Tea Party

Guest Post By Robert Romano

In 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered the commencement address at Oberlin College when he famously said, “There is nothing more tragic than to sleep through a revolution.” He was referring to the story of Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving, where the protagonist slept for twenty years. Said Dr. King, “While he was peacefully snoring up on the mountain, a great revolution was taking place in the world—indeed, a revolution which would, at points, change the course of history. And Rip Van Winkle knew nothing about it; he was asleep.” That revolution was the American Revolution.

Dr. King suggested that “There are all too many people who, in some great period of social change, fail to achieve the new mental outlooks that the new situation demands.” And so it is today, only with the mainstream media playing the role of Rip Van Winkle.

On September 20th, the Washington Post Ombudsman Andrew Alexander scratched the surface of the problem, pointing out that mainstream media outlets, including the Washington Post, were very late in reporting on the ever-developing ACORN scandal that featured videos of ACORN employees offering advice how to evade taxes, set up a brothel, and even use minors as prostitutes. The Post did not get on the story until two days after the now-famous videos emerged at BigGovernment.com.

Wrote Alexander of the Post’s delay, “One explanation may be that traditional news outlets like The Post simply don’t pay sufficient attention to conservative media or viewpoints.” He quotes the Post’s Executive Editor, Marcus Brauchli, who is worried that his paper is “not well-enough informed about conservative issues. It’s particularly a problem in a town so dominated by Democrats and the Democratic point of view."

This is particularly refreshing coming from the Washington Post, and Americans for Limited Government urges the Post to look even deeper than missing the boat on the recent ACORN scandal. It’s just the tip of the iceberg of the revolution that’s brewing—wherein citizen activists are holding the entire political establishment, including the government, the political parties, and the news media accountable for how they govern, for what their ideas mean for the future of America, and what they report, respectively.

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I had the honor to be asked to speak at the Rhode Island 9/12 Project’s September 12 rally in Providence on the State House steps. Below is the speech I delivered, and the note I read to our RI brothers and sisters from the NH TeaParty Coalition, along with a few pics. It wasn’t Washington DC, but the messages, and the enthusiasm were the same. People I had conversations with were shocked to hear that NH is talking an income tax and forced sick pay for businesses of 10 or more people.
 
I assured them that the big government/ big spending sickness afflicting them and Washington is  affecting us here in the Granite State, too.

All in all, we felt like we were here in NH, listening to the messages and reading the signs. Different states, maybe, but we are all on the same page. That is the amazing thing about the Tea Party movement all across America. Nobody needs to be "organized." Those who take part simply know what to do. Liberty is at stake and must be defended…

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When I was asked to speak here today, I thought, what am I going to say? After all, I left this state, the state of my birth and youth, to create a new life with my young family nearly 25 years ago. But, the great people of the movement to preserve liberty here in Rhode Island saw fit to invite me, so here goes. After all, we’re all Americans, no matter where we might happen to live. It’s a great honor to be here, and I am humbled for the opportunity to speak at this event as we stand in solidarity with like-minded fellow citizens gathered down in the Nation’s capitol, and all across this great land today.

A few words about myself—I was born in Woonsocket, raised in Cumberland, and was schooled by the Brothers of the Sacred Heart at Mount Saint Charles. Those were the good old days–ones in which worries about losing freedom and squandering the precious and fragile gifts bequeathed us by the Founders never really entered my mind. And why should it have, really? I was a young American pursuing life, liberty, and happiness as the Founders intended. In his famous work, Democracy in America, the famed Frenchman Alexis DeTocqueville remarked that 

“Nothing is more striking to a European traveler in the United States, than the absence of what we term the Government, or the Administration.”

And so it was, at least for me, at that time.

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NHTPC contributed to this report.

Concord, NH- At one point about 30 protesters gathered outside the Hermanos Cocina Restaurant in Concord NH on Monday night to greet as many partygoers as they arrived for a far left bash with the nutroots blogger Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, better known as the creator of the “Daily Kos”. Additional special guests were our two US House reps– recently the objects of a missing persons "milk carton" campaign— Carol Shea-Porter and Paul Hodes.

While the scarce-pair dined with their fellow ‘Kossacks’, cars drove by and beeped and waved at the sidewalk Tea Partiers in solidarity.

Every so often, one of the attendees would come out and engage us as we walked up and down the sidewalk in protest of present policies and proposals all destined to ruin our market system and economy as we know it. At one point, Skip started to do a video discussion with one, but when pressed with facts, he went away, apparently unwilling to face such things. Early on, to his credit, Hodes came up the sidewalk and had a few polite words with several of the folks lining the path, but nothing prolonged, nor of substance. THAT he no doubt was saving for his comrades at the private party.

Later on, an apparently clueless/angry woman came out of the restaurant approached Jane and Ann Marie and asked, “Who ARE you?”

Writes Jane:

Being that we are no one special, “just people” was our reply. She then asked where we get our information. “Common sense” we said. She then tried to play the ‘blame Bush’ game so we reminded her that it wasn’t going to work anymore.

After all, Bush had nothing to do with the failed $787B stimulus package, the $181B deficit of July alone, and we also reminded her that what with Medicare, Amtrak and the PO going broke under government management, how could that same government expect to take over everyone’s health care, even if that WAS constitutional, to which she replied emphatically, “YOU MAKE ME SICK”.

Ah yes… typical and predictable. Proof if anything that these people are clueless and don’t have much ammo in their boxes or brains in their heads — and definitely working off pure emotions incited by the Obama media.

When another cranky partygoer walked by me as I was holding the Obama/Joker image, she called me a "racist" and that I "should be thrown in the stockade." I guess she wasn’t feeling very tolerant at that moment. As she got in her car and began to drive away, she stopped in the road, rolled down her window, and started barking at us one last time before finally leaving.

To our surprise, a short while later, she joined us! Having been sufficiently rattled by our presence, and unable to accept the reality that there are people that disagree with the left-wing agenda promoted by loons like her and her comrades partying with Hodes and Shea Porter, she was back toting her own sign and took a position just down from where we were stationed:

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