"It only takes one man with courage to make a majority"

President Andrew Jackson, "The American Lion"

             For years, millions of unhappy Americans have toiled silently from day to day. They have diligently tended to families, careers, and education while subversive elements of society have focused on controlling government institutions. While they balanced their checkbooks, their government mortgaged their future. While, they decried the excesses of the 1960s counterculture from churches, offices, and homes radicals overtook the educational system and began an exercise in mass brainwashing. Still, they largely remained quiet, burdened by their obligations and uninformed by a media firmly in the pocket of radicals. They believed in the justice of the law and a right to freedom speech and, when religion was chased from the public sphere by judges pursuing their own agendas rather than the letter of the law, they respected governing institutions even if they disagreed with those who ran them.  At every turn, they extended courtesy and a public platform to their opponents only to find that one day, their children were strangers, their leaders… despots, and their views labeled un-American. On that day, the silence was broken, the obedience faltered, and a new movement was born. Ladies and gentlemen, that day was April 15, 2009 and the Tax Day Tea Parties mark the start of a new grassroots, conservative movement.

                Thankfully, I was able to able to make the time to attend the New Haven, Connecticut tea party where I joined nearly a thousand of my fellow patriots to protest everything from expanding federal power to uncontrolled spending. Our protest permit (don’t even get me started on the absurdity of permit to protest… what happened to free speech?) was for Long Wharf, a location quite some distance from the center of New Haven, but it was all for the best. The location allowed us to get within a hundred feet of the highway where we were able to wreak havoc with the traffic on I-95. Some of the protesters climbed dirt mounds next to the highway where they displayed banners and posters such as "Taxes = Violence." As I stood there, just taking in the scene, hundreds if not thousands of cars and trucks honked as they past. By the end of the protest traffic on I-95 was backed up from New Haven to Milford, a distance of at least 9 miles. The joy of finally being surrounded by like-minded people who can listen to different opinions without resorting to baseless, hate-filled labels such as racist, reactionary, fascist, Nazi, etc. was marvelous. In short, reason and civility reigned supreme.

                If you’ve followed the mainstream media’s coverage of the Tea Parties, however, you’d think that put on my white KKK robes, grabbed some gasoline, and rounded up my white supremacist buddies. We jeered at some foreign looking pedestrians on the street before tooling around the town and arriving at a local gathering of neo-Nazis to protest the black man in the Whitehouse. The media’s coverage of the parties has been everything from disingenuous and misleading to outright propaganda. CNN sent one of its reporters to the Chicago tea party where she was so taken aback by a man who equated Obama to a fascist that she had to resort to, "don’t you realize how offensive that is?" It seems she missed the memo. Conservatives have been called fascists for over 70 years and there hasn’t been much of an outcry. Perhaps the real problem was that she had a sudden crisis of faith in the secular gods of free speech and democratic process when she realized that there are dissenting opinions and some who hold them are finding the courage and the strength to stand tall and proclaim them to the world. Whatever her motivations, her coverage of the scene was the most unbalanced I have seen in years and that includes segments on political commentary shows. She ended her coverage by saying that the scene was not "family viewing." You can see the entire clip below (as well as what cnn didn’t show you):

CNN’s Coverage

What they didn’t show you:

The Same Reporter’s Reaction Two Years Earlier to a Protestor Comparing Bush to Hitler 

               Some might be surprised to find the media so hostile to traditional Americans standing up for their beliefs. Others might laugh off the incident as further evidence of a media bias they have long been aware of. I, on the other hand, think the negative media coverage was the icing on the cake; mainstream news outlets across the nation, from CNN to NBC do not know how to react. This is perhaps the first time in the history of America that conservatives and traditionalists have made such a large and coordinate effort (perhaps a half million or more attended over 1000 Tea Parties) to make their views heard. The elitists who comprise the news corps cannot come to terms with a movement this large and widespread being organized by average, everyday people. 

                      A recurring theme in the coverage was just how many protesters were present and, often, a reporter would remark how much larger the Tea Party was compared to previous anti-war protests in the same location. On their faces there was confusion. Their speech was riddled with negative buzzwords like right-wing, bashers, ugly, and hate-filled. No doubt they hoped these words would trigger the negative emotions our society has conditioned us to experience at their very mention. Some, like CNN’s Susan Roesgen, tried to blame the movement on evil Fox News and conservative organizations, frantically searching for an explanation for an event that couldn’t be easily reconciled to her world view. Ironically, she was standing in front of signs that said "Republicans suck too" and "Rick Santelli for President" when she attempted to link the events to the Republican Party.

                If there’s one thing that I have learned in life, it’s that people, when they feel threatened, do not rely on logic and rational thinking, rather they resort to instinct, name calling,  and violence to defend themselves. If you haven’t seen the writing on the wall, let me be the first to tell you that the mainstream media outlets are scared. Some of them will try to ignore the movement in the hopes that it will simply go away. What they fear, however, are the implications of success. Their vacuous drivel, manufactured for the numbed and manipulated masses they helped to create, will be far worse than worthless; it will be an indictment of their hypocrisy, poor character, and treasonous actions. Even now their bias and incompetence is forcing them to the brink of bankruptcy, and they will face the terrifying choice of respecting conservatives or dissolving entirely. The age of the liberal media hegemony is now at an end. They are on the run and we need to forge bravely ahead, with the courage to ignore the lies and the slander. As Jackson said, "one man with courage makes a majority." We have not just one man, not just a thousand men, but hundreds of thousands and millions of men and women filled with courage and with hope. You are not wrong to demand accountability and you are most certainly not wrong to proclaim your beliefs. God bless you all and may God bless America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. 

Pictures of Tea Parties Around the Country: http://michellemalkin.com/2009/04/15/massive-tax-day-tea-party-usa/

If you missed the April 15 Tea Parties or you want to continue your involvement, there are plans for a July 4 Tea Party in the capital and rumors of protests outside of mainstream media headquarters in May. Everybody counts in this war of ideas, support what you believe in. Details will be posted here as soon as they are available.