I went to the tea party here in my hometown and I was really surprised at the number of people who showed up. I’m in a liberal town that went for Obama, but the rest of the county and area are definitely of a different persuasion. My guesstimate is that there were as many as 500 people; the local paper is playing it safe and reporting hundreds. That’s a good sign; I figured they would downplay it.
The signs were all homemade and the crowd covered all age groups including children, teenagers, young adults, and all of us grown ups. It was billed as non partisan and people were asked not to bring any anti-Obama signs because that would be what the press would focus on and then turn it into just one of those sore losers type of stories.
The crowd was predominately working class and definitely unhappy with things. Unfortunately, they only had a bullhorn and mike for a sound system so we didn’t hear much but we cheered anyway. At one point, everyone was asked to pull out their cell phones and we all called the White House. No one got through; “all circuits are busy”.
Here are some of the signs I saw:
“Tax the Chinese; they have all of our money”
“Freedom, not Porkdom”
“I’m not your ATM”
“Spread the wealth means spread your cheeks”
“Home ownership is not an entitlement”
“Keep your change”
“Legalize the Constitution”
“King George didn’t listen to us
You guys better”
And there were a couple of teenagers with signs painted on corrugated cardboard that read, “I can’t afford poster board”.
More tea parties are planned for July 4th. I think this is a great start, but I also see a need to begin planning a more detailed strategy for bringing about the change that people are looking for. It’s also important to keep it all nonpartisan. Here, it was pretty much conservatives and libertarians, although I was there and I don’t fit into any particular cubby hole; combination moderate, conservative, and libertarian, well, I’m a Puma, whatever that means these days.
I didn’t see any counter demonstrators or stray obats trying to disrupt things; somehow I think they would not have succeeded. Anyway, I’m proud of my town for showing up!
This is kind of strange, but the Huffington post has some really good videos of tea parties across the nation. Click here to view. And here's a sign from someone else's teaparty:
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