Hutchinson said he suggested reading the Declaration of Independence, and then ended up making some contextual comments.
“Enough is enough,” chanted the crowd thronging Governmental Plaza and climbing the stairs to the second floor of the Melvin Municipal Building, as Hutchinson spoke early in the program.
“We’re fed up with the government spending like drunken sailors,” Hutchinson said. Without referencing the president by name, he denounced the Obama administration’s stimulus package as being “stuffed with pork,” continuing, “We are fed up with our treasury printing money like it’s going out of style.”
Lt. James Hinson of the Greensboro Police Department estimated the crowd count at “upwards of 500,” while organizers gave figures of between 1,500 and 2,000.
Hutchinson later noted on a local organizing website that 798 people signed a “Tea Party Pledge” that was circulated at the event.
“I see many patriots in this audience,” Hutchinson told them. “The modern-day Tea Party is not revolutionary. It is not for militant action.”
Speakers largely stuck to a focused message of low taxes, limited government and decrying the ballooning national deficit, but the collection of individuals that began planning the Greensboro event in mid-March on the Greensboro Tax Day Tea Party blog (www.gsoteaparty.
wordpress.com) have sometimes pulled in opposing directions. One poster advocating the abolition of the Federal Reserve, who was identified as “Reality,” suggested on May 21: “Come prepared for a revolution, not a party.”
The website warned that “protesters with signs that are not in line with the theme of the event will be asked to remove them from the demonstrations,” including those featuring “campaigning, racially inappropriate slogans, anything that suggests violent or unlawful activity and/or partisan slogans.”
Despite the prohibition, homemade signs likening the Democratic Party to the Nazi Party and describing President Obama as a “thief” were spotted mixed in with classic conservative sentiments such as “Restore the republic; stop socialism” and “Don’t spread my wealth… spread my work ethic” and quirky messages like “What’s next? Tax a fart?” Kevin C. Dockery of Greensboro, a speaker and organizer who is a registered Democrat, hammered home the point of nonpartisanship. “My family has seen me standing in my living room screaming at my television,” he said.
“We need to stand up to the bailout. We need to stand up to the excessive spending. I would rather be a radical patriot than sitting as a couch potato screaming at my television.” The energy and participation in the Tea Party protests has been somewhat spontaneous, comparable to the proimmigrant demonstrations that erupted across the country in the spring of 2006, but the anti-tax rallies have
been heavily promoted by Fox News and, on the state level, by Americans
For Prosperity North Carolina.
Kevin Dockery, a newly unemployed motorcycle technician, was among a handful of people who took it upon themselves to organize a tax day Tea Party in Greensboro to protest deficit spending and taxation. The April 15 event drew thousands across the country. (photos by Jordan Green)
The national Americans
For Prosperity organization has taken a stance against federal
legislation that would make it easier for workplaces to unionize and
against the notion that climate change is caused by human activity. The
SourceWatch website reports that Americans For Prosperity has received
$1 million from the Claude R. Lamb Charitable Foundation, which in turn
receives funding from Kansas-based Koch Industries, “the nation’s
largest privately held energy company.”
SourceWatch reports
that Fred G. Koch, the company’s namesake, was a founding member of the
ultraconservative John Birch Society.
Organizers credit Rick
Santelli, a CNBC cable news commentator, with originating the idea of
the tea parties. On Feb. 19, Santelli assailed the Homeowners
Affordability and Stability Plan from the floor of the Chicago
Mercantile Exchange, charging, “The government is promoting bad
behavior.
“This is America,” he said, gesturing toward personnel on the floor. “How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage that has an extra mortgage and can’t pay their mortgage? Raise their hand.” The crowd responded with boos. “We’re thinking of having a Chicago tea party in July,” he said. “All you capitalists that want to show up at Lake Michigan, I’m going to start organizing.” Santelli’s comments also implied that the Obama administration is moving the United States towards socialism.
“Cuba used to have mansions and a relatively decent economy,” he said. “They moved from the individual to the collective. Now they’re driving ’54 Chevys.”
Melissa Pechan, a stay-at-home mother, said she was inspired to initiate the Greensboro Tea Party after viewing Santelli’s rant on YouTube.
“I never took part in anything remotely like this,” she said. “It was all organized locally. Americans For Prosperity lined up a couple of people who would be willing to speak, but we wanted it to be nonpartisan, so we did it ourselves. We were all just volunteers.”
Between the time of Santelli’s charge and the April 15 tea parties, supporters have tacked on a broad array of conservative causes, including implementing a flat tax and cracking down on illegal immigrants.
One poster identified as Jack Urban wrote on the Greensboro Tax Day Tea Party blog in late March: “This illegal invasion is so damn out of control; it’s like we are watching a crime in progress and are powerless to do anything to stop it. I know how to stop it but then I would be in jail and that is not where I want to be. The problem is we must get the Republicans back in power in 2010 because the libs will never do anything to stop the illegal invasion because for Democrats illegals are votes for their [SIC] to keep them in power. Democrats are truly evil people that only have their interests at heart and not the people they are supposed to be working for. We have the same problem in Asheboro with the stinking illegals hanging out the windows of the emergency room.” Those sentiments were absent from the stage and scarcely evident on attendees’ signs on April 15. One exception was made to the self-imposed focus on fiscal issues: Speakers championed patriotism, the military and war-fighting.
Dockery reminisced about Sept. 11, 2001. “I went out to my garage, picked up a two-by-four and strapped it to my 1964 Dodge pickup truck,” he said, as the crowd gave a resounding cheer, “and upon that two-by-four I hung Old Glory.”
And Jacob Hibbert of Myrtle Beach sang a song penned by his mother that chastises those who advocate redirecting the funding for the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to meet social needs.
“If
you listen to the media, you might just disagree,” he sang. “They say
this war is tearing down our sound economy/ Let me be the one to tell
you why they’re feeding you those lies/ They’re covering up for
government that’s been robbing all us blind.”
The Greensboro
event attracted a wide array of people including Guilford Magistrate
Michael S. James and William Marshburn, who was scheduled for trial on
Monday for threatening to kill city council members in relation to
their decision to annex his property.
The event even attracted
some tax opponents who fit more in the anti-capitalism camp than with
the brokers on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
“A middle
ground might be for people to have part-time jobs instead of full-time
jobs, to have more free time to do things like gardening,” said Megan
Ingram, who describes herself as a professional student. “A part-time
job doesn’t need to be paid. It could be strictly volunteer…. Part of
the reason I think it’s important to have a parttime job or to have
different jobs if you’re going to have a job at all is it’s less
disabling, less wear and tear on the body. You know, if you’re a
fulltime trucker sitting in one position all day, you might end up
having to get a hip replacement.”
Hutchinson, the management
consultant, outlined a moderate conservative agenda. “I would like to
see us cut our spending,” he said. “I would like to see some of our
pork repealed.
I would like to see us depend on the great
charity of individuals as opposed to assigning responsibility to the
government. Government has a role as a safety net, but it has grown so
expansive and inefficient that everyone here seems to know
instinctively that it ain’t right.
Participants expressed themselves with a variety of homemade and sometimes clever placards.
