This country was founded by a bunch of patriots, who today would be called terrorists. That’s how backward our country has become. It’s every American’s right to rebel, to protest, to speak their mind, to question authority- however, those who do- are often labeled “gadflies,” “crazy,” or even terrorists.
Right now our government has made it a mission to bail out and protect “investors” on the stock market, “owners” of banks, insurance companies and “investment banks” who stole billions, yet won’t face a single day in prison, while many small-time criminals who affect society at a much much smaller level will do several years or more. The difference between buying stocks and bonds was that there wasn’t any guarantee that stock would pay back. Now, thanks to the idiots who have been “elected” in the auctions we call “elections,” where the seats typically go to the biggest sell-outs, we are “protecting” our country by making sure the rich don’t lose– while the poor lose their jobs, homes and pensions. That’s why there’s a furor over the AIG bonus checks.
So, even though the rhetoric [1] sounds like the right wing talking, the place to be on April 15th will be Courthouse Square from 6:00pm to 8:00pm for the Dayton Tea Party. From their site:
On December 16, 1773 citizens of Boston came together and protested the actions taken by the British Crown to support a company that faced bankruptcy due to mismanagement and corruption. We know this event today as the Boston Tea Party.
This event was one of many that eventually led to the declaration of our independence from Great Britain and the unfair taxation that was taking place at that time.
Today thousands of Americans are fed up with what we perceive as unfair taxation. Our federal government is taking money from hard-working people to pay off mortgages and bail out companies that should be allowed to go bankrupt. Our elected officials are stealing our money and that of our children and grandchildren so that they can pay for tattoo removal and pig odor studies.
If you count yourself as an American, fed up with excess taxation and individuals like Chuck Schumer of New York spending your hard-earned money on pork that you “don’t care about”, join us April 15, tax day as we send a message from the Miami Valley to those bankrupting our nation and stealing our money for their “stimulus packages” that contain “no pork.”
Please join us on April 15, 2009, and make your voice heard. Protests are being held across the country. You are not alone with your frustration. Please click here and RSVP to confirm your attendance. It’s very important that we know you’re coming so we can pressure the media into covering us!
via Home Page [2].
If you’ve been paying attention, the right to protest in this country has been slowly eroding since the late ’60s. The Chicago Democratic National Convention, Kent State were only just the beginning- today, it’s common to see the police out like storm troopers to stop legal and legitimate demonstrations by citizens. The bad news is, we’ve handed the keys to the country to a government that has stopped doing the will of the people- and they don’t like it when the people ask for them back.
The freedom to express our frustration to the government is a big part of what makes our country great, and there’s a civic duty involved here to let government know how you feel. If you’re as dissatisfied as I am, April 15th is as good as day as any (as you mail in your tax payments) to start asking for our country and Constitution back.
Will you be there joining the protest? It might be a good way to get some media face time.
I plan on being there.
MUST reading by Douglass Rushkoff:
“Now that the scheme we have mistaken for the real economy is collapsing under its own weight, however, it’s a whole lot easier to make these arguments. And, if anything, it’s even more important for us to come to grips with the fact that the system in peril is not a natural one, or even one that we should be attempting to revive and restore. The thing that is dying—the corporatized model of commerce—has not, nor has it ever been, supportive of the real economy. It wasn’t meant to be. And before we start lamenting its demise or, worse, spending good money after bad to resuscitate it, we had better understand what it was for, how it nearly sucked us all dry, and why we should put it out of our misery.”
http://www.arthurmag.com/2009/03/16/let-it-die-rushkoff-on-the-economy/
Sorry, but with the American Family Association showcasing TEA Party Day on the top of their website, I just don’t have the stomach to get involved with this. The Christianists at AFA are a bunch of liars, so even if the agenda of the planned TEA Parties is a logical one, I can’t get past some of the people associated with it.
Seems I’m getting hit by TEA Party news left and right. Yesterday I read about it on Esrati, previously having heard about it from my good friends at AFA, and wouldn’t you know it, the Rev. Wildmon’s AFA Action Alert for today is about “A great new idea for Tea Party Day.”
If you don’t already subscribe to the AFA Action Alert, you’re missing not only news about Tea Party Day but also, included at the bottom of practically every AFA Action Alert, information about “It’s Not Gay,” which informs us that the “sanitized version of homosexuality being presented is not the whole truth.”
I will be there as a libertarian and an American. I love the American Revolution. This should be fun.
I don’t care if the American Family Association is showcasing this event on their website, although I disagree with them. I will not be at the Tea party to support them, but to say enough is enough. I have never wanted to protest anything in my life. But at this time I feel compelled to have my voice heard. Our way of life is at stake in my opinion, and I for one believe that our way of life has made this country the greatest on earth. Do I think the exceses have casued this enormous recession. YES. But I remember a voice in the past that said something to the affect that The American system is quite imperfect except when compared to all of the other types of systems. That is why I will be there.
It sure seems to me that liberals aren’t too fond of this whole “tea party” thing in the least. I’m most shocked at the utter disregard these followers of the “messiah obama” have for the constitution and the powers of government. Presidents aren’t supposed to fire executives, government isn’t supposed to take care of citizens from cradle to grave, congress is not supposed to be able to levy heavy after-the-fact tax laws on a select group of people. Liberals refuse to accept the fact that Mr. Obama is steering us ever more closely to SOCIALISM and/or FACISM as his doctrine and agenda attest to. RISE UP AMERICANS AND TELL THEM ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! Take off the blinders and see the crooked administration for what it is, realize that huge bonuses were given to AIG execs with the presidents approval! Watch for my sign at the “tea party”…Three Stooges of Socialism Tea…staring Obama, Reid and Pelosi!
Dan R. I would consider you as enlightened either. Sounds like you’ve been listening to hate radio.
The Tea Party has to do with taxation without representation- which is what we have. With the best politicians money can buy, yours and my interests haven’t been at the top of the list for a long time.
Eisenhower warned of the influence of the Military Industrial Complex- we’re seeing the effects of the war, deregulation, bad decisions that allowed people to make millions by churning paper-
this has been years in the making- Obama has been in office for less than 90 days.
This Modern World‘s take on TEA Party Day
The more you learn about this Tea Party, the worse it gets. From Andrew Sullivan’s blog: I spent the better part of an hour earlier today scanning the various sites and blogs to try and understand what specifically the Fox-Pajamas tea parties are about. Having absorbed about as much of the literature as I can, I have to say I’m still befuddled. Option 1: It’s a protest of the bank bailouts orchestrated by Bush and now Obama. But surely these tea-partiers understand what would happen if we didn’t bail the banks out. Are they advocating letting major banks fail? Or are they advocating a Krugman-style government take-over? No idea. Option 2: It’s a protest against tax hikes. But there have barely been any! Are they arguing that the planned return to Clinton era marginal rates is an outrage worthy of the colonists … only months after an election in which the winning candidate ran on exactly that platform? Is that postponed future increase so radical that it demands a protest modeled on one in which people were taxed with no representation at all? Truly bizarre. And when you consider that we have gone through a very long period of relatively low taxation for the very successful, and a very long period in which their wealth has soared, and after an election where a majority of such people voted for Obama, the extremism seems unrelated to anything substantive underneath it. Option 3: It’s a protest against illegal immigration. Ok, so why the tea? Weren’t all the original tea-partiers illegal immigrants? Option 4: It’s a protest against government debt. Yay! I will leave aside the somewhat awkward fact that Fox News and Pajamas Media barely covered the massive debt racked up by the Republicans during a period of economic growth. Instead, I’ll proffer a simple point: If the tea-partiers are concerned about debt and concerned about taxes, one presumes they favor drastic spending cuts. But what are the tea-partiers proposing to do to Medicare, Medicaid, and social security? I’d love to see a proposal that they support on any of these entitlement… Read more »
Here are the speakers at Daytons’ tea party:
Dayton Tea Party Speakers
These are not tea-parties. They are tea-tantrums. And the adolescent, unserious hysteria is a function not of a movement regrouping and refinding itself. It’s a function of a movement’s intellectual collapse and a party’s fast-accelerating nervous breakdown.
The right is a coalition of various political tendancies. So I can see how this is a generalized protest against the Obama administration as there is “something for everyone” to be opposed to. But Obama’s experiment with Keynesian pump priming is sure to be a big red flag to the libertarian wing of the right, which I think is the main faction supporting this.
I’m going to blog on this closer to the date. But for now, take a look at how the local construction sector moved into recession.
The Recession in Construction. I think this is where we’d see the local impact of the stimulus as that money is going to flow to this sector.
For a more general look at the local onset of hard times: The Recesssion Comes to Dayton
I looked at the speakers too.
Not a single one who has run for office- or has a site linked- to establish their positions or their credibility.
I’m not expecting rocket science, but, I was expecting more than Homemakers for America.
There are things we should want to have a revolution over- like how CEOs get paid billions, while firing Americans, or health care premiums- that are just that- a premium over what we should be paying.
I’m reconsidering attending. Thanks for the digging.
Paul Krugman had a fun <a href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/opinion/13krugman.html”>opinion piece</a> on the TEA parties in yesterday’s <i>New York Times</i>.
If you have a bad roof, there are two ways to fix it. You could simply lay down another layer of shingles or you could dig down to the beams, replace the tarpaper and lay a fresh layer. The latter solution is the best. People are waking up to the realities they live in. Mass media is hinting around, but their intentions are to confuse. If you really want to know, look into the powers of the FEDERAL RESERVE. Look into the COUNCIL OF FOREIGN RELATIONS. Look into the BILDERBERG GROUP. There you will find fundamental commonalities of our socio-economic problems and more. The control resides in the people. Government works best when it fears the people…our does not because, it does not fear us. We need to reinstate fear, not through violence, that would defeat the framework of the constitution, but through organized vigilance. Remember, we can elect the right people to clean up the malicious bankers both foreign and domestic. They can clean up the lobbyists. And they can investigate all those wolves in sheep’s clothing living in DC.
10 most offensive TEA Party signs, from HuffPo:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/16/10-most-offensive-tea-par_n_187554.html
Photo Gang, a group of Miami Valley photojournalists, covered the Dayton Tea Party on Tax-Day, 2009. Pictures of the event are at http://PhotoGang.com/DaytonTeaParty2009