A couple of weeks ago I joined millions of other Americans in the last minute ritual of rushing to the post office on April 15th and filing… my tax extension. Brimming with pride over not procrastinating this year, a reward was in order. Now this is normally the realm of chocolate frozen yogurt, but I wanted something more appropriate, maybe even a little dangerous; so I went down to the local Tea Party Rally.
Though a newbie to the whole “Astroturf” experience, I felt I had some idea what to expect thanks to the fine, unbiased reporting of our main stream media. I braced myself for loud, selfish people who didn’t give a damn about the less fortunate. I girded myself for cynical young radicals. I steeled myself for the subtle racism reportedly running just beneath the surface. In short, I entered the raucous Public Square of the Tea Party by embracing the Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared.
Ha! Somebody – I’m not sure if it’s the Boy Scouts or the Fourth Estate – owes me an apology. I didn’t hear any loud, selfish rhetoric. In fact, the speeches mainly concerned the social justice of liberty and even saving public employee pensions! I did not see young radicals (though this was Oceanside, CA so distinguishing between subversive radicals and skateboarders is tricky). And any “subtle racism” must have been drowned out by Ted Hayes’ standing ovation.
I spent hours looking out over the nearly two thousand people who attended, and it’s what I did see that surprised me: the predominate, if not prototypical, Tea Party activist is a woman in her early fifties who is, or soon will be, a grandmother.
Surprising, right? I wasn’t prepared either. (You see why I’m looking for an apology from the main stream media… or is it the Boy Scouts?) The more I thought about it though, the more sense it made; who else would it be? The Tea Party, at its heart, stands opposed to the generational transfer of financial devastation. Now granted, parents are generally more protective of children than anyone else. But most moms and dads Read more