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REQUIEM

Below are the two final essays to be posted on Allegiance and Duty Betrayed. The first one is written by a friend -- screen name 'Euro-American Scum' -- who, over the past four years, has been the most faithful essayist here. He has written about everything from his pilgrimage to Normandy in 2004 to take part in the 60th–year commemoration of the invasion, to his memories of his tour in Vietnam. His dedication to America’s founding principles ... and those who have sacrificed to preserve them over the past 200+ years ... is unequaled. Thank you, E-A-S. It has been a privilege to include your writing here, and it is a privilege to call you my friend.

The second essay is my own farewell. And with it I thank all of the many regular visitors, and those who may have only dropped in occasionally, for coming here. I hope you learned something. I hope a seed or two was planted. But, even if not, I thank you for stopping by ... 25 March, 2010

11/07/2009

Report on a North Carolina Tea Party


I served as the spokesperson for my area of North Carolina at a Tea Party that was held at our representative’s office (Heath Shuler) on Thursday afternoon.

A neighbor went with me, but nobody else from my neighborhood accompanied us. We got there early, and were admitted into to the Congressman's office to speak with his public relations guy. I explained that we intended to give him a bunch of letters to the Congressman, written by people in my area, and we agreed to have the 'ceremony' out on the back steps at 12:15. He told me he had received a 'statement' from the Congressman, which he would read, and I thanked him and asked if he would also tell the crowd what he intended to do with the letters, and would the Congressman ever read them since the vote was to be on Friday.

About 150 people showed up, which was more than I was expecting, and I continued going around gathering letters. A lot of folks didn't get the word to bring them, but one gentleman with foresight had brought a stack of note cards and envelopes so people took those and scribbled messages on them. One person even took a tiny page out of my pocket memo pad and wrote something on that. We stuffed it all in the 2" deep cardboard box I had made, which ended up bulging with over 80 letters in it. (I kept a tally on the back of the box because this reporterette who showed up wanted to know how many there were.)




When the appointed time came, we all assembled on the back steps of the Congressman's office. One person gave a short speech, we all sang America the Beautiful and God Bless America, and then it was my turn. I introduced the PR guy to the crowd and then said in my best spokesperson voice:

‘On behalf of these citizens who have peaceably assembled to petition their government for redress of grievance, I present these 80 letters to be delivered to Congressman Heath Shuler, our elected representative.’
That was it. The PR guy then read Shuler's miserable statement which basically said, ‘I haven't made up my mind yet.’ Snort...what a miserable loser. Then he told us that the letters would be faxed to DC that afternoon (before shredding, no doubt).




We all then walked down the hill to the busy intersection below, and held up our protest signs for about 45 minutes. This corner is near the entrance to a main hospital, so there was a lot of traffic. It was my sense that we got a lot more 'thumbs up' this time than in August. I didn't even see any extended middle fingers!

My friend and I left a little early because he has a bad foot (car accident), and we're both old and tired. On the way home we stopped at a BBQ place and pigged out. While we were eating, I got a text message from Erika, the head of the Asheville Tea Party who was up with Michelle Bachmann in DC, asking how it went. I texted her back with "Great! 150 people and 85 letters".

After I got home, got furiously licked by our three dogs (they missed me), I settled in to watch Glenn Beck followed by Fox News to see how it went in DC. I was disgusted to see another ‘balloon boy’ media frenzy over the murders at Ft. Hood. Sure, that was a big story, but why not wait until you actually know something before blaring it all over the airwaves?

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would say that Muslim killer chose the time of his attacks specifically for the purpose of preempting all news coverage of the DC ‘House Call’. But maybe it was just the phase of the moon... Thank God for the Internet or we'd never know anything.

So what did Rep. Shuler do after getting all those letters from Asheville and a personal visit from twelve of his constituents who drove all the way to DC to meet with him? He and the other ‘Blue Dog Democrats’ ate dinner with Obama at the White House.

Remember the scene near the end of Braveheart where William Wallace was betrayed by William the Bruce? That's how I feel at the moment: Betrayed.

by John Cooper
(contributing Team Member of Allegiance and Duty Betrayed)

8 comments:

John Cooper said...

I arise this morning to find that, after the passage of H.R. 3962, America is now only one knife-thrust in the back away from becoming a socialist nation.

If I have any consolation, at least Rep. Shuler might have listened to us. He was one of only 39 Democrats who voted against this abomination.

Roll Call Vote

joanie said...

John,

Thank you for this -- for organizing the letter-writing, for going to the rally, for speaking, and for caring enough to spend your time and energy trying to make a difference.

Even though it appears that Rep. Shuler may have paid heed to your wishes, I don't think most Americans can believe the same.

As you said, over the past few months we turned out in the greatest and most spontaneous outpouring of American political activism since the Civil War, and yet the vote in the House last night told us that every American who showed up at a tea party or a town hall, or who wrote or phoned his 'leadership' in D.C., might just as well have spent that time and energy raking leaves or washing and waxing his cars.

They simply do not hear us anymore, by left-wing, power-hungry, agenda-driven choice.

What angers me even more than the fact that this represents the most egregious usurpation of liberty since the Constitution was signed, is the fact that not one of the 435 House 'leaders' read the final bill upon which they voted last night. Nor do they even know who 'authored' it. For all they know, it could contain a stipulation that every American must fly to Moscow every year and kiss Vladimir Putin's ring (not that they would raise their voices in objection to such a codicil, mind you).

Thanks, again, for all of your efforts, John. We're proud to call you our friend.

~ joanie

KathyMlynczak said...

Bravo!

A job well done, Mr. Cooper!

Cal Brindisi said...

Great job and great report, John! Thank you for writing about it.

From the Freemen Institute:

While normal everyday oblivious Americans were preparing their beds to sleep Saturday night their elected officials quietly passed H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act. Indeed, the passage of this act deals one of the final death blows to the Constitution and with it our liberties....

The End of America Happens in the Middle of the Night

Anonymous said...

I read today that Pelosi told a bunch of dems who are in shaky races in 2010 told hold back from voting, because they might not need their votes (which it turns out they didn't) and that way they could safely vote against the bill and campaign on the fact that they did.

Is that surreal? Doesn't it tell us that they know that they're voting totally against the will of the people?

I watched the voting last night. The people in your pictures are more "real Americans" than the people I saw on the floor of the House last night.

John Cooper said...

From another blog: Why I went

"Last night, in an Saturday-night-session, the US House of Representatives passed their health care reform bill. So, it could be argued that the rally failed.

But the reason I went was voiced best by Ronald Reagan, "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

If that sad day comes, I don't want to have to tell my children and grandchildren that I did nothing when our country became socialist."

V. I. 9110 said...

Contrary to what liberals would have us believe, being against the government run option does not make one immoral, callous, or insensitive.

In fact, by great disparity as a percentage of income, Conservatives far outstrip the Left in donations and giving of our own volition. The Left typically uses the "righteous, moral" card in arguments that quite frankly smells of absolute hypocrisy (abortion stance), instead of debating point to point.

The passage of this bill will set in motion a series of unintended consequences, of which we know how it plays out already, i.e. Amtrak, Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, VA, $10 trillion debt, etc (don’t forget universal healthcare systems throughout the world).

These programs start out small and with a specific mission, however, over time become growing segments of a pie that the government begins to contort and manipulate over time.

The main difference with Universal Healthcare and the aforementioned programs is that healthcare would involve a government takeover of an astoundingly high percentage of this country’s GDP, government involvement and intervention in a most personal matter to Americans, and the indirect crowding out of all other competition over time.

Propaganda machine? I think not, but most undeniably a function of free thinking Americans that have hit the threshold on concern over the direction of the country.

Another tactic the Left likes to use, by trying to marginalize the individual making the argument instead of debating point to point.

No, we are not immoral or unrighteous with our stand against universal healthcare. We just do not see the rationale for upending an entire system and putting in its place a 2000 page behemoth that Congress has not read or understands and blindly passed through the House for expediencies sake to take advantage of a temporary imbalance of power in the House.

What we need is a surgical approach that targets specific issues with an informed and focused effort shepparded through by Congress starting with tort reform instead of blindly voting on a mess of a bill and then moving away from the issue to allow it to morph into the monstrosity that large government programs typically do, only in this case, it starts out as 1/6th of our GDP!

Barry up the road said...

I can't improve on Joan's comments.
Thank you.