Jefferson Morley at Salon puts a brave face on Occupy CPAC’s Friday march:
The two Americas came face to face briefly Friday afternoon at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. While several thousand conservatives thronged the Wardman Park Marriott Hotel, several hundred progressive unionists marched up to the hotel’s entrance, banging drums, carrying signs like “CPAC: Conservatives Pleasing America’s Corporations” and chanting “We are the 99 percent.” As they were turned back by police and hotel security, conference participants watched, often with disdain.
__
“Get a job,” shouted one conservative. “I’ve got a job,” one long-haired demonstrator fired back. “I’m a farmer. I grow the food you eat.” The demonstrators, responding to an email message from the D.C. Metropolitan AFL-CIO Labor Council, came from a wide range of unions including the United Auto Workers, the Service Employees International Union, and the Sheet Metal Workers Union. They marched with members from the Fight for Philly community group, the New York Committee for Change, and veterans of the two now-evicted Occupy D.C. sites.
__
They were a theatrical bunch. One group of protesters dressed up in blue and white baseball uniforms emblazoned with the logo “Tax Dodgers” who posed for a picture with a giant baseball Mitt. (Get it?) Another man dressed up in a suit emblazoned with dollar signs and the Wal-Mart logo said he was running for president as a corporation. “If corporations are people,” explained Ben Waxman, “why not have a corporation as president?”…
Dave Weigel at Slate reports from the other side of the cordon sanitaire:
“Do You Want to Go to Jail?” The Occupy movement arrived at CPAC, a little late, building a line of protest in front of the hotel shortly after noon. Media interest, stoked for days, was high. CPACs interest was in stopping 1200 or so reporters from being distracted from the events they were putting on.
__
This was done by putting a line of police between the “occupation” — really just a protest, with some kitschy tents — and the conference attendees and reporters. Protesters moved towards the hotel, were ushered away by police, and settled back down the hill. Anyone approaching them, like conservatives with “STAND WITH [SCOTT] WALKER] signs or bloggers with cameras, was told that he would be arrested if he stayed. I filmed a few bloggers as they tried…
Video and more at the link.
And she really deserves her own dedicated post, but Quinn Norton at Wired‘s Threat Level has the latest of her beautifully reported #Occupy stories, “Occupy DC Evicted from A Winter of Communal Discontent” up as a counterpoint.
WereBear
If most of life is simply showing up, then the rest of it is: staying there.
Raven
It’s really nice that they replay Rachel at 6am so I can watch.
c u n d gulag
“Tax Dodgers!”
With a giant baseball “mitt!”
I LOVE IT!
LOL!
Plus, being mostly the party of the South, I’m sure they hate the Yankees.
When they lose in November to “That Shine,” they can all drown their sorrows by drinking some ‘shine from their Dixie cups.
JPL
@Raven: Now a days you can even watch Rachel online, any time u want.
Egg Berry
So all that bluff and bluster about confronting OWS was just a bunch of bullshit. Imagine that, the 101st Chairborne backing down from a fight! Whocoodanode?
gnomedad
I really like “the bubble” as a meme and hope it has legs.
Egg Berry
@gnomedad: I like the Bubble as well, but a bubble is penetrable, is it not? It can be popped.
Nothing gets through their force field. Reality has no jurisdiction in Greater Wingnutistan.
MikeJ
The roasters have video of Andrew Breitbart freaking out when he sees protesters.
Egg Berry
I never knew they grew cheetos and twinkies on a farm.
scav
@Egg Berry: cheetos fields are like cotton fields, only orange. Not sure about the twinkies, maybe orchards?
JPL
@MikeJ: He’s a very odd man.
Egg Berry
@scav: Twinkies seem more like cucumber-type plant to me.
GregB
@MikeJ:
Breitbart behaves like that yet the wingnuts are always calling us lefties unhinged.
scav
@Egg Berry: aaaahhh You’re so right, those large leaves would protect them from the sun and preserve their pallor. I’ve been looking for the seeds in the wrong aisle — thanks.
Southern Beale
Someone came over to my blog and commented on an old thread about Stacey Campfield, our anti-gay state senator, and claimed to be a “conservative lesbian proudly supporting Mitt Romney in 2012.”
I’m calling bullshit on that one. Whatever my commentor is, she/he is a moron.
Amir Khalid
I found this story in the online edition of my old paper. My friend from Cleveland grumbles that he doesn’t get enough chances to practise his Bahasa Malaysia because all people here ever speak to him is English. Who knew we still needed volunteer English teachers from America?
gnomedad
@Egg Berry:
Hmm. The Iron Bubble, then?
harlana
MikeJ
i just love this for some reason. anyone doubt that he had his little outburst knowing full well his sorry ass would be protected by the cops? big scary man, indeed.
gnomedad
Bill Maher:
jwest
Interviews with CPAC protesters:
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/02/10/turf-tastic-occupy-protester-says-he-was-paid-60-to-protest-cpac/#ooid=FrYmpoMzqE3_nZoSjuiv7m1g4lZKnVE7
Woodrowfan
I more I see CPAC attendees the more I wonder WTF is wrong with them.
handsmile
@Woodrowfan:
Well, to begin with, they’re CPAC attendees, so that’s a clue to their psychopathology. These are people who travel and pay money to mingle with and be inspired by “white nationalists”:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/02/steve_king_white_nationalists_and_leftist_thugs_a_tale_of_a_cpac_side_panel.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
Villago Delenda Est
@Woodrowfan:
Dropped on their head constantly for the first five years of their lives.
Villago Delenda Est
@Woodrowfan:
Dropped on their head constantly for the first five years of their lives.
Villago Delenda Est
Ack, sorry for the duplicate post. FYWP’s “you’ve already said that!” feature is sporadic, at best.
dslak
@Villago Delenda Est: You can say that again!
harlana
can we start calling right-wing tantrums “Breitbartrums”?
beltane
@MikeJ: I’m going to watch that video again later when I need a pick-me-up. If Breitbart had a clinical diagnoses it would be unkind to laugh at him, but since the media has proclaimed him a sane person I feel no guilt in laughing at the crazy man.
harlana
y’know, not being a participant, i’m not willing to, or may never be able to, render judgment on the Occupy movement as a whole, but anyone who takes the time and energy to annoy and harass these people in their natural habitat and make them the least bit uncomfortable, has my support, at least in this instance. no matter how it is played in the media, the movement doesn’t care, for the most part, how they are perceived by the media so there’s nothing i can do about that. since that is the case, i say go for it, as far as CPAC attendees go (and the RNC convention to come, what will that be like?), they just deserve scorn, shame and outright ridicule so have at it.
it goes without saying the Breitbartrum alone made it all worthwhile.
beltane
Breitbart’s “Stop Raping the peeeeople!! Stop raping the peeeople!” is a classic. It’s the “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” of 2012.
Villago Delenda Est
@harlana:
That’s good!
“When confronted with their moral culpability for covering up the rape of hundreds of alter boys, the US Council of Catholic Bishops threw a breitbartrum about the inclusion of contraception in health care plans.”
harlana
@beltane: i guess there is not much you can do about sociopaths since they do not question their sanity, they would never seek help. the ones with without money and resources, who cannot insinuate themselves into regular society end up in jail
harlana
yes, over the last 12 years, or 30 years, depending on how you look at it, we have learned basically what these people are all about, but never have they so militantly broadcast their agenda to eliminate the existing poor and drive the remaining, yet dwindling middle class into poverty, and their determination to break down what remaining protections regular citizens have against corporate interests and big money – they are out to get you and they’ve stopped even trying to hide or sugarcoat it because, i guess, that’s all they have left. i guess they are just signalling to the powers, “I am on your side. Don’t forget me when this all goes to shit. Remember, I was your friend!”
Villago Delenda Est
@harlana:
They are fools, then, because they’re sucking up to sociopaths farther gone than they are…who will delight in degrading them when the time comes.
Nutella
@beltane:
Some video editor should redo that ‘stop raping’ clip showing Breitbart addressing the priests and bishops with subtitles on the awful statistics (800 in Milwaukee alone).
Nutella
It is interesting that reporters were threatened with arrest for leaving the hotel and paying attention to the demonstrators. Shows the establishment’s priorities pretty clearly.
Although they might have been wiser to let the reporters out of CPAC. What we’re seeing from in there is pretty gross and is not going to convince anyone to join their side.
Villago Delenda Est
@Nutella:
I think the intent was to keep the people inside the hotel away from the demonstrators, and vice versa, without regard to the fact that some of the people in the hotel were covering CPAC, not participating.
Heavy handed fascism strikes again.
jwest
Let’s hope that none of the “protesters” were beaten by their employer for speaking to the interviewer.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/02/10/turf-tastic-occupy-protester-says-he-was-paid-60-to-protest-cpac/#ooid=FrYmpoMzqE3_nZoSjuiv7m1g4lZKnVE7