Last Saturday I attended my second End the Fed rally in Philadelphia. There was about 200-300 people marching with a small float that drove from the Philly Fed and up and down Market Street, while we handed out flyers and made a fair bit of noise. Memebers of the group often stopped for a few moments to people who tried to engage us, explaining that it wasn't a Tea Party event, etc. and what the Fed was and why they should know about it. We all met up at a bar at the end with some live music by some local liberty-oriented bands.
All in all it's not the worst way to spend a Saturday afternoon. However both times I've been a bit discouraged by the makeup of the crowd. First off it seems that the event was organized by "Truth, Freedom, Prosperity", which as you might glean from the first word in the title was started as a 9/11 Truther organization. Some of the follow-up Youtube videos posted the next day started off with shots of the sky, with commentary about "how bad the chemtrails are today!". One of the main speakers was even had a little plug in his speech suggesting that we can eliminate scarcity by doing away with money...Venus Project level ignorance there.
It's not all bad though, I did meet several people who were level headed, and luckily the Venus-Project-esque dude didn't get a whole lot of applause. My Mises T-shirt got several compliments and there were lots of Mises.org readers there. It's just discouraging that it seems like "the crazies" are running the show when it comes to anti-Fed organization. It can't be good that the general public might associate the anti-Fed stance with Truthers, Chemtrails, etc.
Do you see this with your local rallies/groups? What the best way to address this over the long term if the event organizers seem to have conspiracy-theory leanings?
You can yell at the mafia all you want, they don't give a damn. The people that benefit off of the Fed are vast in numbers and wealth beyond all the Fed rallies combined.
I know some people who support ending the Fed, but want it to be replaced by a purely public banking system, so I am skeptical of 'End the Fed' talk. I think 'Return to a 100% reserve gold standard' or 'free market currency' rallies would be more supportable.
The Philly rallies at least are usually very gold-and-silver oriented. However it's difficult to gauge how many people are proponents of free banking.
Also I'd say the rally was less about "yelling at the Mafia" and more about making some noise about the issue in a public space so people who aren't aware of the system might think about it/look into it.
The problem with rallies is that people with ideas contrary to your own, such as free banking or people whose gripe is that the Fed is 'private' or that it's part of some 'Jewish conspiracy'.