It is my understanding there are now five hundred cities on the tea party list. I hope all good Samizdata readers (or at least that subset of which resides in the middle half of the North American continent) get out their signs and show their anger this coming April 15th!
The ‘Main Stream Media’, as Glenn Reynolds approximately put it, will be hiring extra people that day to do the hard graft journalistic work of ignoring the nationwide demonstrations by hundreds to thousands of people in what may well be one for the Guinness records. There may be the largest number of simultaneous demonstrations in American history on Tax Day 2009.
It actually does not matter that MSM will be absent as no one pays any attention to them any more any way. I can literally not remember the last time I read a ‘dead tree’ newspaper. I do not even own a working TV anymore. I doubt I am alone. They are irrelevant and obsolete.
I you want coverage, go to Pajamas TV. I would not be surprised if Reason TV covered some of it as well. For daily information, keep an eye on Glenn Reynolds.
I will not be on that side of the Atlantic in time for the fun, but I do have a few sign suggestions. (Some are mine and some are golden oldies):
“I’m Capitalist and I’m Proud!”
“Go Galt!”
“Screw the Welfare State!”
“Legalize Freedom!”
“Pelosi Go Home!”
“The Mafia would steal less!”
“Taxation is Theft”
“Smash the State!”
Feel free suggest other sign ideas for the tea partiers!
Later: I have recently been exchanging email with J Neil Schulman and that reminds me of how prophetic his 1979 Prometheus award winning novel Alongside Night is of current events, even if we are only in the prequel stages of his story.
Take away the “Pelosi Go Home.”
She does, on a private jet (for which she is demanding an upgrade) provided by the U S Military!
It costs us a lot each time she goes home.
Now, it might be different if she would “Go home and STAY”.”
Also, we should be against the early return of TARP funds. For now at least, those funds are truly “invested” in business operations that have some possibility of producing revenues (even indirectly, through the commercial activitities of recipients – if not by earnings).
If returned, Congress will just spend those funds (and more); by “investing in” (spending on) political structures supposedly for social change – but really for political objectives.
Suggested sign: “Forget! The Debt!” promoting defaulting on porkulus debt.
The trouble with defaulting on the debt is the issue of where that debt resides: T-Bills. And who holds T-Bills? Why all of the big investment management firms and organizations that hold… your retirement funds.
I’ve already lost near 40% of my retirement funds value and so have many others. That is one of the reasons why people are so pissed off.
I will be at my local party on the 15TH!!!
I and my family will be there. Signs will include:
“I trust an American Soldier with a gun a lot more than I trust a politician with a teleprompter.”
“Remember the OATH!”
A picture of the “Debt Star” [Star Wars Death Star with the Obama logo]
First Navy Jack [‘Don’t Tread On Me’] or Washington Cruisers Flag or Bunker Hill Flag.
Subotai Bahadur
True, but they’d be damned leery of buying more, which is the debt I’m talking about. The idea is to avoid defaulting by making it impossible for government to sell the debt in the first place. I don’t think the government selling debt to itself via the Fed is gonna fly, either: no guarantees, but there are some ideas so ludicrous that even government might be ashamed to try them.
Oh, damn, I used “government” and “ashamed” in the same sentence….
I am running one in Maine and helping to co-ordinate another two or three. Maine has two of the three “Republican” Senators that backed the porkulus budget.
The MSM is even starting to take notice.
There is an article on Kennebec Journal on our tea party.
Good on you, Mr. Dodge. As a native (though former) Mainer, I’ll be applauding you at a distance while I attend the Tax Day Tea Party in Denver, Colorado.
Some more sign ideas:
“Representation Without Taxation is Unjust”
“Dump D.C.”
“Consent Withdrawn”
“Party Like It’s 1773!”
A picture of the “Debt Star” [Star Wars Death Star with the Obama logo]
Along similar lines: “This is not the change I’m looking for”
What worries me the most is the potential for violence. To be perfectly honest, I won’t be surprised in the slightest when I see the first Congressional Representative catch a slug from an outraged constituent.
The entire organization has brought itself into such well-deserved disrepute that I’ve not the slightest doubt a considerable number of people want to kill some of them in revenge for their malfeasance. Reid, Pelosi, Murtha, Schumer, Leahy, Waters, Jackson-Lee, Waxman, Feinstein, Boxer, Murray…the list goes on and on of legislators who have done things that infuriate the non-Communist members of the American body politic. Many, if not most, of the people on the right consider them guilty of outright treason.
What DOES bother me is the opening this would give Obama and his left-wing fascists to crack down on legitimate gun owners. The Obama bunch intends to do things that they KNOW the American public will not support and would spurn, given the chance. That is the reason they hate and fear the legitimate gun owner and why it would suit them perfectly to have a “Reichstag fire” type of incident justifying weapons confiscation.
I think the United States is in a VERY fragile place politically and it would not take much to start widespread civil disorder. An attempt by the Federal Government to seize private firearms might well be the Fort Sumter of the second American civil war, and I’m all but certain Obama and his cronies would not be sorry to see such an outcome. They want to change America beyond all recognition, and that kind of civil upheaval would provide them the excuse they seek. Remember Emanuel’s comment about “never letting a good crisis go to waste.”
Americans made a tremendous error in November when they elected Obama. If hyperinflation and the near-complete debasement of their currency is all they have to pay for that mistake, they will have escaped cheaply.
My favourite slogan so far was done by a girl in Kansas who had a drawing of a piggy bank with the words:
“Don’t rob my piggy to pay for your pork”
Mac, unfortunately you scenario sounds entirely plausible.
“Throw the Bums OUT!”
And a tee-shirt advertising the:
“Slaughter of the Incumbents Tour November 2010”
With a list of congressional districts and states where the worst offenders, (including Snowe and the like), are the incumbents.
And “Term Limits Now!” on the front.
I think it would be great to set up a high speed copier filled with green paper and just Xerox money all day, with a big sign, PROBLEM SOLVED: KEEP PRINTING MORE MONEY, or STOP THE PRESSES or something like that.
Make the dollars thus copied doctored up a bit–congratulations, here’s some free money for you, sleep soundly because your government is hard at work printing more money, indebting your great grandchildren, causing inflation, and putting the country in a vulnerable position. Maybe link to a website on how to survive in a third world country. There’s a really good page on surviving in Argentina after the financial crisis.
Actually, there’s another event going on the same day. The clip from the movie “Network” – “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more!” has been going viral on fb. An event has grown out of it, and that’s making the rounds too. We’re going to pour out into the streets and yell this,
noon Eastern – catching the pols and financiers out for their lunch hour
11 am Central
10 am Mountain
9 am Pacific
…as a simultaneous cry rising up all across the land.
It will be probably as successful as Earth Hour but hey, it’s a fun idea. We’ll see if it happens. Mark your calendar and set an alarm. I am.
KEEP THE CHANGE
REVOLUTIONARY STABILITY
Thanks for mentioning Neil’s novel, Dale. He and I have been working on a plan to turn it into a graphic novel, film, and online game, as well. So far, sales are up this year.
I agree with Mac that the situation is fragile, and the government is eager to over-react to any attack. So much so that they might create the situation they want to over-react to as a false flag op.
But, look, Thomas Paine asked this question: would you rather have the war now, or in your children’s time? The guy he asked was a fairly well off guy, and was standing next to his eight or nine year old child, and said, “Let the war come later.” Paine reflected in his essay that such a choice was very poor. Let the war come in our time so our children may know peace.