The 9/12 Experience 2009: A Chronology With Comments Part Three

Closer to the US Capitol we moved.  Note that the signs are almost all homemade signs, even though there was someone passing out professionally made signs back at our Metro stop.  Those professionally made signs with the text "Bury Obamacare With Kennedy" were taken and displayed by a very few people.  Of all the photos and video that I have posted or will post in this series,  there is only one instance of a person actually displaying one of those signs. I'm going to post more about this later; I just wanted to point it out. 



A view of the Newseum.  If you look closely you can see a few people perched on terrace of the building, some taking pictures or video.



Two different versions of the "Don't Tread On Me" flag, one with red stripes and the other in the original yellow.  We are getting much closer to the Capitol now.

At this point we are passing the intersection of 3rd Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.  There are some rental trucks being used by Media who are covering the event visible in the background on the right, and several DC Mounted Police are  in the middle of the street, observing the crowd as it passes by.  (click on photo to enlarge)

 

These young men were selling "Cage The Rinos" t-shirts, using an image of a prime example of the species as a prop.  This was between 3rd Street and 1st Street on Pennsylvania Avenue.  At this point the Capitol was very close and we could see the crowd massing there.  It was about 10:45 in the morning and the grassy area in front of the Capitol was about 90% filled with people who were waiting for the rally to begin, with a solid stream of people still marching behind us on Pennsylvania Avenue as well, stretching as far as they eye could see.  Others were entering the Capitol area from Maryland Avenue and coming down The Mall on Madison  Drive and Jefferson Drive.  (click on photo to enlarge)

Here we move across 1st Street and claim a place on the grass near the edge of the West Lawn of the US Capitol, close to the walkway the surrounds the pool that is located between 1st Street and the West Lawn.  This is as close as we could get.  At this point in time (approximately 11:00 am on 9/12) the West Lawn was completely covered with people.  I was in DC for the July 4th TEA Party this year and stayed for the evening fireworks.  On july 5th, the DC newspapers said the crowd had been 700,000 for July 4th; this crowd already appeared larger than the crowd we had been part of on July 4th.  We took our place and waited for the rally to start, while people continued to stream into the area.

       I am doing this series of posts to provide sort of a documentary in first-person form of the 9/12 March.  One of my blog influences is Zombie from Zombietime and Zomblog and so I am shamelessly emulating Zombie's reporting style here (or at least making my best feeble attempt to do so). 

       I have a background of marching on Washington DC in the past.  I participated in "Solidarity Day" which was a large march that happened while Ronald Reagan was President.  Back then the National Park Service did crowd estimates, and they estimated the crowd at Solidarity Day as being in the 400,000 range (Wikipedia says "half a million"; The Washington Post gave the numberic figure I quoted). I know that is a long time ago for me to remember, but having said that, this march had a lot more people than that crowd I was part of in September of 1981.  Ironically, Ronald Reagan was the most recent POTUS who actually upheld The Constitution, in my opinion.  Reagan said "I didn't leave the Democrat Party, The Democrat Party left me".  I would agree with Reagan and I would extend that sentiment further to include The Republican Party as well. 

       The number of people in the 9/12 March is important and significant as well, but what is more important in this case is that the particpants maintain their energy and focus going forward, and that others become involved.  If this happens, we may yet be able to salvage the USA and the Constitution in the form that the Founders intended. 

END PART THREE...

...Go To PART FOUR