Check out these SICK MMMs.
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a392466b936b3.htm#1
The March From My Perspective [SAS-AIMM In Los Angeles]
by Mercuria
Hi AIMM LA marchers!
As an organizer of the march, I had a somewhat different perspective on the march than most people, and I thought some of you might be interested in my observations. There are also a few things about the march that I know that no one else does, so I wanted to share these things too...
One perception that I have that is definitely not mine alone is that the march was a howling success. I would have considered it a success if something over 200 people had shown up, but we ran out of nametags at 500, and there were many people who didn't get tags. Then there were the kids. We think 650 is a good estimate of attendance. There were many people who could only stay for a while, so the number of people who were there at one time was significantly less that 650.
I don't measure success only in attendance, though. There was a real sense of sisterhood/brotherhood in the air, and a sense of the power and support that our movement has. The shows of support from "honkers" in cars certainly helped this. The relations with the police there were nearly always cordial, sometime breaking out into open expressions of sympathy for our cause...
The amount of effort that was expended by people making this a success was tremendous. We have so much to thank the Freepers, Dan Cook, my NRA Members' Council people, the TRT people, and others for...
As far as I know, none of our marchers caused any significant incidents that would damage our cause. No one from either side was arrested for anything, as far as I know. Some male mommies apparently started advancing threateningly toward our side, but the cops grabbed them and threw them back, and that was the end of that.
There was one example of the peace and goodwill that the other side brings to our debate, though. Some of the mommies came over to argue with our side, and I guess the debate didn't go too well for them - one of our men was holding a small child, and as the mommies were leaving, one of them pointed to the little girl and said she wished that the girl would some day commit suicide with a firearm.
Worse incidents happened in DC. I was speaking to Mariah Sena, a woman from our side that spoke in the DC rally. She said that as they were marching, some people from the other side, their small children in tow, came up to them and put their fingers up to their heads like a gun, and yelled at the people on our side to shoot themselves.
I have some information on the DC mommies march. Our people examined aerial photos of the march and estimated about 150,000 people were there. There were other reports that the crowd looked to be about half the size of the Million Man March, which would have put its size at about 200,000. I'll be looking for a correction to appear in the national press, but I'm not holding my breath.
As far as the local press goes, I have to say that my own experience and the experience of the people whose interviews I set up was positive. I myself was never "set up" (I didn't hear what KPFK did with my stuff, though) or had things taken out of context, and in fact they were rather good at extracting, when they needed to extract something, my most important points. I didn't get reports of anyone else being set up, either. One of the interviewees whose interview I arranged even got an NRA membership application from a producer at a very important media source. We encountered several reporters who were obviously on our side.
Interest and exposure from radio talk shows, and newspapers was considerable before the march. I got more interview requests than I had people to provide them. TV interest was virtually nonexistant, though.
I made sure to observe what the coverage was like on all the local TV stations after the march. KCBS and KABC gave us at least some good coverage, with interviews with people who did a good job speaking for our cause. Neither station did anything to "hit" our side. KTLA was in this category too, I believe, although I may have forgotten. KTTV did a real "hit" piece - they described us as a "handful" of people.
They went on to say that downtown, our side was "too few to count." Funny, it's always been easier for me to count things when there's fewer of them, not more. Or maybe they meant that our viewpoint didn't count because we had few people. KCOP virtually ignored us, with only a glimpse at one of our signs and a passing mention. Unfortunately, there was nothing on any of the TV stations that examined at all critically anything that the mommies did. Nothing that compared the enormous backing that the other side got versus our true grassroots nature.
We got some good videotape ourselves out of the rally. It will be edited and shown at the next Westside NRA Members' Council meeting (June 9th.) Please see the NRAMCWLA web site at www.nrawestla.org for more information on meeting time and place. See the "How You Can Join Us" link. We're always the 2nd Thursday of the month, and always meet at the same place in Culver City.
Thanks again for helping out and showing up,
Merrill
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a392466b936b3.htm#1
The March From My Perspective [SAS-AIMM In Los Angeles]
by Mercuria
Hi AIMM LA marchers!
As an organizer of the march, I had a somewhat different perspective on the march than most people, and I thought some of you might be interested in my observations. There are also a few things about the march that I know that no one else does, so I wanted to share these things too...
One perception that I have that is definitely not mine alone is that the march was a howling success. I would have considered it a success if something over 200 people had shown up, but we ran out of nametags at 500, and there were many people who didn't get tags. Then there were the kids. We think 650 is a good estimate of attendance. There were many people who could only stay for a while, so the number of people who were there at one time was significantly less that 650.
I don't measure success only in attendance, though. There was a real sense of sisterhood/brotherhood in the air, and a sense of the power and support that our movement has. The shows of support from "honkers" in cars certainly helped this. The relations with the police there were nearly always cordial, sometime breaking out into open expressions of sympathy for our cause...
The amount of effort that was expended by people making this a success was tremendous. We have so much to thank the Freepers, Dan Cook, my NRA Members' Council people, the TRT people, and others for...
As far as I know, none of our marchers caused any significant incidents that would damage our cause. No one from either side was arrested for anything, as far as I know. Some male mommies apparently started advancing threateningly toward our side, but the cops grabbed them and threw them back, and that was the end of that.
There was one example of the peace and goodwill that the other side brings to our debate, though. Some of the mommies came over to argue with our side, and I guess the debate didn't go too well for them - one of our men was holding a small child, and as the mommies were leaving, one of them pointed to the little girl and said she wished that the girl would some day commit suicide with a firearm.
Worse incidents happened in DC. I was speaking to Mariah Sena, a woman from our side that spoke in the DC rally. She said that as they were marching, some people from the other side, their small children in tow, came up to them and put their fingers up to their heads like a gun, and yelled at the people on our side to shoot themselves.
I have some information on the DC mommies march. Our people examined aerial photos of the march and estimated about 150,000 people were there. There were other reports that the crowd looked to be about half the size of the Million Man March, which would have put its size at about 200,000. I'll be looking for a correction to appear in the national press, but I'm not holding my breath.
As far as the local press goes, I have to say that my own experience and the experience of the people whose interviews I set up was positive. I myself was never "set up" (I didn't hear what KPFK did with my stuff, though) or had things taken out of context, and in fact they were rather good at extracting, when they needed to extract something, my most important points. I didn't get reports of anyone else being set up, either. One of the interviewees whose interview I arranged even got an NRA membership application from a producer at a very important media source. We encountered several reporters who were obviously on our side.
Interest and exposure from radio talk shows, and newspapers was considerable before the march. I got more interview requests than I had people to provide them. TV interest was virtually nonexistant, though.
I made sure to observe what the coverage was like on all the local TV stations after the march. KCBS and KABC gave us at least some good coverage, with interviews with people who did a good job speaking for our cause. Neither station did anything to "hit" our side. KTLA was in this category too, I believe, although I may have forgotten. KTTV did a real "hit" piece - they described us as a "handful" of people.
They went on to say that downtown, our side was "too few to count." Funny, it's always been easier for me to count things when there's fewer of them, not more. Or maybe they meant that our viewpoint didn't count because we had few people. KCOP virtually ignored us, with only a glimpse at one of our signs and a passing mention. Unfortunately, there was nothing on any of the TV stations that examined at all critically anything that the mommies did. Nothing that compared the enormous backing that the other side got versus our true grassroots nature.
We got some good videotape ourselves out of the rally. It will be edited and shown at the next Westside NRA Members' Council meeting (June 9th.) Please see the NRAMCWLA web site at www.nrawestla.org for more information on meeting time and place. See the "How You Can Join Us" link. We're always the 2nd Thursday of the month, and always meet at the same place in Culver City.
Thanks again for helping out and showing up,
Merrill