Although the Bay Area has a fierce core of conservatives, it is certainly not a bastion of the Tea Party movement.  Many of us, like butterflies newly released from a chrysalis, are for the first time delicately flapping the wings of our ideology.  We’re not out on the streets in vast numbers, although the success of prior Tea Party protests here has been impressive and invigorating.

I especially am not out on the streets, in large part because I don’t do well in crowds.  It might be that I’m somewhat agoraphobic, but I think the real problem is that I was raised in San Francisco and Berkeley in the 1960s and 1970s.  The violent street protests around me left me with a visceral fear of being in the middle of a political protest.  For example, I’ve only recently come to terms with the musical Oliver, which really shouldn’t be that incendiary topic.  But the fact is that, when I saw that movie with my parents back in 1968 (I was six years old), we emerged from the Market Street movie theater (i.e., downtown) into the middle of a anti-Vietnam War protest, completely with stink bombs.  I vomited for hours — and a complex was born.

That Tea Party protests are well mannered doesn’t change my fear of protests, any and all protests, a fear that is right up there on the irrationality scale with my fear of garter snakes.  (Yes, I know they’re almost entirely harmless, but I still get cold sweats when I see one.)

All of the above is a long apol0gy and explanation for my failure to apprise you the Tea Party Express that is rolling along in the United States.  A wonderful place for daily updates is The Radio Patriot, since Andrea Shea King has been part of the Express since its inception.

The Tea Party Tour’s own website is here.  In their sidebar, you can see if the patriotic protest will be at a town near you.  Our support — and by “our” I mean those Americans committed to core Constitutional principles of individual responsibility and political freedom — is imperative.

As you know, the liberal side of the political divide, from Barack Obama on down, has been working hard to reframe you and your neighbors as wild-eyed, violent, racist, homophobic nuts, who want to cast America into some bizarre political dimension that rolls Jim Crow, 19th Century plutocracy, sharia law regarding women, and death to all homosexuals in one neat, Tea Party package.  In other words, the left is trying to make your neighbors believe that, if Tea Party ideals are integrated into the American body politic, we’ll all be living in Iran, with a dash of the Sudan thrown in for good measure.  (The Sudanese government, as you may recall, after systematically killing and purging its Christian population, turned its loving attention to its black Muslim population, which got the same treatment as the Christians did.)

So please, if you have a blog, promote the Tea Party Express.  And if the Tea Party Tour rolls into a town near you, and if you don’t have my little crowd-phobia, carve out some time to get and visit with fellow Tea Partiers in your community.  I bet you’ll be glad you did.  Indeed, if the Express came near me (which it doesn’t), and if I could overcome my fears, I bet I’d have lots of fun too!

Cross-posted at Right Wing News

Through the Bush years, those in the grips of BDS likened him to Hitler based upon their contention that he was running the most oppressive administration ever in American history.  They made this claim despite the fact that, insofar as I know, no protestor was ever imprisoned merely for having protested.  (This is separate from protesters who might have been charged with vandalism, assault, etc.)

Two stories in today’s paper serve to remind us exactly what it looks like when you have a truly oppressive government.  In Uganda, a movement is afoot to make some homosexuality and homosexual acts a capital crime, with family and friends risking imprisonment if they don’t turn their loved one over to the government:

Proposed legislation would impose the death penalty for some gay Ugandans, and their family and friends could face up to seven years in jail if they fail to report them to authorities. Even landlords could be imprisoned for renting to homosexuals.

[snip]

The Ugandan legislation in its current form would mandate a death sentence for active homosexuals living with HIV or in cases of same-sex rape. “Serial offenders” also could face capital punishment, but the legislation does not define the term. Anyone convicted of a homosexual act faces life imprisonment.

Anyone who “aids, abets, counsels or procures another to engage of acts of homosexuality” faces seven years in prison if convicted. Landlords who rent rooms or homes to homosexuals also could get seven years and anyone with “religious, political, economic or social authority” who fails to report anyone violating the act faces three years.

(Incidentally, if you read the whole AP story, you’ll see that it’s all the fault of American Christians that this legislation is on the table.)

And in Iran, of course, we see exactly what happens in a place that actually has a repressive administration, as opposed to a gentleman-like administration that people can safely attack:

Iran will “show no mercy” toward opposition protesters seen as threatening national security, a judiciary official said on Tuesday, a day after thousands of students staged anti-government rallies.

[snip]

“From now on, we will show no mercy toward anyone who acts against national security. They will be confronted firmly,” said prosecutor Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, according to the official IRNA news agency.

“Confronted firmly.” Translated, I assume that means beatings, electrical shocks to the genitals, starvation, and other forms of torture a bit more extreme than waterboarding, all of which is followed by either a kangaroo trial or just a swift gunshot to the back of the head.  That last, of course, assumes that you’re lucky enough to make it alive off the streets:

Click here to view the embedded video.

To protest against the Healthcare Bill, instead of a 60s sit-in, Bay Area Patriots will be having a

“SICK-IN”

We are sick to death of being ignored;

We are sick to death over what the Health Care bill will do to us and our children;

We are sick to death having this govt intrude on our G-d given liberties;

This Health Care Bill sickens us all;

This Health Care Bill is Gonna Kill Us!

When: Sunday, November 15th

Time: 12:00 pm until 4:00 pm

Note: We will be setting up, chatting, meeting one another and selling merchandise from 12:00 until 1:00 when the SICK- IN will officially start. Amplified sound needs to stop by 3:00. We can hang around until 4:00 but without amplified sound.

Place: Adjacent to Justin Herman Plaza, the Embarcadero, San Francisco. Technically, at the South Lawn Music Concourse (between Steuert and the Embarcadero/Mission and Market).

When you face the Ferry Building and are standing at Justin Herman Plaza, it is directly to your right…a rectangular patch of grass! If you Google Justin Herman Plaza, click on satellite image and move the cursor to the right, you can see it clear as day.

You can take the Ferry or BART or drive and park.

What to bring:

· Signs

· BAP shirts if you have them…otherwise red…

· Crutches, slings, walkers, wheelchairs, bandages for around your head…whatever you can bring that is simple and easy to make you look sick…we will do some filming so we can prepare a video called “Killer” to the tune of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video. Be ready to line up and look like a sick ghoul or zombie…masks are discretionary…looking like regular sick folk is just fine.

· We will use quiet time to work: Be prepared to send and write letters to senators, thanking the reps who voted against the bill, and letting the reps who voted for the bill know how we feel about that. We’ll try to have some computers set up so you can BLAST FAX them as well.

· Bring your sense of humor, determination and patriotism.

RSVP: to Sally at sallyzel@comcast.net

Please spread the word…and bring friends…as the weather gets more challenging it will be more difficult to have these outdoor tea parties.

We will be selling T-shirts ($15-$20), tote bags ($5), bumper stickers ($3) and wrist bands ($2). All proceeds help defray the costs associated with the tea parties. Thanks for your support during these very difficult economic and emotional times.

UPDATE:  The above text comes directly from Bay Area Patriots.  This is me, Bookworm, speaking:  We all had a lot of adrenalin going in August.  People all over the country were attending Tea Parties, and it was tremendously exciting to be part of a mass movement.  Now, the days are shorter, the air is colder, and Nancy ignored us completely.  It’s as if the air got sucked out of our protest balloon.  That’s a significant problem because we conservatives and independents, unlike liberals, are not practiced or professional protesters.  We don’t roll out of bed every morning and grab the Marxist signs that live perpetually in the back of our closets.  Instead, we need to be fired up and now  we’re not only not fired up, we’re demoralized.

All of which makes it that much more important for us to dig within ourselves and find the energy to holler out “NO!” to a bill that will bankrupt our economy, insert the government in every area of our lives, destroy our medical system, criminalize us for not purchasing a product and, for those pro-Lifers amongst you, inevitably mean that you bankroll abortions.

As for me, I love the idea of the first resounding NO taking place on Nancy Pelosi’s home turf.  I live with the Pelosis of this world and I understand how they feel about a rally in Wichita — they don’t care, because fly-over country is made up of hicks.  (If you doubt me, just cast your mind back to Obama’s insulting speech about Pennsylvanians, whom he includes within the fly-over country category.)  A rally at home, a massive, charged up, in your face rally at home, shakes the liberal politicians, because it upsets their world view.

One more thing:  Please, please, please, if you show up, keep your signs and your slogans focused tightly on the health care bill.  A reality in our world is a hostile mainstream media, and one “Hitleresque” sign will occupy 100% of the media’s focus.  No one outside of the protesters themselves will see the hundreds of straightforward, or brilliant, or witty signs directed at the insanity that is the Pelosi/Obama health care bill.  I viscerally appreciate that it might feel good for you, personally, to vent your spleen, but it’s a short lived pleasure, with long term negative consequences for a very, very important issue.

If you’re ticked off about the Senate Committee vote on health care on Tuesday, and worried about what’s coming up next,

TELL THAT TO PRESIDENT OBAMA!!

Thursday, October 15, 2009
Powell across from Westin St. Francis, San Francisco
Around 5:00 pm

Bring signs but, please, keep them focused on the issue, which is that the health care plan is a double-whammy that has the potential to destroy both our economy and a health care program that provides excellent care to the vast majority of legal Americans.

Do not bring inflammatory signs that personally attack Obama, because you just know that, while regular Americans are interested in the issues, the media cares only about sliming anyone who opposes Obama.  What this means is that the nasty signs will appear on TV sets, and in magazines and newspapers, obscuring an important message and cheapening the TEA Party brand.

(If the plans for the protest change, I’ll provide updates at this post, so feel free to check in again.)