Anger & Rage?
Saturday, April 18, 2009 at 01:04PM Wednesday started off in the typical way until I got a text message from Fox News admonishing me to join some rable rousers protesting against higher taxes. Once bible study was over I sped to my assigned location to join the mayhem. There wasn’t much of a crowd but they were vocal and angry. Pretty volatile for a group of wealthy suburban white guys. And boy were they ever mad. They wanted to recall Obama and throw Timothy Geithner into the hooskow and throw away the key.
They were quite a paranoid crowd chanting some anti government slogans and working hard to whip the small crowd into a frenzy. The next thing I knew a group of hardened military veterans marched around burning an effigy of Janet Napolitano saying she was was starting files on all of them. I decided to take some pictures with my camera and got some suspicious glares so I decided to put it away. Just as well, it was acting up. In case any of you don’t believe what a bad ass I can be I’ve decided to let you have a look at rebellion in it’s finest form:
In reality, a diverse group of local people lined a mile long stretch of a nearby high way in parade like fashion to express their concern for the future of this country. It was an authentic demonstration that people came to on their lunch hours. They were not professional demonstrators by any means. Just moms pushing strollers to grannies sitting in their fold up lawn chairs waving at passerbys with cars and trucks honking in response.
According to the messages I read I would say people are frustrated, disillusioned, anxious and getting fed up from the double speak they hear on the news every night. I think there is an ominous feeling that when this rapidly expanding budget is enacted that we will all owe a debt that cannot be paid and will have too much government control of our private industry. Most of us may not have economics degrees from ivy league schools but in our gut we suspect that borrowing and spending cannot get us out of recession and it was a very large part of what put us there in the first place.
The only rabid, out of control screeching I heard all day was on the evening cable news. Several of the correspondents sent to cover these events did their best to mischaracterize and ridicule the rallies. I guess they've long forgotten the who, what, where and when focus of reporting.
I think this was the best of my collection of poor quality pictures (by the way I'm firing my camera). It shows a local soccer coach, a middle aged firefighter, a local musician you'll find in one of the lounges around town and a great grandmother sitting in her fold up chair. They all took two hours out of their day to remind us all who our government is supposed to serve and not the other way around.
The best part at the end. The crowd packed up any belongings, any garbage and and left the surroundings even better than the way they found them with nary a water bottleleft behind.
Michigan, TEA party 2009
Reader Comments (3)
Go, Mayor! It's about time someone covered these protests truthfully. I didn't go to one but I sure saw the tortured coverage on t.v. The whole taxpayer transfer to banks thing has got my stomach in knots.
The real question is, if a mob of angry protesters isn't really all that angry or that mobish, does anyone pay attention?
So proud of you for doing your civic duty.
Good to know it wasn't all a bunch of dumb rednecks as reported.
And some people really believe the news in unbiased! Loved your comment about journalists (and we use that term very lightly today, do we not?) have lost the tenants of who, what, where, when and why. Could some one remind them that we do NOT want your opinion!!! Just the facts, mam, just the facts.
Thanks for reporting just the facts Mayor!