With the recent success of the tax day tea parties, questions have arisen. First, how did the tea parties get started? What happens next?In a segment on CNBC in February, Rick Santelli was interviewed in Chicago. He started talking about the bailout. People that are paying their mortgages bailing out those that can't afford to pay their mortgages. He went on explaining the ridiculousness of the plan and others in his vicinity heard what he was saying and started cheering his words. He talked about how the founding fathers are spinning in their graves at this news, and then said he'd organize a tea party in Chicago of Capitalists and everyone can dump their derivitives into Lake Michigan.
This was characterized as a rant. If you watch it on youtube, it really doesn't appear to be a rant to me, but that's how it was characterized. However, from that "rant' a group of citizens did organize a tea party in Chicago. It spread immediately. Across the country tea parties were springing up. Some drawing as many as 5,000 people.
It was then suggested that a tea party be planned across the country on tax day. April 15. It caught on. Talk radio got ahold of the idea and started talking about it. It was reported minimally on newscasts of the major networks but Fox News reported on it very extensively. Their lineup at night, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Shepard Smith, Greta Van Susteran all did reports on it.
As the day approached, Fox News decided to have their people scatter across the country. They enlisted the help of others as well. Newt Gingrich was in New York. Glenn Beck in Texas, Hannity in Georgia, Mike Huckabee in SC along with Neal Boortz. Greta Van Susteran was in DC and Neil Cavuto in Sacremento.
Due to the coverage by Fox News, the mainstream, or liberal media, called it a Conservative protest, fueled by Fox News. No mention of the spontaneity created by Rick Santelli's comments in February.
It was a raging success across the country. Tea parties were held in large cities and small cities. There were thousands at the larger ones and hundreds at the smaller ones. Some, like San Antonio had two tea parties. One of them they had speakers lined up at the party, but the other, they didn't want any politicians speaking. Instead they said "you can listen to us for a change".
The White House claimed that Obama didn't know anything about the tea parties taking place. However, most started at noon and Obama came out and gave a little speech on taxes at noon. Coincidence?
Since these tea parties, there have been people talking about them on different news outlets. One that stands out is Keith Olbermans program. He interviewed Janiene (sp?) Garafolo, an actress. She claimed that those attending the tea parties were racists, and that black people that attended were suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. She claimed that this was racist because Conservatives were mad that a black man had been elected President. The she proceeded to bark about Fox claiming that this was their doing. That they had sponsored it, set it up and were the reasons for the Tea Party.
Garafolo is an actress. She makes her living reading lines prepared for her by others. Her latest job is on the big television show "24". "24" is on Fox! You just have to love how she stands up for her convictions. Why has she not appeared on Fox if she truly believes what she says?
But now, the tea parties are done. People made their feelings known. Politicians should know, even if they won't admit it, that they are considered the lowest form of life on earth. So what happens next?
Yes, there is a long pause here. What will the people do next? Will we do anything? Will this die out and it will be politics as usual? Or will this be a building block to more events, more protests, more action from the common man?
If it dies out, Washington will return to their ways. There will be some people that will run for a local office. I may even be one of them. But that's not going to get it done. If this becomes a day where the American people show up in the millions to announce that they are upset with Washington, and then return to their homes to see what Washington does next, nothing will come of this other than a few people running for a local office.
However, if people get in touch with their Representatives and Senators, both in their states and in Washington and continue to send them an E-mail, letter, or phone call on the issues as the issues come up, the politicians will have to sit up and take notice.
This happened two years ago. President Bush tried to get through the amnesty bill. Congress wrote a law creating amnesty for illegal aliens. They were going to vote on it and it appeared it might pass. But then, something happened. The American people got involved. They called. They E-mailed. They wrote letters and they visited their Congress people and said in a very loud voice that they didn't want amnesty for illegal aliens. The bill failed.
When the people put the pressure on their politicians, the will of the people is followed. But these tea parties, while a great way to get your message out, will accomplish nothing without follow up. We will need these rallies and others similar to them over the next year and a half. If we don't have them, we'll find that Washington does what they always do. They will tell the news people what we think, even though they don't know what we think. They will go back to their old ways of trying to get re-elected and to heck with what's right for the country or what the people that they are sent to Washington to represent, want.
I am not a third party person. A third party will hurt the cause. I believe we need Republicans in office now, but not just any Republican. We need Conservative Republicans and even Conservative Democrats if there are any of those left. Republican incumbents, such as Senator Arlen Specter, need to be challenged by Conservative Republicans next year. Third parties will just split the Republicans and give us more of the same old liberal Democrat tax and spend failures that we're going through now.
When those Conservatives are elected, we don't need them covering up statues with dish towels. We don't need them telling people how to live a moral life. We need them to repeal the spending laws that were recently passed. We need them to keep trying to repeal them each time the President vetos the repeal. We need them to lower taxes. But more than anything else, we need to hold the Conservatives feet to the fire and tell them if you don't cut spending, you're going to be out of a job on your next election and we'll try to get a true Conservative in that is more concerned about his/her country than they are about making a name for themselves.
Some politicians have tried to take credit for the Tea Parties. Some talk show hosts have tried to take credit for the Tea Parties. Some politicians tried to use the Tea Parties as a place to make themselves known for their next election. Those are the people that need to be gone. If it's about who gets credit for an event, and not about the reasons for the event, those people are a hindrance to the cause. If they are promoting themselves, they are not considering country first, they are putting themselves first and they should be voted for last.
If you call a politician and tell them what you want done, and they tell you "we have to follow this procedure" they should be told that's a hindrance to the American people and it's time for the procedure to change to get things done. If they won't attempt to change the procedure to get things accomplished, they are wasting valuable butt space in the chair they've been elected to and we should be putting another butt in their seat.
I hope that these Tea Parties were just the beginning and not the end. If these keep up we can really show Washington and all of the State Capitol's what CHANGE really is by showing them the exit and ushering in a new Representative/Senator.
I apologize for going longer than I normally do...sort of.
You're welcome to comment.
Brett
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