Thursday, April 16, 2009

More From the Sugar Land TEA Party

I wish I had a nickel for every hit that this blog’s website has gotten over the past day.

A dime for every comment left.

And a quarter for every comment I had to delete because of foul language.

I told you. It’s kray-ZEE here. Here where we have a governor who repeatedly mentions the fact that Texas is the only state in the country that entered the union under a treaty – so is entitled to secede, we have hard core conservatives who object to the fact that one can have another partisan viewpoint than their own.

Both opinions are out to lunch. One of these ideas was settled in 1865 after the deaths of six hundred thousand. The other one, apparently, has yet to be settled.

So with that as prologue, here are more photos of the TEA party that took place yesterday in front of the Sugar Land, Texas city hall.

First, here is a shot of the crowd. There were lots of people there. Look closely. Do you see anyone, ANYone who isn’t a white person? These people agree with each other so well that they also agree about which race should attend this political rally.

This, by the way, was the second political rally I attended in front of the Sugar Land city hall. The other one you can see here. Yes, the contrast in sheer numbers in attendance is staggering, isn’t it?

OK, I exaggerated a little. There was one black guy there. There he is third one from the right. This is a shot of all of the people who were going to speak. Or so I assumed because each one of those that I listened to are in this photo.

Here is one of the many handmade signs. A lot cleaner and less offensive than the one I showed yesterday, huh? Yeah, you would think. The other side of this sign has exactly the same message.

This is the guy who gave the invocation. I have video of some of it.

Now they had a cowboy band playing before the speeches got underway, and I thought that this trunk was open for donations. But upon closer inspection we see that the trunk has a bunch of tea bags in it. They’re for Pete Olson to take back to DC next week. Hope the drug dogs are on their break when he checks it in at the airport. Who knows what kind of tea these people might have put in it?

And last but not least, as I was making an exit I came across Carlos Cain’s campaign truck. Not a bad idea to try and attract some voters to his cause at this venue.


Now on the speakers, I could only take so much, so I did leave before hearing all of them.

But I did get to hear the black guy. As it turns out he was a Libertarian, and as such, was really the only one speaking that wasn’t hijacking the event. I have video of part of what this guy said, mainly because if I told you what he said you wouldn’t believe me.

The black guy used the “C” word on this crowd. Choice. “Without choice,” he said, “we have tyranny.” I don’t know if it was just me or not, but I swear I heard a collective sucking in of air when he said that. And I have to tell you, this is the only speaker that I found myself smiling and nodding my head to.

The pastor who gave the invocation was really in his element. I’ve never heard politics and religion so tightly interwoven in one prayer. It apparently didn’t faze the crowd though, who appeared to be quite used to this.

The master of ceremony who got to introduce each act . . . er . . . speaker I’ve never heard of before. He’s a small business owner. He owns the “La Madeleine” restaurant in Sugar Land. Really, just a stone’s throw from where we all stood. No, I’m not kidding. The rally’s emcee owns a French restaurant. The crowd didn’t hold that against him but I had to wonder whether I was the only one in the crowd who grasped the irony of all of that.

And thankfully, Pete Olson was one of the first speakers. This, I reasoned, was probably because the TV cameras were there and these guys have to have this in for the 10 o’clock news program.

Olson only spoke for 7 minutes or so. The best parts were where he lamented the higher taxes that they were all going to have to pay, and for a dozen or so people who were listening, this was actually probably true. He had some fighting words, too. “Today is the day,” he said, “we start to take our country back.” And finally, he brought his daughter to the podium so she could show the sign that they took from a girl at a TEA rally the day before. I assumed that they asked for it.

OK, OK, here’s the video as promised. Nothing fancy. Just a few clips that I spliced together.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

OMG. I'm appalled but not surprised. Thanks for sharing!

Anonymous said...

I somehow managed to gain entrance to that event myself even though I didn't meet the "Fat, White and Fifty" criteria. My favorite irony of the day was a man with a large sign that said "Obama's Way" is "Fascisn" [sic], "Natzisum", [sic] and Commonism [sic]. This patriot (and his army-green-shirted friend) was standing there with his Japanese cell phone in one hand and his sign in the other, sporting a shirt covered with Chinese language characters and a flaming red dragon. Yep, I grabbed a photo of that. I also liked the sign of another gentleman which proudly proclaimed his intent to cling to his religion, guns and money. Snapped that one, too.

Oh hey - I did see one black guy milling in the crowd so there were a grand total of two there, but I think the guy in the crowd was lost. He sure did look like it.

Hal said...

Maybe a brother-in-law? His wife was there, too. That makes three. No, don't count the Libertarians as "lost." This WAS their day. Just count them as two (or three) more souls on Planet Earth who have not yet gotten over Ayn Rand's books.

I read her books. I enjoyed them. I got over them.

At the age of 15.

Anonymous said...

This is acting out behavior against President Obama; pure and simple

Tony said...

Maybe I didn't notice, but was there all this outrage during the spending spree of the previous two administrations? Oh, yeah...that was O.K. And you have to wonder if most of this folk won't be taxed less shortly.

Seems to me the real issue is the lack of both accountability and transperancy. But then, there may just be people that want everything for nothing.

Anonymous said...

It's far less disturbing to me that there are no black people in the crowd than that there were pastors preaching at this event. Apparantly they've never read ROMANS 13 which says that they should obey their government and pay their taxes:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans%2013

Anonymous said...

I liked the pict file of the Cain for school board truck!

Hal said...

Ms. Bhuchar's presence was notably absent at the TEA party. Is there a lesson that we need to take away from that?

Just asking.

Anonymous said...

She is absent where-ever she goes, but she is a good time keeper at the public comments section of the BOT meetings. She sure can keep time to cut off those seeking to speak out.