Another person at the Occupy Wall Street / OccupyNH rally yesterday in Manchester was Ben DiZoglio. As opposed to Leah and Mirav, he seemed genuinely attached to the movement here. He had noticed that I was recording the event and offered that since they now had some power, offered an outlet for use (unfortunately I had left the AC brick at home). Since several others had refused to do interviews (I figured out, partially, why later on), I requested an interview to find out why he was there and was looking to see what some of the difference were between OWS and the TEA Party movements:
When I got home, I decided to Google his name and found out that he was a student at Plymouth State (an athlete on the baseball team) and had written an Op Ed for the Nashua Telegraph this summer:
At every tea party rally I’ve ever gone to, veterans tend to be given positions of honor and are either asked to speak or, at the very least, are recognized.
The message, of course, is the people who protect our country should be praised for their service. Often these humble veterans will say the true heroes are those who sacrificed everything for their country.
But then the political speeches begin…
and you hear the tea party’s ideology that taxes should not be raised, but, quite the contrary, taxes should be reduced as much as possible. They view their money as being theirs alone, and they see no reason why they – or the country’s billionaires – need to give a penny of it away.
These tea party members honor veterans who sacrificed years from their families, limbs and even their lives, and then they explain why they don’t want to give up even a fraction of their earnings to make the country a better place. Soldiers sacrifice every day, so why can’t we?
It almost seems as though they don’t understand that money for even the simplest programs must come from taxes. More than once I’ve been told at these rallies that the people on welfare are lazy, so maybe things like road construction, law enforcement, disaster relief, education or armor for our troops are important enough reasons to pay taxes.
Waving a flag is a great way to show you’re a patriot, but taxes are what actually sustain our nation.
Benjamin DiZoglio
Hudson
