Vermont had (I believe) two manifestations of the national right wing anti-tax/anti-Obama/anti-Democrat “tea party” demonstration on April 15th (tax day). I walked by at the beginning of the Montpelier event and took some video.
It was a good size demonstration. Not the biggest I’ve seen and not the smallest. Unlike a lot of others, I always thought there’d be a decent turnout (in Vermont, at any rate), but this was a full on good turnout.
Unfortunately, it got stranger after I’d taken the video. When I walked by later, John McLaughry was speaking to the crowd. It’s weird to hear a whole crowd of people start booing at the phrase “universal health care” (no, not “socialized medicine” or “government-run health-care” … simply universal. The very idea of everybody being covered stirred anger.). Unlike most right wing gatherings, these folks (as you can see from some of the signs) were definitely that flavor of hard right that embraces a large degree of selfishness, resentment, and me-first/me-only-ism. I was told a bit later from another passerby that some blatantly anti-gay comments were being said over the loudspeaker, but I can’t confirm that first hand.
At any rate, this was a crowd of the hardcores, with very little effort made to hide that (although a couple explicitly anti-Democrat signs seemed to disappear when I tried to get closer to get a better picture of them, which was strange… did somebody want them to seem non-partisan? As you can see in the video, the Republican Party had a table there, fer pity’s sake.)
A lot of people will turn out when it involves
a) their tax money
b) telling other people how to live
I ran out of fingers and toes on which to count all the teabagging double entendres.
It’s great to see network TV hair-jobs put their inhibitions aside, even for a few minutes, and rip the GOP class warriors a new one with the pathetic foolishness of the GOP’s and FOX’s own self-inflected & self-generated teabaggary. The “Dick Army” pun and references to hooker patron David Vitter are coffee spewing guffaw fests.
aren’t sure whether to yawn or chuckle.
… and you focused on what you wanted to focus on.
First of all, unless you can produce audio that proves someone made anti-gay remarks over the loudspeaker I’m asking you to detract what you said. If you do find audio, share it with me, please. I didn’t hear anything like that and I will be really ticked off if this is true.
So. Until you actually produce some audio, you are repeating hearsay and it only happened in someone else’s imagination so you could write it on your little blog here.
I’m not sure how long you stayed, or if you had a chance to hear all of the speakers (did you?), or if you just saw the Young Republicans with their table and ran away. No other party groups asked me if they could participate. The Young Republicans were there registering people to vote. People who care about the rule of law and the Constitution are definitely people that should be voting. You should also know that I declined a request from the YR to speak.
Did you get a chance to hear me talk about left and right and manufactured division? Am I honestly wrong in my belief that there are issues where the left and right can meet? Come on, I dare you. Try to find something we can agree on. Or would you rather continue operating the wedge in the propaganda machine?
Did you have a conversation with anyone? From what I saw there were certainly a larger proportion of people who would label themselves as “conservatives”– which is a subjective term these days, just as liberal is. You ought to recognize that by now. We also had quite a few Libertarians– from the left and right. Then there was you… and another girl who tried to disrupt the event… I’m going to assume she was from closer to your camp than mine (even though you don’t really know where mine is, do you?). And then there were a whole lot of people who don’t really consider themselves one thing or another. They’re regular people trying to make a living.
I also take issue with your assertion that the crowd was awash with selfish crybabies who only care about themselves. The Central Vermont Salvation Army Emergency Food Shelf received non-perishable food items and a kettle full of cash from the people there. I can say on behalf of just about everyone there that we give. We give because we want to, not because we have to.
I’m sure I’m wasting my time but I’m not afraid of you or your smug appraisal of the Montpelier Tea Party. In the bizarro-world of odum it somehow makes sense to mock those of us who would protect your right to act like a snotty little smart ass.
I can’t speak for anyone else, only myself. However much I disagree with your tone, your content and what I’ve seen of your world-view, I would defend your Constitutional rights. And I would go a step further and try to find a bridge between us. Would you give me that same respect?
I did my best to make this a non-partisan event while still keeping the message on target. If people chose to vent their frustration in a way that was directed at a specific person or party, what can I do? What gives me the right to censor someone’s free speech, even if I’d rather not see it?
You should have come and talked to me. Maybe some other time. It seems we’d have a lively discussion. I love those.
Where were these people when Bush was growing government to its largest size in history? Where were they when Bush was creating America’s largest deficit ever?
I’d have a lot more respect for these folks if they would just admit they dropped the ball for eight years and stood idly by while Fox force fed them pro-deregulation talking points (and still is apparently). You got fleeced by your own leaders, and they were laughing all the way to the bank. Wake up!
These demos are an insult to the original Tea Party participants. You can drape yourself in the flag, and carry your bible, until you’re blue in the face, but until you start practicing what you preach, spare us the theatrics (and the flatbed blaring truck too).
Thanks to odum for putting up that video. I got there at the tail end, commitments working against me. It was interesting for a socialist to watch and I had fun, though missed most of the speakers.
As was said, “where were these people during the Bush administration?” Where were they when the Bushies were creating the largest budget deficit in the history of this nation and probably the world? Where were they when we sold our deficit to china, when the capitalism that they so love, sent all of our jobs overseas that they could, when they make health care completely unaffordable now to 50 million while the government that they say they hate was subsidizing the insurance companies with tax breaks? Or the oil companies as tthey were gouging us last summer and getting big tax breaks. Where were they?
I talked with one of the tea partiers about the law and the constitution. What laws, I asked. They protect you and not me, for you use them against me while your version of the constitution does not include me. It was a fun talk:)
Nice point about the original Boston tea party. So this tea party is a fraud, just like the people that sponsored it.
All these taxes did not exist 100 years ago when our country was the most prosperous in the world, and many did not spring up until recently. We also had no income tax until 1913, when our current currency the Federal Reserve Note was created and was worth 25 times what it is today.
And for all you liberals who immediately play the Bush card, he increased the size of government more than any other president and stripped more civil liberties, no question about it. The Tea Party is not about the GOP, most people who attended it are intelligent enough to see through the BS and do not support Bush/McCain. They have the same goals of peace and prosperity as the contributors to this blog, but it is through the mechanism of personal liberty, not government servitude.
Accounts Receivable Tax, Building Permit Tax, CDL license Tax, Cigarette Tax, Corporate Income Tax, Dog License Tax, Excise Taxes, Federal Income Tax, Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA), Fishing License Tax, Food License Tax, Fuel Permit Tax, Gasoline Tax (42 cents per gallon) (soon to be over $1 per gallon), Gross Receipts Tax, Hunting License Tax, Inheritance Tax, Inventory Tax, IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax), Liquor Tax, Luxury Taxes, Marriage License Tax, Medicare Tax, Personal Property Tax, Property Tax, Real Estate Tax, Service Charge Tax Social Security Tax, Road Usage Tax, Sales Tax, Recreational Vehicle Tax, School Tax, State Income Tax,State Unemployment Tax (SUTA), Telephone Federal Excise Tax, Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax, Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes, Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax, Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax, Telephone State and Local Tax, Telephone Usage Charge Tax, Utility Taxes, Vehicle License Registration Tax, Vehicle Sales Tax, Watercraft Registration Tax, Well Permit Tax, Workers Compensation Tax
There was an interesting history book that was published back in the 1990’s called “The Free and the Unfree.” It chronicled the two sides of American history — the founders side, plantation owners, slave owners, then robber barons, and those that basically had no rights at all, like women that could not vote and blacks that were lynched if they tried. Dollar diplomacy, literacy tests for blacks, those who believed that they were destined to rule the ignorant masses. That’s what this tea party thing was about. The working poor that make the money for the rich are the unfree.