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KD5NRH wrote:

RiverRat wrote:Watching the Austin kvue 24 news, lead story is a tree in a park.... 30 sec report on tea parties…emphasized only right wing extremists, malcontents, and republicans..... Austin’s tea party at lunch had100 or so people…they left out they would let only a max of 200 to see the gov at lunch on their permit, the rest were turned away…..SA Alamo tea party on Beck-fox, 10000 folks, not on Austin news I knew the media was biased, but this is an eye-opener for me.

This pretty well rebuts the reported low turnout for Austin. http://www.texasphotoforum.com/forum/sh ... p?p=891173" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Note the bit about APD estimating over 5,000 in attendance.

That link is not viewable to anyone who does not have a membership with that site.

KD5NRH wrote:

RiverRat wrote:Watching the Austin kvue 24 news, lead story is a tree in a park.... 30 sec report on tea parties…emphasized only right wing extremists, malcontents, and republicans..... Austin’s tea party at lunch had100 or so people…they left out they would let only a max of 200 to see the gov at lunch on their permit, the rest were turned away…..SA Alamo tea party on Beck-fox, 10000 folks, not on Austin news I knew the media was biased, but this is an eye-opener for me.

This pretty well rebuts the reported low turnout for Austin. http://www.texasphotoforum.com/forum/sh ... p?p=891173" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Note the bit about APD estimating over 5,000 in attendance.

That link is not viewable to anyone who does not have a membership with that site.

ClarkLZeuss wrote:

O6nop wrote:I'm no expert, but I thought this was supposed to be a "grassroots" style demonstration. I guess all organizers have a different plan but I heard most cities turned down any political figures (governors, congressionals and heads of the RNC) as speakers. Maybe I don't understand it that well.

I went to the Houston Tea Party downtown, and it was definitely grassroots (forget what the media says about this, it's all baloney). No politicians called me up asking me to do, and the majority of people there had hand-made signs, and otherwise just seemed like regular Joes like me. I met several people on the way there who you could tell are not frequenters of protests, but are simply fed up with the feds.

As for why politicians weren't asked to speak, here is a good quote from the Houston Tea Party's website:

We’re trying to not be a platform for elected officials and candidates. No one who’s frustrated with political shenanigans wants to come see a politician telling them how they are taking care of you or why you should vote for them. This is something we share and hear from others and are sensitive to. You still may see some speak though, as we’ve reached out to a few that we want there simply in capacity as tax-paying citizens who might have a first hand account to give us an account of what’s going on around them. We will be working closely with these type of speakers to help them craft their message as to not let it become about them but instead for us.

Here's a picture I took which ya'll will enjoy.

The Houston organizers were wise to do this. The Austin tea party was full of politician speakers, and the event turned into a Republican political rally. It was disappointing.

RiverRat wrote:Watching the Austin kvue 24 news, lead story is a tree in a park.... 30 sec report on tea parties…emphasized only right wing extremists, malcontents, and republicans..... Austin’s tea party at lunch had100 or so people…they left out they would let only a max of 200 to see the gov at lunch on their permit, the rest were turned away…..SA Alamo tea party on Beck-fox, 10000 folks, not on Austin news I knew the media was biased, but this is an eye-opener for me.

That seems to be a fair assessment, at least from what I saw when I was there. It was a disappointing event, IMO. It played out like a Republican rally. I will say, the right-wing black helicopter folks were there, though they were not very significant in number. There did look to be a decent number of independant folks there, but the tone of the speeches was overhwelmingly partisanly Republican in content. I could tell there were a number of folks who were as disappointed with how things went down as I was.

I wrote a review of the event on my blog, and you can view it here:

http://therealnecessities.blogspot.com/ ... rties.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Austin Gun Rights Examiner has a pretty accurate assessment of the event as well:

http://www.examiner.com/x-2879-Austin-G ... ntentioned" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;