GRANTS PASS OR. TEA PARTY A HUGE SUCCESS
By
Scott Jorgensen
Posted 1:00 AM Eastern
April 22, 2009
© NewsWithViews.com
It’s
been just over a week since people across the United States expressed
their frustration at the federal government in a series of tea party
protests. But the subsequent days have been filled with a series of
divergent opinions about what the events of April 15, 2009 actually
meant.
The two-hour rally at the Josephine County Courthouse in 
Grants
Pass, Or. had well over 1,000 people in attendance at its peak. Participants
came from all walks of life and income levels, yet were there for the
same exact purpose: To declare that they had finally had enough.
Hand-made signs and American flags waved high in the air as hundreds
of passing motorists honked their horns in support. Protesters lined
both sides of the street, just like they would during a parade.
Much has been written during the last week regarding what exactly these
people were protesting. But at the Grants Pass event, that was spelled
out fairly early on by Richard Burke, the Oregon grassroots director
for conservative group Americans for Prosperity (AFP).
Burke said the tea parties had nothing to do with Republicans, Democrats,
Libertarians or anything of the sort.
“This is not about party,” Burke said. “It’s
about Americans worrying about the future of the country.”
Liberal
blogs throughout the U.S. stated that the tea parties were about Barack
Obama and tax cuts.
Not according to Burke.
“It’s about debt,” he said. “It’s about
spending.”
There have been many accusations that the tea party protests were organized from the top-down by anyone from Fox News to the Republican Party itself. But during his speech Jack Swift, AFP’s Josephine County coordinator and an organizer of the Grants Pass protest, pointed out that all the speakers at that event were grassroots people.
In fact, Swift said that several politicians had been invited to attend the event.
“Most ignored us,” he said.
So
who were these throngs of people who took time out of their day to stand
in front of the Josephine County Courthouse and make their voices heard?
Well, according to a show of hands, many of them were U.S. military
veterans. One of them was Vietnam veteran Gil Gillingham, who was among
the speakers.
During his speech, Swift traced the nation’s problems back to
Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, and said they continued under
the Nixon administration, through the passage of the Endangered Species
Act and creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.
“The result was, we drove big business out,” Swift said.
“But big business supports a whole lot of small business.”
Internet radio host Hal Anthony told the audience that he had been getting
calls about the tea parties from people all over the country.
“This
is not an isolated incident,” Anthony said.
The crowd slowly thinned out as daylight faded, but those who still
lingered afterwards expressed optimism that perhaps the protests made
a statement loud enough to be heard.
However, with all the subsequent noise that’s been made about
the events, it’s hard to tell if that was the case.
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History will ultimately judge the participants not on the words spoken at these rallies, but by their future actions, or lack thereof. One thing is for certain, though—the debate over government spending, debt and taxation will not be over any time soon.
