Why I Carry a Porkbarrel Pig and Go to Tea Parties...

I've been listening to all the pundits debate what the Tea Parties are about. It is a very amusing pastime. Politicians and Journalist (I use these terms loosely and disgustedly) are puzzled as to why people all over the country would venture out in public to protest if they are not being paid or getting something for their efforts. What's in it for us anyway? They just don't get it.

We, the Protesters, or Patriots as we like to refer to ourselves, are in this for the long haul. We are filling a void in our Public lives. I am ashamed to admit this void has existed in my life for more than a few decades. It is apathy, it has almost destroyed our nation as we know it, just in the last few elections. Many of the people who are now in this movement, like me, are just tired of sitting and yelling at their TV screens as we have seen this train wreck approaching.

It is time.

It is time we got up off our collective butts, instead of bleating at our problems like mindless sheep while watching reports of Government corruption, mindless bickering between the parties and all the other crap flickering on the screens of our High Def Boob tubes, and actually start doing something.

I have always voted in National Elections but I ignored local the local elections. The local elections affect the voters almost immediately. They determine things in our lives, like public safety and taxes. I feel their effect every time I buy anything at the grocery store or pay a utility bill or pay my personal property and real estate taxes. I ignore them no more. In my particular case, the replacement of a corrupt Sheriff with a fiscally conservative Sheriff in our Spring election in Wyandotte County was a small victory with larger ramifications. Small steps for sure, but forward steps.

As the oil crisis raged late last summer and the financial crisis loomed, just in time for for the polls to surge for Obama, I watched in horror at how easily our Futures Markets could be manipulated and manipulated they were. It was for a reason. Obama had to be elected at any cost.

There were men with money waiting in the wings to pull the strings of the electorate. These men had found the candidate that fit their template for power. Someone who could capture the imagination of a people tired of war, hungry for Hope and Change and someone who could count on getting 90% of the minority vote. The bonus was he was a far left of Center politician who could look like a Centrist.

The payoff for these rich men has been that fear has replaced reality in Congress and in the financial markets and the people who own the Federal Reserve and the huge Bank Conglomerates have reaped massive rewards for their support of the Democrats and Obama in particular. The banks have shown large profits in these distressed times because they have resisted the very thing the bailouts were supposed to do. Ease credit. The lending institutions have held on to their ill-gotten gains at the peril of the economy. These rich men may live to regret this decision.

The Federal Government [Obama Administration], it seems, is in a Nationalization Mood. Let's take equity shares in the banks instead of a letting them payback their borrowed graft. Why should the American People get their money back any time soon. Obama seems to be drinking Castro/Chavez Kool-aid. He wants to nationalize every thing in sight. The Banks, the Auto Companies and Health Care and he wants to do so asap. Opportunity may be slipping away as the Tea Parties grow.

As these scenarios have evolved, we, the People, have grow more and more convinced that our inaction is the problem. Standing up with clever signs (I love my Prokbarrel Pig) is not the end game. The networking with like-minded people is one of the reasons we go to these Rallies. The data base we are building is already quite impressive. Both major parties have large factions of fiscally conservative voters who believe they are being ignored. We are dissatisfied with the status quo. We are growing in number and are becoming a force to be reckoned with.

2010 is not that far away, incumbents in both parties have not paid attention to the pocketbook issues. This is a breeding ground for a new kind of activism. Not the ACORN type that attempts to steal elections. They are paid by their masters and they don't even know the slavery to failed ideas that they have bought in to. They are bought and paid for and as with any good slave they do their masters bidding, no matter what color they are. The Democrats have always used the race card to beat back detractors but it is not working with this particular group of people who seem to be developing a spine.

We have decided to become involved. The Health Care issue is on the Radar now. The Democrats are pushing the "crisis" card as hard as they can since they laid the ground work for Health Care reform in the Stimulus Bill. People are starting to wake up to the dirty tricks that some in Congress are playing.

The media insists that we, the Tea Partiers' are being paid, by Fox News or some other conservative entity. Well, where's my check. No one that I know in this movement is anything other than a hard working, fed up American who spends their own money to make signs and banners to vent our anger at the massive spending by Congress and our country's move toward Socialism.

It may be too late to hold off all challenges but we intend to make it very uncomfortable for the incumbents to behave the way they always have. We intend to hold their feet to the fire on the out-of-control spending. If they don't start to listen to the People then there will be a political price to pay for their particular brand of arrogance. We mean business. We are the new Activist. Congress and the Senate should be afraid, very afraid.