Village Voice: 2,000+ (NYC) Tea Party Denounces Obama Spending, Cheers USA, Fox News

[Stephanie]

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/04/tp_rt_--_city_h.php

Village Voice
2,000+ Tea Party Denounces Obama Spending, Cheers USA, Fox News
By Roy Edroso

On February 28, a Tea Party demonstration in New York's City Hall Park drew about 250 protesters who decried President Obama as a socialist, a communist, and the second coming of Hitler. This evening's Tea Party on the edge of the same park was much, much bigger -- stretching on the west sidewalk from near the Park entrance nearly to Steve Flanders Square and, with the contingent across Broadway, comprising at least two thousand protestors.

And the language, though dramatic, was slightly more temperate. Only people in the crowd talked among themselves about Obama's socialism and fascism ("I've travelled a bit in Europe," one lady within our earshot remarked, "and I know where this is all leading"); the speakers mainly portrayed the federal bailout and stimulus programs as ruinous, and the remedy as themselves, representing the real America, with the help of Fox News.

Kellen Giuda, organizer of both February's and tonight's New York events, opened by telling the crowd that "we're not going to take any more, their spending is out of control, the pork is out of control, and we want the repealing of the taxes, these fees, they're out of control." He asked the crowd to clean up after themselves -- "look around you when you leave and pick up anything off the ground and deposit it in the nearest trash." He denied that "rightwing millionaires" had funded the event, and that the money had actually come from "our wonderful sponsors and an emergency fundrasing drive that raised $4,000 to get us these speakers." The resulting oratory suggested that he overpaid.

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Former Bush speechwriter Michael Johns came on pumped, yelling "Let's get the party in the tea party! Are you ready to speak some truth to power!" but quickly became tearful and maudlin, recalling his speech at a tea party earlier that day in Boston ("Bridging the gap between the great events of 1773 and the great events occurring all over this nation today"), and also, regrettably, 9/11 -- "A few blocks from here in lower Manhattan, as we all remember too well, the forces of terror and totalitarianism struck our nation on that sunny September morn..." His mood them swung to barely-coherent rage at the Obama Adminstration ("roar roar 'contingency operation' roar roar remain engaged in a war on terror roar roar victory!"), which led to a chant of "Never forget!" driving Johns to heights of bathos: "I truly believe," he wailed, "that history will record that all of you today here in the crowds in City Hall in New York City, April Fifteenth Two Thousand Nine, resparked the flame of liberty across this great land... you answered our nation's call and I know our nation's grateful!" In an ever-hoarser voice, he outlined the "historic parallels" between the original tea party ("and then came that bold act that sparked American Independence") and the present one, which he implied would have a similar result ("American liberties, my friends, will be defended"). The crowd's attention wandered until he invoked the hated name of Charles Schumer, which drew bloodthirsty cries of "Chucky! Chucky! Chucky sucks!"

==much more at link, with photos==