Upon seeing the headline of a Robert McCartney column bemoaning the fact that DC government officials won’t need to risk arrest to protest budgetary constraints imposed on the city by Congress, I, as a DC resident, Googled “DC residents protest shut down.” In 2011, when threatened with a shutdown, Washingtonians organized a protest on Facebook to voice their displeasure with John Boehner and the city’s effective status as a Federal agency – the plan was to haul trash to his house, with garbage collection services on the interim chopping block. We avoided a shutdown, of course, and the protest was cancelled. But I thought it was a good idea, and so I wanted to know if it was going to be repeated in some form Tuesday.
The result of the query, however, was rather deflating: perhaps due to the fact that the city has “plenty of money in a contingency fund” (in the words of McCartney), there doesn’t appear to be a major demonstration planned against our city’s colonial status.
But even more troubling is the fact that the search turned up a non-related protest – a borderline fascist “Patriot Truckers” rally to shut down DC for three days, promoted by Glenn Beck.
The website for the so-called “Ride for the Constitution” even published one poorly written, race-baiting, conspiracy theory-laden post that, effectively, calls for a military coup in the United States:
President Obama through insurrection is working hard to overthrow the government of the United States. Obama is trying to find an excuse to declare a national emergency to place the USA under Martial law.
[…]
It has been rumored the Provost Marshal was going to arrest Obama for attempting to detonate a nuclear device in Washington DC on the 12th Anniversary of Sept 11th. The shooting in the Navy yard could be a smoke screen of the attempted arrest of Obama for treason. I can tell the Military is getting ready to act to defend this nation. When Secretary of State John Kerry signed the UN Small Arms Trade Treaty. That was an act of treason trying to repeal the Second Amendment by underhanded means using treaty law.
I do not see much of the Military going out to confiscate guns. It is not 2005 in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. It is a different world.
The Military is very awake now to the President’s treasonous ways. It is my hope the Military stands down instead of carrying out illegal orders where Obama is crowned King Nothing
Yikes.
This is even more disturbing in the context of the actual shutdown, and Ted Cruz’s Meet the Press comments today that the President is “essentially holding the military hostage.”
Of course, the Patriot Truckers have the right to say whatever they want, and I wouldn’t accuse Ted Cruz are “fanning the flames” – it’s everyone’s first amendment right to be an abject jackass, and the popularity of fringe ideas aren’t determined by wild-eyed public statements of scheming individuals.
But I am well within my right to think it’s appalling – both Ted Cruz’s rhetoric and the Red, White, and Blueshirt rally.
