So, yesterday in the United States saw nationwide tax protests.
I’m not sure how I feel about this. I’m not all that big a believer in protests to begin with. On the other hand, some critics of the protests say the whole thing was planned, but that’s just silly: any event like that is planned.
I’ve long thought the income tax is fundamentally unAmerican. Especially in its current form. A flat tax, or better yet, a consumption tax, would make a lot more sense and be less of a threat to our civil liberties.
Yet at the same time, I can only note what I’ve noted before: the government really isn’t currently all that bad, and currently our taxes aren’t particularly high.
So, call it a wash for me. I’m mildly sympathetic to the protesters, I guess, but I had better things to do. Although I did have some friends tell me they’d gone, and they said they’d had a great time, so that’s a plus.
{ 26 comments }
Dean:
There are mulitple issues invovled in the tea party phenomenon.
The most interesting aspect to me is the near total media blackout of the event, and when there is MSM coverage, the coverage is snarky and demeaning of the participants. CNN was perhaps the worst example of this when CNN reporter Susan Roesgen (who once called an effigy of GW Bush with devil horns and a Hitler moustache a “lookalike” of GW Bush) called the tea party protests “anti-CNN” and said that coverage was not appropriate for family viewing because a sign called Obama a fascist. Other MSM reporters have ridiculed the events when they have covered them. News reporters who breathlessly covered anti-Bush protests with a few hundred participants have completely and totally ignored tea party protests with thousands of protesters. The bias of the MSM has become so breathtaking that it has become impossible to parody. It has become a parody of itself.
On the pure political front, it is interesting to me that tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of normally apolitical conservatives have taken time off work to protest the actions of their government. The dirty little secret of MOST modern political protests is that they are generally performed by what I call professional protesters. In other words the vast majority of “grass roots protests” that the media covers are actually the result of organizations like ACORN busing in activists who bounce from one protest to another, so long as the protest is anti-American, anti-Capitalist, anti-Republican, or most of all, anti-George W. Bush. Those folks protest as a hobby or as performance art. THESE tea party protests are a completely different thing, a true uprising of the common American conservative who is fed up with their government and what they (and I) see as the wholesale mortgaging of our children’s futures.
And finally these protests are a striking demonstration (pun included) of a new political movement in America which is not really a partisan effort. Although you will find few Democrats at these events, you WILL find large numbers of independents and libertarians. There is energy here that can be tapped into by a savvy and sympathetic politician.
I am enjoying the show. I enjoy the obvious discomfort and panic of the mainstream media as much as anything. Watching a bunch of shameless Obama shills seeing their carefully constructed image of Obama as the political messiah fall apart in front of their eyes, as they DESPERATELY try to hide that obvious fact from their viewers is, as Mastercard might say, PRICELESS.
CC,
Totally agree with you on the openly hostile CNN coverage. But the flipside to that is FOX journalists telling people that they MUST buy tea party merchandise, etc. The bias of the MSM, whether left or right, has become indeed a parody of itself.
Ahh, the “grassroots” protest that was advertised, organized, and socially sponsored by FOX News. This is certainly a great exercise in free speech. But, it is very professional in it’s organization and it lacks just as much candor in terms of it’s “roots” as many of the other professional protests we see.
I however, applaud the efforts of the protesters and sincerely hope that they continue, AND receive more coverage. I truly want their messages to be conveyed to the American people. Hopefully, it will inspire people to read the writings of Payne and others who helped shape this country. Because, when they do, that’s where the real fun will begin. I doubt it though, they will probably just accept the words of their talking heads as face value.
I found CNN’s HLN and the Lou Dobbs show (which was being guest hosted by a woman I’m not familiar with) to be quite balanced with regard to the tea parties, providing commentary from both sides that I found thoughtful and objective. I didn’t bother with the CNN coverage and since the MSM only has national news in the early evening, I have no idea what their coverage was.
FOX’s was pretty much the flag waving I expect from them. It is odd that they call themselves fair and balanced, because it’s clear to me that they lean right, and very right sometimes. But in the larger scheme, you could certainly argue that they counterbalance the left-leaning views of CNN and the other networks. It would be nice to see another right-leaning network pop up and compete with FOX, if only to temper them a little.
The sad result of this is that in order to get a semi-clear picture of news, you have to be willing to swallow a lot of opinion from either side. But then there is the new media, for which I’m very glad. I only wonder how long it will be before the new media eclipses the kind of “journalism” we have on TV/Cable today.
Can’t say I followed them particularly closely, but the one here in Chicago got a lot of local press. Of course, in Chicago and Cook country we currently suffer from (I believe) the highest taxes in the nation when you aggregate them all. I think sales tax is now around 10% or some such absurd number when you add the county, city, and state numbers. The suburb of Palatine recently voted to secede from the county its citizens are so irate with the endless tax increases. With a two month old child and the wife now not working, it is really making me consider a move out the burbs in the within the next few years. But I digress…
What struck me most (locally) was that politicians actually took notice. Politicians that recently openly talked of more and more taxes made a point to release statements that they now believe that taxes ought to at least be trimmed. It could very well be lip service, but that is progress around these parts.
It could very well be lip service, but that is progress around these parts.
It most likely is. Obama has given his presidential lip service, and suggested a simplifying of the tax code. Even if taxes are going to be higher for everyone like the protesters claim, a simplification of the tax code is long overdue. However, I’ll believe it when I see it.
They weren’t tax protests – that’s a MSM misrepresentation. The protests were against the massive spending and tendency towards socialism of the current administration.
Mark:
And the constant characterization of them as “right-wing” and “extremist’ and the attempt to discredit them by saying that they are “organized by Fox News” etc… are all attempts by the press and the Left to diminish the events. As if the anti-Bush events that were so breathlessly covered by the MSM were not actively promoted by the MSM every chance they got.
If this is a true groundswell political movement, it will take on a life of its own and overwhelm the partisan attempts to belittle it. We’ll see where it goes. I pretty much guarantee you that if these tea party events had not been happening, you would not have seen the Texas Legislature fire a shot across Obama’s bow by declaring the 10th Amendment to STILL be IN EFFECT in this country.
We’ll see where it goes.
Keith – I imagine the “fair” in “fair and balanced” means not that they’re impartial (notice they don’t claim that!) but that they’re open in their partiality for the moderate center-right. Which seems accurate enough in my slight experience.
As to Dean’s post, it should be noted that the complaint from those complaining that the protests were “planned” was not just that they were “planned”, but that there Must Have Been A Central Planner.
The same blindness that keeps people from realising that markets can self-organize also keeps them from realising that people can self-organize, without a Soros or a MoveOn pushing them.
Fox seems to have gleefully jumped on the bandwagon, by all accounts… but Fox didn’t organize local groups, did it? None of the posts I’ve seen from myriad bloggers involved with the protests suggested any organization from outside, let alone central planning from the Murdoch Empire.
And as far as I know nobody has centrally funded them – not that they’ve needed a lot of funding. You don’t, after all, when you’re holding an actually popular protest. Advertisements and pre-printed signs for the drones, those cost money (this means you, ANSWER). But when you have a popular protest, you don’t need to advertise, and people will make their own signs (or local printers will donate).
(Full disclosure: I have no involvement with any Tea Party protests of any sort, in any way, beyond hanging up in disgust when the local one robo-called me, and vowing to not even consider supporting them if they can’t be bothered to have a human being talk to me.
But it’s hilarious watching the left completely misunderstand that there are other ways to organise a movement than central planning and control. It’s a microcosm of the giant gap between the left and the right (or the left and the center, for that matter). )
I actually find that, when they’re doing straight reporting, both NPR and Fox News are pretty darned good about it and really are generally pretty well balanced.
Fox mostly gets its reputation for being right-leaning because they don’t make quite a clear enough the distinction between straight-up reporting and commentary, because some of their most-watched shows ARE opinion shows not reporting shows. Sean Hannity is one obvious one. Bill O’Reilly is slightly different but you know you’re watching for those guys’ opinions. When they have a news break between editorial sections, that reporting is pretty good. Ditto when they have simple straight-up news hours or whatever.
I’m not quite sure how to tell the casual viewer the distinction. I can tell just because I’ve been watching it for years—not as my only source, but I remember when it was still a very young network, and I’ve caught it semi-regularly ever since.
Oh, and same for NPR by the way. They do have a pretty good distinction between their reporters and their editorializers, and while it’s clear that they overall swing pretty well to the left, when they’re doing straight-ahead reporting they are generally excellent.
So encouraging viewers to show up to “FNC Tax Day Tea Parties” is not in any way helping to organize them? Actually I wouldn’t say they are organized so much as advertised. When they are advertised as “FNC Tax Day Tea Parties” then one has to assume FOX is claiming some level of ownership to them. Also, unlike mainstream news networks, they are activiely encouraging the protests. This goes beyond showing the protests in merely a positive light.
Robo-calling? Sounds like an attempt to recruit to me. This is just as planned and organized as the so-called “professional protesters” are. While organizations like “Move-On” and others do effectively organize protesters, we will see the same thing if we get a long period under Democratic leadership. There will be a “Taxed Enough Already” organiztion that pops up and most likely others. This is not evil in and of itself and honestly is one of the great privileges in America. I just wish one side would stop trying to portray their radicals as better than the radicals on the other side. I expect it from the radicals but not from otherwise rational people.
Regardless of where the tea parties originated or who or how they were covered and promoted, one thing stands out to me. This is the first time I recall seeing anyone on the right actually get out and protest in these numbers. Sure, there have been those who counter protest the anti-war crowd. But this is the first time I’ve seen so many conservative and libertarian people organize and actually, you know, get out of their house with their homemade sign and protest something they disagree with.
I drove by the one in my local berg near Dallas and found about 300 or so people standing on each corner of a very busy intersection during rush hour waving flags and homemade signs that seemed appropriate to their cause without being nasty or inflammatory. About as bad as it got was “Don’t Subsidize Stupidity”. They were preaching to the choir in this area of Dallas, so they got lots of horn honks and seemed to be having a good time. There was only one visible police car and no signs of counter protests.
To my original point, the fact that people of a conservative mind are even organizing and protesting is to me a significant statement. I’m not going to make predictions about the downfall of the left, but the anger is reminiscent of 1994, and these protests just make it more visceral.
As I said… if these tea parties are real manifestations of actual wide-spread anger and resentment over Obama’s tax and spend policies, then we will know soon enough.
I still love watching the Left go into conniptions over them. That CNN reporter who whined about how hard it was for her to deal with a bunch of polite, non-profane, non-screaming, non-threatening people taking a day off work, while she gleefully joined in the anti-Bush fake-blood, screeching hate-filled diatribes and effigies of Bush and Cheney is all manner of vicious incarnations…
I just love that stuff. You can tell where her heart, and her anchor’s heart is. They made that perfectly clear.
If this is a sign of the downfall of the left, then surely the anti-war protests popular even today are surely the downfall of the right. Protests are not a sign of the other side’s downfall, but a sign of as you said anger. I don’t remember the “Jail to the Chief” and “Impeach Clinton’ protests of Clinton’s day being any more or less inflammatory than these.
People typically organize and protest when the power shift goes against what they believe in. Considering the shift to a Democratic advantage it is not surprising that conservatives are out protesting, nor is it a phenomenon. It is in fact a sign that the system still works, despite it’s flaws. The opposition has always been very vocal and very loud in making it’s grievances known.
I still love watching the Left go into conniptions over them.
Yes it is fun. Especially since free speech is supposed to work both ways. Some people have a strange sense of entitlement. Basic rights apply to everyone, even people we disagree with. I just watched a clip of a CNN reporter trying to “show up” one of the protesters. Her efforts were futile and this guy was rambling about Lincoln and other stuff that was essentially rhetoric made up for the protest. He didn’t care to listen to her because he isn’t there to listen, it’s not called a “conversation” it’s called a protest.
Also, I found it quite hilarious that one of her “points” was that his state was going to receive stimulus money. Since he doesn’t want it it isn’t really a valid way to address what they were there for. All in all she should not have tried to hold a debate with the protesters as it is not the forum for it.
I think it is odd that the media should judge people participating in the process that makes this country great as ‘reprehensible’. Especially since that very process is what allows them to freely make so much money telling us what to believe.
I was thinking of going to a tea party, either local or in NYC, but since I share the many of the same views as liberals and leftists, and since I never have been conservative, I thought that I might not fit in. When the Republicans were in power, most conservatives were willing to tolerate moderate views, but things have changed.
jrogge:
Good analysis of the CNN interview. It sounds like the same one I saw. I thought the CNN reporter was behaving in egregiously unethical ways. She’s supposed to REPORT what is going on, not ARGUE with a protester. That was one of the things that cracked me up. She concluded that the protest was anti-CNN because the protesters disliked her. They didn’t dislike her because she was from CNN, they disliked her because she was a condescending jerk who was attacking them instead of interviewing them.
The stuff about Lincoln was no more “made up for the protest” than any other protest comment is. Yes he rambled, but he wasn’t one sentence into his comment that SHE ASKED FOR before she was ARGUING with him.
Funny, I don’t remember this CNN “reporter” EVER arguing with an anti-Bush protester. Strange how that happens.
Anyway, the scope of this tea party thing is an order of magnitude or more larger than the anti-Clinton stuff.
Just as an example, I found the anti-Clinton stuff to be rabid partisanship run rampant and I disagreed with many people I knew who enjoyed that. But I am enjoying this and agree with much of what the protesters say. So if my own example means anything, this is a far more centralist movement than the “Jail to the Chief” stuff you are referring to.
Which is sort of our point.
Although I like to avoid partisanship (partly because I know less about domestic politics than I do about foreign stuff – still don’t know what an earmark is, or why I should hate ACORN), it is very reasonable to criticize the financial industry and the politicians on both sides who created this mess.
And Americans have shown that we’re a lot more reasonable than the Europeans. Compare the tea parties to the G20 protests.
Compare the tea parties to the G20 protests.
lol Mary very good point.
Actually, if we have a G20 here, the freakshow would be just as bad. The US has just as many anarchists, code pinkers, anti-globos, eco-nuts, and sundry foul-smelling weirdos as Europe.
Remember Seattle and the WTO silliness in the late 1990s?
For the most part, the Lynchburg Tea Party was fairly non partisan, e.g., the local Dem politicians were invited (but generally didn’t show) and there was some criticism of Bush and Republicans that voted for TARP and a lot of Ron Paul signs (yes, he caucuses with the Reps but the identification is very weak) and repeated calls that this was about excessive spending at the federal, state, and local levels and that would support any candidate from any party that would cut spending.
While there were exceptions (George Kaylor went on a tear on alot of unrelated things and depending on your perspective the personalization to Obama and Pelosi may or may not be partisan), but I went with an Obama voter (he figured McCain and Obama were likely equally bad, so he might as well vote for history) and he didn’t complain about the partianship (Kaylor aside).
On Fox, et al., “organizing” the Tea Parties – they did no such thing. It predated their involvement. What Fox and several politicians did was try to co-opt the TP movement to serve their own agendas.
“Yet at the same time, I can only note what I’ve noted before: the government really isn’t currently all that bad, and currently our taxes aren’t particularly high.”
Ah, but how bad and high will they become if Obama and the democrat-majority congress get their wish list of expanded government funding and power, and we get the consequential DOUS (Deficit of Unprecedented Size)?
That’s what this is about, Dean. The “regular folks” out there protesting? They can see what’s coming, and they’re out to stop it. This is called “future-pacing”, and it’s one of the classic hallmarks of success in adult life.
Is it because you haven’t seen the actual deficit projections and estimations of the degree of increase of federal control over the economy and daily life?
Not sure the whole point is that taxes are currently too high, though you could argue, just like you did, that any tax is too high. The point is that the current administration, taking it’s lead from the last few months of the previous administration, is spending money like complete drunken sailors on crack and PCP. And when the bill for that comes due, whoa, THEN taxes will most definitely be too high. And the crap we will be getting for it will SUCK.
Crap health care so that a tiny percentage of the population that WANT health care but don’t have it, can get it for free. Not that they would be turned away for life saving treatment in the first place, but that’s neither here nor there. AND we can also get some wicked high priced energy so we can combat the non-existent myth of Global Warming.
THAT is what they are really protesting.
I wish you people would stop haranguing drunken sailors.
I was a drunken sailor once and I spent like one. However, every single penny of that money was mine.
Oh… just to follow up on the MSM’s “attention” to the tea bag protests, with the massive protests on tax day, most of the major MSM outlets finally had to do stories on the events.
So how did they do that? Most of them used the opportunity to turn the story into a sophomoric exercise in seeing who could make the most lewd references to “teabagging” an urban slang term referring to various froms of oral sex involving the male genitalia.
This is a two-for-one for most media folks. It allows them to ridicule a grass roots movement they disapprove of, AND it allows them to make all sorts of homosexual references to conservatives, while they play “wink wink, nudge nudge” games with each other.
Journalistic integrity has become an oxymoron.
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