Reading The Signs

After flipping through TPM's Photo Gallery of Tax Day Tea Parties, I have to agree with John Amato who called the national event The White Man's Protest: "I've been trying to figure out when FOX News actually covered a bona-fide live protest that they didn't condemn or ridicule. Can you think of one? How many anti-war protests were held since the Iraq war began in which FOX proclaimed that they would give it wall to wall coverage because they just cover news events?"


Of course, Fox covered the event because they promoted it -- not because it was relevant or even made sense. I'm amazed by the absurdity of these protest signs. What was the message? What were they protesting? Ostensibly taxation, but it came across as the oddest piece of performance art, or maybe we've all been Punk'd?

Down with socialism, fascism, tyranny and all that. But gosh they've got a strange definition of tyranny:

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Tea Party Tyranny
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I have no doubt that a year ago these same people would have proclaimed that America is the greatest bestest country in the whole world... but how could we do it without some taxes? In the above video, that one nice lady agrees with John Oliver who says "we just don't see where the money is going." We have a strange capacity to take our lifestyle for granted...

Why is it that current protests, even the real attention grabbers with a clear message, seem less meaningful and less powerful than the protests from 30 to 50 years ago? Two very effective protests come to mind:

• The Greensboro Sit-Ins launched a movement that spread to 54 cities in 9 states and signaled the start of the civil rights movement.
• The sit-ins at the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare in San Francisco in 1977 are little-known, but were instrumental in the fight for the civil rights of the disabled.

How does teabagging compare? Maybe for a protest to work you have to really mean it. You have to be truly fighting for your liberty. You have to be willing to make the world stop and listen to your message.

You have to have a message. "We have a black president and we're scared that the world is changing" is not enough.