Tea Party 4 15 2009 New Haven
PHOTOS: http://picasaweb.google.com/clorigard/4152009TEAPARTYAntiTaxAndWasteDemonstra...
**old news already, so i'm just gonna toss this up here. the text i wrote follows**
i've been to many protest demonstrations...
...and i've often wondered what a protest demonstration would look like without extremists.
i visited two of the April 15th tea parties with the context of the preceding day on my mind. the obama administration had released a security report which asserted tha conservatism in the broadest understanding of the term presents a vague threat of "right wing ectremism" with the potential of turning violent.
the report didn't bother itself with the matter of citing particulars. it gave particular attention to the "possibility" that returning war veterans "may" be somehow particularly susseptible to the ministrations of unspecified white power groups.
there's a lot to chew off that bone.
the tea party protests themselves starkly refuted this calumny.
not only were there no extremists, there were no swear-words uttered. i was asked to extinguish my ciggarette for concern of the children darting around. nothing interesting happened. there was no competitive outlandishness. nothing was set on fire or overturned. not only was their not extremism and chaos, there was dignity.
we can suppose with confidence that this outcome was dissapointing to some. others however have somewhat more humble disputes with the tea party demonstrations.
i've heard it said that protest demonstrations are feckless rituals which fail to produce practical results. this is of course true.
it is also said of protest demonstrations that they suffer from a lack of uniformity of message, with many distinct issues jutting out perpendicular from one another. the suggestion impliscit here is that, with more focus and discipline lent to formulating and sticking to the message, protest demonstrations could be made to be more effective.
but these are both intrinsic features of protest demonstrations, and no sensible person would be able to put their faith in the endeavor if they did not understand it's effectiveness in the confines of what it is effective for.
first, the visceral experience bonds the participant to a micro-society within which they can establish both security and a narrower, more comprehensible context for their worldview.
second, a protest demonstration is effective in manifesting a fact from a community's common agendas. it newsifies a cloud of disposition with presence and dramatism which polls can't reproduce.
in other words, it really is about assembling the largest crowd possible and having them mill about in one anothers' presence before going home and blogging about it. the event is for the crowd, and the message is only part of the message.i never worried that anti-capitalist demonstrations lacked coherancy, and it doesn't bother me that the message of these anti-government demonstrations are vague. we know what they are about.
it's not unfair to suggest that the tea parties are a reaction to the right's recent catostrophic political losses, but it is cheap and superficial.
to react to the current political paradigm as if conservatism is in crisis is only to be reconciled with reality. there's no point to be made there.
what can be meaningfully taken from the april 15th demonstrations is that the right, with all of it's present internal dissonances, nonetheless manifested a grassroots mobilization of hundreds of thousands.
the tea party demonstrations projected a vague theme of opposition to the obama administration. this too is obvious, and pointing it out makes no interesting point against them.
faced with the dissolusion of conservatism, people who are compelled by their natures to value pluralism are bound to panic first about the destiny of a one-party republic. conservatism is broken. does it follow that there should be no critisism of progresivism?
i hope no one should think so. though the obama administration was the general target of protest, the party-goers' held signs and gave speeches which gathered tightly around issues of opposition to waste, largesse, opacity, corruption and imprudence where the government interfaces with commerce.
i was happy that the tea parties turned out the way they did. it was heartening to see that the grassroots' first instincts were to rally around the cause of prudent stewardship of the economy. it was equally heartening to see this theme pursued by the most dignified group of people i've ever seen at a protest demonstration.
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Tea Party 4 15 2009 New Haven pt 2by clemtoe278 views
Dump Dodd Now!!!!
born2achieve 2 years ago
Five Stars!!
MadBadVoodo 2 years ago