People have jobs, and yet were angry enough to show out in strong numbers all over the country. We don't pull the tricks that other organizations pull -- hiring hobos, staging some sort of publicity stunt, employing extremely harsh rhetoric. I'd say it was a group of people who wanted to say something for themselves rather than have others say things for them.It does strike me that perhaps some of the people who linked the article without wondering about its weak sourcing just couldn't quite believe that ordinary people would be moved to protest a gigantic government spending package. They don't think of that as something one protests about. War, yes, taxes no.
The weirdest part for me was walking to the protest site and see that people were already hard at work, doing some rally cries. These were small business owners, families -- not grassroots activists. These were regular people. It looks like this stimulus is the change even conservatives and libertarians have been waiting for.
JP also has something to say about his alleged connection to the "Kochtopus".
Hobos are cheap- they will work for sandwiches.
Was the Playboy story at least illustrated tastefully with naked women? I was afraid to link on the story since I am still at work.
President Obama can easily deal with the libertarians and petite bourgeois. Start a new Homeland Auxillary Reaction Security Force (HARSH) to mop up a few hundred thousand unemployed young men who don't meet the military's qualifications. Using his contacts within the community organizing movements, the President can make sure that HARSH is staffed up in an ideologically correct fashion and suitably indoctrinated, before being drilled in the use of night sticks. These men could be paid minimum wage and sleep on cots in public school gyms in all major cities. Any future "tea parties" or other demonstrations by reactionary groups could them be met with a rapid HARSH response. A well-drilled platoon of 40 HARSHers wielding night sticks could quickly send the Rick Santellis scurrying back home to their dog-eared copies of Atlas Shrugged
The first rule of revolutions is to control the streets.
Hobos!
I was at the protest in Seattle. It was my first ever protest, and a first also for the several others with whom I spoke. There were several moms with their kids in strollers, retirees, and people on their lunch breaks. These were not activists, by any stretch of the imagination.
Hobos? who even uses that word anymore?
Marcus is right- the socially acceptable term is Train Car Denizen.
Fred,
still dreaming of ethnic men treating you HARSHly, I see.
My reaction was somewhat similar to Yancey Ward's. This is Playboy fercrissakes. What's next, someone going to tell me that Penthouse Forum's letters are not all true?
There are plenty of reasons to hate the stimulus, but there are plenty of reasons to hate the TARP, Fanny Mae Freddy Mac and AIG bailouts, also. It's the selective outrage that calls into question the sincerity of the cosmotards.
The Kochs are corporatists and Megan's CATO friends are statist shills. Cosmotarians like Ms. McArdle are not foolish enough to bite the establishment hands that feeds them.
I'm not saying that Megan is lying, only that doublethink is a useful ability in Oceana.
Fred,
Your acronym actually works out the "HARSF". Not quite as scary- just puzzling.
With their declining subscriptions and sales, Playboy was probably trying to position itself for a bailout from the administration.
"Your acronym actually works out the "HARSF". Not quite as scary- just puzzling."
Ah, you're right. That's no good. Let's change it then. I open the floor to suggestions.
B.Spock,
You've jumped a bit ahead there with all the new group insulting names you've made up. Tone it down a bit or we will lose track of what you are trying to say.
"You've jumped a bit ahead there with all the new group insulting names you've made up."
Sorry, I'm not that creative. Rothbard coined the term Kochtopus about twenty years ago. "Cosmotards" are self-proclaimed "cosmopolitan" libertarians from the coastal press and think tanks who advocate monetarism and moderate reforms.
Personally, I agree with Goldwater that moderates defending liberty are not virtuous.
"The fact someone is not as vocal as you about a particular issue does not mean he or she supports an idea you oppose. It might simply mean they weren't paying attention."
People pay attention to things that are important to them. The biggest problem with our system is that banks get access to funds first, before inflation erodes the purchasing power. Lefty proles are intuitively right about getting screwed, they are just too economically ignorant to know how it happens.
As usual, you have it arse backwards. The protestors were compaining about tax cuts, not taxes. I don't think even you earn enough to pay more tax under Obama, although your papa might.
marcus,
I believe that John Hodgman and the Kingdom of Loathing team have led a minor resurgence of the currency of the term "hobo" in the last year.
I was at the Chicago protest. Like Jana, it was my first ever. It was so disorganized, I find it hard to believe that there was any conspiracy.
And Mr. Spock, at least in Chicago, people were protesting the "stimulus" and the other bailouts. If you look at the signs, they were pretty much against all government intervention.
Actually, Dr. Zen, the protesters were mostly complaining about the wasteful and dangerous stimulus, which can only be paid for by future taxes or extreme inflation.
How could you guys all have missed the dead hobo controversy that torpedoed the latest Obamanominee?
Honest mistake, my ass.
You're clouding the issue, Meg.
At least four stories in a row whiteknighting for this Tea Party fraud, and the only people you're talking to are sources within the group? Just because you're not acting as a reporter doesn't mean you shouldn't have some bleedin' standards and objectivity.
More to the point -- the Playboy article isn't suggesting that people in attendance were all paid off. So why are you letting your sources here repeat that bogus straw man?
The point is that organization was planned well in advance by phony grassroots groups, not that everyone in attendance has some secret ties to Koch.
Quit clouding the issue.