Tag Cloud
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Sacramento's Tea Party protest
by Raoul Kleven, published on April 15, 2009 at 9:47PM
Storyline: Sacramento News
Approximately 5,000 people gathered at the State Capitol Wednesday in a "Tax Day Tea Party" protest organizers said was aimed at fiscal irresponsibility in the form of Bailouts, the stimulus bill, increased taxation, and government waste. Speaking at the event were a mixture of media figures, politicians, and organizers, including State Representative Tom McClintock, talk radio hosts Mark Williams and Armstrong & Getty and others.
The protest officially started at noon, but the crowd began gathering long before that. Many of the protesters were not Sacramento residents, traveling from Roseville, Grass Valley and other surrounding towns to be heard. The size of the crowd necessitated a giant-screen television to let more people see the speakers.
While a few protesters dressed in costumes of Revolutionary War soldiers or carried boxes full of tea bags, many expressed their displeasure with government policy through handheld signs, with messages ranging from, "Don't Tax Me, Bro" to "I Am not your ATM" to "Liberalism=Communism." Many of those in the crowd carried signs decrying what they viewed as a government slide into either socialism, fascism, or both.
One woman present, who gave her name as Diane, said that the protests were "an opportunity to bring some information to people that don't follow the news, don't follow politics, show them what sort of state we're getting into." She went on to say that she favored less spending and lower taxes on smaller businesses.
Another protester who did not give a name said that the protests were for the generations of Americans who would have to pay off the deficit. "I don't want taxpayers paying for my grandkids, I want to take care of my own family," she said. "I'll be long dead, and you'll still be paying for these spending programs."
The protest was one of many across the country, and one of several attended by Fox News personalities. Neil Cavuto, host of the business news program Your World, hosted his show from the West Lawn of the State Capitol, in the midst of the crowd.
The Sacramento protest was organized by Mark Meckler, a local attorney and consultant. In addition to organizing, Meckler spoke at the event, calling those present patriots and stressing the importance of the Tea Party protests, calling them the "greatest citizens’ grass-roots movement in the history of the country."
Radio hosts Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty of the Armstrong and Getty show made numerous appearances at the podium over the course of the protest. They said attendees of the protests had been represented as wealthy "fat-cats," rather than average people. Getty described the crowd as being honest and hard-working, in contrast with the corporate recipients of government bailout funds.
While the speakers remained mostly focused on the theme of fiscal irresponsibility, many of those in the crowd promoted other messages, carrying signs or wearing T-shirts with anti-abortion slogans or religious messages. A small group of protesters were supporters of former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, while others handed out leaflets for causes as diverse as immigration reform, gun ownership and the abolition of the Federal Reserve.
Rep. Tom McClintock (R-4th District) remained on-message, saying, "You can't tax your way to prosperity," and, "The Obama budget relies on the biggest federal tax increase in our history."
McClintock cited California as an example of the failure of these policies, calling the state "a basket case." During his speech, the crowd frequently interrupted McClintock with chants of, "We've had enough."
Conversation Express your views, debate, and be heard with those in your area closest to the issue.
Leave a Comment
One common theme from the picketeers were signs with the words I,me and mine in them. This was in my opinion planned by a very misguided segment of our society that are hanging on to what was and can not continue, a circle the wagons mentality that will eventually consume itself.
Oh yes there were plenty of degrading carcatures of Obama that were offensive giving this mob scene a very hatefull and dangerous tone.
Murdock and Fox news take yellow journalism to its highest form yet
I found the crowd exceedingly friendly, engaging and polite... there were many elderly and children there as well... it was a great family event.
But I tend to be suspicious of any crowd that chants nationalistic slogans, just on general principals.
Also, there were caricatures, yes, but none of them were offensive, that I saw. Some were pretty harsh, others were cartoonish, and some were just poorly drawn, but there was nothing like the "Barack the magic negro" things that were publicized during the election.
The conservative blogger cum soon-to-be-NYT columinist Ross Douthat has a pretty good post (http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/04/the_tea_parties.php) on the Tea Parties. He compares them to the anti-war protests of Bush's first term and writes:
"Still, here we are in the sixth year of the Iraq War, and all those anti-war protests, their excesses and stupidities notwithstanding, look a lot more prescient in hindsight than they did (to me, at least) when they were going on. So if you're inclined to sneer and giggle at the Tea Parties, keep in mind that just because a group of protesters looks ragged, resentful, and naive, that doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong to be alarmed."
I'm one of those people Douthat is talking about, who are inclined to sneer and giggle, so I take his point. I'm not all that excited about TARP, either, and we can't be 100% sure or even 75% sure that current stimulus schemes will work the way we want them to. We may end up adding a lot of debt for a jobless recovery like we had after 9/11.
However, Douthat overlooks a very important point. The Tea partiers had eight years with the Republicans in power. The Republicans share the same low tax, limited government ideology that the tea partiers espouse. They had their chance to pressure their Republican leaders to bring that vision of government to America. They failed. They let Bush start an unnecessary war that ate up all the budget surplus of the 1990s. They allowed Bush and the Republicans to expand the federal government and start a huge new welfare program (Proscription Drug Benefit). The all stood by idly while Bush installed a domestic spying program, and now they are complaining that Obama is going to use that program against them.
I say: you had your chance. You blew it. Now you are just in the way. There are no "do overs" in politics.
oohhh but Bush lied... yeah maybe he did...the congress and senate had the exact same intelligence that Bush had..they reviewed it and voted to go to war. Maybe it was the CIA that got us into this... or maybe just maybe the CIA was fed bad intelligence by opposition leaders in Iraq, or maybe they just got it wrong. In any case, the congress and senate had the same intelligence, most of them are attorneys and reasonably intelligent, they made up their own minds to cast a vote for the war. So go blame your own party for voting to go to war.
I hate Bush, but not everything was his fault.
You probably should try fact checking once in a while. 156 Congress members voted against the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002. 149 of them were Democrats.
But aren't you avoiding my larger point?
As the former managing editor at KQCA, I can tell you that Armstrong & Getty registered numerous complaints for their hyper-slanted and conservative agenda. There were days we were glad they were on vacation. I don't see any hard reporting here, just another fluffy story - sorry Kathleen.
It's difficult to pose those sorts of questions in a group of people at a rally. Group interviews are challenging in general. You don't have much control. At a rally, your're not going to get thoughtful answers, and people will likely ignore you if you start arguing with them, and I think you have a duty to your readers to let them hear what people at the rally are talking about.
What the above article maybe could have used is a reaction from a counter-protester or someone with a different POV.
The Federal Registry is pushing 80,000 pages of federal law that reaches into your bedrooms and bathrooms. The IRS Tax Code is something like 7 times longersthan the Bible. These last bailouts are more expensive than the Louisiana Purchase, NASA program, The New Deal, The Vietnam War, The Korean War, the SNL bailouts COMBINED.
President Obama has hoisted more than 30 thousand dollars of national debt onto the backs of every man woman and child in this country - and we haven't even started talking about the Health Care issue!
WE ARE OUT OF CONTROL and it has to stop! How is it possible you live in California and don't understand this? How is it possible that in real life, a person has to live in a budget - or live in a cardboard box - but no one in public service seems to recall this basic principle?
And just for fun I'll mention that 1 dollar of every 10 in our national debt is held by Communist China. Interesting that America has lost its moral authority to decry the manditory abortions, the slaughter of thousands in the Tienimen Square protests, and many other human rights atrocities committed by a nation that we once faced in battle in the frozen tundra of Korea.
Now we turn a blind eye - as long as they keep buying up our debt.
We are in trouble, and something has got to change.