Right Now: The Tea Party Protests
EconWatch will be covering the San Francisco and New York City "tea party" protests in person – click here for background on the protests – but in the meantime we wanted to get you up to date on some of the protests that have already gone on or are going on now.
In Cumberland, Md., "peaceful protesters braved a steady early-afternoon drizzle out of their concern for current governmental policies and the well-being of future generations," according to the Times-News. The protesters reportedly carried signs proclaiming “Do Away With the IRS” and “Stop Spending Our Kids Money."
In Lafayette, Ind., "a large box of tea bags was dumped from a Lafayette bridge into the Wabash River" as hundreds of protesters cheered.
In Champaign, Illinois, about 400 people watched keynote speaker Randall Stufflebeam say "We don't need a flat tax or a fair tax. We need no tax, the way it was in 1913," according to the News-Gazette.
In Madison, Wis., "Speakers at a sometimes angry rally Wednesday accused Gov. Jim Doyle and lawmakers of smoking crack cocaine, said government spending was ruining the country and called for the ouster of all elected Democrats. One sign in the crowd compared President Barack Obama to the anti-Christ."
More than 3,000 people showed up to protest in Cincinnati, the Enquirer reports; the protest organizer said he was looking "to adopt the legal and effective tactics of the Left Wing."
CNN reports, meanwhile, that protesters have wielded signs that read "You can't put lipstick on socialism" and "Stop generational theft."
According to the Associated Press, some Boston protesters dressed like Revolutionary War soldiers and carried signs that said "Barney Frank, Bernie Madoff: And the Difference Is?" and "D.C.: District of Communism."
Reports the AP: "There were several small counter-protests, including one in at Fountain Square in Cincinnati, where about a dozen people protested the protesters, one carrying a sign that read, 'Where were you when Bush was spending billions a month "liberating" Iraq?'"
More: "In Lansing, Mich., outside the state Capitol, another 4,000 people waved signs exclaiming 'Stop the Fiscal Madness,' 'Read My Lipstick! No More Bailouts' and 'The Pirates Are in D.C.' Children held makeshift signs complaining about the rising debt."
The AP also notes that the Montgomery, Ala., protest featured "We're Not Gonna Take It" blaring from loudspeakers, while in Atlanta, thousands are expected to gather on the steps of the Georgia Capitol to protest and watch a special broadcast of Sean Hannity's Fox News show.
The protest in Washington did not go as planned, according to the Washington Post; protesters were kept from dumping tea bags into the Potomac River and kept from unloading one million tea bags into a park after being told they lacked the proper permits.
They also had to abandon their plans for a formal rally in front of the Treasury because they lacked the necessary permits; still, hundreds gathered in "dreadful weather," and, according to one booster, the atmosphere was "electric."
Over at the White House, meanwhile, "a robot was inspecting a suspicious package on the North Lawn…after tax protesters threw what appears to be a box of tea bags over the White House fence," according to the AP. "That prompted officials to clear Pennsylvania Avenue."
Click here for a first-hand account from the San Francisco protest. And come back to EconWatch tomorrow for a first-hand account from New York.
Click here for more photos from across the country.
In Cumberland, Md., "peaceful protesters braved a steady early-afternoon drizzle out of their concern for current governmental policies and the well-being of future generations," according to the Times-News. The protesters reportedly carried signs proclaiming “Do Away With the IRS” and “Stop Spending Our Kids Money."
In Lafayette, Ind., "a large box of tea bags was dumped from a Lafayette bridge into the Wabash River" as hundreds of protesters cheered.
In Champaign, Illinois, about 400 people watched keynote speaker Randall Stufflebeam say "We don't need a flat tax or a fair tax. We need no tax, the way it was in 1913," according to the News-Gazette.
In Madison, Wis., "Speakers at a sometimes angry rally Wednesday accused Gov. Jim Doyle and lawmakers of smoking crack cocaine, said government spending was ruining the country and called for the ouster of all elected Democrats. One sign in the crowd compared President Barack Obama to the anti-Christ."
(AP )
CNN reports, meanwhile, that protesters have wielded signs that read "You can't put lipstick on socialism" and "Stop generational theft."
According to the Associated Press, some Boston protesters dressed like Revolutionary War soldiers and carried signs that said "Barney Frank, Bernie Madoff: And the Difference Is?" and "D.C.: District of Communism."
Reports the AP: "There were several small counter-protests, including one in at Fountain Square in Cincinnati, where about a dozen people protested the protesters, one carrying a sign that read, 'Where were you when Bush was spending billions a month "liberating" Iraq?'"
More: "In Lansing, Mich., outside the state Capitol, another 4,000 people waved signs exclaiming 'Stop the Fiscal Madness,' 'Read My Lipstick! No More Bailouts' and 'The Pirates Are in D.C.' Children held makeshift signs complaining about the rising debt."
The AP also notes that the Montgomery, Ala., protest featured "We're Not Gonna Take It" blaring from loudspeakers, while in Atlanta, thousands are expected to gather on the steps of the Georgia Capitol to protest and watch a special broadcast of Sean Hannity's Fox News show.
The protest in Washington did not go as planned, according to the Washington Post; protesters were kept from dumping tea bags into the Potomac River and kept from unloading one million tea bags into a park after being told they lacked the proper permits.
They also had to abandon their plans for a formal rally in front of the Treasury because they lacked the necessary permits; still, hundreds gathered in "dreadful weather," and, according to one booster, the atmosphere was "electric."
Over at the White House, meanwhile, "a robot was inspecting a suspicious package on the North Lawn…after tax protesters threw what appears to be a box of tea bags over the White House fence," according to the AP. "That prompted officials to clear Pennsylvania Avenue."
Click here for a first-hand account from the San Francisco protest. And come back to EconWatch tomorrow for a first-hand account from New York.
Click here for more photos from across the country.
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See all 91 CommentsThe lack of Representation is due to the fact that they got their butt kicked in the last two elections because of all the greedy deals they perpitrated during those six years they had plenty of Representation.
This is nothing more than the Republicans whining they are no longer in charge, with Tea Bags.
Alexander Hamilton, while dressed in disguise and in a fit of rage, threw British tea off British ships because the British decided to undermine his illegal tea smuggling operations by under pricing British tea.
Even with the British tea was being sold cheaper than Hamilton's, Alex screamed about the British Tea tax.
The Boston Tea Party was an act of greed and vandalism,
There was nothing patriotic about it.
Just like today's tea party.
You need to be "cristicized" for your spelling also, you bozo.
Posted by glenncinca-2009
thanks for not getting it, ********!.....typical republican!
I am not so sure about that though. Most networks are pandering to Obama.
Posted by TheMasses01 at 2:37 PM : Apr 16, 2009
I thank you for your discussion on the media, in all honesty the people the media calls on for a discussion are invariably republicans and are pointing Obamas every nit-picking thing they can. They so not paint the whole picture in there 2 minute sound bites they have so a commercial can be run I think they are doing as much harm as the right wingers, news and money go together so pick the tabloid of the day and boom you have today's media.They forgot how to investigate first.Or even investigate at all.
You are confused.
"It will continue to behoove Obama to woo Republican help -- no matter how tough the odds," wrote Washington Post columnist David Broder on Sunday. "Presidents who hope to achieve great things cannot for long rely on using their congressional majorities to muscle things through."
But if Obama takes the advice of Broder and other pundits and dilutes his proposals to make them acceptable to Republicans, the President will surely draw the wrath of the Democratic "base," which will accuse him of selling out. The vicious cycle will have rotated once again.
Instead of seeing a pattern -- that Republicans may hope to torpedo Obama?s presidency and reclaim congressional control , as they did in 1993-94 -- the Washington press corps describes the Republicans as holding firm to their small-government principles and the Democrats as refusing to give due consideration to GOP alternatives.
Already a new conventional wisdom is taking shape, that "polarizing" Obama would be wrong to use the "reconciliation" process to enact health-care and environmental programs by majority vote, that he should instead water them down and seek enough Republican votes to overcome GOP filibusters in the Senate, which require 60 votes to stop.
To get enough Republican votes on health care would almost surely mean eliminating a public alternative that would compete with private insurers, and on the environment, cap-and-trade plans for curbing carbon emissions would have to be shelved.
The commentariat class also has continued to frame the Republican hatred of Obama as Obama?s fault, describing his "failure" to achieve a more bipartisan Washington or -- in its latest formulation -- calling Obama "the most polarizing President ever."
It might seem counterintuitive to call a President with approval ratings in the 60 percentiles "polarizing" -- when that term was not applied to George W. Bush with his numbers half that of Obama?s. But this notion has arisen because Republicans have turned harshly against Obama, while Democrats and Independents have remained supportive.
This gap of about 60 points between Democratic approval and Republican disapproval is called the largest in the modern era. (Bush presumably was less "polarizing" because his Republican numbers slumped along with his approval from Democrats and Independents.)
What is rarely acknowledged is that the Republican Party has both shrunk in size and retreated toward its hard-line "base," meaning that the "polarization gap" could simply reflect the fact that a smaller, more extreme Republican Party hates Obama, while other presidents faced a larger, more moderate opposition party.
On CNN?s "State of the Union" Sunday, in an interview with Gen. Ray Odierno, host John King pushed a favorite media myth about President Bush?s successful "surge" in Iraq. King never mentioned that many factors in the declining Iraqi violence predated or were unrelated to Bush?s dispatch of additional troops, nor did King note the contradiction about Bush?s supposed "success" and Odierno?s warning that he may have to urge more delays in withdrawing U.S. troops.
With Barack Obama as President, these "news" personalities almost reflexively returned to the Clinton-Gore paradigm, feeling the freedom -- indeed the pressure -- to be tough on the White House.
Though MSNBC does offer a few shows hosted by liberals and there are a few other liberal voices here and there, the national media remains weighted heavily to the right and center-right.
For every Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow or Paul Krugman or Frank Rich, there are dozens of Larry Kudlows, Sean Hannitys, Bill O?Reillys, Joe Scarboroughs and Charles Krauthammers who take openly right-wing or neoconservative positions ? or the likes of Lou Dobbs, John King and Wolf Blitzer, who reflect Republican-oriented or neocon views out of personal commitment or careerist caution.
"There have been times, living in America of late, when it seemed I was back in the Communist Moscow I left a dozen years ago," wrote Rupert Cornwell in the London-based Independent. "Switch to cable TV and reporters breathlessly relay the latest wisdom from the usual unnamed ?senior administration officials,? keeping us on the straight and narrow. Everyone, it seems, is on-side and on-message. Just like it used to be when the hammer and sickle flew over the Kremlin." [Independent, April 23, 2003]
Bush?s Slide
Bush skeptics were essentially not tolerated in most of the U.S. news media, and journalists who dared produce critical pieces could expect severe career consequences, such as the four CBS producers fired for a segment on how Bush skipped his National Guard duty, a true story that made the mistake of using some memos that had not been fully vetted.
After Clinton survived impeachment, the national press corps transferred its hostility toward Vice President Al Gore in Campaign 2000 , ridiculing him as a serial exaggerator and liar, even when that required twisting his words. [For details, see our book Neck Deep.]
Then, when George W. Bush wrested the White House away from Gore with the help of five Republican partisans on the U.S. Supreme Court, the drumbeat of hostility toward the American President suddenly disappeared, replaced by a new consensus about the need for unity. The 9/11 attacks deepened that sentiment, putting Bush almost beyond the reach of normal criticism.
Again, the right-wing media and the mainstream press moved almost in lockstep. The deferential tone toward Bush could be found not just on Fox News or right-wing talk radio, but in the Washington Post and (to a lesser degree) the New York Times -- and on CNN and MSNBC. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com?s "America?s Matrix."]
The Clinton Wars
The smearing of President Clinton started during his first days in office as the right-wing news media and the mainstream press pursued, essentially in tandem, "scandals" such as his Whitewater real-estate deal, the Travel Office firings and salacious accusations from Arkansas state troopers.
Through talk radio and mailed-out videos, the Right also disseminated accusations that Clinton was responsible for "murders" in Arkansas and Washington. These hateful suspicions about Clinton spread across the country, carried by the voices of Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy as well as via videos hawked by Religious Right leader Jerry Falwell.
While not accepting the "murder" tales, mainstream publications, like the Washington Post and the New York Times, often took the lead in pushing or exaggerating Clinton financial "scandals." Facing these attacks, Clinton sought some safety by tacking to the Right, which prompted many on the American Left to turn on him.
By contrast, the Right grasped the importance of "information warfare" in a modern media age and targeted its heaviest firepower on the frontlines of that war -- mostly the political battlefields of Washington -- thus magnifying the influence of right-wing ideas on policymakers.
One consequence of this media imbalance is that Republicans feel they can pretty much say whatever they want -- no matter how provocative or even crazy -- while Democrats must be far more circumspect, knowing that any comment might be twisted into an effective attack point against them.
Posted by starleo146
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Many of the major cities had decent turnouts.
"By and large, the Washington press corps continues to function within a paradigm set in the 1980s, mostly bending to the American Right,"
I am not so sure about that though. Most networks are pandering to Obama.
By and large, the Washington press corps continues to function within a paradigm set in the 1980s, mostly bending to the American Right, especially to its perceived power to destroy mainstream journalistic careers and to grease the way toward lucrative jobs for those who play ball.
The parameters set by this intimidated (or bought-off) news media, in turn, influence how far Washington politicians feel they can go on issues, like health-care reform or environmental initiatives, or how risky they believe it might be to pull back from George W. Bush?s "war on terror" policies.
Democratic hesitancy on these matters then enflames the Left, which expresses its outrage through its own small media, reprising the old theme that there?s "not a dime?s worth of difference" between Democrats and Republicans -- a reaction that further weakens chances for any meaningful reform.
This vicious cycle has repeated itself again and again since the Reagan era, when the Right built up its intimidating media apparatus -- a vertically integrated machine which now reaches from newspapers, magazines and books to radio, TV and the Internet. The Right accompanied its media apparatus with attack groups to go after troublesome mainstream journalists.
Posted by abbe91 at 2:03
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Hahahahahahahahahaha!
Try thousands.
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4,000 in Atlantra alone .......................
Posted by TheMasses01 at 2:21 PM : Apr 16, 2009
+ report abuse + permalink
Not surprised Georgia was well represented, in Georgia Good Lord they are the leader in right wingers, look who they voted for in the election Palin and Mc Bush. can you imagine what a mess we would have had had they won. He said,"I am not a economy expert.
Posted by starleo146
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You are confused I see.
You folks seem to be missing the point. They aren't protesting current high taxes. They are protesting the taxes that will become necessary to cover the over-the-top spending proposals in the budget. Government services come with a cost, and that cost is taxes. In reality they are protesting the proposed deficit spending which is at record levels. The protests for the taxes exclusively will likely follow later. This has nothing to do with any former Presidents. That's just a lame fallback for the commie wannabees.
Posted by TheMasses01 at 2:13 PM : Apr 16, 2009
MAY I ASK WHERE WERE THESE PROTESTERS WHEN Bush was president, exactly they loved every minute he was there running the deficit up to 3 trillion dollars, gave him everything he wanted so do not give me that milarky. Obama is trying to straighten it out, and it would just kill theses right wingers if he did it. Just what do you think these protesters did but make fools of themselves. Glen Beck Hannity, and Limbaugh all these fools that never, never have good to say they want Obama to fail and will not stop till the do just that . they are a threat to all of us with their crazy beliefs that will destroy us all before it is through
Posted by abbe91 at 2:03
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Hahahahahahahahahaha!
Try thousands.
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4,000 in Atlantra alone .......................
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