Putting Our Act Together

Recieved this from the Tax Day Tea Party. Another opinion re: Third Parties,going forward etc. Jim Fitz

Posted: 03 Jan 2010 07:50 AM PST

Friends and Patriots in the movement, it’s time for a reality check. The Holidays are over, 2010 is here, and we simply have no more time to talk about “doing something different next year.”

Next year is here. And it is our duty as liberty loving Americans to step up, get over our differences, and unify under realistic goals to take back control of our government.

This morning I had a brief chat with Andrew Ian Dodge via Gmail. I don’t know Andrew personally, but I’ve followed him for more than a year and I find him to be a pretty honest and articulate movement activist. Andrew and I disagree on a few points, but we see eye to eye on a very disconcerting side of the movement.

This morning Andrew published a column at Pajamas Media titled Tea Party 2010: Revolution Brewing? Or Is That Some Weak Tea?

As the nation and the tea party movement prepare for the new year, President Obama and the Democrats have been rushing forward legislation which will forever change the country and raise the deficit.

How far has the tea party movement come since the beginning of last year? A massive event occurred in Washington, D.C., on 9/12, and even greater numbers of people demonstrated all over the country to express their frustration. But ultimately, have they achieved any results? The bills have still gone through, and Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Obama have shucked aside criticisms.

While I feel that the movement has at least slowed the rate of government growth and takeover of our lives, I would have to somewhat agree that our rallies do not carry the weight we expect them to.

If we look at the last few healthcare related votes, for example, the movement slammed phone lines, email inboxes and fax machines like never before. Mass rallies were held on the very steps of the building where Congress was casting a vote on the legislation… only to be followed by passage of the bills and resounding applause by Congress over the ability to do so.

We’ve bogged down the process, but we haven’t stopped it. And I think it’s time we take a much deeper look at the mentality of Congress. This band of thugs is not moved by protests and rallies. Corrupt Senate leadership and their ilk do not make decisions based on the will of the people. Or the legality of the legislation for that matter.

Decisions are now made based on power, greed and special interest. Right now the movement has not brought significant money to the process, and we haven’t proven an ability to be effective in the electoral process.

On the second page of Andrew’s post, he writes what I see as a profound and important line.

What may have affected the development of the activists is the fact that many seemed to have been suffering under the delusion that they were “reinventing” politics at the grassroots. Politics is politics

I believe this to be very true. While we can certainly reinvent the way grassroots movements are organized, politics IS politics, and we aren’t reinventing that fact at all.

In 2010, we need to unify like never before. We need to stop thinking about revenge against a political party or trying to come up with a method to create a new party. We need to simply look at the political landscape, decide where we can be most effective, and go remove some power hungry thugs from office.

It really is that simple. And sure, in some cases we might not get the greatest candidate elected, but at this point, that shouldn’t be our focus. Our focus right now needs to be the breaking down of power held by incumbents in Washington.

No, not all incumbents. But certainly any incumbent who supported bailouts, cap & trade, TARP, government healthcare and any other legislation that does not put liberty first.

We can either spend 2010 hosting rallies and media events, and working on ways to “get back” at political parties, or we can focus on putting our energy behind a unified, strategic effort to remove these people from our government.

Perhaps there is a way to do a little of everything mentioned above, but the latter should be our primary objective.

At least… in my opinion of course.

-Eric Odom