A Time For Tea?

By Ron Lee and Eric Coltrane
(With a letter by Donna Hollenstain)

“When you’re right, you’re right, and if you are correct extremely often, I guess the label “Right-Wing Extremist” might even be a fitting compliment since it’s coming from those who are so apparently wrong.” 
–-Ron Lee, Editor – US~Observer
There are many people out there who believe what they feel is absolutely right. It’s belief, not truth. You believe in something, therefore that is the way it is for you. Such is the current state of politics. It has become so infused with feelings and personal belief that the workings of our country are often ignored to satisfy the established “political correctness” of the time. As such, an incredible rift has formed within this country between those who lace their politics with their personal beliefs and those who simply want our government to be representative of the people and accountable for its actions. Those in office, however, are stricken by this emotional affliction as well, and it leads them to passing bills that, out of an urgent call to action (some emergency designed to illicit an emotional response), aren’t even read before they are voted on.
Ours is a world now built on an emotional method of communication, and it serves the corrupt and power-hungry well. People are too concerned with debating feelings rather than addressing the real issues; too busy watching the hand waving in their face, whilst the other steals their wallet. It’s known as Relational Dialetics and it is rampant in our society today. But, many people are waking up to the plain truth – hurt by current economic woes – and they are seeing that both political parties offer the same outcome: an elite ruling class telling us average joes what to do. That’s the bottom line, folks. The government of “We the People” is dead; killed years ago while everyone was sleeping, stoned, or playing the “keeping up with the Jones'” game. Even though the system we value so highly is long gone, the dream is still alive; and that dream is spreading like wildfire, hence the Tea Parties.
One of the largest contributors to keeping the people in turmoil and not propagating a true method of political recovery is the mainstream media. Why? Well, a functioning society isn’t as “newsworthy” as a dysfunctional one, now is it? Heck, I find myself in the same boat working with the US~Observer! If our judicial system wasn’t broken and people weren’t being falsely accused of crimes, or there wasn’t corruption at every level of our government, I’d be out of a job! But see, I welcome that day. I want that day – not to be unemployed, but to live in a society where truth prevails and the American Dream is alive once again. The mainstream media, however, is a corporate behemoth existing to make money – not tell the truth – and it launches a fresh calculated campaign of misinformation on us daily, feeding our need to feel one way or another about an issue. Their strategy has never been more transparent than their recent lack of reporting on the Tax Day Tea Parties that were held all across the country.
The last time I looked (prior to the event) there were over 2,000 cities who had registered their gatherings on a web site tracking it all – taxdayteaparty.com. Now these are just the cities that registered, and I personally know of dozens of other cities that didn’t. I even have pictures from one of them that took place in Enterprise, Oregon where an estimated 110 people showed up out of a population of 7,500 on a bitterly cold day. In Grants Pass, Oregon, where I’m located, we had what appeared to me over a thousand people. Larger cities had more, some towns, only a few… But, if you were to conservatively average it out over the 2,000 registered cities at 500 people in attendance per city, you’d have a MILLION people out that day saying they were tired of the government’s treatment of them, as citizens. But this wasn’t reported, or rather, it was drastically under-reported. April 16th’s USA Today’s front page headline regarding the protests read something like, “Thousands Gather at Tea Parties Across the Country.” What a sham. Tell me that wasn’t designed to belittle the truth-speaking masses that attended. Even our local paper ran a headline that said hundreds gathered … please.
Also in the media, you had an onslaught of criticism suggesting these were nothing but right-wing extremists protesting paying taxes. No. Sorry. Try again. While taxation without adequate representation was a key focal point of the rallies it wasn’t people gathering because they didn’t want to pay taxes. They just want the government to be responsible with the money they do pay and not keep asking them for more. There was as much Republican bashing as Democrat bashing going on at the gatherings so the right-wing implication is out the window. Simply, those in attendance were everyday people of all walks of life, political affiliations, backgrounds and ages who are reeling in panic and are waking up to the fact that they have been misrepresented for years! Many of them are people who have just been violently torn from “the Matrix” that were their lives – awakened to find themselves afraid of where their country is headed, why it is heading there, and asking what they can do to stop it while holding true to what our founders gave us – the perfect formula for a working republic; the Constitution. That is what the Tea Parties were about.

Much of what faces us is financial – a broken house of cards waiting to come crashing down. To better explain these reasons for the Tea Parties, Eric Coltrane submitted the following section of “The Reason Behind the Parties”:

It’s all about the monetary system

As the Nation comes up on July 4th and another round of Tea Parties, it would be prudent to take a look at the real reasons for these Tea Parties. Mainstream Media touted the Tea Parties as Billionaire backed protests against taxes, Conservative extremists agenda against taxes, and Racial extremists against Barrack Obama as President. The real reason for the Tea Parties is about bail-outs of the insolvent financial institutions that got the world into this mess (it is global), uncontrolled spending by the USgovernment , and the insane train-wreck path to national bankruptcy that the country is on. If it is anything about taxes it is the taxes that will be borne by our children and grandchildren, and the hidden tax of inflation that we will surely see in the near future.
Not only that, but now the US Federal Reserve is monetizing US Treasury bonds (quantitative easing). Normally US Treasury bonds are sold to other countries to fund the US Government’s spending. When these bonds mature the government pays the original value of the bond plus the accrued interest. US Citizen’s tax dollars pay the accrued interest and the original value of the bond is paid by selling more US Treasury bonds (Does this seem like the ultimate ponzi scheme or what? Think Berney Madoff here x 10,000). At the beginning of March the Federal Reserve announced that it would be purchasing $300 billion in US Treasury bonds. This is like buying your neighbor’s furniture at a yard sale on the condition that you will sell it back to them in a year at an inflated price. So your neighbor goes without furniture for a year and then buys it back at the agreed upon inflated price. This is inflation pure and simple (the true inflation is not the inflated price at the year’s end, that’s an effect. It is the conditions that were agreed upon, he devalues the money he already has before hand). So, what if your neighbor finds that he cannot pay the full inflated price? Now he sells you all his yard care equipment on the same condition and pays for his couch and dining room set, and agrees to another year on the same conditions for the rest of his furniture. This goes on for years and years. Finally you call for the payment of the debt in full. Your poor neighbor only has his couch, dining room set, a weed eater, lawn chair and a bicycle (you bought his car years ago). He’s bankrupt; he eventually gives you his home to pay you back, and you have made out like a bandit.
As of now the United States has a debt of 12.1 trillion dollars (the GDP of the U.S. is $13 trillion), and 3.2 trillion dollars in IOUs to the Social Security trust fund and the Medicare program. It also has 49.135 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities for future Social Security and Medicare (not including the new health care program of 1.2 trillion dollars). That is 64.4 trillion dollars. The USGovernment also has 12.9 trillion in hard guarantees, 2.3 trillion in asset purchases, 7.3 trillion in implicit guarantees to Fanny Mae, and Freddy Mac, and 6.6 trillion in soft guarantees to the banking industry. $93.5 trillion dollars! Not to mention that the Federal Reserve is monetizing US Treasury bonds, which is highly inflationary, no wonder the Chinese, who hold the largest amount of USTreasury bonds, feel the United States has an insolvency issue.
This is what the Tea Parties are about, the insane monetary and fiscal policies of the USGovernment. The United States is on the verge of bankruptcy or bankrupt already. The Bush administration and the Obama administration along with Congress were/are on a free for all spending spree that will destroy the United States as we know it. Those attending the Tea parties don’t care if it is the Obama administration, the Democrats, or Republicans who stop this madness. It has nothing to do with billionaires, Extremist Conservative agendas, Racism, or taxes, it’s just that the insanity must stop!! If you feel the same way, be at the next Tea Party and let your views be known.
Another point of view on “why the tea parties” from a reader who responded to the recent US~Observer column “State of My Union“. She sent her opinion to her representatives and shared it with us:
An Open Letter to Honorable Senators Feinstein, and Boxer, and Honorable Representative Farr;
I address you with “Honorable” because that is what “We the People” expect of our elected representatives in congress. I must however tell you that it is with trepidation that I use that term now.
I have voted in all elections since I attained my 21st Birthday and while my candidate was not always successful, at no time in the past have I ever been fearful for the future of my country. I have been in touch with you on numerous occasions over a period of many years voicing my concerns. I find that on each such occasion you have responded to my concerns with a generic return letter that simply tells me why you choose not to support my position on the issue of the day.

The Constitution of the United States is a document that provided the basis for our country to become the Greatest Nation on the Face of the Earth. I have watched the values and principles that guided our Founding Fathers become distorted and twisted beyond recognition. Federal laws have infringed on states’, and individual rights have virtually destroyed The Bill of Rights. The Federal Government is now guilty of committing the same atrocities that our Founding Fathers experienced at the hands of the King of England, which prompted them to write our “Declaration of Independence”.
Each of you, have sworn to support, protect, and defend (above all), the Constitution for the United States of America. What I have witnessed over the past 50+ years, however, tells me that one congress after the other elected representatives (of both parties) have done nothing more than give lip service to our Constitution.
Onerous rules and regulations and a confiscatory tax structure have driven much of our once thriving manufacturing industries out of the country. This has deprived our working class citizens of the ability to earn an adequate income to support their families, and have driven once self-sufficient honorable families into poverty.
One of the constitutional duties of our federal government is to protect the states from invasion. Yet, congress has for years ignored the overwhelming pleas of “We the People” and turned a blind eye to the invasion of our country by millions of illegal aliens who have put undue strain on our states’ budgets. The will of “We the People” has been undermined by judicial rulings that overturned Proposition 187 which clearly stated that we did not want to pay taxes to supply services to those who entered our country illegally.
Congressional meddling in the lending rules that our banks adopted to insure a solid financial footing were set aside in one of the largest Social Engineering Programs ever devised by man. As a result, our once vibrant nation has been brought to a position of total bankruptcy. And now, “We the People” are being forced to finance bailing out the very financial institutions that you have destroyed.
We watched in horror while each of you in the middle of the night blindly voted to approve an 1100 page document that not a one of you (much less any of your constituents) had time to read. You have committed the worst crime against the very people who placed their trust in you and who have every right to expect you to live up to your Oath of Office, Shame on You!
This has to STOP NOW.
NO MORE BAILOUTS!! NO MORE STEALTH LEGISLATION IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!!!
With deep regret and a feeling of fear and total frustration,
Donna L. Hollenstain
Salinas, CA