Civil Rights and objecting to the Vietnam War. Yes the messages of todays protesters may be dumb, racist, insulting and offensive in various ways but with a few exemptions was legal. As far as I heard, there were no arrests or violence.

I wonder if the police were on the lookout for anyone possessing illegal concealed weapons?

Perhaps what is really needed is what I call a "Million Mad March", of progressives that wants proscution of Bush, Chenney and others in his administration for war crimes, a public option and much tigher regulations of private insurers of health care, help for debted homeowners instead of big banks, end unfair trade policies to return jobs back to America and 'green' polices.

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...when it's a peace march? I've been to several massive anti-war marches in D.C.--one in which attendance approached half a million--and there has been little to no coverage in this country, including by the so-called liberal media (at least the Europeans covered these events). It has been truly surreal; if I didn't still have the photographs to prove it, I'd be tempted to think I dreamed it all. I guess I know how Winston Smith felt.

It is even more surreal to see that Congress can be swayed by a few thousand teabaggers marching, but completely ignore half a million anti-war activists doing the same thing, only with more civility. Is the message that the anti-war movement is going to have to get rowdy?

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Where were these people when Bush turned a surplus into a deficit?

Where were these people when Bush was the first President to go to war without raising taxes to pay for it?

Where were these people when Congress used budget reconciliation to pass the Bush tax cuts because they could not get it passed any other way?

Where were these people when Clinton became the first President in recent history to balance the budget?

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When tens of thousands of people were protesting before the start and during the Iraq war there was no coverage in the media. If you didn't already know it was happening, you would never know it was happening.

Now we're being told about a bunch or crazy teabaggers voicing untruths and misunderstandings as if this is a legitimate protest of anything? Don't insult our intelligence.

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I have never been more proud - my faith in people has been restored. My entire adult life has seen this country gradually slide into socialist liberalism and facist totalitarianism, and I'm amazed today to see the outpouring of people in support of going back to pure, limited constitutional government. This movement has nothing to do with being on the left or right, liberal or conservative, democrat or republican - it has to do with patriotic people from all walks of American life believing in the spirit of independence and true liberty for all.

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Goes to show, the FOX folks can summon numbers. They are a whole TV network, after all.

Maybe that's cynical? No, it's just that we are talking about TV that employees O'Reilly (bomb San Fran! Dr. Death!) and Glen Beck. Glen Beck. Yes. I know. Talk to the manager, what can I tell ya.

The truly out there folks will be heard! This is their time! Somehow, I'm not worried. ;)

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Looks like normal everyday people to me. Of course they are uninformed, misinformed but they are not in uniform ... I saw no militias, brown shirts or or para-military gear ...

Alternet should stop the fear mongering and start questioning the neoliberal policies of the Obama Administration ...

It is the Obama Administration that is Pro-War, It is the Obama Administration that is giving the banksters trillions. It is the Obama Administration that is taking our rights and liberties. And it is the Obama Administration that has decided to give the Pharma and Health Care Companies tens of billions of dollars MORE.

Wake Up Alternet!

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Time for some perspective, folks:

If George W. Bush were still the president and these were antiwar protestors, they would be in a "free speech" cage somewhere far away from the capital building, completely ignored by the corporate media.

If George W. Bush were still the president, a political opponent of his showing up at a demonstration with an automatic weapon strapped to his leg carrying a sign referring to the "tree of liberty" would have been been arrested on the spot, if not shot by the police and / or secret service outright. Remember, one of Dick Cheney's political opponents was arrested once on the specious charge of "getting too close to the vice president," even though the only thing he did was try to engage the guy in an impromptu debate.

if a Democrat had shouted "YOU LIE!" at George W. Bush when he was giving that infamous 2003 State of the Union address, he would have been censured before the full congress at the very least, branded a traitor by the right wing media, and possibly bullied into resigning from office.

George W. Bush would not have allowed political opponents into his town hall meetings. He would have stood in front of a handpicked audience (probably some of the same people protesting today) in front of some hokey sign that said "liberating Iraq" or whatever, basking in the kind of raucous, unanimous applause usually reserved for tinhorn dictators at their staged orgies of nationalism.

The reason we are seeing the wingnuts ooze out of the woodwork is simple. Since the change in administration, we in America now once again enjoy the the simple human right to peacefully and publicly disagree with our leadership.

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Is the Right's Attack on Obama's Legitimacy New or Unprecedented?by Glenn Greenwald

"Several people objected in comments, emails and other places to my argument yesterday that what Rep. Joe Wilson did -- though dumb and juvenile -- was hardly some grave threat to the Republic or even a substantial deviation from standard right-wing political behavior. Some argued that Obama's race has caused the Right's hostility towards him to be both unique and unprecedentedly intense. That some people react with particular animus towards the first black President is obvious. But there is nothing new about the character of the American Right or their concerted efforts to destroy the legitimacy of Obama's presidency.

To see that, just look at what that movement's leading figures said and did during the Clinton years. In 1994, Jesse Helms, then-Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, claimed that "just about every military man" believes Clinton is unqualified to be Commander-in-Chief and then warned/threatened him not to venture onto military bases in the South: "Mr. Clinton better watch out if he comes down here. He better have a bodyguard." The Wall St. Journal called for a Special Prosecutor to investigate the possible "murder" of Vince Foster. Clinton was relentlessly accused by leading right-wing voices of being a murderer, a serial rapist, and a drug trafficker. Tens of millions of dollars and barrels of media ink were expended investigating "Whitewater," a "scandal" which, to this day, virtually nobody can even define. When Clinton tried to kill Osama bin Laden, they accused him of "wagging the dog" -- trying to distract the country from the truly important matters at hand (his sex scandal). And, of course, the GOP ultimately impeached him over that sex scandal -- in the process issuing a lengthy legal brief with footnotes detailing his sex acts (cigars and sex talk), publicly speculating about (and demanding examinations of) the unique "distinguishing" spots on his penis, and using leading right-wing organs to disseminate innuendo that he had an abandoned, out-of-wedlock child. More intense and constant attacks on a President's "legitimacy" are difficult to imagine.

This is why I have very mixed feelings about the protests of conservatives such as David Frum or Andrew Sullivan that the conservative movement has been supposedly "hijacked" by extremists and crazies. On the one hand, this is true. But when was it different? Rush Limbaugh didn't just magically appear in the last twelve months. He -- along with people like James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Bill Kristol and Jesse Helms -- have been leaders of that party for decades. Republicans spent the 1990s wallowing in Ken Starr's sex report, "Angry White Male" militias, black U.N. helicopters, Vince Foster's murder, Clinton's Mena drug runway, Monica's semen-stained dress, Hillary's lesbianism, "wag the dog" theories, and all sorts of efforts to personally humiliate Clinton and destroy the legitimacy of his presidency using the most paranoid, reality-detached, and scurrilous attacks. And the crazed conspiracy-mongers in that movement became even more prominent during the Bush years. Frum himself -- parading around as the Serious Adult conservative -- wrote, along with uber-extremist Richard Perle, one of the most deranged and reality-detached books of the last two decades, and before that, celebrated George W. Bush, his former boss, as "The Right Man."

It's also why I am extremely unpersuaded by the prevailing media narrative that the Right is suddenly enthralled to its rambunctions and extremist elements and is treating Obama in some sort of unique or unprecedented way. Other than the fact that Obama's race intensifies the hatred in some precincts, nothing that the Right is doing now is new.

there's much more ...

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Over and over, when I point out that the Democrats have totally and utterly betrayed us -- over and over again -- and this time -- Barack's lies have reached a new level -- "progressives" here rush out to attack me, and robotically defend the political party that is using them, and laughing hysterically behind their backs. They just want to blame Republicans!! They're just more Democratic Party ass-kissers, robots, "Barack-bots", who would let the fake "progressives" in Congress and in the oval office "rape" them politically as often as they want -- in fact I think they'd happily let the Democratic party bend 'em over and fuck 'em dry -- as I said before our supposed Democrat "progressive" "leaders" are ripping our assholes to pieces!! -- The people here on Alternet who cover their eyes and ears when another democratic socialist (me), dares to question whether the people who we elected really follow our demands...these fake commenters have no understanding of the true realities...

All these fake liberals here at Alternet (well, Alternet USED to be a good site- around 2001-2002), just sit around blaming Republicans for the lack of passage of liberal agendas -- when the real problem is the Democrats!! Hell, the motherfuckers have a supermajority -- and all the POS's can come up with is excuses!! They are one and the same as the Republicans!!

Excuse me, but I am THROUGH with these worthless motherfuckers !! Defend them all you want, but they are laughing at your dumb ass when the cameras switch off!!

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It's good to see somebody knows how to organize and get bodies on the street.
At this point I'm ready to join them.
The Democrats, the "Progressives," have sold us out, again.
Bad legislation is worse than no legislation.
Fuck 'em all.

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It is Obama that is doing things to Obama. The very idea that his race has anything to do with his probles is laughable.

The Right has no power to do anything to him. He holds the votes. His problem has been and continues to be inept plolitical actions, political policy mistakes, hiring people he shouldn't, ignoring the people that elected him.

That Republicans outburst on the House floor is unforgivable. As disappointed in this guy as I am, he is President of the United States and deserves the respect for his office. It does not matter that the guy was telling the truth. That was a lie. If passed as it is, illegal aliens could and indeed would get coverage. That is fact.

The reality is that not too many folks trust this guy at this point and hardly any one but their synchophants trust the Pelosi/Reid bunch.

Republicans didn't cast the deciding votes for the "stimulus" bill nor for the pork laden Omnibus bill nor his overstuffed budget. Republicans didn't decide to take over GM, Chrysler and some others, Republicans are not trying to pass a bill that will make Hospitals, Drug Companies and lawyers rich while doing not much for anyone else.

Its Obama that has lost the support of Seniors, Independents and quite a few Democrats at this point. Defying the will of the majority of the American people is not a recipe for longevity in politics. Its Obama that has allowed the Speaker of the House and Reid to insult most of the country.

But its damn sure not the Republicans or Limbaugh or any of the other whipping boys that are Obamas problem. Obama is his own worst enemy.

Like it or not, here is a President that has staked his political future on something that less than 11% of the country was concerned about or even thought of. How smart is that?

The only place the Republicans are really involved in here is accepting the gift Obama has given them. Raised them from the dead.

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hope you don't believe that in a literal sense.

fear mongering began after 9/11 and when the pro-war bushites started two wars and began a third before obama showed up. "plausible deniability" was used as a cover-up for lying to courts and to the public. our government was giving trillions to banks and big pharma long before obama. our rights and liberties were shredded before obama arrived. so what are you talking about?

clinical paranoia was never so acute until now; when a special breed of republicans despairingly woke up to the fact that a black man was running a traditionally white man's show.

obama may be another corporate pawn or lackey but he's not the cause of america's problems today. how short memory is. this is typical of the americans who publicly display ignorance in protest marches, they might as well be saying, "i do not retain substance," their sources are fox-news racists and dispensationalist pastors.

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....... why does the left think if conservatives protest it's because
the were "" egged on by the corporate interests behind Glenn Beck and FreedomWorks.""". Is their cause any less ligit then liberals marching for their cause of the day.

No , of course not, it's just that inherent in any left wing argument or cause is repression of opposing voices (Chavez comes to mind) - why, because their arguments are often logically baseless

I'ts hard to explain what you don't understand!

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What a day it was all across the Country this past Saturday. Rational citizens were able to see these pathetic Dupes and Nutcases all out with their posters and of course their flags (I saw no Bibles but one poster quoted John 3:16, a favorite among the evangelical crackpots). One lunatic obviously proud of himself displayed a poster with the phrase, You Lie, quoting of course the outburst of Joe Wilson. representative from the outbacks of South Carolina, a political Red(neck) State among those comprising Dupedom South. The mental states of the loon with the poster and of Wilson are equivalent..



All of this just didn't happen. Rather, it was organized with glee by the propagandists for our Plutocracy, who know full well the vast political ignorance and shallow mentalities of those whom they target as willing recipents of ultra-rightwinger bilge. There were some tea party loons among the demonstrators. Those of us who pay attention know that the fairly recent tea party mobs were eagerly endorsed by Fox News which sent out to various locations some of its more notable anchors who shamelessly blather deceptive half-truths or blatant falsehoods made out of whole cloth daily in a way that perhaps sooner or later those addicted to this nonsense will set out to find a plutocrat to hug or to participate in the kind of misguided spectacle we witnessed on Saturday.



The Plutocrats are delighted over this kind of turnout, because ultimately what these characters have done is to show up in support of the health insurance corporations, which collect excessive premiums and then set out to decline payment of claims on the weakest of excuses. This profitable enterprise handsomely rewards those in the executive suites with obscene incomes and bonuses. For example, the recently departed CEO of the largest insurer received compensation of $1.2 billion, and his successor currently in office receives $700 million per year (which means that when he arrives home after a day of "work" he rejoices in his having earned a half-million for himself that day). Add to this the anecdotal evidence of those claimants who have died awaiting the procedural results of disputing an insurance refusal to cover life-saving surgery, and of those who have been left with their disability after having been refused remedial surgery and treatment, it becomes clear just how wretched a medical system is in place here. Again, by their mindless actions these mobs of idiots are cheering for the status quo.

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...that all those protestors are vicious anti-capitalist with purple hair ....stoning cops, burning cars and breaking windows.

Just close your eyes and try it.

Now... don't you "feel" much better??

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Nobody can ignore the existence of Christian Louboutin shoes in the fashion world. And what makes Christian Louboutin shoes so remarkable? Its exquisite quality, fine craftsmanship, sexy high heels, quirky designs and of course the red outsole known as the symbol of Christian Louboutin shoes.

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Glenn Beck and his corporatist masters are trying to hijack the the Tea Party Movment and turn it into the basis for a comeback for the right hand of the Corporatist monster in 2010--after the left hand of the monster has done all the damage it can.

Big, uncontrolled, goverment was put together by progressives who didn't think things out... who didn't look at who was behind their favorite magazines and who paid the bills for their activities. Out of them, we got World War I, World War II, the FED, the Income Tax and a host of other big government solutions that have plagued us ever since.

People are tired for paying for these crimes against the Constitution. Our forefathers kicked kingly arse to be let the hell alone and it would be no great leap for us to kick the collective arse of the Washington Regime and international banks for which it stands.

Real Progressives will be asking, "Does the Washington Regime REALLY serve our interests?"

As our taxes are sucked into the maw of the warfare state, the police state, the national security state, the Wall Street interests-- of Big Finance, Big Pharma and Big Government Contractors--I'd have to say, "NO! HELL NO!"
Look at the interest on our 'National Debt!'

'Progressives' are being used as surely as those on the 'right' by the Corporatists.
With writers at 'progressive' sites like Alternet, keeping emotions running high against those people who took time out of their lives to fight the good fight against the Corporate State. Yeah, there are some real Bush-brained nitwits out there, but there are also many hardworking people who are tired of being screwed by Big Goverment...whether it be run by Bush or Obama.

To keep its stranglehold on America, Wall Street must divide to conquer...Lets keep our eye on who the real enemy is...the people who are taxing and spending to help themselves and their corporate masters--not to help the people who are paying the taxes--US!

We could have a modern, energy clean, un-indebted nation with health care for all--if we would stop falling for the strategy of division that the Regime is using--and has used for the past hundred years--to keep working Americans in their place.

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This is all about the underlying, hideous factor of the racism that is so deeply ingrained in the American character. The attempt to portray this president (Of all people!) as a socialistic, left wing extremist doesn’t even pass the giggle test for people who have bothered to pay attention to their times and their history. Let’s face it - Franklin D. Roosevelt, he ain’t! They can’t obstruct his agenda with a manufactured scandal regarding his personal life, as they did with Bill Clinton. eleven years ago. Their only hope is for enough of the American people to become really frightened by the Big, Bad Negro Commie. An ironic description when one takes into consideration how boringly moderate Obama really is.

Think about this: In the last presidential campaign only one of the nominees of the two major political parties was born in the United States - Barack Obama - John McCain was born in Panama. Do you find it as revealing as I do that it was the black guy had his citizenship called into question? How much more proof do we need of the overt racism that is inherent in that party - or in our own country for that matter? Honestly, this isn’t rocket science, folks!

But wait! It gets better! Now Glenn Beck is slated to become the Martin Loony King of the Far Right thanks to his stupid “March on Washington” yesterday.

Isn’t life interesting?

http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

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Sure, there are some Glen Beck fanatic nut jobs. I can honestly say that not everyone against Obama's escalation of Bush's fascism is a partisan hypocrite though.

So according to Alternet so far, the left is against wars based on lies, and corporate government takeover only when it's white republicans doing it, and if people are vocally out there, against democrats doing it they're right wing?

I don't believe everyone is such a blind hypocrite. There are plenty here how don't buy it either. Many see the attempt to further mass murder based on lies and a huge corporate fascist takeover of the health care industry. The wishy washy public option is deliberately vague, because what's been thrown around so far increases the cost per person, blocks bulk negotiating prices down and mandates everyone to pay into this costly, convoluted, sick bizarro version of single payer one way or another. The people who stood up to the abuse of 911 to whitewash wars for multinational corporate profit still care, at least some of them. Just because it's a black democrat doing it now, the attempt to smear and lump all people fighting against it as right wing racists is a sick turnaround and shows the "public left" as having no real values at all, if you're saying it's only right wingers fighting it now.

Obama promised to get rid of the closed door secrecy of government, no lobbyists, ect. He further shrouded dealings, put uber-lobbyists in charge, and surrounded himself with many of the same war criminals and put a nice mask on everything. I don't think it's only right wing-wingers trying to hold him accountable to that, because if that was true, the left would be only pathetic hypocrites, cowards and race baiters.

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Right-wing fascists have the right to drive to DC in their Hummers and protest just as much as anyone.
But, when the anti-war crowd did the same thing (sans the Hummers), the US media COMPLETELY ignored them! This right-wing march, however, is literally front-page news around the country!

And, you know these people at the march are sick when they (as well as the MSM) describe Obama as a "liberal".
The president is JUST BARELY left of George W Bush, for deity's sake!

But the impression I am struck by the most is this: These people are SPOILED BRATS who were used to getting their way during the Bush years. They need a spanking, but Obama is not exactly the one who will give it to them. My prediction: He gives in to these nuts almost completely.

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After seeing, hearing, reading, the images and words pouring out of minds, placards, banners, baloons and various weird fascist symbols in this recent public affirmation of the expanding spiritual and cultural collapse of our former Empire, I am now convinced that these people are not people, but ZOMBIES. In current philosophies on brain, mind function and descriptions of how consciousness works, ZOMBIE's are those poor creatures who are not sentient, but are soul-less, disembodied biological mutations who have no qualia, no emotions, no mind, and yet, resemble human beings. Likes flies, ZOMBIES breed on dead tissue, in our time, they feed off the fecal matter of the Republican Party and the delusion, psychotic Fox network with Master Glenn Beck as the ZOMBIE LEADER. Seeing that ZOMBIES have no minds of their own they have found refuge in the NRA and the Christian Right who are so clearly wrong that it is outrageous! The only thing which will calm down the rise of ZOMBIEs in the USA is to produce some new memes for them - memes so powerful that even the media gets on board and for once tells the people of this nation how we were overtaken by ZOMBIES as the planet evaported from mindlessness.

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These must be the same folks Bush used to bring with him by the busloads on campaign tours, to fill the crowd with out-of-towners while the local public had to stand around outside the perimeter with their anti-Bush signs, for his "security."
Don't be fooled by the head count. It's a little suspicious when anti-war rallies have "a couple hundred maybe" and right wing rallies have "thousands..." Gotta love the "free" press. Free to lie their butts off, more like.

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...than they deserved.

I was downtown DC, just a few blocks from the White House, for a medical appointment yesterday.

To put in context of how many people were at the right wing "rally" of which we hear, it was impossible to get around DC for days for the Obama inauguration. Far more distant from the White House, it would have almost been difficult to get around even on a bicyle back in January. And during the Vietnam demonstrations in the '70s, the same was true. I didn't even have a problem finding a parking space yesterday!

Yeah, I saw the tourists leaving their hotels, heading to the memorials, the Smithsonians. I didn't even see so much as a sign. Downtown Washington.

As to the crowd itself, there have been some interesting analyses of who's been stimulating the anti-reform rallies. Even the Washington Post mentioned FreedomWorks, of which Dick Armey is one of the lead shepherds.

I've had the pleasure of arguing with some tea partiers and other anti-Obama zealots since January. What can I call it? Fascinating, maybe? The bitterness expressed toward a CLEAR Obama victory. I mean, keep in mind that if it weren't for Ross Perot, Bill Clinton may not have been elected in '92. Bob Dole was so ineffective in '96 that Clinton won hands down. So the GOP got busy keeping Clinton occupied with his sex life--while many of them had their hands where didn't belong. (What? Republican hypocrites?)

In 2000, if the Supreme Court hadn't decided that he was president, Dubya would have lost. (In other words, he did.) In '04, the GOP pulled out its big fear guns, and John Kerry's campaign did poorly. But it was still sooooooo close. In '08, lots of people got off our rumps and campaigned--and the GOP allowed Karl Rove to assign a functional illiterate to VP candidacy, and we won hands down.

So the right wing sheep have come out, attempting to intimidate, unable to answer even basic questions (speaking of functional illiteracy).

Perhaps we should continue to examine what's happening with the fringe right, but don't take 'em too seriously.

In the meantime, let's organize to get Joey "The Brat" Wilson out of office and back in grade school where he belongs.

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Reminds me of when I was a kid marching with my parents on civil rights demonstrations and the Nazis drove by offering "Free gas and matches for peaceniks".

How can anyone doubt this is about race? Where are our "elected" leaders? Oh, yeah, probably at the bank cashing those big corporate donation checks.

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...who was also a "proud anti-Bush zealot" and before that a "proud anti-Clinton zealot" and before that a "proud anti-Bush, Sr. zealot"....

who was opposed to the common policies of these creatures of Finance Capital who duped the American people in election after election to maintain an ever-growing police and warfare national security state...to suffer declining standards of living and fight war after war based on lies and nothing but lies for the sake of Oil, Israel, drugs and resources.

The only bigger fools than the pro-Republican dupes of the corporatists are the pro-Democratic dupes of the corporatists--and they really should know better.

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Where are the pigs when you really want them?

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Townhall.com is insisting today that they had two million partipants yesterday.

New York Times today has an op-ed piece pointing out the racist undertones of the anti-healthcare movement. It says the FOX website (I have not checked this out yet) is claiming that Obama's health care is actually a form of reparation for slavery. Photographs of DC yesterday did seem quite heavy on pink faces and light on brown ones.

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I don't know about up north or even across the country but here in the south we are inundated with FOX everywhere you go. You can't bank, eat a burger, or pay your utility bill without FOX in your face. I wish we could get progressives, independents, and liberals to take one day, the day of the dead to boycott anything to do with FOX. It may not be as flashy as a march, but it would have a far-reaching effect. I would love to stand in front of my public utility with a sign reading Day of the Dead Boycott Businesses Who Support FOX.

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As I read through this thread of people saying, on a liberal website, the day after a massive rally of citizens who are doing all possible to delegitimize an elected liberal president, what good folks the tea party protesters were, and asking, after all, what harm did they do, I kept thinking of the passage in "Night" where Elie Weisel remembers his father saying, "So what if they make us wear a yellow armband? We won't die of that." Then, moving back to the present, Weisel reflects, "Poor Father: of what, then, did you die?".

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Watching these people it's easy to see how Adolf Hitler was able to inspire such fanaticism. All you have to do is repeat patriotic phrases while focusing the crowd's anger on foreigners, immigrants and other "enemies" who must be causing all our problems.

The sad -- and funny -- thing is that most of these protesters are being royally screwed by the same corporations that are bankrolling these protests! They never seem to catch on.

I guess that's why Barnum said "There's one born every minute" -- one conservative, that is.

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These people here seem to not understand the difference between all the different political systems they accuse Mr. Obama of representing.

Fascism, Socialism, Communism, and Totalitarianism are all very different things. Of course, if you tried to explain the difference to any of these people, I'm sure they'd pull out their concealed firearms on you.

Fascism is in this country though. Make no mistake.

Sinclair Lewis said it best: "When fascism comes to America, it will be draped in a flag and carrying a cross."

These people are fascists. Obama is not.
Granted, Obama is a moron who has betrayed his liberal base, but he's no fascist, and certainly no socialist, nor communist.

I'M a socialist. I support a strong government that helps people (via tax dollars) with healthcare, with retirement, with college, with public works. In other words, I support the use of tax dollars to make society a cleaner, friendlier, and in all other words, BETTER place to live.

What I DON'T support is when MY tax dollars go towards killing Iraqi and Afghan civilians instead of helping my neighbor down the street who has cancer.

I'd sleep better at night knowing my tax dollars were helping out my fellow citizens rather than knowing they're hurting people on the other side of the world who have done nothing wrong.

THESE PEOPLE are the fascists they claim to oppose, and the sweet, sweet irony is that they don't even realize it. Even more ironic is that they have no concept of irony in the first place.

These people have no idea just how much is at stake, and how they're actually acting AGAINST THEIR OWN INTERESTS by supporting this kind of right-wing lunacy. How many of these protester people are on medicare, I wonder? And how many of those same people on medicare are yelling, "keep government out of medicare?"

Ignorance is not bliss. These people CHOOSE to remain ignorant, because they feel safe. Who can blame them, really? Who WANTS to come out of that protective little bubble that says with the smooth voice of Glen Beck or Bill O'Reilley, "it's okay. You can stay in here where it's safe. Where you're safe from the evils of the world. Be afraid of change. Keep buying from WalMart. Be resentful towards people who want to change things. You're fine. Everything will be fine."

We need to either drag these people into the light by force, or we need to round them up and let them have the southern states as their sovereign lands. No more of this crap of "can't we all just get along?" No, Barrie. We CAN'T get along, when one side is literally spitting in the face of the other, as the republicans are doing.

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... how these idiots keep talking about taxes when THEIR taxes were recently cut, and Obama talks about taxing the wealthy.

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No, not just these people railing against Obama as the "socialist" "Hitler" "Stalin" "Terrorist" are a few brain cells short of a wagonload, but the idiotic people who continue to act as if the democrats give a rat's ass about the human beings living in this society.

If either "side" had any sense, they would ban together collectively as landless peasants and wage-slaves (which is, afterall, what the majority of us have become in this country if we're honest - and certainly is how the landholding elites view us all) and cast off this entire system of belief. The idea that our "democracy" is somehow legitimate at all is patently absurd. When it is quite literally a statistical impossibility for any citizen who is not a member of the ruling elite to participate as a federal lawmaker, when massive corporations are granted "free speech" rights under the constitution and thus are free to funnel millions and millions in political "donations" and send lobbyists to manipulate law, when we have blatant political dynasties (Kennedies, Clintons, Bushes) controlling state and federal governments, are we really to believe we have "democracy" (representative or not) at all?

What is most sickening is watching these conservative morons lobbying for the "right" of the wealthy to continue to decide who will live and who will die with their twisted "life for money" healthcare system - while simultaneously watching so-called "progressives" roll onto their backs and give up even BOTHERING to try to move the social evolution of this country forward. -Because they're satisfied to drive around in their hybrids and use cloth grocery bags, imagining they're "saving the world" with every insignificant action (while their government sends more troops to another defenseless but resource-rich third-world backwater, slaughtering thousands of innocents in the process - but hey, you use CF lightbulbs, right?).

This is it folks. This was our last shot, really. We all know where this culture is headed - nearly every single large mammal on the planet is in danger of extinction. There is not a single waterway left that is not seriously polluted. Corporations are buying the rights to everything we SHOULD (but don't) cherish - land, water, genetic material, rainforests, public airwaves, and our liberties and freedoms. Your government tortures people and invades third world nations in order to gain control of their resources. 35,000 children starve to death every single day, needlessly. These elites have made the choice for humanity, and they have chosen profit over the very survival of their species - not to mention most of the life on this planet. We could stop them, but we won't. We'll just keep imagining that in 4 years - or 8 years - or in 2012 - or whatever other fantasy we might have - things will miraculously change. WAKE UP. FOR GOD'S SAKE. OPEN YOUR FUCKING EYES.

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They wrote a Constitution precisely because the fear of the day was the rule of the hoi peloi.........the illiterate ( or barely so ) masses who, if held on equal terms to their betters, would vote themselves their wealth and loot the treasury.

Sound familiar? So in those days they felt society would advance best with a new idea........PROPERTY OWNERS would vote. No landed nobility would rule.....................and certainly not the unpropertied, uneducated masses. It was conceived as a 'democratic republic'. They created a "bill of Rights" so the masses could not become tyrannical themselves. We became a REPUBLIC for very good reasons.

The current protesters in Washington are not "Conervative". They are more aptly described as 'Constitutionalists' They hate both the Democrats and Republicans. Because both have thrown the Constitution under the bus. Republicans are a default choice for many.

Have not both parties ( more so the Dems ) flaunted the will of the people by allowing porous borders? Do you all approve the fact 20 million aliens snuck in, reducing wages of our perpetual black underclass? And then they complain they can't get a job? Is cause and effect not obvious?

They see both parties ruled by the banking and family elites. They see Wall Street as Obama's biggest donors ( and that's a FACT ). Does that not strike AlterNet as odd? Oh, just another smear to be ignored.After all, his intentions are good, right?
Forget Constitutional money...........if you ever bothered to read the Constitution, you'll understand what I mean). That doesn't count anymore. Who cares if the dollar is not "good as gold"................as they used to say pre FDR. We can all manage the way it is..........constantly inflated prices. But they'll alwys print more money for us. Right? Just hope your income keeps up with the Demopublican / Obama inflation. But they usually don't. So you're screwed by 'them'..........party lines don't matter, Bunkie. It's a Federal power hungry government out of control.

And the Left want's government controlled medical care( the controls go waaay beyond just paying the bill )????? Constitutionalists want the various governments and authorites out of their lives, period. A Government following Constitutional princilples. Read it sometime. An elightening document. Almost too perfect. For those who want to live free.

And that's why millions marched. AlterNet posters read these people totally wrong.

And PS........they are not so conservative or redneck. Plenty of stoners in that crowd.

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There is a tea party coalition in almost every state. People went to DC on their own. We never heard of the group you mention... no one funded us, bought our lunches, shirts or paid for transportation.. However, at every counterrally, you do see paid astroturf from the left: ACORN, SEIU, AFSCME, MoveOn, and we have the ads to prove it and the boxed lunches and busses were evident in the videos of the Obama NH town hall.

Give it up lady, you are a sour puss.

Never have we seen so much hatred as in THESE demonstrations.. where was your indignation then?

http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=621
http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=612

It was a great day for 1.5M people to celebrate the Constitution and freedom.

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In the whole bunch of pictures there only seem to be WHITE faces (correction: ONE picture shows a black guy, but he is a spectator not a participant).

Still claim this is not racially motivated?

Since the "Grand Marshal" was Glen "Obama is a racist" Beck we can draw our own conclusions.

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This rally represents the masses of IGNORANT, ASS BACKWARDS, REDNECK MOUTH BREATHING RICISTS that Rush, Hannity and the rest of that ilk prod into action to do all this stupid ASTRO TURFING, carrying guns to rallies, threatening secession, exclaiming "I want my country back." There are NO PEOPLE OF COLOR there, there are no WEALTHY, INTELLIGENT CAPITALISTS there. Just a bunch of blood thirsty racists assholes.

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It was so nice to see Americans free to protest their government again. No more "Free Speech Zones". AMERICA IS A FREE SPEECH ZONE AGAIN! HOORAY!!!

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This must have been the largest misinformed moronic group of hillbillys to ever visit the National Capital. I am truly saddened to see the result of the World's worst educated populace parade to the drums of a wingnut like Glenn Beck, a person who thinks that carrying a Library Card is a Communist Plot to brainwash our children. These pictures of tired, exploited and frustrated old women whose beer bellied husbands freed them from the chains that attached them to the kitchen sink, for one day of fame, is a sad commentary on our country and shows the job of rehabilitation that President Obama has ahead of him.

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The mystery of creation is like the darkness of night--it is great. Delusions of knowledge are like the fog of the morning.
http://www.tiffanyfeeling.com/Tiffany/tiffany-1837.html　

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