Tea Party Houston - April 15th, 2009

The extent of the throng showed the depth of the people’s frustration at the national government’s policies since the only advanced publicity I heard was from a local a.m. radio station KNTH 1070. It boasts and hosts a daily line-up of conservative talk-show hosts. There had to be a lot of word of mouth advertising as well.

From three thirty in the afternoon until a formal “break” of ten minutes at about six-thirty at night, the crowd politely and spiritedly greeted the speakers at the podium, not one of which was a politician. They were purposefully banned.

It was announced from the stage more than once that the authorities were concerned about the density of the crowd. They asked some of them to please move to the slightly less-dense upper level to relieve the pressure. Not many did.

Kindred spirits produce incredible energy that can be magnetic. [Think Times Square on New Years’ Eve.]

For the majority of the time the master of ceremonies was a young, black, conservative, up and coming radio person from KNTH: Natalie Arsenault.

Among the speakers were a local electrician who emigrated from Cuba at seven years of age; a Houston lawyer; an economist from the University of Houston; two well known regional radio personalities, Walton and Johnson; and John O’Neill of Swift Boat Captain fame. (There were others but the sound system was not uniformly kind to all of them, making them anonymous to me.)

Ms. Arsenault did tell the crowd that a local congressman - Republican John Culberson - was “working the crowd” (my terminology) to get attendees views, but was not invited nor was he going to speak to the SRO audience.

That might have been a good thing too because the loudest cheers went up from the masses when the lawyer spoke of the corruption of both parties, inciting the crowd to “Join us in throwing these bums and tramps out.”

Sometime later the authorities closed the entrance gate, but that didn’t stop a multitude from arriving, piling-up outside. Although not happy at being excluded, there were no incidents of bad behavior that I observed or heard.

Six days after the event I received an email from a former co-worker that I had seen at the party, reporting:

“In case you haven’t heard, the Jones Plaza tea party organizer was on one of the local talk radio shows yesterday (Monday)…..they stayed up until 3:00 a.m. to tally all the names on their sign-in sheets. Over 8,500 attendees!! They estimate there were probably a total of 10,000 people since not everyone signed in. What a turnout!”

The preceding paragraphs have given you a good, brief feel of this extraordinary event in American history.

Before you proceed to the look of it - the slide show - please wait a moment as I leave you with a few words of support and encouragement to attend the next and bigger rally on the Fourth of July.

Look at all the hand-made signs carried and raised at this inspiring assembly.

People of all ages, colors, backgrounds and national origins took time from their busy lives to peacefully scrawl their complaints on poster board; drive downtown, find and pay for a place to park; walk over to the Plaza to stand and listen to unknown speechmaker’s rail against the political quicksand engulfing our country.

It is a testament to our national character that so many people will still invest their energy and time to oppose a government they think is wrong.

The other side - the majority voters and their media brethren - are hoping that the Tea Parties will be one-shot wonders, devoid of coherent leadership or a central theme.

I predict they will be proven wrong.

There are 58,343,671* Americans that did not vote for Barack Obama in 2008.

That is forty-six* percent of the voting population; almost half of the country. It includes the red nation; the twenty-two politically conservative states.

We did not buy what Mr. Obama was selling.

We were dismissed and demeaned by his Democrat machine, then as now, as right-wing crazies, discredited Bush backers, religious fanatics, and gay marriage haters with laughably outdated, traditional values.

Well, give the Obamamen and women their due: At least they are consistent.

Eschewing a victors’ magnanimity President Obama has also shown us - those who dare to disbelieve - the symbolic back of his hand.

He did say, after all, “We won.”

And that they did.

But we fifty-eight million are not about to become invisible; to cower in the corner waiting for the next financially disastrous tax and giveaway program to be forced upon us, our families and country.

We citizens will continue to build a peaceful, substantial presence as our rallies grow.

We need a voice, however.

We need some one, unshackled from the old boys’ and old girls’ school for political hacks; a decent, dynamic, God-fearing man or woman - but not a religious figure - to come from our midst echoing and building upon our shared beliefs.

Recent history has shown and reminds us, however, that third-party candidates have no chance of winning: Remember that Ross Perot as an Independent siphoned off nineteen percent of the votes in 1992, which facilitated the election of Democrat William Jefferson Clinton over the re-election of George H.W. Bush.

As distasteful as it is for me an Independent to write this, a top-to-bottom house cleaning of the Republican Party with new, dedicated, red-state members is the only practical way to minimize the political longevity of the new administration.

Think about it.

And

See you on the Fourth.

[EdNote* Election returns are found at: Election Returns 2008 ]

[Ednote2: alittlecommonsense.com will continue to report from time to time on the progress of the Tea Party movement in Houston specifically and Texas generally.]

Send this article to a friend!

Copyright 2010.  All Rights Reserved