Tea Party – Washington, D.C., Style

I was privileged to attend the September 12, 2009, march on Washington, D.C. According to the London Daily Mail, there were “as many as 1 million people” there. According to the Washington Post there were “tens of thousands” present. I confess my counting skills are a bit lacking, so I won’t attempt to weigh in on a number. However, I would suggest if you’re seriously interested in who is right, you might refer to some of the aerial shots that were taken. I then suggest you draw your own conclusions about why the Washington Post would lie.

I’m frankly a bit amused at the reaction of Congress, the president and both the left and right wings of the media to this event. President Barack Obama has gone on record in one interview saying he was “unaware there was a march on D.C. on Saturday.” Not hard to understand why he didn’t know; he ran away to Minnesota to find a semi-friendly crowd, one that certainly was not present in Washington.

While in Washington I attempted to interview sitting congressmen of any party. It will likely surprise none of you that I found no one at home. It seems no congressman wanted to be in the city with mere citizens, least of all Tea Party members. So like a herd of cockroaches, with one accord they all scurried to other places flung about the country.

Most interesting of all are the media reactions. I personally saw only a couple of media vehicles, and reporters were rarer than an Obama-sponsored spending bill with an off-setting revenue source. However, come the new week, both CNN and Bill O’Reilly were commenting on the personal and racial overtones of the march. Both are alleging Obama was unfairly targeted and, even worse, targeted with potentially racially charged suggestions. Since I was there and neither of those two sources were, let me say this: Mr. One-Million-Dollar Reporter, perhaps you missed the thousands of placards with messages about Congress, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Christopher Dodd, and Barney Frank, among others. Were those racist? Were they anti-women? Were they gay bashers? No. They were the messages of the electorate declaring that enough is enough. So don’t waste my time with baseless allegations of racial issues. The people that were there are opposed to what is being done to trash the country by the political establishment, not what sex, color or creed they are. Wake up, you stupid journalists. It is the issues, dummies.

I’m not sure the country or the world fully realizes what happened that Saturday. Never in the history of free men has such a large group collected spontaneously to confront their government with their grievances. Never in the history of free men has a group like this formed and acted in the absence of identified leadership. (I suspect part of Mr. O’Reilly’s angst is that he wasn’t invited to lead.) Never in the history of free men has a group congregated without the prior benefit of agreement on the specific issues that brought them together. And never have they done it while the media has remained on the sidelines or, worse, taken the role of a propaganda engine.

These are thoughts that should make rulers everywhere quake. This revolution was the result of people exchanging thoughts, organizing and coming to a common protest point via the Internet and all its associated paths. You never saw this event advertised in the mainstream media. You heard nothing about it in the way historically similar events have been promoted. And yet, people came. They came from California, Texas, New Mexico and Florida. Indeed, they came from all 50 states. They paid their own way without benefit of community organizers, strong-arm tactics from unions or the urging of a single political party. They came because they were mad as hell and they weren’t going to take it anymore. That is unique. That is unprecedented. And frankly, I think it has Mr. Obama, Ms. Pelosi and even Mr. O’Reilly worried. You see, the little people have demonstrated that they can think, act and be a force without being told what and how to do any of those things.

And that, Mr. and Mrs. Tea Party Person, scares your rulers both in government and the media beyond words. Because once you realize you know as much as they do, you’re harder to manage. Maybe even unmanageable.

Mr. Silence Dogood
Houston, Texas