What was up with all those "million person" marches yesterday?
From what I understand, it all started with some tiny little Muslim organization having overambitious plans to have a "Million Muslim March" on September 11th. It appeared to have basic messaging problems and more or less devolved into a 9-11 truth rally, and apparently in the end, only a few dozen people actually showed up.
Now, the fact that this "march" was pretty much a bust and a non-event was known for months, and most of America never even knew that such a march was planned, nor would they have really cared one way or another.
The fact that the "Million Muslim March" was a non-event, however, apparently did not stop a significant number of Tea Party types--who also happened to be motorcyclists--to express their outrage--OUTRAGE--that a group of Muslims (no matter how ill organized) would be doing anything on September 11th. Because I honestly believe that these people view September 11th as something that only White Christian Middle American types get to lay claim to. Never mind that people of all sorts of races, ethnicities, nationalities and religions (including Islam) died or were affected by the September 11th attacks. It's the same sort of xenophobia and Islamophobia that we saw in the whole debate over the proposed Islamic center in Lower Manhattan near the WTC site.
So in an effort to show those million--err, I mean dozens--of Muslims who's boss, they decide to have a gathering of their own, and they would call it--get this--the "2 Million Biker" rally. Because, as you know, two million is greater than one million.
Except if they honestly thought two million bikers would have shown up for their rally, it would mean several things. First, that roughly 1 out 3 motorcyclists in the entire country would drive all the way to Washington, DC for this thing. In the middle of the work week. And that there were two million bikers in this country who actually shared their outrage over the "Million Muslim March." Or, for that matter, even heard that there was a "Million Muslim March" ever planned.
From the looks of the pictures, it does look like several thousand bikers did show up. I'd be very, very surprised if there were any more than 10,000, and probably far less than that. Certainly not 2 million, or 1 million, or even 100,000.
But I do have to wonder if people who only heard about the "2 Million Biker Rally" yesterday had the initial reaction that it was just some sort of feel good 9-11 event by bikers who just wanted to do something special to remember the 3,000 who died that horrible day 12 years ago. Because that was actually my initial reaction, and I was all ready just to give it the whole "Well that's nice" treatment and move along. It wasn't until I read more into it that I learned about the actual motives behind the whole rally that I became rather disturbed. Disturbed that even a few thousand people would fall susceptible to that type of xenophobic mindset--that 9-11 is our day, not yours.
So we had a Million Muslim March with a few dozen people attending, and a 2 Million Biker Rally with a few thousand attending. Lord help us all.
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