Sticking it to the Man
Submitted Thursday, April 16, 2009 - 12:49:41 PM by Klaitu

I have never been one to stick it to the man, but my Uncle has. He's been sticking it to the man for quite some time. My Uncle is the sort who listens to talk radio, you know "that" talk radio?

So, when I got a call about going down to the state Capitol for the "Tea Party Protests" I was not surprised. Actually, I considered it for a few moments, and having never been to any sort of political rally, I decided to go along, if for no other reason than to see what all the hubbub was about.

My only concern was that people would see me there and assume that I was one of the protesters, which would be inaccurate, as I am usually a member of the "All politicians suck" party. I decided that my construed participation was probably irrelevant, as the protests would likely be ineffective.

I travelled with my cousin and his friend down to the State Capitol, where traffic was exceptionally horrific due to the massive crowds. We had to park about a mile away and hoof it the rest of the way. After some time, we eventually made it to the main group of protesters.

My view of the protest

We were near the back, as the crowd was so dense that it was difficult to get any closer.. not that there was anything of particular interest at the front of the crowd.

Before the day, I had never heard of Tea Party Protests, I had no idea what they were about, or why they existed. Officially, the organization putting the whole thing together is protesting:

- The Homeowners Affordability and Stability Plan
- The Troubled Assets Relief Program
- The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
- The Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009

All of these acts are attempts to regenerate the economy by having the government intervene in various markets and buying investments that the bankers can't sell otherwise (because they are bad investments).

You wouldn't know any of that by attending the protest, however. As near as I can determine, people were just protesting the various things they thought sucked. There were people protesting Abortions, Gun Control, and Higher Taxes. The most vehement protestations were on the election of Barack Obama, the whole crowd started chanting "vote him out!" on more than one occasion.

In keeping with the theme of the "Tea Party", there were many people carrying reproductions of colonial-era flags, the most popular of which being the "Don't Tread on Me" variety. Occasionally there were people dressed in colonial-era costumes as well.

On the steps of the capitol, there was a podium at which many different people would stand during the hour-long event. The first person, I am told, was a local talk radio host, whose first sentence was "So, they thought only 1500 people would show up, I guess we showed them!" Looking around, my cousin and I thought "yeah, they were about right, this is 1500 people." In the end, estimates put it from 1500 to 2000 people.

The radio host continued, comparing himself to William Wallace of Braveheart fame, uttering such melodramatic lines as "They may take our taxes, but they will never take our freeeeeeeedoommm!"

After the radio host, there was a woman. I don't know who she was, but she basically assembled a bunch of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton quotes that were taken out of context. I don't know what quotes were used, as once either of those names came over the speakers, there was a deafening "BOOOOOO" from the crowd.

3 other speakers came to the podium, but they all sort of run together now in my memory, as none of them said anything unique, nor indeed, anything particuarly inspiring. We stood there, part of the crowd, basiclaly just chatting amongst ourselves for most of the time.

One of the people in the crowd remarked at how young we were, which was a little unique in the crowd, as it was formed mainly by people of the Vietnam era. The guy warned us that the CIA was taking photos of us and we would now be considered terrorists by Obama.

There was another fellow who was pretty interesting behind us. Whenever there was a lull, he would shout "THE PEOPLE SHALL PREVAIL!" at the top of his lungs. It was amusing the first couple of times, but he ended up saying it about 5 billion times.

Some of the signs that people carried were amusing.


I Heart Capitalism

Among the more interesting ones were "Tea or Kool-aid, which are you drinking?" and "Change is the only thing I can believe in because it's all I have left!" There was a sign with the Obama O with a hammer and sickle in it.

One guy had a sign that said "Send Obama back to Africa!" which was particularly amusing since Obama is actually from Hawaii. We wondered who exactly he was trying to help out with that sign.

At the end of the planned hour, the protest disbanded, and the traffic became pretty atrocious.

In the end, I think my initial conclusion was correct: The protests will do absolutely nothing in terms of changing anything. I don't deny people's right to assemble and protest, and perhaps it made those people feel a little better, knowing that there were other people out there who think the same way they do.

It didn't seem to me like the group was coherant with one another's beliefs. The only thing they seemed united about was they all were against raising taxes.. which seemed like a moot point since each of them will probably see an infinitesimal tax reduction.

One thing that bugged me for the whole protest was the "Tea Party" theme. I don't understand how the there is any relation between the Boston Tea Party and the protests. The Boston Tea Party was a protestation against Taxation without representation, however in 2009, all of these people were represented to Congress. Their opinions were merely ignored because the majority of people supported the legislation they are protesting. Just because representation doesn't go your way doesn't mean that you are no longer represented.. it just means your opinion is irrelevant.

Everyone seems to have completely forgotten that Bush started the whole "Government Bailout" bandwagon. It's not an Obama thing.. at best you can claim it's a bipartisan thing. When you have rich republicans and rich democrats agreeing on a course of action, there has to be some basic common-sense logic to what has been proposed.

I'm still not an Obama fan, and I don't pay attention to the news.. but when I do read the news, I don't ignore the parts of it that I disagree with. I had the distinct impression that I was better informed on the news than any of the protesters.. and that's saying a lot, because I actively avoid political news.

One final observation: I didn't see any black people, any latin people.. I didn't see anything but grizzled white people. While there's nothing wrong with that, there is a certain sense of irony of a crowd of white people "Stickin it to the man".. the black man.

Welcome to the complete circle.