America Awakes: Reflections on 9/12 (Part II)
What brought the tea partiers together was their love of freedom and individual liberty and need for action. And it was inspiring. (Read Part 1 here)
When I first visited America nineteen years ago, I spent a few months moving around the Bay Area near San Francisco, caught up in the company of the aging Woodstock types — mostly because I didn’t know better. The locals on whom I had counted to help me understand this country, appeared to have been suffering, as I now understand it, from various stages of “progressivism.” Instead of revealing America’s positive essence that is central to its culture, they obscured it by emphasizing the negative, the non-essential, and the peripheral.
I couldn’t understand why these people, while themselves reaping the benefits of American freedom and prosperity, were trying to dampen my instinctive enthusiasm for it. But this was how they really felt: despite having focused their lives on satisfying every fleeting physical and psychological whim, they remained thoroughly unhappy people.
I left California just as confused as I had been when I arrived. Before going back to the USSR, I took a Greyhound bus to Fort Worth, Texas, where I had a pen pal of several years. As my stars would have it, my arrival coincided with the Fourth of July celebration. I don’t quite remember how I got into the middle of a Texas patriotic parade, but I ended up sitting in the passenger seat of a big classic convertible that slowly moving along the parade route, lined on both sides by happy, festive people who unabashedly celebrated their independence, freedom, prosperity, and a positive attitude towards life. That was when pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place and I was finally able to see the essence of this country that makes it so unique. Not only were these people free; they knew the cost of their freedom, appreciated its benefits, were willing to defend it, and rightfully made it into the most important celebration of the year. The Bay Area crowd turned out to be merely an anomaly.
The only parades I had previously attended were the semi-mandatory Soviet demonstrations. Forget convertibles. Even if they had existed and were privately owned, driving one in a parade would have required a special authorization by a panel of party, state, and union officials. In Soviet parades, faceless masses obediently and unthinkingly shuffled along with bland party-approved posters handed to them by official organizers, robotically repeating chants on cue from the official loudspeaker, in a half-hearted celebration of collectivism and its ultimate manifestation: the absolute power of the state over the individual.
Such parades were meant to demonstrate our supposedly boundless loyalty and gratitude to the government and the party for taking care of all our basic needs in exchange for our freedom to take care of ourselves. Of course, the supposedly “free” government services turned out to be rationed and meager, but we were told that in America, most people didn’t have even that. Such assurances did little to cure the pandemic of depression and alcoholism.
On that Fourth of July in Texas, the sight of genuinely free people willingly and cheerfully celebrating their freedom restored my faith in humanity and its future. It did more good to my confused soul than any psychotherapy could ever accomplish. This was roughly what I told the local reporter who interviewed me after the parade. I’m not sure he understood my accented English at the time, but he did catch the reference to therapy. The next day the local paper reported that the neighborhood parade was attended by a Soviet visitor who called the experience “therapeutic.”
Four years later I immigrated to the United States. Since then I have gone through a few more transformative experiences, including witnessing the attacks on the World Trade Center from only a block away. And there I was at the tea party in Washington, myself protesting the infringements on American freedoms and reliving my earlier “therapeutic experience,” only this time on a much higher level.
Many of the tea partiers had reportedly taken up protesting for the first time. Never before had they felt the need to raise their voices in the face of political adversity. Times do change, don’t they? My guess is that their experiences of standing shoulder to shoulder with over a million like-minded Americans in defense of liberty were in some ways similar to what I had felt at my first Fourth of July celebration — and that it was just as “therapeutic.”
Throughout the rally I couldn’t help but draw comparisons with the leftist demonstrations I had witnessed in San Francisco, New York, Washington, and Denver. While the formal methods were similar, they were two completely different species. The differences in slogans, attitudes, behaviors, and appearances were obvious. But these were all superficial symptoms stemming from a major philosophical divide, which I was trying to formulate.
While the leftists like to emphasize “diversity,” they invariably end up with conformity. Underneath the publicized melodrama of skin colors and accents, there always lies an ideological sameness of phony speech codes and received opinions that change with the “party line.” The leftist demagogues have learned to exploit the superficial theatrics to expand their power in the name of “minorities.” But in the words of Ayn Rand, the smallest minority is the individual; one cannot claim to be a defender of minorities if one restricts the individual rights that are essential to genuine diversity.
From what I have seen, this tea party consisted of people of many races, accents, and origins, who varied in their religious beliefs, immigration status, and political affiliations. I spoke with people who were Puerto Ricans, Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, Native Americans, and African Americans. I spoke with those who were atheists and those who were gay. I met a group of Spanish-speaking Cuban women, who carried a large anti-Obama poster. It was a poster that I had designed based on El Marco’s idea during last year’s election. The women didn’t know who I was or that it came from the People’s Cube website; they just happened to like the poster. I later shared my water bottle with a Serbian woman dressed in colonial costume with an American flag over her skirt. She carried several Ron Paul signs, including one that said, “Gun control means using both hands.” She spoke English with a strong accent but knew enough Russian to have a meaningful conversation. I didn’t care much for Ron Paul but I sure was glad she was with us.
What brought all these different folks together was their love of freedom. They recognized the danger posed by encroaching big government tyranny and acknowledged a need for action. But that’s where the similarities ended. These people weren’t used to speaking in unison. There were no predictable pious clichés or standardized hypocritical speech codes typical of leftist protests. Underneath all the masquerade, the accents, and other superficial attributes, the essential qualities of the million-plus tea partiers were what the term “diversity” used to mean originally, before the collectivist left pulled a racist bait-and-switch scheme and repackaged the term to denote a purely biological and tribal belonging with no regard to our individual minds, liberties, and ambitions.
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Oleg Atbashian, a writer and graphic artist from Ukraine, currently lives in New York. He is the creator of ThePeoplesCube.com, a satirical website where he writes under the name of Red Square.
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19 Comments
1. Ed Wallis:Oleg, you are an inspiration. Thank you.
Since you write,
Sep 30, 2009 - 1:51 am 2. ITF:“The “mainstream” media will never admit it in a smug tone reserved for leftist malcontents, but I know it and you know it,”
please consider writing “an appeal” to those (or a critique of those) on the Right who emulate an equally destructive divisiveness, for example:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/riehl-comes-not-to-praise-glenn-beck-but-to-bury-him/
People who have experienced totalitarian societies see things clearly enough. Why is it so difficult for many Americans?
The basic question: Who owns you?
For me, it sure as hell isn’t Komrade Obama.
Sep 30, 2009 - 2:53 am 3. Czar of Defenestration:To answer your question #2, it is difficult for many Americans to “see things clearly enough”
because they have not experienced directly – for lack of better words – a “lack of freedom” or,
perhaps better described as
the general ambience of constant oppression (often manifested…and not just by the government, but by the populace itself as an expression of helplessness…)
contempt for humanity.
Sep 30, 2009 - 4:15 am 4. homero:excellent
Political rogues have learned to spot such delinquents and recruit them into subversive pressure groups they deceptively call “community organizations,” which they use to infiltrate a building management. As it were, the new managers have recently declared the loud-mouth non-payers the “rightful owners” of the property and are now changing the rules and redistributing the apartments. And when the real owners have finally cried foul, they are dismissed as a hateful mob, with Obama condescendingly explaining their actions as trying “to get 15 minutes of fame” by being rude.
it used to be only landowners could vote.(they understood mob rule back then) now those without a stake are using democracy as a club to steal the money and goods of others. 50 plus one = mob rule
Sep 30, 2009 - 5:22 am 5. HandsOffAmerica.net:The 9-12 movement is real and the powers that be better take notice.
Sign up at http://www.handsoffamerica.net to join others in the 9-12 movement.
Sep 30, 2009 - 5:36 am 6. Brownie:Wow. Just excellent. Thank you.
Sep 30, 2009 - 5:46 am 7. pelaut:God bless you and your words and your works, Oleg. We needed you long past.
“The Bay Area crowd” is unfortunately NOT “an anomaly”. They are over half of the population — metro vs ‘flyover’ or blue vs red. They have won. We have had three generations of rotten teachers adhering to the vows of the various 60s/70s Woodstockian Manifestos (e.g., to remove Civics and History from the classrooms). And as the Collectivists count on, you can’t sell something when the girl across the street is giving it away for free.
Bolshis and children frolic in our palace. Your words, like Cicero’s, will remain to explain the loss of the Republic.
Sep 30, 2009 - 6:34 am 8. Utopia:Thank you for coming to my country.
I was there. My feelings exactly.
Sep 30, 2009 - 8:36 am 9. Michael:Oleg, you may have given the best description of what it means to be an American I have ever seen.
“America is not a race. We are not an ethnicity, nor do we require a formal kind of citizenship. It is the idea of individual liberty and the rule of law embodied in the American Constitution which unites people regardless of their origins.”
Thank you Sir.
Sep 30, 2009 - 8:37 am 10. jd:Esoteric Question (modified)
If a Tree Falls in the Forrest,
And CBS, NBC, and ABC don’t report it,
Does it make a sound?
jd
Sep 30, 2009 - 8:42 am 11. Professor Guvinoff:#9 Michael
I was not in Washington, but I attended two tea parties in San Diego. I agree. These meetings are celebrations of America and its principles. The american ideas have not been defeated, but they need to be defended, now more than ever.
Sep 30, 2009 - 9:02 am 12. Sapwolf:Best column I’ve read on PJTV in a long long time.
Thanks.
I spent the first 35 years of my life in the SF Bay Area. You are correct. You will not find a more selfish, politically correct, hateful, intolerant culture in the USA with the exception of major urban areas like Chicago, and the DC to Boston belt.
The Tea Partiers are the Good Guys. The SF Bay Area rich elites are the Bad Guys.
It is a Good vs. Evil struggle and I do not believe I am over the top on that after having living in several places in this country.
Sep 30, 2009 - 9:56 am 13. jodetoad:Well said.
There are 2 unspoken American ethics, so basic they are unconsciously assumed. One is “mind your own business” and the other is “lend a hand”.
From the days of barn raisings and quilting bees, Americans have helped each other, for all the best reasons, including self-interest. And we rarely interfere with each other, unless we become aware of a crime or great wrong.
The libs seem aware of neither. They want to legislate mutual help by minding our business. I wish we could send them all someplace where they could interfere with each other to their hearts content, so they would leave us in peace.
My rural valley has a food bank that has been in operation from my church forever. Because of perpetually increasing regulation, we can no longer contribute fresh produce, home-raised meat, home-baked bread, etc., and must purchase commercial products meeting “safety standards”, wrapped in miles of plastic, driven all over the country, and stale.
By interfering in a successful project of long duration, by minding our business, they severely restrict the amount of help we can offer to the hungry in our valley. Just an example.
Sep 30, 2009 - 1:12 pm 14. Avagadro602:Bravo on your accurate exposition! I was there and do believe God IS on our side. How else could 1M plus people gather for 8hours without food or water, and be sheltered totally by benign clouds from the hot sun. It was inspiring and amazing, we SHALL overcome!
A602
Sep 30, 2009 - 1:20 pm 15. Joe in NY:Oleg,
You have masterfully captured the experience of being at the 9/12 rally. I will be forever glad that I made the small sacrifice in time and money to drive down to Washington and participate in the protest.
The atmosphere was just as you describe. It was as friendly as a church picnic. People were smiling and chatting with complete strangers. There was no concern for race or ethnicity. We were all Americans, proud of our country and eager for the government to recognize the values and principles that make it great.
Oleg, you are more American than most of us who were born here.
Sep 30, 2009 - 1:45 pm 16. David W. Lincoln:Some points leapt from the screen. First of all, Americans are organized differently than other nations. It is about each person maximizing the time they have to accomplish what turns out to be their life.
As for the Obama supporter, one can arrive at only one likely conclusion: The Dead White Men were wrong, and anything is fair game to make that point.
Which leads to my final point. The Tea Partiers
were at the crawling stage, and with the Washington Tea Party, the first steps have been taken. So, I reiterate, do not regress to the crawling stage and only protest. I’m one whose birth certificate and passport are Canadian, and given the mess the world is in at this time, to
be more specific, financially and geopolitically,
the world cannot wait until a new President is in the Oval Office.
This is the scenario that has a possibility of playing out. The Repubs do well enough in the 2010 election to have a stronger hand in both the House and Senate. Obama will be as interested in co-operating with the Repubs as that Obama supporter in this piece was in co-operating with the Tea Partiers. Deadlock results.
Either a government in exile is declared, or the United States will have pretty well the same cards to play as Great Britain did at the Yalta conference when the Second World War was winding down. And this is regardless of what shape the American war machine is in.
Sep 30, 2009 - 4:06 pm 17. SukieTawdry:There are no greater American patriots than previously oppressed emigres.
It was a great event and I’m honored to have been part of it.
Sep 30, 2009 - 5:12 pm 18. Reiuxcat:Oleg,
Wonderful piece. Thanks for reminding us all what we have here.
Oct 1, 2009 - 11:49 am 19. Right-wing Extremist:I too was at the tea party in D.C on 9/12. I’m a college student in Pennsylvania and drove down to D.C and then took the subway to get to the tea party. I was wearing a shirt from a tea party near my hometown in New Jersey that I bought back in July, and was harassed the entire time I was on the subway for it. A woman started screaming at me, pointing out that the subway was paid for by the federal government so I was a hypocrite for using it. As I calmly attempted to explain to the woman, I personally have no problem with the government spending tax dollars on things like infrastructure. But I was drowned out. The idea that I didn’t fit her stereotype that she learned from MSNBC or any other leftist media was beyond her. She was completely incapable of viewing me and understanding me as an individual. This I think is the big divide between the leftists that support the government expansion that has been going on since the so called Neoconservatives took office and the “right-wing extremists” who protested that day. They can only understand people through the groups they associate with, while You and I understand people for their individual traits. The tea-party was not just a protest against taxes (at least to me), it was a battle for the soul of this country. We are at a cross-roads in America’s history. We either choose in the words of Reagan “the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or the ant heap of totalitarianism.” Let us hope that people choose reason over hysterical cries of the “needs” of others, with their votes in 2010!
Oh and I saw quite a few signs from the People’s Cube while at the tea party. They are pretty popular these days!
Oct 4, 2009 - 7:33 pm