Many of the 2500 attendees of the Las Vegas Tea Party including me wandered around Sunset Park unsure of where to find the focal point. In the hour leading up to the speeches dozens were scattered on the edges of the park with signs facing the road eliciting honks from passersby. More meandered in small groups, heads on a swivel looking for - something. Eventually we drifted toward a radio station van in the far corner of the park. We were obviously inexperienced at being a mob.
Why would so many right-of-center “silent majority” people enter a left-wing world of working themselves into a lather? They weren’t chafed enough to break windows and light fires like the anti-globalization movement (whatever that is) but managed to leave their homes and offices to listen to talk radio hosts and bloggers speak of taxes, deficits and government intrusion in our lives. These people were very angry, but in a lighthearted, jokey way.
A sign reading, “The Problem with Socialism is that Eventually You Run out of Other People’s Money” summed it up for me. Since the New Deal our elected officials have spent enormous sums on social programs and construction projects to buy votes. The abysmal track record of such boondoggles has elicited a collective decades-long yawn from the electorate. What’s changed in the past year is the government is bailing out entire industries with borrowed money and in some cases taking over ownership of private companies. Add in a trillion dollars in deficit spending, more than George W. Bush ever dreamed of, and you leave people wondering where this money will come from. Ask the guy with the “Don’t Tax Me, Bro” sign.
The funds for this bare-bones rally came from one man who paid the $200 permit fee. There was no rented stage, no elected official at the microphone and no marching orders from Fox News as CNN’s Susan Roesgen would have you believe. And definitely no money was spent on signs pointing to the van. The Republican Party wasn’t involved in these efforts evidenced by Chairman Michael Steele’s being denied a request to speak at the Tea Party in Chicago.
This seems to be the beginning of a larger movement as there is another round of tea parties planned for July 4th. We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore... if you don't mind.
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I'm mad, too. I'm mad at the previous administration for its policies of wanton deregulation and tax breaks for the rich. I'm mad about the mess we've been left to clean up. I'm mad about people who don't seem to understand that the original Boston Tea Party was a protest against unfair tax breaks for the corporate monopoly of the time, the East India Company, and the wealthy merchants of Britain. Unless modern Tea Party protestors are in the upper echelon of wage earners, there are no new taxes to protest right now. Perhaps the anger should be redirected at the roots of the problem...oh, but that might mean using depth, foresight, and analysis, rather than sensationalist, knee-jerk reactionism.
ReplyDeleteThe energy put into these "tea parties" would be better spent looking at ways to improve our present society and economic situation. Domestic violence is up due to stressful parental reactions; day laborers can no longer find work because of severe immigration policies and lack of construction projects; seniors must choose between food and medicine due to the cost of healthcare in this country; Mexican cartels are smuggling weapons out of this country because of lack of controls on assault artillery weapons; and people are losing their homes on a daily basis due to unbridled greed and previous administration complicity within the mortgage-backed securities debacle.
Oh, but trying to change society for the better would be too bleeding-heart liberal and altruistic, wouldn't it? Far better to band together into selfish little clusters, complaining about government spending in public parks that have been created through public spending. Far better to pander to the right-wing shock jocks and Fox News flashiness.
No, thanks. I'll put my energy into supporting those who are working overtime to clean up the mess.
And, what does that mean, exactly..."These people are very angry, but in a lighthearted, jokey way."? I don't believe that the folks who are losing their homes, their life savings, their access to healthcare, and their sanity are "very angry, but in a lighthearted, jokey way." I'm sure not.