Memes/Issues/Tea Party
I went to the 2010 (San Jose) Tea Party rally.
Back in April 2010, I went the 1 block from work to a Tea Party Rally in San Jose. So I went to contrast what was happening versus what the media was reporting.
- It was tame, civil
- The crazies were sock puppets (Democrats pretending to be Tea Partiers to make them look bad)
- The media interviewed the sock puppets and ignored and cut the signs that said, "he's not with us" out of the scenes.
The local/national news spun the story by finding the one guy that had some racist T-shirt or placard and interviewing him and pretending he was the norm. (The guys record as a lifelong democrat operative came out on conservative sites, but it was obvious to the attendees at the time). And thats' how a mild mannered group of mixed race people (often in their 40's-60's) were portrayed as a bunch of racist bigots trying to hurt minorities by balancing the budget.
Here's some of the pictures of a real Tea Party event.
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| File:TeaParty0.jpg The crowd had a lot of silver-haired, middle and upper class folks, who were mad about deficit spending (not race, religion, etc).
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| File:TeaParty1.jpg |
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| File:TeaParty1.jpg Lots of pro-America imagery, smiles (not much anger: more friendly grousing), and messages about taxes and freedom.
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| File:TeaParty2.jpg |
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| File:TeaParty2.jpg 90% of the signage was about deficits, TEA=Taxed Enough Already, and messages about economics and smaller government.
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| File:TeaParty3.jpg |
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| File:TeaParty3.jpg There was one obnoxious T-Shirt, worn by a Democrat operative (and a few TeaPartiers pointing out "Not with us"). Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture. But the media focused on him. |
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| File:TeaParty4.jpg At the 2010 Tea Party, Orwell, and Ayn Randian signs were around. The media played this as a white racist march, but there were plenty of Indians and Asians in the crowd, without any problems.
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| File:TeaParty5.jpg |
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| File:TeaParty5.jpg I took a few dozen pictures -- but I'm not a great photographer, and was more interested in the signage and looking for bad ones. The worst was an occasional jab at Obama for being a Socialist (aka: wealth redistribution).
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| File:TeaParty6.jpg |
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| File:TeaParty6.jpg A small counter-protest... but TeaPartiers smiled and waved at them (very little animosity). The cops didn't even bother to keep them separate. These were Americans wanting more liberty, not leftists wanting less.
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