Posted on 11/29/2009 6:15:07 AM PST by Bean Counter
BY JOHN LAIRD THE COLUMBIAN EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
Tea party patrons, rejoice! Unite! Or for some of you, I suppose, to arms! Your grass-roots movement has gained such momentum as to warrant a national blue-ribbon, round-table, fact-finding, rootin' tootin' hoedown!
The first National Tea Party Convention is set for Feb. 4-6 at Nashville's Gaylord Opryland Hotel & Convention Center. For details, visit the Web site www.nationalteapartyconvention.com. Hurry, and get an early discount on registration: $558.95 (excluding hotel) to show up and protest excessive spending by the government.
Headline speakers will include the electrifying and eloquent Sarah Palin, a renowned expert on how to abandon your statewide elected office and make millions writing a book, and U.S. Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., who used her publicly funded congressional Web site to urge people to storm the U.S. Capitol and create bedlam in the hallways. According to my investigative aides, the Tea Party Convention's Diversity Committee will meet in an Opryland Hotel & Convention Center broom closet.
No doubt, conventioneers will toast a glorious year for the Tea Party movement. Their impacts during 2009 on the American way of life include:
This was the year their crusade was born, and the screaming and kicking hasn't stopped yet. Whereas American town hall meetings for more than two centuries were places to exchange ideas and formulate solutions, now they're different, thanks to the Tea Party types. Now, town hall meetings have become boisterous, bigoted shout-downs where the only things that matter are volume and venom, unleashed by adults who remind children to be sure to behave at school assemblies.
Speaking of children, it used to be that, when a U.S. president spoke to schoolchildren about education, hard work and responsibility, we all got this warm, patriotic feeling. Parents would encourage children to listen closely, and prepare to discuss the president's message over supper that night. Now, many Americans believe that same harmless speech constitutes the socialistic brainwashing of our kids.
Deploring peace
Prior to 2009 (specifically in 1906, 1919 and 2002), when a U.S. president won a Nobel Peace Prize, Americans for the most part were proud and congratulatory. Hey, who are we to argue with the Norwegians? But now, when a president wins the Nobel Peace Prize, a large segment of Americans actually boo. Without attending any deliberations of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, and even before hearing the committee's explanation for why the president was honored, they boo.
For decades, when a U.S. president attended the Olympics for several days, we all sent him with our best wishes, to promote friendly competition as a universal bond. We took pride in watching him cheer for our athletes. But in 2009, when the president spent one day supporting a U.S. city's application to become an Olympics site, his detractors berated him for wasting time and taxpayers' money.
Before this year, when a U.S. city lost a bid for the Olympics, Americans for the most part figured, "Nice try. Better luck next time." Now, though, when that bid is denied, many Americans actually cheer and hoot derisively.
This year we increasingly heard, "I want my country back!" proclaimed by people who had difficulty accepting the will of the national electorate. Nothing wrong with that. We've heard "He's not my president!" during every presidency. Still, some Americans are quietly wondering: Wasn't "I want my country back!" also shouted by factory owners back when they had to relinquish their work force of underage children? By men who didn't want women to vote because they saw them as chattel? By whites who didn't want to share water fountains with blacks because they saw them as inferior?
More to the point, isn't "I want my country back!" often fulminated by the descendants of people who exterminated numerous Indian tribes and stole their country?
Looks like I'll skip the National Tea Party Convention in February. For some reason, I just can't figure out how folks could have much fun at an anger-mismanagement seminar.
John Laird is The Columbian's editorial page editor. His column of personal opinion appears each Sunday. Reach him at john.laird@columbian.com.
If you are so inclined, voice mails are always a nice way to comment.
Scott Campbell, Publisher
Phone: 360-735-4500
Lou Brancaccio, Editor
Phone: 360-735-4505
I’ll be skipping this event as well — as I did the marches on Washington — but for very different reasons.
Please DO NOT misunderstand my reasons for producing these two videos. If folks want to gather together to let “them” know that “we,” like Howard Beal in “Network” are “…mad as hell and not going to take it any more…,” it’s STILL – for the time being anyway – a relatively free country so we can do that.
All I’m saying here is that, especially in tough economic times, there are more EFFICIENT and EFFECTIVE ways to expend our FINITE RESOURCES.
It’s not as much fun as sweating on the Mall but there IS a better – and less costly — way to scare hell out of “them” — and you won’t even have to leave home.
ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL, PART 1: (UNDER 8 MINUTES)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk1bGBY3BcE
ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL, PART 2: (UNDER 8 MINUTES)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ylFTOObbF0
“... anger-palooza ...”
I LOVE IT!!!
Sometimes liberal’s failed attempts at humor create ‘truth’...heh.
There was a time I subscribed to The Columbian. When they hired and imported Laird from Texas I thought it may be a good thing. I found out in a hurry I was wrong and it didn’t take long to unsubscribe.
The first National Tea Party Convention is set for Feb. 4-6 at Nashville’s Gaylord Opryland Hotel & Convention Center.
YOU DON’T REPRESENT ME, ESPECIALLY AT $560.00+$$$$!
“Men that are above all fear, soon grow above all shame.”
Trenchard and Gordon
“Cato’s Letters” (1755)
Vol I, p. 255
I’m betting this “pasture Pansy” hasn’t been anywhere near a town hall meeting.
He’s probably not allowed within 1000 feet of a school.
That’s a great statement - thanks!
As a citizen of Planet Earth, I hereby apologize to any tree that gave its life for this guy to print his delusions, and hope you will be recycled into toilet paper so your sacrifice can at least have some value and meaning.
now that's funny!
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