Posted on 04/24/2009 1:21:18 PM PDT by a fool in paradise
In the end, it exceeded the expectations of even its once-seemingly wildly overenthusiastic organizers. Approximately 3,500 pissed-off demonstrators packed Jones Plaza for a warm-up blues-rock concert and harangues about high taxes, debt, bailouts and socialism last week.
You'd have to think the crowd was decidedly of the Outside-the-Beltway persuasion. All in all, there haven't been this many melanin-challenged people in Jones Plaza since Cory Morrow played here back in '03, and the near-beer bar-rock of Mean Gene Kelton and the DieHards billowing live from the stage suited the crowd to a tee.
Since the average age of the crowd was probably upper 40s, Kelton, the King of the FM Road Ice Houses, stuck mainly to covers of BTO and Delbert McClinton. Not for this crowd's delicate sensibilities were Kelton's original hits such as "My Baby Don't Wear No Panties," "Blow Up Lover" and "Texas City Dyke," which is not about a place to fish but instead a female welder of the Sapphic persuasion from the titular town.
Judging by the T-shirts and placards, the American right is now as splintered as the left was back in the days when Reaganism was rampant in the land. You have your smug-looking Ayn Randies, your pissed-off Minutemen types, a small but increasingly vociferous contingent of wild-eyed Texas secessionists, a paranoiac who claimed attendance there had landed all of us on "the Obama/Napolitano watch list," and a smattering of unreformed Cold Warriors.
And then there was the one stone-cold crazy we saw — a man in a full-length V for Vendetta suit, who was waving a placard reading "Villanous Venal Vermin Vying to Vanquish Valiant Villages — V Says Bollocks." While he earnestly attempted to get passersby to read his sign aloud, he bluntly refused an interview request from Hair Balls.
The main body of the throng looked like the people you'd see in the second deck of Minute Maid Park at any Astros game. Two such were Shannon and Ernie Carney, husband-and-wife entrepreneurs, who stood on the fringes of the plaza waving placards at the steady stream of commuters headed home on Louisiana Street.
Shannon Carney told Hair Balls she was frightened of the direction the country was taking. "It's too big and wasteful," she said. "They work for me, I don't work for them. I am a good patriot and entrepreneur" — she proudly claimed to own two of the smallest corporations in Texas — "and they should have respect for my livelihood."
Ernie Carney was waving a placard reading "A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have." "Kinda says everything," he said. "Thomas Jefferson said that."
(Carney's chosen slogan was on at least one other placard, where it was also attributed to the Sage of Monticello. However, according to the Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia, the quote was actually first intoned by a far less auspicious Chief Executive: Gerald R. Ford.)
"Government's gotten way too big," Ernie Carney continued. "They should save me from foreign adversaries, not interfere with my business and livelihood. They are stealing my grandchildren's future. Bush left us with a lot of debt, but now it's multiple trillions. There's no way we'll be able to repay that. Or they can just print a bunch of money and a loaf of bread will be $50."
Before Hair Balls took leave of this couple, Shannon Carney placed her hand on mine and earnestly told me I'd "accidentally met the most patriotic couple in Houston."
A few feet away stood a lone counterprotester astride a bicycle. A scruffy twentysomething white guy, he waved a crude placard on which the legend "This sign is the brownest thing at the protest" was scrawled in ballpoint ink on an old box. "I'm down here 'cause I can be," he said. "I'm not here with anybody. I live in Sixth Ward and I just heard this was going on and I wanted to come down here."
The other side of his sign said something critical of Fox News. "Fox News has gone lib-rull," said a woman to his left. "What?" asked the counterprotester. "Are you getting this down?" he asked, turning to Hair Balls. Just then a Houston cop appeared and told him he was both out of the designated counterprotesting area and in violation of the city ordinance against riding a bike on the sidewalk. Obviously, he wasn't riding the bike at the time, but no matter. He was shooed across the street all the same.
Which was where, among the tiny contingent of counterprotesters, we found Cynthia Douglas, owner of the blog A Racy Mind. "I don't agree with those people at all," she said. "Someone needs to tell those people they are getting a tax cut. They either don't know or don't believe it. Plus, I wanted to tell them that Glenn Beck is an idiot, 'cause he is."
"John Galt was fictional!" she yelled toward one of the Randies across the street. But across four lanes of steady Louisiana Street traffic, it's doubtful anyone paid her much mind. "In other cities, like Washington, the counterprotesters and protesters can have words," Douglas said. "There's no discussion at this one."
Maybe there would have been if, say, KPFT had devoted as much time to organizing the counterprotest as KTRH's "news" department gave to organizing the tea party.
There, we made it through that whole thing without even one "tea bag" joke.
Houston observations?
Like the rest of the socialist movement, style over substance.
There, that's better.
SHOCKING news. Fox News isn't conservative. Just as Fox is to the right of CNN, (and CNN US is to the right of CNN Europe), John McCain appears to be on the right when compared up against someone like Barack Obama but is hardly "conservative".
KPFT is a 501c3 charity. They are prohibited by tax law (which Pacifica voluntarily agrees to in exchange for a non-profit tax free status) from engaging in political advocacy for or against pending legislation (including the bailout).
Racist and condescending tone, just what I expect from that lot.
They just don't get it.
You know, even the local MSM couldn't resist a snide "but not everyone thinks so" after the coverage.
I thought that the signed in attendence on the Jones Plaza event was 8,500.
FYI: Houston Press and The Village Voice have the same owners.
Scum of the Earth Liberal, hippie-wannabe hate rag doing its usual job.
.......... haven’t been this many -—> melanin-challenged people<——
melanin-challenged people = taxpayers?
I read an article after the tea party that put the attendance from start to finish (as people leave and come from 5-9pm) at 6500 people.
Jones plaza crowd was 3500 at the point they stopped letting anymore into the plaza, the crowds swelled past that number, spilling out into the sidewalks and streets.
(A) Democrats near agreement on budget (April 24, 2009)
But Obama's signature "Making Work Pay" tax cut of $400 for most workers and $800 for couples would expire at the end of 2010 as currently scheduled. The temporary tax cut was part of the economic stimulus plan enacted in February.And (B) I am no Glenn Beck fan (nor Pat Gray, nor Michael Berry...) but wasn't he in SAN ANTONIO for the protest there at the Alamo?
I was there and it was GREAT! One of the media photographers was wearing a shirt that said [9/11 was an inside job]. Tells me all I need to know about the media.
That wasn't a racist statement, was it? Hypocrites.
He gaffed on the “Jefferson”/”Ford” quote too:
“Any government which had both the power and the will to remedy the major defects of the capitalist system would have the will and the power to abolish it altogether, while governments which have the power to retain the system lack the will to remedy its defects.” Joan Robinson, English economist, 1903-1983. Economic Journal, Dec. 1936. “The Yale of Quotations” edited by Fred R. Shapiro, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2006. (Page 640)
It’s also been attributed to Goldwater and Reagan. There are numerous instances of it being “quoted” (including the phrase on the woman’s sign). Variations have been voiced by a number of persons prior to Ford’s phrasing.
But the internet is a horrible place to do research.
KPFT no longer plays Kelton’s “My Baby Don’t Wear No Panties” either out of concerns of listener complaints to the FCC.
It's a bit of a mystery to me why the Left thinks "but you're getting a tax cut!" is such a devastating rejoinder. Apparently they figure the trillions being spent are going to come from somewhere else. I'd love to know where they think that might be.
Photos and other articles here:
Houston Tea Party - April 15, 2009
Many ^ | April 14, 2009 | Self
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2229061/posts
Posted on Tuesday, April 14, 2009 3:46:28 PM by TexasCajun
Picture rom the Tea Party in Houston
Facefwd.com ^ | Faced
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2232624/posts
Posted on Sunday, April 19, 2009 1:11:34 AM by faced
HOUSTON TEA PARTY DRAWS 8,532 SIGNATURES, ESTIMATED CROWD 10,000 TOTAL
Houston Tea Party Society ^ | April 16, 2009 | Houston Tea Party Society
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2230747/posts
Posted on Thursday, April 16, 2009 12:14:41 PM by justapicker
Government ‘Has Sold Us Out,’ Demonstrators Say (Houston, Pearland, Texas Tea Parties)
Houston Chronicle ^ | April 15, 2009 | RENEE C. LEE and PEGGY O’HARE
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2230375/posts
Posted on Thursday, April 16, 2009 1:51:01 AM by anymouse
And you know it would be called so!
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