Tea Parties: Grassroots Phenomenon
Something struck me shortly after I learned that Endora-award winning blogress Tammy Bruce, while an Angelena, will not be at the Santa Monica Tea Party, but will instead be participating in the protest in Manhattan Beach, just a few miles down the coast. Two protests so close together! These things are multiplying faster than anyone could have imagined when people first started protesting the president’s spendthrift policies barely two months ago.
The sheer number of scheduled rallies already shows the success of this truly grassroots endeavor. Unlike the Obama campaign, which was built around an individual, we don’t have a central organization in Washington, New York, Los Angeles or Chicago. Our energy comes primarily from the citizens organizing in the various cities, not from the candidate around whom his supporters rallied.
To be sure, there is a website, but it provides information and advice, not direction. It is individuals across the country organizing the various protests. Moreover, we haven’t needed the apparatus of a political party. Indeed, instead of the organizers going to the party asking for assistance, it’s party leaders coming to the organizers asking to participate.
And it takes effort to plan such a gathering. That we see such effort from coast to coast is testament to the concern of citizens about the ever-increasing size of the federal government. Another sign of the rallies’ success is further is the eagerness of some on the left to sabotage and/or smear our protests. They can’t fathom that conservatives, libertarians and even moderates would engage in the type of activity in which they delight.
To be sure, protest, to borrow an expression, is not really our cup of tea. We would really rather not rally; most of those upset by the proposed spending increases and certain tax hikes have real jobs. And we don’t have much nostalgia for the demonstrations of the 1960s–as do some on the left.
This is truly a grassroots effort if ever there was one. It shows that Americans’ love for freedom remains unabated, 236 years after our forebears protested British encroachments on our liberties.
So, join me in standing up for that idea which has defined our nation since its origins–freedom–and for a principle for which some of our greatest patriots fought–smaller government–next Wednesday, April 15 from 3 to 7 PM on the Santa Monica Pier.
We gay patriots will rally together, then retreat to Santa Monica watering hole to celebate our freedom and drink to its preservation.
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[...] Tea Parties: Grassroots Phenomenon [...]
Pingback by GayPatriot » Tea Party Movement: Phenomenon Based on an Idea — April 10, 2009 @ 3:59 am - April 10, 2009
Sorry if this is a little off topic, but I thought it would be in keeping with the Gay Patriot idiom…
Documentary to Out Gay Republicans
For the hypocrisy, naturally.
Comment by DoDoGuRu — April 10, 2009 @ 7:01 am - April 10, 2009
This idea has a moral clarity that will wither the left.
Comment by elvis — April 10, 2009 @ 8:07 am - April 10, 2009
[...] Tagged Moral Clarity, Tea Party  This idea has a moral clarity that will wither the left. [...]
Pingback by A Moral Clarity « Elvis the Original Terminator’s Blog — April 10, 2009 @ 8:11 am - April 10, 2009
There will be a half-dozen Tea Parties in and around Boston (home of the ORIGINAL Tea Party).
Party on, Garth. Party on, Wayne.
Comment by Julie the Jarhead — April 10, 2009 @ 8:57 am - April 10, 2009
If we are looking for direction, we could start by co-opting the manifesto of A New Way Forward Their proposals are supported by Simon Johnson and Yves Smith, two economists who have been very good on the financial crisis and who have proposed an alternate plan for dealing with the insolvent banks, rather than bailing them out.
It looks to me like the two major parties are trying to absorb the people who are angry about what they are doing by pushing these two organizations and trying to break them along party lines. I hope that doesn’t happen. I plan to attend both rallies this week in DC. I really don’t like to see Newt Gingrich trying to muscle into the Tea Party movement.
Comment by MattJ — April 10, 2009 @ 9:13 am - April 10, 2009
“when people first started protesting the president’s spendthrift policies barely two months agoâ€
Let’s be clear, you are not protesting spendthrift polices. If you were, you would have done these before Obama was elected.
Instead, you are protesting the president of your country. Its fine and you are well within your rights to do so.
But please stop this illusion that you are protesting because of his actual polices. Instead, you are protesting your election loss.
Comment by gillie — April 10, 2009 @ 9:41 am - April 10, 2009
>>Instead, you are protesting your election loss.
Fail, both in fact, and in a poverty of vision resulting in failure to grasp historical context.
Instead of providing actual hope and genuine change, your guy chose instead to hit the gas and accelerate on a course that will inevitably end in a spectacular crash, providing the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Barack Obama is not a cause, he is an effect, and this all has been a long, long time coming.
Big government is intrusive government, and intrusive government is fundamentally incompatible with personal freedom.
Personal freedom and small government: get on board, get out of the way, or don’t be surprised when no one considers you one of the “good guys” any more.
Comment by Harold Grantham — April 10, 2009 @ 10:07 am - April 10, 2009
Really gillie. If there was a day before the protest, a day in which the protest didn’t happen, then the protest is for the reasons you want to think it is, rather than the stated reasons of the participants?
Be clear, please.
Comment by tim maguire — April 10, 2009 @ 10:37 am - April 10, 2009
Gillie is just parroting what Jon Liebowitz said on the Daily Show early this week, like the mindless little leftist sheep he is.
Comment by V the K — April 10, 2009 @ 10:51 am - April 10, 2009
Perhaps the silly gillie and his leftist Obama Party could explain why, if deficits of $400 billion were reckless, why ones five times that would be sensible.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — April 10, 2009 @ 11:01 am - April 10, 2009
fair point, gillie, perhaps we should have begun protesting higher spending under W . . . we might then have attracted a few lefties, there to protest the president and we would have assuredly garnered more media atttention.
Comment by GayPatriotWest — April 10, 2009 @ 11:30 am - April 10, 2009
#8
“poverty of vision†– Nice phrasing, I like it! And might use that sometime when looking at a Repub budget!
Further your posts, as insulting as some where, (here’s looking at you V) do nothing to address the fact that indeed you are not protesting spending, you are only protesting Obama.
– which is fine but at least try and be honest about it.
If you were honest, you would say “We Lost! We’re Mad! We’re protesting because we lost and are mad!”
…
Maybe you guys could come up with something a tad more catchy than that.
Comment by gillie — April 10, 2009 @ 11:37 am - April 10, 2009
#12 – Actually you are correct, the Tea Parties are simply a spin off of the Ron Paul Movement – which was to an extent – the merger of left and right principles.
Comment by gillie — April 10, 2009 @ 11:39 am - April 10, 2009
And again, confronted with reality, gillie does his best to ignore it.
Going to join us protesting, or are you cheering the money spending that per the NT Times, is very 1930′s of President Obama?
Comment by The Livewire — April 10, 2009 @ 12:59 pm - April 10, 2009
“We Lost! We’re Mad! We’re protesting because we lost and are mad!â€
The guys who gets all his “facts” from The Daily Show is apparently confusing the Tea Parties with the anti-Prop 8 protests. (The main difference being, we’re not going to be assaulting or harassing those who disagree with us, or demanding that their employers fire them.)
Comment by V the K — April 10, 2009 @ 3:07 pm - April 10, 2009
In little ole Delaware (“Home of Joe Biden”, LOL), we are having four throughout the State. I still need to figure out what I want my sign to say…..so many good ones out there !
Comment by Shirley — April 11, 2009 @ 10:07 am - April 11, 2009
I will be there.
But I will be the first to laugh if anyone brings up socialism while standing on the public (socialist) green at the capitol.
Comment by Chuck In Del — April 11, 2009 @ 12:24 pm - April 11, 2009