Mock Not the Teabaggers

(April 30, 2009)  Editor:

Emily Hobelmann’s vignette on the Tax Day rally at the Court House reminded me of something Malcolm X once said: “If you’re not careful the media will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing” (“A Measure of Tea,” April 23). Media generally ignores or minimizes popular demonstrations, but Hobelmann’s mocking, ad hominem portrait of what was, apart from the 2006 immigration protest, our biggest noon rally in years, robbed it of significance and dignity.

The pageantry was quite glorious, and you could hear the horns all the way from Del Norte. We just might yet take up pitchforks and broomsticks and march on Washington. You should have a Tom Paine on your staff and hold the polarizing fluff.

Ellen Taylor, Petrolia

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THREE Comments

Comment / By Don Andrews / May 2, 2009, 4:10 p.m.

I don’t think Emily Hobelmann’s article mocked the tea baggers at all. But it should have. How do you not mock a group of people who hit the streets to protest an administration that has cut taxes for 95% of American households and which is sending us a $250 Social Security bonus check? How can one not mock a group of people who mourn for an administration that left us a 1.3 trillion dollar deficit and that was content to spend 11 billion dollars a month in Iraq in perpituity? Borrowed money, by the way. How can one not mock a group of people who smugly protest the cost of a recovery effort but who pretend that inaction would have no cost? Duh to the 3d power!

Comment / By Carson Park Ranger / May 3, 2009, 8:08 a.m.

President Obama is following the Bush bailout plan, so I wonder where all of these angry taxpayers were as Bush mortgaged the future for our military adventures, and huge bailouts for the financial sector.

Fox News awakened them only after their beloved cretinous President was safely returned to Crawford Texas.

Comment / By unanonymous / May 6, 2009, 8:29 a.m.

cpr, you read like a msnbc news script.

I believe the good lord said, “mocketh not, lest thee thyself be mocked”, at least something like that.

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