Liberty MavenThe Ron Paul Revolution March Experience. Scheuer Shined.
July 13th, 2008 10:59 am | by Marc Gallagher | Published in Activism, Election, Maven Commentary, Neo-con, Philosophy, Politics, Ron Paul, Video, War, terrorism | 10 Comments
It was a hot and sunny day in Washington DC today where estimates from 1500 (on the low end) and 8000 (on the high end) participated in the Ron Paul Revolution March and Rally. Several speakers and musical guests enthralled the freedom eager crowd.
Some of the guest speakers fell directly into the stereotypical mold of what critics view as “the Ron Paul supporter”. I guess the generalizations do come from somewhere, but like any group of freedom loving souls you will find all types.
For the most part the speeches were directly in line with the Ron Paul platform. Though for my money the best speech given today was the one by Michael Scheuer, former head of CIA’s Bin Laden unit. In an eloquent prepared speech he hit on several topics near and dear to a Ron Paul supporter’s heart drawing cheers from the crowd several times. To give you an idea of the content of his speech I uploaded a video of the last five minutes of it and it is embedded below. Unfortunately, I was unable to record the entire speech. Perhaps it will be made available by someone else soon.
Following Scheuer, Adam Kokesh from Iraq Veterans Against The War spoke with great passion firing up the crowd. Chuck Baldwin then gave a shortened speech because the schedule was running late and Ron Paul was next. Ron Paul peppered his now standard rally speech with a few new comments here and a few new jokes there. It would have been nice to hear a new speech from Dr. Paul, but it’s hard to complain when the man just goes up there and delivers his liberty message every single time.
Now a word about the crowd. I attended the “Freedom Rally” in the same exact location back on April 15th and the crowd today looked to be 3 or 4 times that size. I would estimate the turnout to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 2500 people. However I’m no expert and there were many people coming and going and just about everyone camped out on the outskirts of the area under the trees making it extremely difficult to deduce the numbers. Even if 8000 showed up throughout the day it was a far cry from the 15,000+ that pledged to be there. That aspect made the day a bit disappointing.
That being said, the day was a wonderful experience. I stood amongst the true believing patriots and cheered for the voices and sounds of liberty. It is truly a blessing to live in a country where speaking out against those in power is not met with immediate overt violence. It is even more impressive that those anti-establishment words bounced directly off the structures where that power conducts its business. We still live in a mostly free country. We shout to others in the name of vigilance to keep it that way.
July 13th, 2008 at 6:52 pm (#)
[...] To read more about the great American tragedy/festival, click here. [...]
July 13th, 2008 at 10:32 pm (#)
Great Article: we were there and this article is dead-on what the day was like.
First: the day was _very_ hot and sunny, which is why most people unfortunately stood under the trees in the far, distant outskirts of the field. Although we didn’t make the march, we did arrive onto the field where the rally was being held alittle after 11am, and decided to show our patriotism, and support, of Dr. Paul by standing in the center of the field where we baked in the sun. Despite bringing lots of cold water and applying sunscreen SPF_48 at the beginning of the day, we were starting to experience sunburn sometime between (I think) 1pm and 2pm; worse, I was feeling dizzy from the heat (on our return visit on the metro two people sitting behind us stated that they saw two people who ended up with heat stroke).
We decided to walk to the National Air and Space Museum to get out of the sun so we missed a good part of Naomi’s Wolf’s speech. Prior to leaving we asked around till we found some people who knew what time Ron Paul was scheduled to speak so we would not miss him. They told us that he was scheduled to speak at 3:40pm; can anyone tell me where they found on the web the actual times the speakers spoke? (After searching last weekend on revolutionmarch.com, as well as doing a google, unsuccessfully, we decided to just wing it.)
It probably took us about 20-30 minutes to get to the museum, so made sure to leave there by around 3:15pm and, fortunately, arrived just when Ron Paul was starting. Therefore, we unfortunately missed Michael Scheuer’s speech (link in this article): this is my fault, as I didn’t realize he was the former CIA head for the bin ladin unit. But from the last five minutes of it, as shown on this site, oh how upset I am with myself for letting us miss it !! And, as this article suggests, I _hope_ someone else taped his entire speech because he really hit the nail on the head. If anyone finds a link to his entire speech, please attach this information to this article.
One detail this article seemed to miss about the crowd that we both took note of: although there were a good number of exceptions, the majority of people there were very young—seeming to be in their 20’s and 30’s. Also, without exception, we never saw anyone who was disrespectful, loud, or belligerant all day; in fact, everyone we saw seemed to be very peaceful, extremely friendly, and obviously very well-read and intelligent. That, in itself, was so rewarding and gives a lot of hope that somehow, despite the existing threats of our government, the country will be able to prevail. The one note given in the article about the crowd size: we estimated the crowd size at any one time during our attendence to be about 1500 to 2000; however, because so many people were coming and going all day, and because those coming could have been different than those who earlier left, we acknowledge the crowd size could have been (for the whole day) around 4000.
And we agree with the article’s last paragraph: the day was, in total, a wonderful experience (despite the unbearable heat, uncomfortable sunburn, and long walk from the l’enfant plaza metro stop). My husband and I were among the smaller attendance of those who grew up in the 1950’s and 1960’s, and the only thing that saddens me was that most of those in attendance never experienced what, we believe, were this country’s best years. –a time when the middle class who built this country were supported by good paying union jobs (now outsourced) with health benefits and a potential for learning and growth. –a time when this country lead the world in technology and science, sending the first men to the moon and leading the world in medical research. –a time when we could drive in a car for hours without passing another car, let alone spending hours in traffic jams on a daily basis when commuting to and from work. –a time when this nation was loved and respected by most of the world. –a time when both local and federal governments would never have even attempted the Police State we currently find ourselves in. –a time of hope and promise. –a time of true freedom. We hope, with God’s blessing and the hard work of the Revolution, these young people with so much potential, will experience a country that is once again free.
July 14th, 2008 at 12:34 am (#)
charrob,
Thank you for sharing your day…
To answer your question about the speaking times. They were/are listed on the program pdf file linked on the March web site here (from the event details page):
http://www.revolutionmarch.com/81588_rp_brochure.pdf
They should have posted the times on the main page though so people would know about them. They did a pretty good job though, certainly much better than the April 15th rally.
-Marc
July 14th, 2008 at 4:39 pm (#)
[...] extremely hot and many were seen camping out on the outskirts of the rally area in the shade. Some bloggers have suggested that as many as 8000 people in total attended the [...]
July 14th, 2008 at 4:42 pm (#)
[...] extremely hot and many were seen camping out on the outskirts of the rally area in the shade. Some bloggers have suggested that as many as 8000 people in total attended the [...]
July 14th, 2008 at 5:51 pm (#)
[...] extremely hot and many were seen camping out on the outskirts of the rally area in the shade. Some bloggers have suggested that as many as 8000 people in total attended the [...]
July 14th, 2008 at 11:08 pm (#)
[...] Ron Paul Revolution [...]
July 14th, 2008 at 11:37 pm (#)
[...] informative report comes from Marc Gallagher of the Liberty Maven blog. He has some past experience with DC rallies and estimated the turnout at perhaps 2500 people, [...]
July 14th, 2008 at 11:40 pm (#)
[...] informative, if less than impartial, report comes from Marc Gallagher of the Liberty Maven blog. He has some past experience with DC rallies and estimated the turnout at perhaps 2500 people. [...]
July 16th, 2008 at 11:16 am (#)
[...] Scheuer’s speech delivered last Saturday at the Revolution March in Washington DC. I posted a video of the last five minutes of the speech over the weekend. Thanks to LewRockwell.com for publishing the [...]