Suppose they gave a rally and nobody came?

Well the organizers of the so-called "One Nation" rally on the National Mall in Washington DC almost found out the answer to that one today, with a crowd turn-out that even the mainstream media outlets now admit was "significantly less" than Glenn Beck turned out for his own Restoring Honor" rally in the same spot last month. However this did not stop some idiot speaker named Joe Madison from shouting out during the first hour that he had a "satellite photo" that showed him that they'd turned out more people than Glenn Beck did. Yeah, whatever. Joe Madison is a horse's ass.

Here's the crowd at the BECK rally:
See all the people in that big field to the left? There was no one in that field today.
See the people under the trees to the right of the reflecting pool? None there today, either.
See all those people at the World War Two Memorial down front, and on the lawn across 15th Street? Those areas were empty, too. These people couldn't turn out a fraction of what Beck did, even considering that they were "400 organizations" and Glenn Beck was just one man.

And most of the ones who did turn out were union members--bused in, wearing union t-shirts and carrying mass-produced, professionally printed signs, quite unlike the heartfelt handmade signs that the Beck rally attendees had. And word is already out that many of the union members were paid cash or otherwise coerced to come out, again, unlike the Beck attendees, who came early and stayed late. Most of these union hacks showed up late and bailed way before it was over, and the speakers who were up during the last hour pretty much spoke to themselves and the park service cleaning crews.

Of course, who really wants to hear bitter, divisive bile from haters like "Special Ed" Schultz, or senile old Harry Belefonte, who called the Tea Party members the greatest threat to America today? Who wants to hear disgraced Obama appointee Van Jones, or sit through yet another rant from Congressman Luis Gutierrez about how we need to legalize all of the illegal aliens so that they can compete against American workers for all of the jobs that the union members in attendance want Obama to create? Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton were both there, but then each of those two attention-seekers would show up to speak at a backyard funeral for a five year old's goldfish if they thought that the other would be there.

It was dull, it was bitter, it was lackluster. Every speaker seems to have a complaint against or a criticism of America and none of them had any solutions other than "vote and keep the Republicans out". This also was a marked contrast to the upbeat, positive message and unabashed patriotism of Glenn Beck's event. Hell, a lot of these buffoons today couldn't even be bothered to stand or remove their hats for the National Anthem. There was even one group of latinos wearing t-shirts demanding an end to deportations that were sitting on an American flag like it was a beach towel at a picnic...and no one other than me seemed the least bit upset over it. But then these weren't the sort of people who care about such things; these were the ones who were just here because they want something from the government that they are too lazy or inept to earn for themselves. Fortunately, there weren't many of them.

November 2nd's looking better and better every day.

ADDED: Some great pics of the small crowd, the litter and the hate here on Marooned in Marin