Thursday, April 16, 2009

Tea Parties: Among Most Extraordinary Grass-Roots Uprisings in History

Investor's Business Daily argues that Wednesday's Tea Parties "were part of one of the most extraordinary grass-roots uprisings in our history":

Less than three months after a landmark election, throngs of demonstrators everywhere gathered to object to the revolution that our new president is steamrolling into law. It was a landmark protest in the history of the republic.

But how can the voices of tens if not hundreds of thousands of angry taxpayers be turned into concrete political action?

Investor's Business Daily attended one of these historic events, the Fishkill Tea Party in upstate New York, just east of the Hudson River. The original Fishkill Tea Party took place Aug. 26, 1776, when 100 women forced a storekeeper named Abram Brinckerhoff to sell them tea at the lawful price of 6 shillings per pound. This year's Fishkill Tea Party nearly filled Dutchess Stadium, the county's minor-league ballpark.

In a region of liberal New York state where Democrats have been consolidating their power during the last two elections, thousands traveled long distances to support pretty much the classic Reagan political agenda — and not just on taxes and spending.

Banners and placards sported slogans that included "Don't Spread My Wealth. Spread My Work Ethic," "Who'll Bail Me Out?" "Atlas Will Shrug," "Tea Today. No Kool-Aid," and "Acorn Didn't Have To Bus Us Here," referring to the left-wing activist group that specializes in voter registration drives benefiting liberal Democrats.

The crowds responded with thunderous applause to the various local activists' rallying cries, ranging from "How about those Navy Seals!" referring to the recent rescue of Americans from Somali pirates, to attacks on Hollywood for its role in moving America away from traditional Judeo-Christian values.

The audience roared when resentment was expressed toward illegal aliens who eat away the social welfare resources funded by taxpayers. When unemployed information technology manager Troy Johnson took the podium, he elicited an ovation with the quip:

"Just to prove how radical I am, I believe we should all be speaking English!"

The throng cheered calls for term limits to curb the power of elitist career politicians; applauded taunts that the establishment media would proceed to underestimate and misreport the size of the turnout; shouted in approval for blocking the president's planned federal intrusion into health care; and rose from its seats for a speaker who called Washington's march toward socialism "a slap in the face to those who have served in the military."

It was quite clear, however, that the tea partiers feel betrayed by Republicans, not just the Democrats now in power in both the executive and legislative branches in Washington.
There's more at the link.

I noted this morning that the GOP has just as much to fear from the Tea Parties as do the Democrats. See my my essay at Pajamas Media, "
Suburban Warriors Rally at Orange County Tea Party."

See also, "
Cable Anchors, Guests Use Tea Parties as Platform for Frat House Humor," via Memeorandum.

9 comments:

rbosque said...

The left (including unions) love to bus folks to their rallies and the MSM cameras love to cover just the right angles to make them look bigger. Even a crown of 12 Code Pink nut-jobs blocking a Marine recruiting station make the news.
These folks weren't forced there, and numbered in the thousands yet the media all but ignored them. The MSM only mentions them to deride them as nuisances, Nazis, and supremacists. So much for an impartial press.

Grizzly Mama said...

I heard somewhere over 750,000 nationwide. And it was on a work day.

rbosque said...

Obama's thinking of us after all...

http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=87757

Harry R. Sohl said...

Yes, with only 73 promo spots over 8 days, Fox's "FNC Tax Day Tea Party" - hosted by Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Neil Cavuto - sponsored by a minimum of three conservative lobbying-tanks/foundations fronted by Dick Armey, Newt Gingrich, etc. - about which Fox's own anchor said on-air, and I quote, "we were one of the only organizations to give it any publicity or p.r. ..." -

yes, that is one grassroots uprising. As interpreted by Investor's Business Daily, which did such a great job interpreting the financial/business climate before the melt down into a depression.

Stop blaming America first!

Anonymous said...

The recorded number of protesters at the 200 or so biggest protests was 111,899 when added together. That being said, there where another 400-500 claimed events that likely had attendance in the dozens and therefore didn't get much notice.

Factoring these smaller events in, estimates show that nationwide, something like 250,000 people showed up to these events.

While it certainly wasn't grassroots, 1.5 million people showed up to the inauguration to SUPPORT Obama.

This is not among the most extraordinary grass-roots movements in history. For example, Martin Luther King Junior's grassroots march on Washington DC drew at least 300,000 and this was before we had things like Fox News to organize us- he had to use the black churches.

Its a loud minority and definitely not the silent majority.

Rich Casebolt said...

Anon ... how many were there at the inauguration simply because of its historical significance? And how many of those 1.5 million now support what the President has done to date? We have heard from many who supported the President, who are now saying "this is not the hope and change we were looking for".

That "loud minority" you speak of also didn't have a highly-hyped-by-the-MSM Messiah as a rallying point ... nor do they have the benefit of a sugar daddy like George Soros and leaders who have spent years/decades as professional agitators/organizers ...

... it is instead growing in proportion to the deficits being run up by the Utopian dreams and crass politics of this generation's Best and Brightest ... who more and more are now seeing as a bunch of highly-accredited dim bulbs who are repeating the failed policies of the past.

science fiction writer said...

Here are the results of a MSNBC Live Vote poll on President Obama. The question was: "If you were grading Barack Obama on his performance as president, what would he get?"
With 2,105,016 responses, these were the results:
He gets an A - 28%
He gets a B - 6.1%
He gets a C - 5.6%
He gets a D - 15%
He gets an F - 45%

Anonymous said...

Internet polls are totally unreliable as they can easily be hacked or otherwise manipulated.

That's why Ron Paul or Stephen Colbert seem to win every vote they can- they don't have 1 million people actually voting for them, just a bunch of people revoting to skew the results.

As such, I only trust phone and mail-in polls to give any sort of accuracy.

science fiction writer said...

It was 2,105,016 responses,which is a large sample, I'd think again, anon. Further , this was an MSNBC poll.

I don't know about you, but even my liberal friends are VERY UNHAPPY and angry with him--mostly for the excessive debt load he is piling on our children.