Thursday, March 19, 2009

Banding Together: The ABQ Tea Party and the East Mountain 9-12ers

Yesterday, I blogged about the problem.


But as we used to say in Chemistry 101 Lab: If you're not part of the solution, you are part of the precipitate. (You know, that stuff at the bottom of the test tube).


Not wanting to be precipitated out, some of us have been moved to do something to take our country back.




Albuquerque, New Mexico is at the heart of Manana-land, a place where it's too nice outside to bother getting grumpy, and where the patron system is alive and well.

But even we have gotten excited by the unprecedented speed at which the past few federal administrations have sold us down the river.

It may not be Boston, but Albuquerque is going to have its very own Tea Party on Taxx* Day.





*Yes, I know what Webster says, but if any word deserves to be a four-letter word, that one does!



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Last week, a group of us here in the East Mountains got together to watch the Glenn Beck "We Surround Them" special, which was a response to the sense that there is no common sense, and that those of us who uphold the Constitution are quite alone. This has become the 9-12 Project. (No, Glenn is not putting together an army for revolution, this is about us raising our own voices).


We decided to keep meeting, to plan to participate in the Tea Parties, and to support one another, as many of us work in places where speaking our truths leads to being shut down. Thus, we have begun the East Mountain 9-12ers. I am planning to begin the book club next month.





The patriots of the American Revolution gathered in churches and taverns to discuss the issues of the day and, as Samuel Adams said, "Hatch much treason," in their quest for liberty. They did everything they could to petition their government in England for redress of grievances, before they gave the reasons for their Declaration of Independence to a candid world. In his book Democracy in America, written a generation later, Alexis de Toqueville was impressed at how passionately Americans gathered and read and studied their principles and applied them to the issues of their day.


We mean to do the same,except that we do not intent to hatch any treason; the treason is being hatched by our government in its ongoing violation of our liberties. By our Constitution, the government is answerable to us and exists to protect our rights. In order to take our country back, We the People must know our history and live the principles upon which this nation was founded. That is our purpose. I believe the tax revolt, in the form of the Tea Parties now brewing, is the first shot in the across the bow in the Second American Revolution.


We mean it to be a peaceful and principled stand for the liberties and rights so secured to us by the Founders.





3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're actually looking to Glenn Beck for inspiration? The guy is a certified loon who is missing only a tinfoil hat to make his outfit complete. He's such a space case that even his fellow pundits at Fox News are embarrassed by him.

But this whole "tea party" business is in and of itself a distraction. People who made out like bandits during the last eight years can't stand the thought of giving up any of their gains, much less anyone else getting ahead, so they whip up some fake populism combined with distortions and outright lies.

Elisheva Hannah Levin said...

Anonymous: Yeah, they thought Natan Sharansky was crazy, too. Over there in the Soviet Union (now defunct), the Communist Party declared that anyone who disageed with them was not only an Enemy of the State, but also insane. The psychiatric establishment and the Party committed many dissidents to insane asylums.

But seriously, this is an argument? Please--do yourself a favor and look up logical fallacies. I am sure that even Wiki has an entry. You leave yourself open to the charge that you have no argument when you begin a rejoinder with an Ad Hominum attack. (They used to teach this stuff in high school, back in the dark ages prior to No Child Left Behind).

What was it that Ghandi said? First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.

We seem to be between being laughed at (tin foil hat and all) and being fought (although badly). Does this mean that next we win?

Anonymous said...

Elisheva, I'm looking forward to meeting you at the Tea Party -- if I will be able to find you in the crowds! Sandy