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Here’s a question: why not organize a march on Washington against the Iran deal… — 45 Comments

1. Every January, hundreds of thousands march for lLife in D.C. The media ignores this for the most part.Still they march.If the media isn’t in favor of your cause, it will be ignored.Remember the first Swift Boat press conference? Sorry to be a downer.

2. s graham:

   Marching is just what I thought of off the top of my head. This post is not about marching per se, which (as I wrote in the post) may not be all that effective. It’s about the concept of stirring up publicity and of activism. The Tea Party was a little bit of that but only for a little while, but it frightened the left enough to persecute it and lie about it.

   The idea is to get better about publicity and activism. Breitbart was excellent at that, and that’s why he is so sorely missed.

   I’m no Breitbart, to say the least. But the right needs to stop complaining about the GOP and start doing more for itself, and being more creative.

3. Where did the Obama’ talking point come from that the only alternative to signing the treaty is war? Makes no sense at all.

4. edwhy:

   Obama knows full well that nothing he says has to make any sense. You can easily refute him point by point, with logic. But propaganda (which is what Obama is about) isn’t about logic.

5. I received a political telemarking call – I think it was from my local congress critter whom I despise because he was one of the house co-sponsors of Obamacare – and they started to ask questions about Iran and nukes. I didn’t let them finish as I simply said “Put me on your list for those opposed to this deal with Iran.” The lady then said “ok, thanks.” And we ended the call.

   Truth be told that is about as far as my political action goes because I usually hang up on those kinds of calls. Yea, I know, some what lame, isn’t it?

   Most likely Neo, those on the right don’t do these kinds of things because conservatives seem to prefer working within the system rather than challenging it.

   Further, what good would a rally really do? As you said Neo, Obama and his supporters wouldn’t listen. And, as s graham says, the media would ignore it. I further add if the media didn’t ignore it they would paint it as some sort of “bunch of racists” gathering, with the same ignorant brush that they painted the Tea Party with.

   However, despite all that, if someone were to organize a march I would so go! DC is only a few hours drive, or I could take Amtrak.

6. Right-activist Gramscian (counter-)march presupposes a cadre or several. Unfortunately, well… actually fortunately, we haven’t any.

   “Republican politicians stink. This is because real Republicans don’t go into politics. We have a life…
   Democrats, on the other hand, are brilliant politicians. And I mean that as a vicious slur.”
   — P. J. O’Rourke

   If you would have a cadre, first you find a George Soros. Failing that, you get all the fat asses in ‘conservative’ ‘think’ ‘tanks’ off their asses and behind the front lines.

7. Great idea but who would lead it?

   Ted Cruz or Trump might be able to pull it off.

8. Cornhead:

   You mean who would speak at it?

   Because I envision this as more of a citizen thing, rather than being driven by someone running for office as leader.

   I really miss Breitbart, I must say.

9. George Pal:

   Yes indeed, the right would prefer to be noble losers.

   And proud of it.

10. charles:

    What good would a rally do? I don’t know for sure, but I do know that this passivity is doing no good at all. And that the left counts on it.

    What good do I think the rally might do? At the very least, focus energy on something and perhaps inspire more action. At best—if the ralliers can figure out a way to increase the publicity, which isn’t easy but can be done in some creative manner—get a lot of attention and get some momentum going.

    Remember the Yippies? I don’t know how old you are, but they were brilliant at this back in the 60s. And yes, the MSM wouldn’t cover it except negatively, but the MSM isn’t everything these days.

11. Hope and Change update: August 24th 2015 CNBC Stock Market Closing Bell (DOW plunges -588 points)

    http://commoncts.blogspot.com/2015/08/hope-and-change-update-august-24th-2015.html

12. The msm treated the large and widespread tea party gatherings as if they were kkk rallies minus the sheets and burning crosses. This was similar to their treatment of those who turned out for Palin’s 2008 campaign rallies. The only way a demonstration could break through the msm meme is if it is huge, multi-generational, with a good proportion of the treasured victim classes, and attended by at least a few of the gope. I can’t see that happening, but if it was organized in a manner to achieve what I described, I would come to the district of criminals.

13. parker:

    How the MSM would treat it is a foregone conclusion. This is not about the MSM, and the MSM (as I said earlier) is not the only game in town.

    The right seems very afraid of the MSM. The MSM is a form of propaganda. Propaganda needs to be countered.

14. I forget which year in the early 70’s it was, but I worked for the Conservative Party candidate who ran against the the Rockefeller Republican and Bella Abzug.

    Abzug was a nasty, vicious person, and I had two incidents where she personally attacked me for handing out literature at “her” subway stop.

    A bunch of us wanted to get publicity for our candidate (Harvey Michelman) and so about eight or ten of us made up signs and “picketed” Abzug’s Greenwich Village residence.

    Our signs read (and we chanted) “Free Martin Abzug, Free Martin Abzug”. Martin was Bella’s husband.

    It was supposed to be funny, and it was funny, and we attracted a little amused crowd who got the joke and was actually quite appreciative, even if they would rather rip off their right arm than vote for a conservative.

    And we did get a little publicity, not much, but enough to make us happy.

    We talked to folks in the crowd and really had some nice conversations.

    The guy I was talking to was very nice and super pleasant, and he sincerely praised our efforts specifically because they were good humored; he said something to the effect of: “We need more of this.” He also said (as did others) that he was surprised to find that conservatives were really nice, interesting people (and we were).

    When we were ready to leave I thanked him for his nice conversation and told him my name. He replied “I’m Martin Abzug” and walked into the residence.

15. Great challenge Neo. Wiki has a “List of Protest Marches on Washington D.C.” The tactic seems overused and appears impotent with respect to changing government policy or behavior.

    To get attention, we have to focus on the federal government’s addiction for our money; conservatives have to be making the majority of the income our government craves. My thought is that if we are serious, we need to downsize our expenses, build up our savings, and eventually coordinate a nationwide work stoppage/leave of absence to reduce the government’s tax collections. Perhaps it can be coordinated with the family leave act. A work stoppage is what Solidarity did in Poland.

    The objective would be to accomplish one thing: eliminate employer withholding of tax on our income. Force the government to rely on us paying quarterly estimates out of our own pocket. This lays the foundation for more money related protests in the future, and motivates the federal government to be more responsive to our call to have less to govern, and be more competent and honest in what it does govern.

    This strategy falls perfectly in line with Gandhi & King’s civil disobedience vision, and does not force our policies to wait until we acquire unified control of the house, 60% of the senate and the White House. Still, it’s probably easier to herd cats than it is to organize the spectrum of people on the Right.

16. Alas, a vast majority of those who show up at the ballot box obtain all of their ‘news’ from the msm, and form what passes as their opinions from the propaganda of the msm-hollyworld axis of idiocy. So neo, I think you place too much hope in alternate venues of information. Bring down the msm and we can talk about changing the course and size of the behemoth.

17. parker:

    First of all, I don’t place too much hope in it. I never said the MSM doesn’t matter, and in fact on this blog I often say it matters a great deal. Nevertheless, it is not as monolithic as it used to be, and it is not the only way to get information out to the extent it used to be.

    Plus, when you write “bring down the msm,” and then we’ll talk, you are positing an either-or false dilemma. Perhaps even more importantly, part of activism is to decide HOW to “bring down the MSM.” That’s my point exactly.

18. neo-neocon,

    I was not proposing the Right do nothing just that they were ill-provisioned for marches, Gramscian or otherwise.

    If conservative’s put half as much energy into availing themselves of an option or offering one up, as they do winning an election, well, I would be stunned. On the first front I wonder how many conservatives would bother sending a letter to corporation X explaining they would no longer avail themselves of product and/or service due to X’s corporate and public stand on say gender accomodations, or same sex marriage, or whatever, explaining the reasons as religious or moral conscience; and furthermore stating, they would seek out X’s competitor or some other provider.

    Imagine a concerted organized effort. How many clearly conservative voters are there? Would 30% of them devote no more time or effort than is required to go to the polls and vote to send such a letter?

    On the second front, how about offering an option to public schooling. Online ‘homeschooling’ courses offered to any who would have their children learn all that had been once taught as a requirement of learning. I’m not talking rinky-dink fly-by-night crap here but concerted effort on a nationwide scale for tough courses, classicism in all areas, testing, and remedial help and accreditation. Successful, such an effort would do more than teach children, it would be a public affront to public school/teacher/union racketeering.

    I suspect Republican candidates will raise quite bit of money most of which will be spent on media consultants and buying time and space from the very media that loathe them. Contributors will be poorer, candidates will have campaign debts which they’ll retire by raising yet more money making contributors still poorer and the MSM and their corporations will have gotten richer. I take it you can see the problem.

    It’s time we stop banging our heads against the wall and start banging theirs.

19. Most conservatives have jobs, families, hobbies, and interests other than controlling the way their neighbors/fellow citizens live. The progs, on the other hand, are those who have a visceral need to “help” people by stopping them from doing anything the progs disapprove of, which is an endless list of nit-picking, politically correct things from racial micro-aggressions to eco-correctness that borders on the insane.

    Controlling others by way of government edict is something conservatives are not interested in. Setting up an organization to combat all the progs many, many acts of control is not high on the conservative’s list of things to do before they die.

    I was an enthusiastic TEA Party demonstrator during the Porkulus and Obamacare protests. We had big (300-400 people) turnouts for such a small berg, but our activities got no traction in Congress (democrat controlled) or the MSM. We did, however, attract the attention of the progs in that they began using government agencies to put us in our place.

    The TEA Party was captured by political operatives who now use it push all conservative issues (Fiscal, foreign policy, and social) and works at the grass roots to get conservatives elected to offices at all levels of government. They’re doing what the GOP does, but on a much more conservative basis. In fact they are competing with the GOP and blunting its overall power. They are still trying to make waves, but seem fairly ineffective to me.

    Big demonstrations don’t seem to affect political policies all that much. Demonstrations, in order to be effective have to be repeated over and over in diverse locations (Like the BLM group) before they get attention. Even then, if the MSM and political powers can ignore you, they will. As conservatives we don’t want to do unlawful demonstrations because we want to uphold then law. Also because unlawful demonstrations would provide the government with ample reason to subdue the demonstrators with malice.

    Every member of Congress pays attention to citizens who e-mail or phone them. It’s not so much what the message says as much as the number who contact them and where they are on an issue. I write a lot of e-mails to my Congress Critters. Since they are all lefty progs, my influence is not that great, but they do know who I am and that there are people like me who don’t agree with them. It costs nothing to write an e-mail or make a phone call. Every citizen concerned about the Iran deal should be calling everyday to ask their Congress Critters to disapprove the deal. It is a bad deal. Even a few democrats recognize it and have spoken out. When enough citizens contact their Reps to ask them to disapprove of it, they will take note. A person can also make common cause with groups that are like lobbyists for certain causes. I contribute to and work with Numbers USA. https://www.numbersusa.org/#
    They are an anti-illegal immigration organization that is lobbying Congress and the President on illegal immigration.

    People scoff at me for what I do, but our government is supposed to respond to the citizens, not the other way around. When Congress Critters and the President don’t hear from anyone they assume what they’re doing is A-Okay. Most of us are too passive/lazy about telling our Representatives what we want.

    Yes, Obama ignores the opposition, but he is, IMO, the most lawless President in my lifetime. We have to win elections to change that.

    And, as I have repeated ad nauseam, elections are won in the middle of the electorate – among the LIVs. How can conservatives influence the LIVs? The only way I see is for conservatives to get into the news business – both TV and print journalism. Fox News and talk radio aren’t enough. We need to take over one of: ABC/CBS/NBC, and a couple of major city rags. The Koch brothers could blunt the interests of George Soros if they would get into the news business.

    End of rant.

20. Unless the stranglehold of the msm is broken, there is little opportunity to reverse course and avoid the iceberg. I agree that destroying or at least diminishing its predominance, which is slowly happening, is the real discussion. The first step is to boycott the msm. Any time your buy the NYT or click on a link to the NYT you help prop up the NYT. Personally, I shun them completely and the same goes for the rest of the death star propaganda machine.

    Next, to the maximum extent possible, shun the corporations that funnel money to the msm and let them know why you do not buy their products or invest in their stocks. Shun the big banks. Having an account or credit card with, for example, JP Morgan Chase, is feeding the beast. The way to starve the beast is to rethink where your money goes and keep your trading in the marketplace as local as possible.

21. I said it a long time ago, and I’ll repeat it:

    Eric’s idea of an activist right won’t work. They aren’t SJWs and don’t revel in that sort of shitheadedness.

    The best thing is to keep pounding away at the GOP establishment. The more the base gets burned, the more likely they’ll replace the corrupt losers at the head of the party.
    Trump is an indication of how that’s coming along.

22. Rich conservatives need to start buying up the MSM and turn the tables on the left. Magazines, newspapers, websites, cable stations, the works. Then they need to install conservative editors, writers, etc. and they can change the f*ckin’ narrative.

    Even the Wall Street Journal, which you’d think would be pro market and anti big gov, is controlled by leftists with the exception of a few “hard core” pages.

    How can all these wealthy conservatives (e.g., the Koch brothers) be so stupid?

23. Pick a date! My wife and I will be there!

24. Pick a date. My wife and I will be there!

25. My experience parallels Jimmy J.’s and, naturally, I agree with him. I’d like to highlight one of his points, though.

    Most conservatives have jobs, families, hobbies, and interests other than controlling the way their neighbors/fellow citizens live.

    The left has arranged it so that they get paid for their activism, and in fact many get partly paid by the right for it. They are social activists working for non-profits who get government grants, i.e., our tax money. They are professors pushing social justice, paid in part by tax money, or who get government grants for research. They are Planned Parenthood, with government funding. They are government employee union members. They are the MSM. Etc.

    All of the people in these groups earn money from their activism. And when their activist job is through, they go home and relax or go out and have a good time. Activism gives them a paycheck and energy.

    The right has the opposite situation. When they are activists, they lose money. They have to take time off work. They have to pay for their own signs, transportation, etc. Or, they do it after work, instead of relaxing or having a good time. Activism costs them money and drains their energy.

    The GOP has no answer. They cannot be the solution, because the right is drained by activism and the left is paid and energized by it. No matter how much we push the GOP to do the right thing, we’ll never overcome the momentum of the left until we conduct a successful counter-march.

    We need to get paid for our activism. We need to be social workers and community organizers and professors and teachers. We need to be the media.
    We need to be Hollywood (or wherever the conservative movie mecca develops). We must get paid for our activism, and then go out and have fun or go home and enjoy our families.

    The Koch brothers aren’t going to save us, either. That’s just wishful thinking.

    We have to get into the trenches. We have to be the counter-march. And we have to get paid for it, meaning we have to become professionals just the way the left did.

26. Short term: win the next election. It would be nice if it was a Republican aware enough to fumigate some of the federal government. Get rid of the budget items in almost every department that surreptitiously prop up community organizers; better they should spend more money from the Tides and Ford Foundations than our tax dollars to support their subversive activities.

    Long term: The only way to avoid the fate of the ancients is to restore the values of the Enlightenment. Teach enough science so that bogus claims do not get traction. Read enough literature and history to understand what has and has not worked, what is glorious and what is disastrous.

27. The Tea Party got 1.5 million people into DC in 2009 and was almost completely ignored by the media. We were there. About the only impact I think it had was to tell the Obama Administration that the Tea Party was a threat; hence the IRS targeting.

28. @PatD
    Remember the truncated photos they showed of that march? Despicable.

    @Thomas D
    No one is saying the Koch Bros. will save us, however, so long as the left holds the reins to the MSM the left’s megaphone won’t be silenced.

29. PatD: I was there, too. I know the MSM ignored or demonized us, but until that day I thought my little Tea Party group might have been all there was. It was amazing when I saw how many there were. One of the great benefits of that march was the networking. I met Tea Partiers from all over the US. It made me think change was possible.

    Irene, I agree, but I think the answer has to be conservatives going to journalism school and infiltrating the media. Or, just infiltrating the media. You don’t need a j-school degree. The Koch’s can only do so much, contrary to everything the MSM says.

30. Right-wingers can’t march on Washington. In part, at least, because we have jobs. It’s only the lefties who do NOT have jobs, who can afford to spend a couple of weeks doing Washington Kabuki to no point.

31. It’s possible that the Lois Lerner/IRS investigation of conservative groups is in the back of the minds of many. Not that this is the only reason for a lack of protest nor is it the only example of the political nature of the Obama Administration when it comes those who dissent.

32. @Ken Mitchell; Ken we did march on Washington. 1.5 million of us. Biggest DC demonstration ever. All of us working stiffs who took PTO and paid our airfares and hotel costs, or hired buses, or made it on our own. We were there.

    The Obama inauguration got a large crowd, too. Maybe a million people.

    Here’s the biggest difference. After the Obama inauguration:

    “One hundred tons of trash were collected by city and federal sanitation workers, according to Department of Public Works public information officer Linda Grant.”

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/01/23/tons-garbage-collected-obama-inauguration/

    After our rally the National Mall was cleaner than it was before we arrived.

    The media, including Faux News, ignored us.

    Donald Trump walks into the GOP race and immediately pushes one of the Tea Party’s top concerns, illegal immigration, onto the national stage. 1.5 million of us marching on Washington, couldn’t do that. Trump did it.

33. Conservatives too individualistic to organise mass demonstrations, or because they have jobs and a life?Well, how about many, many acts of nonviolent resistance. If ten million people don’t pay the Omarxi care mandate, it’ll collapse within year. If a 100,000 small business people in Seattle, San Fran, LA, San Diego, and NYC refuse to abide by the $15 an hour minimum wage, those laws will go by the wayside pretty quickly, too. And the ultimate refusal to acquiesce-15 million people don’t file their taxes. The SJW totalitarians can’t fine or lock everybody up. Mosquito bite the left to death.

    Appalled US expat in Seoul

34. @Michael G. Gallagher: Conservatives obey the law. The Left doesn’t.

    When we wanted to do a Tea Party protest we went to City Hall, got all the permits, paid all the fees and did our thing.

    The race baiters, the Occupy Wall street folk, the Black Lives Matter crowd, don’t bother. They are NEVER called to account. They can block a freeway at rush hour and nobody gets called to account.

35. We elect them based on a promise. Then they renege.

    I don’t think anything else is required but for politicians to do what they were elected to do. If it requires shutting down things, ala Cruz, then so be it.

    We are electing liberals to do conservative things.

36. I see a march on D.C. as an admission that the politicians there are supreme over us citizens; It’s begging; It’s like making a long pilgrimage to kiss the ring of the Pope.

    Better to use your time and money to kick as many of your local clowns out of office as possible. Do that and the DC problem will eventually take care of itself.

37. We’ve done a couple big marches. The media doesn’t report on them. They’ll never end up in a history book. Ergo; the value is lower to us.

    You have to be able to hype them up to be worth it. We have jobs and getting the DC costs money…

38. Washington DC, March 2009.

    T’was utterly ignored.

39. We should probably all start a holding company to ‘invest’ in and buy up media properties… If everyone that kicked in $500 to go to a march in DC bought in instead….

40. We just need to take over some TV newscast in the middle of the 6:00 news. We could provide a little counter-cultural news. It may take a little second amendment backup to pull off, but it will get attention.

41. Dear PatD,

    Obey the law unto extinction. The hard-core left are Marxist totalitarians. They won’t be defeated by playing by Marquis of Queensbury rules. I’m not recommending violence, just what worked for Gandhi in India and Martin Luther King in the USA. Going back into US history, if I remember correctly, before the Revolution, the British parliament backed down twice with the repeal of the Stamp Act and the Townsend acts before the situation descended into open warfare. The left aren’t British regulars or the Royal Navy of the period.

42. I suggest clarifying terminology. In place of conservative, right, libertarian, etc. use Patriot. In place of left, liberal, progressive, etc., use Anti-American.

43. The problem with mass marches of this kind are that so many on the right have jobs and family obligations they can’t just drop on the spur of the moment. You don’t find much of that on the left.

44. Irene, I agree, but I think the answer has to be conservatives going to journalism school and infiltrating the media.

    It’s not necessary to infiltrate the media to destroy it. It’s very easy to lead the media to its own destruction. Ever hear of ISIL capturing US weapons and using it on American allies?

    That’s what the ACORN and Planned Profit sting videos did. They used the Left’s own damage control response to generate critical damage.

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