Independence Day Tea Party Protest
July 4th, 2009
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Yesterday, I found a sign on the side of the road, advertising a Tea Party in front of the local courthouse, set for today, Independence Day. Naturally, having seen the sheer scope of the April 15 tax protests, I was curious.
What are Tea Parties, anyway? Depending on who you ask, the common denominator is that they're a series of protests that have been going on since early February. The most frequent grievance given is that the current Congress is spending America's tax dollars prodigiously, contributing to the national debt, and introducing what many protestors perceive to be socialism. Other subjects, including American dependence on foreign goods, Texan secession, the legal status of the Federal Reserve, and Birther conspiracy theories were also addressed, in lesser volume.
Of course, you need only go to a news site to see thousands of similar pictures with commentary, so why did I make this page? Part of it is an adverse reaction to news coverage of late. While I am desperately trying to abandon the mythical "left-wing" and "right-wing" dichotomy, a handful of news organizations are desperate in their attempts to hold these nonsensical party lines. CNN, the Huffington Post, NBC, and the New York Times, to name a few outlets, have derided the protests for following a right-wing agenda. Is that true? The term "teabagging" has also been introduced into the public lexicon, an inside joke, if you will, for critics of the protests.
Clearly, there's a problem. We know well enough the laws of exhibitionism suggest that the most extreme views will be the most noticeable. If the view's not on the general side you agree with, it is difficult not to use it as a strawman. Further, as protests of a different nature present, one tends to overlook the skeletons in one's collective ideological closet, as the "liberal" half of the media has exhibited again and again.
Here, I'm doing things a little different. While a professional journalist is trained to restrain oneself due to limited space, I do not bear this obligation. This site is intended to show the best people, the worst, and most things in between, hopefully painting an accurate picture of a typical Tea Party in a mid-sized town. I personally abstained from the festivities.
This is the very first sight, around 11 am, and it was actually quite a pleasant surprise. Seeing as this was not downtown Houston, I was not expecting more than 15 protestors over the age of 60 to attend.
One of many flags being carried at the event. This is a recreation of the famous "Come and Take It" flag, flown during the Texas Revolution.
"Come and Take It" flew over the Battle of Gonzales. This flew over the Battle of Goliad.
The Bonnie Blue Flag, the flag of the Republic of West Florida from 1810. I'm guessing he meant to use the Burnet Flag, of the Republic of Texas from 1836 to 1845, but couldn't find one on short notice. "What's with all the Texan/Floridian flags?" you might be asking. I have two hypotheses: one is that they add a localized sense of patriotism that the American "Don't Tread on Me" or "Appeal to Heaven" cannot provide. The other is that several carriers are members of the Texas Secession Movement.
Quickly zooming into the back of the Bonnie Blue guy's shirt reveals that he's a supporter of secession from the Union. It's worth noting that Sam Houston was, in fact, an opponent of secession.
There we go! I knew there were some American flags in there somewhere! This flag is unique to the Culpeper Minutemen. The more familiar Gadsen "Don't Tread on Me" flag could be seen on T-shirts dotting the crowd.
One of the groups that organized this protest was the Kick Them All Out campaign, sponsor for the National Fire Congress Campaign. Their goals are exactly what they say on the tin. While I wouldn't mind swapping out some of the moldier members of the US Senate, this group disturbs me. A quick visit to their website reveals an attachment for conspiracy theories, including allegations of Jewish world domination and links to Holocaust denier Jeff Rense.
Okay, I didn't say everyone was ready to abandon party lines.
Three tables were set up, one of which sold T-shirts. I'll hazard a guess that the vendors were Objectivists, another nail in the coffin for the "right-wing" myth. Two shirts displayed here make explicit references to Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.
Close-up of a Che parody.
I didn't know Uncle Sam took sides in these sort of things.
One of the speakers at the event. He covered a number of topics, from spending to the borders to "he might be a Muslim," and I found that several dozen in the crowd are "Birthers," meaning that they subscribe to the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen. These sort of claims, I worry cancel out the more solid messages these protests are trying to send. Again, party lines don't know compromise.
At 11:30, attorney and Ron Paul activist Alex Wallenwein came in, discussing the history of the Federal Reserve. He's also an organizer for the aforementioned Kick Them All Out campaign.
Again, I'm slightly bothered, because many claims existed in the mislabled documentary Zeitgeist. The speaker neglected to mention that the Fed represented only 7% of the national debt, vastly paled in comparison to the 25% owed to foreign investors and the roughly one half shuffled into social programs like Social Security and MediCare (Source: US Department of the Treasury, 6-15-09.) Further, the Federal Reserve was put in place in the first place because the alternative, a decentralized banking system, had a century head start. Between 1837 and 1862 alone, roughly one third of banks went bankrupt within five years, unable to back up the tender they printed (Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1908.)
Does that detract from the Tea Party movement as a whole? That's your discretion.
Wallenwein concluded his speech by picking up a guitar and performing some of the worst country music I ever heard.
Don't take my word for it, but I think about 500 people showed up for the event.
And about half a dozen dogs.
I'll end this page with a smattering of signs that I caught sight of at the protest. Again, I believe this is the best sample I can get that represents the town's protestors accurately. Whether they are extreme, or mellow, I'll leave to you.
One motif I found particularly baffling: lawn chairs. I've seen dozens of protests before, both in person and online, and before the tea parties, I have never seen anyone carry lawn chairs along. I can only assume these are a special breed of activist that simply lack the stamina to stand up for their demands for extended periods.
Signs with more than two messages on them seem crowded and deficit of focus. It's a graphic designer's curse to notice these things.
My favorite at the event.
One of a grand total of two signs I found that could be construed as racist. The other accused Obama of being a Muslim, and unfortunately, I only learned of it after visiting the local tea party's website months later.
So, what did we learn from this?
First off, there's a usually stark difference between the media representation of a Tea Party attendee and an actual attendee. Supporters and detractors in the mainstream media screwed up in that respect by forgetting that these are the exact same people you will see tomorrow, that you would never recognize in a supermarket or in traffic.
We also learn from these rallies that, while it still exists strongly, affiliation with the Republican or Democratic party is slowly fading. These people all realized that it took an effort of both the majority and the minority to create a situation they find undesirable. This is no longer exclusively a "right-wing" sentiment.
I also stumbled across the claim that these protests are racially motivated. True, there are a lot of white people there, but that's not exactly saying much. It's hardly unusual to see almost completely white protests, in practically any context. You'll find a few Hispanic protestors mingled with the others in the above images.
But FENRIS! What about all the swastikas and Obama-as-Hitler posters? Chances are, you're asking this because Nancy Pelosi publicized these claims in early August, 2009. Her accusation? The protests, namely the town hall protests that followed the July 4th tea parties, were illegitimate because the protestors carried swastikas and similar Nazi symbolism. True, there were accusations of communism abound, but oddly, I could not find a single violation of Godwin's Law at this protest. I tried, honest!
Also odd is that at least a substantial segment of the extremist imagery that's been floating around on the airwaves comes, not from "right-wing" sources, but from the LaRouche PAC. No, I'm not kidding. You may remember from my various kvetchings that LaRouche is neither "right-wing" nor "left-wing," but some quirky anti-libertarian hybridization.
For the record, I generally don't support or encourage any comparisons between Obama, or Bush for that matter, and Hitler.
Let's see those cute dogs one more time:
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