Indiana

Tea Time or Talk Time?

By Abdul Hakim-Shabazz

In 14 days, your taxes are due.  If you’re like me you got them done early, broke even and called it a day.

For some people, April 15 is a day of “Tea Parties”  both locally and nationally where citizens will come together and express their grievances with their government.  While I’m all for people exercising their Constitutional rights, I wonder if this will be something substantive or will it be just another rally?

I’ve covered government and politics for more than 15 years and I’ve seen this happen before.  People get mad, they rally and they go home.  The most successful movements were in it for the long haul. They didn’t just rally, they developed a media strategy, they phone banked, they canvassed neighborhoods.  They didn’t just call lawmakers and gripe, but they developed clear, articulate position and shared their ideas in a non-annoying fashion.  And even when they didn’t win the first round, they stayed in the game and eventually got most of what they wanted.

I’m somewhat skeptical of the latest movement.  I figured that if the voter outrage in the country were that serious, it would have showed up in the special election in New York’s 20th Congressional District.  So far, it hasn’t.

I’ll be down at the April 15th rally at the Statehouse doing what I do best, the question is what will the people who protest do on April 16th?

Full post as published by Indiana Barrister on April 01, 2009 (boomark / email).