Turfapalooza! (UPDATED)

(please scroll down for update)

A month of hype, pub and sponsorship by the bus loads from labor unions like the purple people-beaters of the SEIU, the generic "religious leaders" and Obama's own Organizing for America was able to generate thousands... thousands* of people milling around the reflecting pool and the Lincoln Memorial for the "One Nation Working Together" rally that was dubbed as the anti-tea party and/or the anti-Glen Beck rally of late August.

Thousands of people flocked to the Lincoln Memorial for a rally Saturday organized by labor and civil rights groups, hoping to show support for the Democratic agenda in the face of expected GOP election gains next month.

More than 400 organizations, including faith, environmental and gay rights groups, sponsored the "One Nation Working Together" demonstration on the same end of the National Mall where a month ago tea party activists met to hear conservative commentator Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin.

There were people with union T-shirts and others participants who carried banners advocating expanding Medicare for all Americans. While the Beck rally stretched well down the National Mall, Saturday's event was shaping up to be far smaller, with sparse groups lingering around the reflecting pool and other monuments.

Some people described the event as a counter-protest to the Beck rally. Many mentioned the perceived racism they see among the tea party-style activists, even though no one who spoke at the Beck rally neared anything approaching criticism of President Barack Obama or his race.

To be fair, the reason that no one at Beck's rally neared anything approaching criticism of the President was that, unlike this rally, it was completely apolitical. Beck's rally was a call for reconnecting with one's faith in order for restoring a commitment to individual responsibility which believers and non-believers alike agree is essential for a functioning constitutional Republic.

Organizers insisted the rally wasn't partisan and said the message was about job creation, quality education and justice. However, the largest of the organizers, such as the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union, tend to back Democratic candidates.

If by "tend" they mean "rabid, running dog Democratic party partisans" then, yeah, it wasn't very partisan at all.



And via W.C. Varones, we have some footage of the event with some cherry-picked and totally non-representative images of the rally. They're "progressives" after all.




Lots of white people and you all know what that means.



* Google image search reveals little about the size of the crowd other than obvious steals from Dr. King's "I have a Dream" speech of 1965. Given the er, muscle, sponsoring this clearly astro-turfed event, that they couldn't come up with at least the obligatory "tens of thousands" amuses us to no end.


(UPDATE #1): Left Coast Rebel has some great aerial photos comparing the crowd size of lefty-palooza to Glen Beck's rally. After cruising the blogosphere a bit, why do we get the feel that half of the crowd size at this rally was made up of conservative/libertarian bloggers wanting to just check it out?

Also, embedded in the LCR post is a video showing the deplorable state in which left nation left the mall. Call us simplistic, but we really do think there is something to be said for the sincerity and purity of your ideals by the condition in which you leave your rally grounds.