TEA Parties

[Urbane Guerrilla]

And the July 4 TEA party was plenty fine. The corner of the county government center's grounds that is the northeastern quadrant of the intersection of Victoria Road and Telephone Road in Ventura, CA. It's rather the traditional location for large demonstrations in this county. This one was one of the bigger ones; the news reported around 3500 people attended, with some turnover as the hours passed. There were always around 500 present at any one moment. The sign-wavers stretched from the corner northwards the length of a city block to the entranceway to the courthouse/gov't center parking lot. There were often a dozen and more across the street, also waving signs.

I didn't have a sign. I brought the lone teapot, and got lots of smiles and chuckles. It was a great conversation piece. The brisk wind kept tangling the teabag tags I had hanging out of the pot, or blowing them around behind my hand and out of view of the passing motorists. Another demonstrator had a teacup and other tea things hotglued to her straw hat, and yet another demonstrator was urging her to connect with me. As it happens, we walked up on each other. There were "Don't Tread On Me" yellow rattlesnake flags (historical reference to the Revolutionary period, 1775-1783) and rattlesnake jacks too (same idea, with red and white stripes; presently in use as jacks for the US Navy, in place of the fifty-star blue Union, to which we will probably in due course return). Lots of American flags and the bright yellow TEA bumper stickers, several "United We Stand" placards. One nice old gal asked me and my teapot to pose for a photo that she said she'd post on Facebook. I'm smiling and wearing a broadbrimmed sage-green hat for the sun.

Man, did we get honks and thumbs-up. The streets blared. In opposition, I saw but one middle finger and two thumbs-down, total, and I was there practically the whole time and helped pack up afterward. The positive support was overwhelming.

There was what I expect is the usual TEA blend, if you like: we had a fiscal-responsibility type Ventura city councilman get up and give a measured, thoughtful speech on what poor fiscal choices Ventura, and Sacramento, had made and how much trouble they were going to have to go through to repair the resulting budget holes. I hope this actually means these governmental levels will actually pull in their horns and become smaller parts of the economy. Other sorts abounded: Proposition 8 supporters, Prop. 8 opponents (me for one); one Ron Paul pamphleteer who looked like he lives alone, if not down in a basement -- rather pale and uptight; a couple of conservative activists speechifying on the platform, hardcore anti-Obama people who are keeping race conspicuously out of their utterances, though the "OBAMA: One Big Ass Mistake America" trope was on at least one sign; one "Teabagger and Proud Of It" sign, much opposition to socialism and even specifically Marxism. More no-extra-taxes signs than could easily be counted. Many signs demanding that both California and the Fed live within their means. There's a clear mood in this country that there's little a state does that's worth going deep in debt to manage -- a sign the people are getting a clue from the libertarians.

The sensible fraction of the population isn't behaving like the Gadarene swine presently running over cliffs in Washington and Sacramento.

[DanaC]

I am a little amoral in some respects :P