Thousands of screaming teabaggers outside my building

[electropop]

Source: Eyewitness

I work on Pennsylvania Avenue and there are thousands of screaming Teabaggers outside my window. I’m sure their corporate sponsors are happy to have so many people volunteer to send their money upward.



No link yet.

[liberal N proud]

1. Hang a sign out your window letting them now tax dollars paid for that street

Call the streets socialist or something.

Something like,

If you hate taxes get off my publicly funded street.

[Warpy]

2. I like this one

FREEDOM ISN'T FREE! PAY YOUR TAXES!

However, I did see a "Democrat for Tax Reform" sign here and that one resonated with me.

I think we might be close to mob psychology when they shake off their handlers and propagandists. Then again, it might not happen.

We do need tax reform. We need to reform Reaganism out of existence, along with tax law that shifts wealth away from the people who work to produce it and up to the hoarders.

[electropop]

6. That's a great one too!

[havocmom]

21. Support the troops: Pay your taxes!

Good sign too ;)

[electropop]

5. NICE!

I like that one!

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sufrommich]

4. How big does the crowd look? nt

[electropop]

8. a thousand or two?

I didn't look very long - the sight made me queasy.

[electropop]

23. I just went out and did a crude estimate

They filled about half of Freedom Plaza. I would say a thousand or two is as close as I can call it. I gurantee you it will get saturation coverage as a "massive" protest, unlike the media vacuum which surrounded the Sept 2004 antiwar rally (500,000 people on the National Mall).

Mercifully, they are packing up their signs. One example: the guy dressed as a monk, puffing a cigarette, whose sign says "God Hates Taxes." Really? He told you that?

[sufrommich]

26. He's confusing God with the voices in his head. nt

[arcadian]

7. Dump the boiling cauldrons on them

[electropop]

9. I'll empty my chamber pot.

[FSogol]

10. They'd just roll around in it. n/t

[Taitertots]

11. Yell boo and throw folgers at them

Wave a sign that says "end the socialist military"

[lonestarnot]

12. Clean up on aisle 10.

Are they followed by shovel carrier pooper scoopers?

[electropop]

14. I would say those that have jobs

are the pooper scoopers.

[lonestarnot]

18. No doubt about that.

[Better Believe It]

13. Working people pay way too much taxes. You don't agree?

Or are you just one of those rich people who pays little or no taxes?

Tax the rich, not working people!

Why should we pay taxes to fund imperial wars and to cover Wall Street bailouts for the rich?

The "left" should be organizing mass protests against the unfair share working people pay in taxes rather than leaving it up to right-wing outfits who pretend to be "populists" against taxes.

[electropop]

19. Some excerpts from e-mails to my RW friend today

What I don’t like about the super-rich is that they use their money to rig the system so they can constantly find new ways to take more of the wealth that we little guys actually create for them. The same is true (in a more diluted way, such as with trade organizations) as you move down the ladder to $250K+ folks. Income tax is just one of the taxes we pay. Most of the others apply only to the lower portion of income or spending (i.e. payroll taxes and sales taxes). For the wealthy, the theoretical tax rates are mostly just that – they never pay anything close to the theoretical marginal rates, because they can afford fleets of accountants, lawyers, and shelters. So a complaint about theoretical marginal rates on a tax that they dodge, while ignoring all the other taxes that are trivial to them (but not to us), is just misleading.

The right constantly whines about “income redistribution.” They actually love income redistribution, as long as the direction is always upward, and increasingly so. They have set up a very successful income redistribution system.

I guess the bottom line is, I can sort of see how one person can generate 10x or maybe even 50x the actual contribution to the economy, compared to another person. But I can’t see any moral justification for paying somebody 1000x what their employees make, especially when that person is actually bleeding their company dry and ultimately screwing their employees and shareholders. Nobody can possibly be 1000x more valuable than another person, because clearly that much wealth is actually produced by the hundreds of people doing work, not by the one person controlling them. With so much that needs to be done, so much productivity and entrepreneurial energy blocked by the entrenched power structure, it hurts our society as a whole, from the bottom to the top of the ladder.

In my opinion, feeding 1000 kids so they can learn, get jobs, start legitimate businesses, and stay out of jail creates a lot more bang for the buck, than buying one gold-plated yacht for a billionaire, or even 100 sports cars for millionaires. I think it’s even more valuable than a supply of enough smart bombs to kill 1000 babies. The fed/educated kids will generate a huge net boost to the economy. On the downside, if they are smart, they may also start engaging in critical thinking, and doing something about the system around them. ;-)

[and-justice-for-all]

15. I doubt it is thousands..nt

[piratefish08]

16. you're in no danger. you can easily outrun their scooters.

[and-justice-for-all]

17. Don't you mean their Hover-rounds?..nt

[havocmom]

20. Do their corporate sponsors get to write off the cost of transporting them around?

Perhaps we need to ferret out just how the costs are booked in the corporate ledgers and then make sure it is not a tax dodge

:evilgrin:

[Better Believe It]

22. We should be demonstrating against unfair taxes. Tax the rich!

Why is the far right being given an open and uncontested field on this issue?

[madmom]

24. My favorite..TeaParty?... more like White Whine Party!

[LibertyLover]

25. I saw three on their way to the rally this morning on metro

They were having a very hard time figuring out the metrocard machines and I'm afraid that nobody was offering to help. I only saw one of their signs, which said "Support term limits", fairly tame for a Teabagger I thought. What I really wanted to do was to remind them that Metro got government subsidies derived from taxes and they really should consider an alternate form of transportation to their rally against taxation.

[electropop]

27. Yes, and Freedom Plaza isn't free.

It was taxpayer-funded.

I have two things to say about the fare machines. First, I get pretty annoyed at the tourists who stand in front of them mystified for long periods of time. Usually they choose the ones that refill the fancy electronic card used by commuters, instead of the machines that dispense temporary cardboard ones to tourists. But then I remember that these things (like everything else about Metro) feature woefully inadequate signage. Would it kill Metro to have signs that say "Tourist cards dispensed here" and "This machine is for daily commuters only?" Or better yet, upgrade all the machines so tourists don't gravitate to the ones I have to use.

There are so many ways Metro signage could be improved. For example, "Please don't block the left side of the escalator!" Instead, they have subtle and rare announcements, or snarky posters that don't actually come out and say it.

[LibertyLover]

28. Tourons - the bane of my existence

Someone I know works for the National Park Service. Their term of endearment for many of the visitors to the Nation's Capital is Touron - part tourist, part moron.

I love it when the families from the midwest get on the metro escalators in the evenings when I'm trying to get home and relax after a day working and spread out all over the place. You get Sonny and Sissy lounging on the right all tired out because they had to see a museum or two; and then there's grandpa and grammy over on the left bitching about how their feet hurt from all that walking and finally mom and dad, holding hands on one step and beaming at their progeny and forebearers. The calm lasts for about 3 seconds until some harried salaryman or woman screams "stand right - walk left" and proceeds to walk through the touron herd. This causes the herd to scatter and make sounds of outrage that their day of bucolic appreciation for "the capital of our great nation" is being intruded upon.

You are right about Metro's signage - I've lived in Maryland and worked in DC for 20 years and still can't get over how poor it is.

[electropop]

30. Then there's the clown who puts one hand on each escalator rail...

...or completely hugs the pole in the train car, stripper-like.

Though the latter (disgustingly enough) is usually a local.

[madinmaryland]

29. You should have seen the disaster over the cherry blossom festival.

Thousands of tourists lining up to use the machines in Greenbelt. They had one person directing people which line to go in. Two of the machines would not take anything bigger than a $10 and no credit cards.

Really confusing for even those who use the metro on a regular basis.

[electropop]

32. I hate that.

You would think the machines that make the money would be impeccably maintained! But they sure are not.

[madinmaryland]

33. Well, they have three or four types of machines and you can only buy

the day passes in one type of machine. Thank god it was free parking or they really would have been screwn!

[Javaman]

31. Water balloons? nt

[Sheepshank]

34. screaming teabaggers?

so much for civil discourse.

So you haven't taken a picture of these 'thousands'?