"Occupy Rose Parade" A Failure On Any Measure

Occupy protesters march at the end of the 123rd Tournament of Roses Parade on Orange Grove Boulevard in Pasadena Monday, January 2, 2012 [ctrl-click image to see "Occupy Rose Parade" slideshow]. Image Credit: SGVN/Staff Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz/SXCITY


"Occupy Rose Parade" A Failure On Any Measure

On observation, the Occupy Wall Street's attempt to gain sympathy and support for their movement ended up being a complete failure on most any measure one wishes to apply to the display and its execution.

First off, very little media attention of their actual display and end-of-parade walk for the first mile and a half of the five and a half mile parade route was to be found on a Google search of "Occupy Rose Parade" - total postings and RSS feed pick-ups show only 24 listing Results. Any New Media writer knows that when one self-publishes, one must self-syndicate in order to increase Google search results on the title or subject of any article ... 24 item Results after 24 hours of an event is weak by any standard, let alone the platform the Rose Parade provides to a world audience. An estimated 40 million people viewed this year's procession of 43 floats, 16 marching bands and 22 equestrian troupes on U.S. television alone.

The first Rose Parade took place in 1890 and was attended by 2,000 people. The attendance has grown to one million parade goers lining Colorado Blvd. over the last few years.

Upon reading the stories leading up to the actual event, the "Occupy Rose Parade" organizers were hoping for tens-of-thousands of people turning out to participate in their side-bar, soft sanctioned, end-of-parade event. The initial projections provided by spokesman and organizer Peter Thottam estimated that 40,000 Occupy Movement (OWS) sympathizers would attend the demonstration but in hours before the parade, settled on the number of 3,000 demonstrators which the MSM press services of AP and Reuters picked-up and used as the template for all of their postings used by newspaper and television news broadcasts on the subject.

Actual estimates of the people who marched in the parade came to about 400 people. The official policy of the Pasadena Police Department is that they do not issue crowd estimates but when pushed, the Pasadena Police Department estimated that no more than 400 "Occupy Rose Parade" protesters marched the route and were joined by people from the crowd leaving the parade event, which made the actual protest seem larger.

Lastly, about the only people who took notice of this soft sanctioned, end-of-parade event were the real political activists who actually have a message people can relate to, and, to be frank, did not have to show up to act as a counter-weight to the "Occupy Rose Parade" protest effort. The Pasadena Tea Party Patriots, also known as TEAPAC, were upset by what they felt was the politicizing of the Rose Parade event and promised to stage their own protest if the city and the Tournament of Roses did not keep "Occupy Rose Parade" from demonstrating within the actual parade.

TEAPAC leader Michael Alexander said, "Occupy has no business in the parade, and neither do we. "But fair is fair and if the city and the (TofR) allow the parade to be politicized then we are going to be there."

So, the last failure of Occupy Rose Parade was that they were unable to have TEAPAC (and other serious political action organizations) take the bait and swell their protest crowd with a sizable counter-demonstration for the corporate media wire services to write about.

One has to ask - If 400 people in a parade and crowd of over 1,000,000 people represent "the 99%", just who are the rest of the parade and crowd of over 1,000,000 people ... the 1%?

The weather was perfect, the parade was beautiful, the Rose Bowl game came to a perfect conclusion with Oregon winning over Wisconsin in the highest scoring Rose Bowl game ever (Oregon Ducks, 45 - Wisconsin Badgers, 38), and 400 ineffective politically-progressive agitators were adsorbed (and nearly erased) by the general public as they left the parade route to get to their cars and get on with their first business day of the 2012 year holiday, happy being personally-free Americans.



<Article first seen as “Occupy Rose Parade” A Failure On Any Measure at Technorati>

9/12 "Million MOB March" A Success Without MSM Help

9/12 "Million MOB March" - Image Credit: Mary Kathrine Ham

9/12 "Million MOB March" A Success Without MSM Help

Here, in the beginning stages of the 44th Presidency, many thought that life would carry on in a business as usual, politics as usual kind of approach.

Sure, Barack Obama made history by becoming the first man with African DNA in his blood to be elected as President of the United States, and sure, he ran and campaigned on being the one man who could reach across the divides in this country by being the first "post-racial" and "post-partisan" chief executive to hold the office ... but that was not meant to be.

Under his leadership (and the leadership of the Democrat-Party controlled Congress), the debt has quadrupled with the passage of two large spending bills (Stimulus and Omnibus), a further executive spending initiative known by TARP, started by the previous Administration (Bush) but expanded and used as a tool to take-over two of the three domestic automobile manufacturers in the United States and change the ownership matrix away from investors and place labor unions in the majority ownership position, along with the Federal Government. A serious attempt to take-over about one-sixth of our economy and bring into a single-payer Government program of CONTROL making all decisions about ones health the power of government boards (death panels) while driving out free enterprise. And lastly, an energy policy that would make some forms of common energy (coal and petroleum) virtually unavailable if not very expensive and scarce.

9/12 "Million MOB March" - View of Capitol Dome from adjacent grounds packed with small government, lower taxes activists - Image Credit: Twitpiv via Prisminc

Enter the Tea Party movement.

Named after the uprising and revolt that eventually led to the formation of this country after, as a colony of England, the territory occupied by people who, for the most part left England to start a life free from excessive Monarchical control over their lives from the King of England, had large taxes places on many goods and services produced or imported in the country. A revolt in Boston led to the dumping of bales of tea being imported into the country but this tea had new taxes placed on its sale and so, in a show of defiance, the tea was dumped into the harbor and the Boston Tea Party was born into the lore of the United States.

9/12 "Million MOB March" - View of Tea Party Movement protest rally from the Capitol Building Dome down the mall to the Washington Monument tower ... one mile away - Image Credit: Hutch123

Today, people (53% and rising) are not happy that their elected representatives are not listening to them. The representatives are voting on, and passing legislation into law without reading the bills that they are voting on. The government is not even allowing any time or the ability for the people to see and read proposed legislation so that they understand what the representatives are committing WE THE PEOPLE to pay for and to do!

September 10, 2001, our country was safe and life was good. September 11, 2001, our country was viciously attacked by a group of 19 islamo-fascist terrorist that wanted to take away the freedoms we enjoy in this country. The day, September, 12 of any year has stood as a response that our freedoms will never die and we will all stand up as Americans to proclaim this to be true.

September 12, 2009, a perfect storm of grass-roots protest came together in Washington DC and it did not have the sponsorship of any political party, no support from special interest groups and/or unions, and absolutely no help from the established "Fourth Estate" known in this country as the Main Stream Media (MSM).

This excerpted and edited from Michelle Malkin -

Celebrating the 9/12 rallies; Turnout estimated at 2 million
By Michelle Malkin • September 12, 2009 10:06 AM

It’s been an unprecedented year for limited government activism. It would never have been possible without the early initiative of grass-roots leaders in the #tcot community on Twitter, Smart Girl Politics #DontGo — and concerned women like Keli Carender and Amanda Grosserode who stood up in their communities against reckless spending in Washington before anyone was listening. Before the cable news was paying attention. Before it became fashionable for politicians to latch on.

Activists were derided as amateurs who couldn’t turn out a crowd. Then they were smeared as corporate shills. They were criticized for not having a coherent message. Then they were mocked for ideological single-mindedness. They are resented by professional strategists who accuse them of organizing empty protests that won’t translate into electoral gains. But the movement has given birth to a new generation of movers and shakers who have rejected establishment partisan politics for nimble, Internet-facilitated, issues-based advocacy.
----
The Tea Party Express blog is here.

12:34pm Eastern: Police estimate 1.2 million in attendance. ABC News reporting crowd at 2 million — tweets Tabitha Hale from D.C.

Teeny, tiny fringe, huh?
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Update: Tabitha Hale says Parks & Rec estimated 1.2 million. An ABC News correspondent says it wasn’t national ABC News network that reported 2 million figure. I take them at their word — and am checking to find out more info.

So, how many were there? Allah looks at the numbers reports here.
Reference Here>>

9/12 "Million MOB March" - Taking it to the streets in Washington DC - Image Credit: Twitpiv via Brooks Bayne

COMMENT (on attendance article made at a social media portal):
ABC News, citing the DC fire department, reported that between 60,000 and 70,000 people had attended the tea party rally at the Capitol. By the time this figure reached Michelle Malkin, however, it had been blown up to 2,000,000. There is a big difference, obviously, between 70,000 and 2,000,000. That's not a twofold or threefold exaggeration -- it's roughly a thirtyfold exaggeration.

The way this false estimate came into being is relatively simple: Matt Kibbe, the president of FreedomWorks, lied, claiming that ABC News had reported numbers of between 1.0 and 1.5 million when they never did anything of the sort. A few tweets later, the numbers had been exaggerated still further to 2 million. Kibbe wasn't "in error", as Malkin gently puts it. He lied. He did the equivalent of telling people that his penis is 53 inches long.

Malkin, who to her credit later corrected the error, frets that it might be used to by liberals to "discredit the undeniably massive turnout". She's right to be worried -- it absolutely will be used that way. If you don't want to be discredited, then don't, as Kibbe did, tell a ridiculous (and easily disprovable) lie.

RESPONSE (to comment by blog author on attendance article made at a social media portal):
The photos do not lie but maybe the MSM did a little pumping up so that people who still support this style of leadership could make the counter-argument that you are making.

The truth is that the New York Times, the Washington Post and many other MSM print outlets are embargoing (not mentioning) the fact that a march ever took place. The photos confirm that one of the largest gatherings EVER in the mall at the nation's capitol took place.

Just because official estimates have been done away with through policy after the much hyped "Million Man March" (remember that socialist and race-focused fiasco? ... 200,000 at best) was such a bust, let us just half the estimate of a few broadcast MSM outlets and call it a solid million people ... and report it as a very successful protest against the policies of a One-Party rule government.

Tea Parties - When Citizen Journalism Is The Only Outlet

"Citizen Journalist Wanted" - banner ad on PJTV - Photo Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2009)

Tea Parties - When Citizen Journalism Is The Only Outlet

Today, April 15, 2009 … a day when all Americans are supposed to have their taxes filed with the Internal Revenue Service (headed by Timothy Geithner – a man who was allowed to cheat/then pay-up on his taxes), 750 gatherings of citizens are scheduled throughout the nation and not one mention on the front pages of Main Stream Media newspapers.

Examples:

New York Times Front Page

Image Credit: NYT.com

Boston Globe Front Page

Image Credit: Boston Globe, Online

The Los Angeles Times Front Page

Image Credit: LA Times online

Code Pink, Cindy Sheehan, A Day Without An Immigrant, Million Man March, and other demonstrations that will have way less people showing up to attend to show support in getting a message of displeasure out routinely get front page spreads and advance information as to the event(s) and what the issues of protest are about from the MSM jungle drumbeat.

This tea party movement has had no such 4th Estate involvement.

A brief history excerpted and edited from Michelle Malkin –

A Tax Day Tea Party cheat sheet: How it all started
By Michelle Malkin • April 15, 2009 08:14 AM

For the Johnny-Come-Latelys in the MSM who will be dispatched by their editors to file obligatory stories about the hundreds of Tax Day Tea Party protests across the country today, here is a cheat sheet to get you up to speed.

Feb. 15: Keli Carender, who blogs as “Liberty Belle” spread the word about a grass-roots protest she was organizing in Seattle to raise her voice against the passage of the trillion-dollar stimulus/porkulus/Generational Theft Act of 2009. It’s the first time she had ever jumped into political organizing of any kind. She is not affiliated with any “corporate lobbyist” or think tank or national taxpayers’ organization. She’s a young conservative mom who blogs. Amazingly, she turned around the event in a few days all on her own by reaching out on the Internet, to her local talk station, and to anyone who would listen.

Feb. 16: An energetic crowd of about 100 people came downtown to lambaste the Chicken Little process and the lard-up of the stimulus bill:

Word of the Seattle protest spread across the blogosphere. Readers suggested there should be a Denver protest on Feb. 17 to greet President Obama for the porkulus signing. Separately, the local chapter of Americans for Prosperity was already working to put something together on the fly. I met the head of the state AFP for the first time on the steps of the Capitol. No conspiracy here, tinfoil hatters. It was a union of like minds in an impromptu show of outrage against the legislation-without-deliberation process in Washington. Also there: Jon Caldara of the libertarian Independence Institute on one end of the spectrum and Tom Tancredo on the strict immigration enforcement end (hundreds of the protesters were mad about the absence of E-Verify standards for the stimulus funding):

On Feb. 18, 500 fed-up taxpayers showed up in Mesa, AZ to oppose President Obama’s campaign for massive expansions of the government mortgage entitlement and to mock what SC Gov. Mark Sanford rightly called savior-based economics. No top-down organization. Just the effort of local talk radio station KFYI. No Beltway GOP involvement. Zero national media coverage.

On Feb. 19, reader Amanda Grosserode e-mailed that she was organizing a tax revolt protest in Overland Park, KS the following weekend. More than 400 people showed up in freezing weather to protest Rep. Dennis Moore’s vote for the bill. Glenn Reynolds did the reporting the MSM didn’t do.

On Feb. 19, CNBC’s Rick Santelli issued his now-famous “Tea Party” call — prompted, many people forget, by Obama’s mortgage entitlement expansion plans (proposals I’ve protested whether from Democrats or moron Republicans):
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On Feb. 21, the grass-roots Internet group, Top Conservatives on Twitter, founded by Michael Patrick Leahy and powered by Rob Neppell, announced “simultaneous local tea parties around the country, beginning in Chicago, and including Washington DC, Fayetteville NC, San Diego CA, Omaha Nebraska, and dozens of other locations”.
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And along the way, detractors have fumbled and bumbled over how to discredit the Tea Party organizers — first blaming a cabal tied to CNBC, then jeering at the amateurishness of the participants before crying “astroturf,” then claiming the events were “financed by Fox News” or (fill-in-the-blank) conservative conspiracy, then smearing the protesters as crazed gun nuts (FNC’s Bob Beckel) and racists (FNC’s Geraldo Rivera).

Wouldn’t it be refreshing if MSM coverage refrained from parroting all the lazy, groundless, uninformed canards and reported the simple truth?
Reference Here>>

Again, large gatherings of Americans - NOT just Republicans, NOT just Democrats – are gathering in over 750 cities throughout the United States, and in most cases, Politicians have been dis-invited. Pretty much a definition of GRASS ROOTS, and all of this activity after the Department of Homeland Security has labeled this type of activity as part of the list of recruitment threats to Radical Right-Wing political activity and terrorism.

Don’t Tread On … Us!

Rise up and report Citizen Journalist!


UPDATE:

Tea Party Tax & Government Revolt Event - Glendale, CA, USA - Report, Photo, & Video Assets Here>>

CNN's "Reporting" of a Tea Party event - Example Here>>

Tea Party Event tally as of the beginning of day April 24, 2009 - (Pajamas Media):

Number of Events: 1,003
Overall Attendance: 847,651