Taxes, Tea Bags, and the Media.

Yesterday was the famous tax day, April 15. The day when the deadline comes on filing your taxes. But, something extraordinary happened yesterday. All accross the country in countless number of cities, people in the thousands went out in every major city and protested about everything going on from taxes, to the stimulus, the bailouts, the pork & earmarks, to the growing and ever large and involving government, and donwright failure of our leaders in the Senate, Congress, and White House to bring about reasonable solutions to our nations' problems.

It was an amazing thing to watch. These were ordinary people who protested in a civilized manner who wanted the change they were promised. I wish I could've gone to one of these events. Instead, I watched it unfold in various cities on TV on Foxnews, which was the only network which covered it in full. It went almost unnoticed by the other networks. CNN almost ignored it and the one time it was covered by that network, a reporter Susan Roegen denigrated a man with a child whom she tried to interview, yet, put down. Claiming the event was an "Anti-Family, Anti-Gov't, Anti-CNN" movement promoted by the Fox network.

And that was kind compared to MSNBC, which covered the event only to denigrate, put down, and make fun of these people, claiming these people are right-wing extremists promoting hate-mongering & put on display as some sort of twisted conspiracy plot by the Repeublican party. The way Ed Schulz, Rachael Maddow and Kieth Olberman bashed and insulted these people was despicable.

What the media and politicians failed to understand is that this protest wasn't against just taxes or Anti-Obama or Anti-CNN, it was anti-big government, anti-deficict, anti-spending, anti-stimulus, anti-bailout. These were simple quiet middle class families from all parts of life in this country who just seemed to see their gov't, first under the ineptness of former President Bush and now under President Obama, get out of hand in spending and control and they just said that enough is enough.

These people at those rallies were republicans, democrats, conservatives, moderates, independants, and all types of affiliations, except(and I'm only guessing and could be wrong here) liberals. These were ordinary moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas, as well as, young folks, students, veterans, etc. who just want their leaders to be more responsible, have some common sense, and lead the nation to prosperity not its decline. They weren't protesting President Obama(well, not him drirectly), Californains were protesting in Sacramento against Governor Schwarzenegger and his tax increases he promised not to raise. They were protesting both Republicans and Democrats in both the Congress and Senate on all fronts, National, State, and City levels who they feel has failed them.

Now, it seems the Republicans are taking notice and trying to build upon this. They are eager to use this as a base to rebuild their party and re-organize. Then again, they are so desperate for anything to help them rebuild this should come as not surprise. But, if it gets them to listen to the people then I consider it a plus. What dicourages me is that some left-leaning democrats are ignoring this and disregarding this. Are they making the same mistake the GOP made when they felt invicible under Bush's presidency? If I were the dems and the gop, I listen to these people or if they might get booted out of office next election cycle. While I believe Obama will survie this and most likely get re-elected(I'll explain why I believe this in another upcoming post ), I would be very worried if I was Pelosi or Reid. If they disregard these protests like the biased media has, they may find themselves unemployed.

All I can say is that finally, and hopefully, the government on all levels will be truly held accountable for their actions by the people who voted the officials in. Better follow the will of the people or be voted out. At last, the people have spoken.