Standing Our Ground

With Occupy Wall Street roaming the streets at will, people have been wondering about the Tea Parties and why they don’t hold rallies anymore.  It’s rather like the scene in Superman II, when Supe gives up his mighty powers in order to marry Lois Lane.  With Superman marginalized, Gen. Zod can wreak havoc upon the planet and forces the president of the United States to kneel before him.

Citizens in the movie ask where Superman is.  Where’s Superman?  Why has he abandoned us?

My personal advice to the Tea Parties not to give up on the rallies fell upon deaf ears.  They had “professional” advice now, that the rallies were okay for a start, but it was time to move on to more important things.  The rallies were bad for their image (the professional politicians’ that is).  No self-respecting (Moderate) politician would be seen associating with a Tea Partier.  The Moderates wouldn’t like it.  The Media would make monkeys of the Tea Party.  It was time to go on to “more important” things.

Maybe they wouldn’t have listened if they’d heard “Mia,” a Dutch Underground agent in World War II, speak of how she was robbed of her watch by an SS agent on a bus in Holland.  He just saw the watch on her wrist, decided he wanted it, and yanked it off her wrist.  Maybe if they didn’t regard the footage of French and Dutch resistance operatives being executed in their village as some sort of old movie, they’d have kept up the rallies.

There’s a right of domain rule that says if you keep allowing someone to use your property unchecked, eventually that property becomes theirs.  If we don’t stand upon our village squares, we will lose the right to use them.  The Communists will dictate who can stand in the village green and make a speech and who cannot.

The rallies were about much more than just getting people’s attention.  The rallies were a way for neighbors to gather together in common cause.  They afforded the opportunity to bring educated speakers on various topics literally to the public forum for all to hear.  Today, it’s all too convenient to turn on your television and watch what you want to watch and ignore what displeases you, or discomfits you.

The general public naturally assumes that if someone is angry, that that anger is righteous and sympathetic; that they have a right to be angry.  The Communists message is getting out and ours has been driven underground.

Are there going to be people who will be angry at us for delivering our message?  Certainly.  They’ll tell you they don’t want to hear it and they can make up their own minds.  What they mean is they don’t want other people to hear our message and they don’t want other people hearing the other side of the story so they can make a truly informed choice.

We must restore our courage and take to the public squares again, as we did three years ago.  Sure, it’s going to be hard work, and more often we’ll be criticized than thanked.  Yes, the Media will be there to distort the message.  But we have cameras, too, and can counter their distortions.

Mia went out into the fields of Holland in the middle of the night during World War II to signal the Allies the German positions.  It was dangerous; she was on the Nazi hit list, with a death threat on her head.  Nevertheless, she stood her ground.

If we don’t do this, a time will come soon when we won’t be able to and we’ll wish we could turn back the clock to 2009.