It was this…
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…versus this…
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…on Mercer Island this morning as the group Working Washington staged a roughly 200-person “soup line” protest in front of Republican Congressman Dave Reichert’s office. The aim: Highlight Reichert’s votes in favor of “$2.9 trillion in tax breaks for the rich” and “ZERO job creation bills.”
Anne Martens, one of the protest organizers, said the Tea Partiers—separated from the Working Washington people by a tree-lined street and numerous police officers—had been “shouting really smart things, like ‘Get a job!’ Which is really funny.”
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Over at Dave Reichert’s nearby district office, located above a bank, those attempting to visit were required to announce themselves to a security camera and voice box—neither of which were accepting visitors. “We’re unable to comment at this time,” a voice from within the voice box told me. The voice then referred me to Reichert’s spokesman in D.C. and gave me a number to try. I tried the number. The spokesman was not available.
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“We are going to keep doing this,” Martens told me. “We are going to keep doing this until someone starts paying attention. Our only goal is to get people to focus on jobs and unemployment.”
I walked over to the Tea Party side of things…
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…and tried to speak to this woman, who had a sign affixed to her umbrella that read: “Wealth creation, not wealth redistribution.”
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She asked me where I was from. I said The Stranger. She said: “Oh, no, you’re the one with that bad stuff on the back of that newspaper—about pornography?”
Dave Tegeler, a 66-year-old unemployed Tea Party member from Maple Valley, interrupted her.
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“I don’t care,” Tegeler said, announcing that he would happily speak with The Stranger. “The Tea Party doesn’t care about social issues.”
Tegeler said he was out today “basically as a counterbalance to MoveOn,” which he blamed for the soup line.
“Obama had a chance to recover the economy and instead he punted and went hard left,” Tegeler told me.
His personal recipe for recovery: Cut government regulations and cut government spending. “Massively.” (In that vein, he’s actually upset with Reichert for supporting restrictions on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Cheaper gas by any means necessary, Tegeler told me.)
If Obama would just follow his plan, Tegeler said, he’d no longer be unemployed.
For further questions, he referred me to the back of his shirt:
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the know-nothing party.
“hard left” my ass. they don’t understand how things actually work, and they only have fox & am radio to explain it to them.
SOWP: Scared Old White People
That’s one hay-yell of an age difference between those groups. Someone just try take away all the socializms enjoyed by those hate-crazed, neo-fascist, brain-dead Teatards and see what happens when they all turn into Saul Alinsky.
Besides, Real AmeriKKKans wanna die broke, homeless and bankrupt, with their corpulent old carcasses tossed out in the woods.
I enjoyed the chants from the diverse crowd, “This is what America looks like,” pointing out the striking whiteness of the sparse group of tea baggers across the street.
Generation WARS!!!!!
How would she know where the pornography is?
@ 5, don’t be fooled by the flag waving. Patriotism is incompatible with right wing politics.
Raindrop, why do you hate America so much?
I second “hard left my ass”. Obama’s one of the most conservative presidents we have ever had.
But their counter-demonstration would have been so much MORE effective if you had been amongst them in your gayest getup, @5, you big patriot you. They would have hugged you to their ample bosoms and invited you home for Earl Grey and crumpets, I’m sure.
Sigh.
I’m sure Mr. Tegeler, at age 66 and unemployed, has sworn off Medicare and is swimming happily in the warm waves of the healthcare free market.
@5 Dave Tegeler?
I feel sorry for all the other people named raindrop.
@1 – I expect to see your entry “Hard Left My Ass” at this year’s Hump!
The demographics tells you pretty much all you need to know.
“We the people”? More like “We the Old White People”. What a bunch of hypocritical assholes – I’ll bet at least half of them are drawing Social Security, Medicare, or both.
I can assume that if he believes what is on the back of his shirt he supports the legalisation of pot (fiscally responsible to end a losing war, limiting government by taking away an excuse to intrude into our lives, and compatible with the free market because it makes a new product available), right?
Teageler looks happy to be out of the house! He doesn’t mind missing Matlock at all.
Next time, we gotta get some Old Glories a’fluttering over there above the soup.
These SOWP (thanks @ 2!) do not, despite their apparent belief to the contrary, hold a monopoly on the red-white-&-blue.
I’m sure 66 year old Mr. Tegeler would fully support the repeal of his Medicare, which represents everything the Tea Party hates.
You can almost imagine the FUSE mob panhandling the other group to get funding for their crack habits.
You can almost imagine the Tea Party Patriots tricking out their medicare payed for Hoverounds with some righteous made in Korea Bachmann bumper stickers and truck-nuts then snooze mobbing an Old County Buffet.
Tegler is completely full of shit, and I’m only picking on him because he was dumb enough to be the face of these morons. Joan Walsh had a piece out yesterday about how there’s NOTHING new about the tea-party, it’s just the same ignorant, racist traditional GOP assholes dressed up in Revolutionary War drag, funded by the Koch-heads, Rove, et al.
“The Tea Party doesn’t care about social issues.” BULLSHIT. Their message and focus has shifted and expanded over and over again. Remember way back when, they first got organized about what? HEALTH CARE REPEAL. “Take your government hands of my Medicare” and other idiocy. But sure enough, eventually you heard TeaBaggers railing against gay marriage, immigration, abortion, Islam, all the same old GOP nonsense.
And BTW, it has to be asked again, WHERE were these ‘morans’ when Bush was running-up the deficit?
Tea Party Traitors is more like it.
I totally wanted to go to this although I couldn’t decide if I was going to dress in my dustbowl best and line up for soup, or put on my gray wig and TEA Party outfit, carry my “end road construction” sign and scream nonsense about keeping government out of elections or that someone should pass a law to keep government out of freedom.
i was at the protest regardless of what either side had to say…at least they showed up to have an opinion…i do feel sorry for the children that were exposed to the senseless chantings of the TeaTards…it really showed how adults corrupt the minds of children with bad information…smh
They think it’s funny to yell “Get a Job” at unemployed people at a time when unemployment is over 8%? Are they callous pieces of shit or are they just ignorant snots? The Greatest Generation benefited more from government largesse than any other generation in history and yet they feel entitled to pull this garbage. So sad that they are yanking away the precious inheritance of the New Deal instead of working to preserve it for the next generation.
A lot of very dumb assumptions and needless age bashing in this thread. The Tea Party Movement is a hardcore, well financed and dangerous group serving as the “grass roots” of the Coporate Oligarchy. Commenting on somebody being, white, or old, or making up things out of the air about what social benefits these people may or may not have, does not in the least serve to counter the power grab that this group is making. Indeed, the Powers That Be probably delight that most here choose to make petty, personal remarks about their neighbors. This classic “Us” vs “Them” is how they seize power. I think somewhere it’s called Divide and Conquer. We have a “Left” POTUS who is governing to the right of Trciky Dick for God’s sake. Stop making fun of people’s skin colors and ages and do something before it’s too late, if it isn’t already…….it’s like one time when I went to the block party, I wore a silver cross and got downright hateful looks from “the kids.” I would experiment, take it off and we’re all cool, Brother, but put on a piece of metal and get the glares and sneers. Brother!