The Great Tea Party Protest: The Aftermath
I am quite pleased at the Tea Party Protest March On Washington turnout yesterday (September 12, 2009). I’ve always been a fan and a lover of the protest and demonstration. I’ve been involved in many throughout my three and a half decades of life, the largest being the Million Man March (MMM) on October 16, 1995. There’s a certain beauty about a protest. Everyone with a singular purpose and expressing themselves. Just a wonderful thing.
But enough of my “protest love”. As we all know, one person’s civil protest is another person’s “collection of nutjobs, losers, racists, and ignoramuses” (note those were words used to describe Million Man March demonstrators and were used by various new media folks about the D.C. Tea Party demonstrators as well). And of course, all mass demonstrations have collections of wackaroons that the media loves to single out. I remember at the MMM a guy had a sign that said, “The Black Revolution Has Started! Repent Whitey!”. The guy (about in his early 50s) holding the sign was all decked out in military fatigues, beret, boots, etc. He looked and sounded SO ignorant. Many of us told him to put that sign down but he was a strident character and we left him alone. Sure enough, some guy from SOME paper was talking to him while he spouted out some serious insanity. Funny that even though I was still entertaining my own black nationalist thoughts that day, I found him ignorant.
Fast forward to yesterdays D.C. Tea Party Protest. I saw plenty of pictures of bigoted signs, racist t-shirts, and general insanity. And of course old and new media latched on to that. This is America and we love a good show. And who puts on better shows than the loopy, goofy, and nutty. Also it fits the narrative that the Republican Party is fueling the Fringe Right to derail anything President Obama does. But the following photo via Michelle Malkin is what I feel the general takeaway from yesterdays demonstration should be:
The Party of Hell No. The way I have been voting since I was 18. It says so much and I love that a regular guy just wrote it. Hundreds of thousands of people showed up. Each motivated by their own ideas, thoughts, and beliefs. But the general thought is hell no. And it’s your right as an American to say and peacefully display your “hell no” when you want when you disagree with the government. I respect that even if some (and I emphasize “some” so don’t get it twisted) of the protesters out there don’t respect me because of my somewhat caramel brown complexion.
So the aftermath is a win for the Republican Party and conservatives in general. They have shown up en masse to say “hell no” to President Obama, his administration, and Congress (particularly Democrats). What happens now? Who knows. But a large segment of Americans are saying “hell no”. That doesn’t mean that President Obama has to totally submit to them. But it does mean that the President needs to respect that and chart a more even course. We’re all Americans and like it or not, we’re all in this together. That’s not a socialist or communist statement. That’s reality. And keeping things as even as possible is a win-win.
62 Responses to “The Great Tea Party Protest: The Aftermath”
Yeah, if you also condemn the signs and clutter against President Bill Clinton and condemn outright Rush Limbaugh, G.Gordon Liddy and the like.
You people started this crap.
Father_Time:”You people started this crap.”
You're showing your bias. The people who started this died long ago.
Kathy, what I saw at Iraq War protests were a bunches of good folks opposing the war and a small groups of wackaroons with some truly disgusting signs. My friend, who was at the 9/12 said the exact same thing. I am always, let me repeat ALWAYS, in support of civil protest. I love to see people coming together in a mostly singular purpose. Be it from the left or the right. And any elected leader should always respect that dissent. Now we all know there's dissent and then there “dissent”. And the latter is filled with nastiness, stupidity, bigotry, sexism, and general craziness. And that type of dissent always finds a way to be seen. But I will not, shall not, won't not, and could not write off the 9/12 Tea Party protesters as just stupid for just saying NO! Heck, NO is the only weapon regular folks have against a corporation, government, etc.
T-Steel, if you were there, you know that it was overwhelmingly mainstream (unlike so much of the anti-war Bush-bashing) but that it was similar to the anti-war protests in that many enjoyed themselves, in a social event similar to a rock concert (or as I've said before, a carnival, especially with the puppets and signs and costumes in the case of the anti-war demonstrators in earlier years).
I was listening to two radio programs on the road this morning here in Detroit metro, and one of them was a mainstreamer who disparaged the mischaracterization CNN made of the event and the people — even NPR did a better, more accurate job than CNN. Meanwhile, on infantile Stephanie Miller's show, today's programming was devoted to gross distortion, slander, and much worse about the protestors, stooping low as I've seen elsewhere among lefties (including on this site) given the current desperation about the health care legislation and the liberal Democrats' self-made disasters this year.
“1) you can't sue your doctor.”
It's beyond most ObamaCare proponents' ability to understand this (, too), but that's why there not only are likely private insurers retained now, but that with “Medicare for All” eventually, providers will remain nominally and legally (if no longer effectively or actually) private. That prevents loss of lawsuit rewards for lawyers, and in fact it wouldn't be surprising to see ratcheting-upward mimimum liability insurance requirements eventually in health care “reform” legislation, even involving taxpayer subsidies of insurance (and raising and preserving lawsuit payouts).
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“Heck, NO is the only weapon regular folks have against a corporation, government, etc.”
It bothers the children in left field, who can't handle the word “no” and who want their way, NOW!
But the lib Dems' increasingly bad behavior (including Obama's) has increasingly repelled the adults.
http://people-press.org/report/539/congressiona…
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1333/obama-approval…
http://people-press.org/report/532/obamas-ratin…
“Since you apparently oppose Pres. Obama's proposal for health care reform, do you prefer the status quo?”
Nobody does, so don't join the many liars who say that opponents of the “reform” effort prefer or defend it.
“'Time for a third way.'
Ya know, I used to hold out hope for that. Not anymore.”
[chuckle] And what should we have expected in this case?
http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=128&subid=1…
father time:
I am uncertain what you mean about salary to q-tip ratios. America is the only sue happy country in the world. Everywhere else if they remove the wrong leg well then thats just too bad. Drug costs are marked up in some cases 100x more in america. (especially for cancer treatment) . That's why big pharam cut one of the first deals with obama to help with his new healthcare. notice how the white house won't release the names of any visitors this spring involved in that wonderful preplanned backdoor screwing of the american tax payer. The drug business is 30 percent more profittable than the next biggest industry in this country. These pigs are raping the system. And tell me why obama made his reform so sweet for labor unions? How does that help the cost of healthcare in america? You can solve a problem only when you treat the symptoms. Obama is using the liberal idealism of the democratic party to to pretend to help those without insurance, but in reality he is feeding big business and organized labor in yet another piece of highway robbery littigation. Its chicago politics at its best. To get what he wants (single payer) he must buy off his opposition (Big pharma, big insurance, and labor unions) but I don't think he minds. After all they did help get him elected.
Actually what Clinton proved in the 90's was that you have to buy off some groups to piss off others. Obama learned the lesson and made deals, they call them compromises…its what politicians are supposed to do to actually get stuff done. The other choice is that both sides can scream “slippery slope” at the top of their lungs and nothing gets done on anything, I call it the Reagen era.
Well sky father here's an idea. How about washington actually passes a law that helps the people and not the special interests. How about they actually reform healthcare ionstead of prtending to. How about they fix something without a built in unsustainable cost after 8-yearsw? Healthcare reform is about about protecting the health of th american people not the wallets special interests (ama, aarp, seiu, big pharma, legionsof lawyers and their frivolous lawsuits). What you call a deal I call selling out the american people. Whats the point in getting stuff done if you get it done wrong?
This stuff has been going on since the days of the Federalist and Democratic-Republican.
Someone needs to study history and take a nap.
See we live in a Republic, no not the type you were taught about in school involving a nation of laws. This is Plato's type Republic where we all look at the shadows on the wall and those people you noted that always get the pay out they are the ones with real votes. That is how this country was designed, freedom in trade for us not attacking the wealthy and landed classes stuff. Nothing short of a revolution will change this. I think it would be a wonderful idea and all but again this is our system and how it works at its best. I know it sounds depressing but reality tends to be a bitch. Every program or safety net we have in this country benefits a handful of people at the top while giving the absolute minimum of help required and is underfunded while we cut taxes for the wealthy and landed classes, please tell me if you know of a time our Gov did not work this way. I think it will be a long search though since this is always how it has worked and thats because this is what it was designed for. The landed gentry and the wealthy WERE our nations founding fathers, the men who backed them and kept them in power WERE the landed gentry and wealthy. Our choices judging by history is to cut deals or walk away with nothing but a tax bill to pay for the programs wall street and the bankers prefer to make money off of. It reminds me of the early Reagen era when everyone wanted him to go after the Fed and corruption, he did not and after the horror abated everyone forgot that our system is a giant ponzi scheme built on some amazing words that they sometimes are forced to adhere to since they were enshrined in law and life went on. All going after the special interest groups will get is a death to anything they want to pass since they have the ad dollars to sink it. If you dont want any program then by all means demand that they be clean since that has never actually worked in this country and in my opinion never will with our current political structure. If you want a program you take a bite of the shit sandwich which is not a deal between the ideology of the right or left no matter what they say, its a deal between the “investor” class and everyone else. Sadly only the investor class understands that.