Posted on 14 Sep 2009 at 8:47pm By GavinoRewrite the political textbooks! Hundreds of thousands of regular Americans – nurses, teachers, students – seniors, moms, teenagers – whites, blacks, Hispanics – just took part in perhaps the most diverse protest in American history.
When so many regular Americans march to the U.S. Capitol to protest government policies, you might think it is time for the elites to take notice. But America’s major media outlets, owned, operated and staffed largely by liberals, did their best to look away.
Saturday’s blockbuster tea party rally, significant by its size and invigorated by creative and humorous home-made placards, generated sparse media coverage, understated protester counts and right-wing characterizations.
Opposition to President Obama is growing in America
I was there and the reality was quite staggering. Pennsylvania Avenue was full of good humored and friendly people from all 50 states, serious in message, headed to the Capitol. Many needlessly explained that this was the first time they had ever participated in any sort of protest. Others were in wheelchairs. When the national anthem was sung, the protesters joined in solemnly, but not boisterously. This was serious.
Liberal elites in Congress, the media, interest groups and trade unions appear utterly confounded by the size, make-up and spontaneity of the tea party protests. They are unable to relate to the anger and frustration that many Americans are finally expressing.
Colleges and universities have indoctrinated generations of the nation’s liberal elite that protest comes out of the failings of capitalism and a lack of social justice. So their response is bewilderment. After all, what sort of social justice can people with jobs and families possibly lack?
They have been told that diversity requires people to be categorized according to their skin color, sex, occupation, sexual preferences and income level. In this simplistic world of “haves” and “have-nots”, what can possibly motivate so many “haves” to protest?
So the left rationalizes that anyone not supporting President Obama simply fails to understand his vision and that anyone actively opposing it has no compassion for the needy. By this theory, the protesters are simply selfish.
In reality, the opposite is true. It is precisely because they understand the dangers of the President’s policies that millions of Americans converged on Washington to protest. Far from heartless, they reject the culture of greater government dependency that produces poverty and hopelessness and they call for more emphasis on personal responsibility. They are not opposed to paying taxes but they are against bureaucracy and waste. TEA is redefined as Taxed Enough Already.
What has ignited the concerns of everyday people is President Obama’s rush to expand government so far, so quickly, and so shamelessly. His mistake was to abandon Clintonite stealth and make a grab for large chunks of the U.S. economy – banks, automobiles and health care – in his first eight months of office while tripling the nation’s budget deficit.
Americans march on Pennsylvania Avenue
The traditional political ebb and flow between Democrats and Republicans has led to gradual change that, by its very nature, discourages many working Americans from objecting forcefully. But President Obama has rejected gradual change. He has made clear that he aims to radically restructure and redefine the country. Should there be any wonder that this might cause a different reaction?
The President’s calculation with the bank bailout and health care reforms was that new laws had to be pushed through as fast as possible. Urgency has been deliberately deployed as a pretext to stymie debate. Democrats have acted like an elected dictatorship, responding with “we won” to any objections to their programs.
What the tea party protests have demonstrated is that while the political system has been impotent to their concerns, the so-called “silent majority” can still influence political leaders by resorting to the most democratic of principles, the right to protest.
Somehow, the picture on Saturday was eerily reminiscent of the protests that brought democracy to the former Soviet bloc in 1989-1991. The circumstances were, of course, vastly different, but the political principle was the same. Liberal elites may not have noticed, but Americans of all backgrounds are prepared to stand up for their freedoms.
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I bet the push to have Rep. Joe Wilson rebuked in the House of Reps today will devolve into a debate pitting the left against the right on what is the role of government in our lives. Something very powerful is brewing and people like James Carville who refer to Joe Wilson supporters as “neo-confederates” are trying everything in their left wing handbook to scare people that racists and haters are about to undo everything the left believes in. The reality is that is middle america – black, white, brown, yellow – that is trying to undo what the left ( and unfortunately a misguided GOP) have done to our country. We can have a constrained government and still take care of the less fortunate, it’s not an either or proposition.
But Joe… ‘an either or proposition’ is what this country understands.. and gets politicians elected! If you don’t recycle you hate the Earth, if you don’t vote democrat, you hate the poor.. etc. I am looking forward to things rising to a head and I do hope it happens.. in a way big enough to make an impact and maybe.. just maybe get a few more people to think for themselves… rather than just believing party lines.
The problem with political polarisation is its definition by the extremes of the edges. Either side of the political divide seizes on the worst excesses of the other and defines its opponents by these excesses. This position is exaggerated in the US (where I have lived and experienced it) by the ready access of both sides to view-compliant media. My own views tend to the conservative, but were I a voting citizen of the US, I’d be horrified to have my views represented by the dangerous dinosaurs of the Fox Netowrk. Equally, the liberal left media is no better. The danger in this is that the rump is influenced and activated by activist journalism masquerading as news. There is a totalitarianism evident in the so-called news coverage now which defines the political landscape bassed on the ability of either view to buy (principally) television time to advance their views in the name of news. The politicisation and purchasing of news leads to the debate being defined, rather than reported on,by the media. We do not elect the media, but we do elect the politicians who are now ‘owned’ by the media whose quest is to lead the debate and ignore thebasic precepts of journalism. And the politicians are compliant in this. The unelected are managing the elected to the detriment of the uncommitted and that is a danger to democracy.
The real shame about the media is that they truly don’t understand how to classify the people who went to the tea party. I went – it was my first “rally” of any kind other than the “pep” variety in high school and college. It was remarkably civil, the people were incredibly polite and the signs were phenomenally clever.
The majority of the people there were middle class taxpayers. They aren’t an organized, registered interest group – they are all of us, Americans. Without talking points expressing a liberal point of view, the press doesn’t understand how to deal with or cover them. I’m increasingly frustrated with the press and an administration who wants to claim more and more power. (One thing to remember is that when you have one party in control of both legislative and executive branches of the government, then you tend to have institutional power struggles. Clearly the President is trying to make the Executive much more powerful; this is what the framers of the Constitution feared and worked against!) While Fox network is seen by some as “dangerous” (Kiwi) they are a welcome voice in a sea of liberalism. And the ratings are showing that America is responding positively to what they are trying to do!
Keep on marching, TEA partiers! Save us all from tyranny!
The line between journalism and commentary have been blurred, even wiped out, by most MSM “journalists. People like to focus on FOX because they are so extreme in comparison to the rest of the media. There is no question where FOX stands but I think the driving factor is that FOX is a manifestation of market forces. There was NO conservative viewpoint expressed on TV and Roger Ailes saw a business opportunity and FOXnews is now the most successful cable network around. The danger Fox has to protect against is becoming a mouthpiece for the Republican party and not maintaining an independent stance.
On the other side of the coin I agree with Dancer and am shocked at how the Media has fallen inline with the Dems describing the Tea Party attendees, along with atendees to town hall meetings and other events, as extremeists, even racist. This is an outrageous depiction of people of all races, creeds, and political party who are simply tired of a government run amok, by both the GOP and Dems, spending our money in ways never envisioned by our founders. The left’s efforts to push this false portrayal are going to come back to haunt them!