Editor’s Note: We don’t know who wrote this, but we agree with the sentiment, so we thought we’ve publish it for everyone to read. If the author steps forward, we’ll be happy to credit them!

Birth of a New Tradition

As the holidays approach, the giant Asian factories are kicking into high gear to provide Americans with monstrous piles of cheaply produced goods — merchandise that has been produced at the expense of American labor. This year will be different. This year Americans will give the gift of genuine concern for other Americans. There is no longer an excuse that, at gift giving time, nothing can be found that is produced by American hands.

Yes there is!

It’s time to think outside the box, people. Who says a gift needs to fit in a shirt box, wrapped in Chinese produced wrapping paper?

Everyone — yes EVERYONE gets their hair cut. How about gift certificates from your local American hair salon or barber?

Gym membership? It’s appropriate for all ages who are thinking about some health improvement.

Who wouldn’t appreciate getting their car detailed? Small, American owned detail shops and car washes would love to sell you a gift certificate or a book of gift certificates.

Are you one of those extravagant givers who think nothing of plonking down the Benjamins on a Chinese made flat-screen? Perhaps that grateful gift receiver would like his driveway sealed, or lawn mowed for the summer, or driveway plowed all winter, or games at the local golf course.

There are a bazillion owner-run restaurants — all offering gift certificates. And, if your intended isn’t the fancy-eatery sort, what about a half dozen breakfasts at the local breakfast joint.

Remember, folks this isn’t about big National chains — this is about supporting your hometown Americans with their financial lives on the line to keep their doors open.

How many people couldn’t use an oil change for their car, truck or motorcycle, done at a shop run by the American working guy?

Thinking about a heartfelt gift for mom? Mom would LOVE the services of a local cleaning lady for a day.

My computer could use a tune-up, and I know I can find some young guy who is struggling to get his repair business up and running.

OK, you were looking for something more personal. Local crafts people spin their own wool and knit them into scarves. They make jewelry, and pottery and beautiful wooden boxes.

Plan your holiday outings at local, owner operated restaurants and leave your server a nice tip. And, how about going out to see a play or ballet at your hometown theater.

Musicians need love too, so find a venue showcasing local bands.

Honestly, people, do you REALLY need to buy another ten thousand Chinese lights for the house? When you buy a five dollar string of light, about fifty cents stays in the community. If you have those kinds of bucks to burn, leave the mailman, trash guy or babysitter a nice BIG tip.

You see, Christmas is no longer about draining American pockets so that China can build another glittering city. Christmas is now about caring about US, encouraging American small businesses to keep plugging away to follow their dreams. And, when we care about other Americans, we care about our communities, and the benefits come back to us in ways we couldn’t imagine.

THIS is the new American Christmas tradition.

• post it to discussion groups
• throw up a post on Craigslist in the Rants and Raves section in your city
• send it to the editor of your local paper and radio stations, and TV news departments.

This is a revolution of caring about each other, and isn’t that what Christmas is about?

If you have liked either of the previous MTP Facebook Groups, please unlike them and then visit the link below to like the new MeridianTeaParty.com Facebook Page. We are no longer updating the old pages other than encouraging friends to move to the new page.

http://www.facebook.com/MeridianTeaParty

Once you have liked the new page, please share it with your friends on Facebook. We are hoping to get as many people as possible to like our Facebook page and are setting our first target at 1,000 friends. We need your help to promote this new page!!!!

2012 is right around the corner and we believe that MeridianTeaParty.com in conjunction with Tea Party Groups all over the United States will have a huge impact on next year’s elections. The Tea Party was a big player in the recent debt negotiations in Washington and while the RINO’s and Liberals may have won that fight, they were put on notice that the Tea Party movement is far from dead and is in fact prepared to get in their faces and fight for what is right. Help us make an even bigger difference. We’ll be working on State elections for November, 2011 and National Election coming in November, 2012. This is one of the easiest ways to get involved and help us spread the word!

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Part 2:

h/t: Breitbart.tv

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“I rise here on the Senate floor today to speak on the tremendous issue that’s captivated, and rightfully so, the attention of our country.

“Let me start by saying that I do not enjoy nor relish the partisan role of attack dog. I never found any fun in that. I don’t think it’s constructive. I don’t intend to become that here in the Senate.

“I also have only been here for seven months, which means I haven’t been here long enough to think any of the stuff that’s going on is normal. And I certainly don’t think any of the stuff that goes on around here too often is normal. So I think the fact that I’ve been here seven months has served me well in that regard.

“Let me begin if I can. One of the things that I’ve noticed this week is that Washington is full of people from all over the world and all over the country that have traveled here this week to come and watch their government at work and see the monuments of the city and found themselves in the middle of this debate.

“So I think it’s important to remind people what we’re debating because although it is a difficult and important issue, it is not a complicated one to understand. It’s pretty straight forward.

“And here’s the way I would describe it the United States of America more or less — these are rough numbers but they’re accurate – spends about $300 billion a month. It has $180 billion a month that comes to the federal government through taxes and other sources of revenue and that means that in order to meet its bills at the end of every month it needs to borrow $120 billion.

“Now, for much of the history of this country, there have been increases in the debt limit and the ability to borrow money. But what has happened over the last few years is that it’s no longer a routine vote because the people who give us our credit rating are saying too much of the money that you spend every month is borrowed and we want you to show us how over the next ten years you are going to borrow less as a percentage of what you spend.

“And so that’s why, for years, where the debt limit was routine vote, it no longer can be. It’s not something that was made up in some conservative think tank. But the reality that we cannot continue to borrow 40% to 41% of every penny that the government spends has brought us to this point.

“So you would think that seeing that, our government and our leaders here in both parties would react to that immediately and work on it.

“And I’ve heard lot of talk today about delaying tactics and delaying votes. I would argue to you that this issue has been delayed at least for the last two and a half years.

“In the two years before I even came here, this chamber neither proposed nor passed a budget. It is a startling figure that for the last two years this government has operated without a budget. So think about that. Two years have gone by without a budget. The first two years that the President was the president, no budgets.

“Some people would say, well, that’s because of partisanship in Washington. Well, that’s not true. In the two years before I got here, both the House and Senate were controlled by members of the Democratic Party, which are the President’s party. In fact, in this chamber for at least one of those two years, 60 votes, 60 out of the 100 members here caucused with the Democrats. And as you recall, on Christmas Eve of the year 2009, they were able to pass a health care bill that was very controversial because they had the 60 votes in the President’s party.

“Over two years, no budget. In fact you know how long it has been since this chamber proposed a budget? Forget passed a budget, proposed a budget? 822 days. That’s a long time. A lot of things have happened in the last 822 days, but proposing a budget is not one of them out of this chamber.

“So then I got here – and we got here in January, seven months have passed, still no budget. Again, not budget passed, proposed, offered. Here’s our budget. Still no budget. 822 Days and every single day that I’ve been here.

“Now, in the last seven days on this debt debate, we have finally seen a proposal from the esteemed senator from Nevada, the majority leader. You would think, has he brought it to the floor to vote? Not until last night. So, again, offered a proposal over the weekend and still for six days we sat around and what did we do around here? Nothing. It was never brought to a vote.

“You would think these issues would have been worked on in January, February, March — nothing. This chamber has done nothing. You talk about delay tactics? They’ve been delaying for two and a half years.

“Now the President doesn’t have the luxury of some of these things. He has to propose a budget by law, and he did. Let me tell you how ridiculous the budget was. Not a single member of this Senate voted for it, including the Democrats. It is a budget that didn’t lead with the debt limit; in fact, it increased the debt. That’s how absurd the budget was.

“Where is the President plan? We haven’t seen it. We haven’t seen it. Here’s the President’s plan: a blank sheet of paper. He doesn’t have a plan. He hasn’t offered a plan. Again, if this were a Republican president, I would say the same thing.

“I do not understand how an issue of this magnitude, of generational importance, the President of the United States has not offered a plan. If someone has seen the president’s plan, please send it to me because no one else has seen it. It does not exist.

“So this has been the plan all along, by the way. The plan all along was not to take a position, to let the days count down until we got to this point with 72 hours to go and then force a vote on something that they wanted. I believe that that has been the plan the entire time. And you can see it carrying itself out.

“You want to know why people all across America get grossed out about politics? It’s by watching this kind of stuff happen.

“And instead let me tell you what we’ve seen for the last few days. First of all, for today and for much of this time I have heard all these attacks and name-calling. If we had $1 billion for every time I heard the words “tea party extremist,” we could solve this debt problem.

“So all this name-calling, so I said let me read some quotes about this debt limit and I found some pretty extremist quotes.

“Here’s one.

“It says, “The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I, therefore, intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt.” A quote from a tea party extremist, right? No. This is a quote from March 16 of 2006 from Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.

“I found another extremist quote. This one says, “Because this massive of accumulation of debt was predicted, because it was foreseeable, because it was unnecessary, because it was the result of willful and reckless disregard for the warnings that were given and for the fundamentals of economic management, I am voting against a debt limit increase.” Well, that must be from a tea party extremist member of the House, right? No. This is March 16, 2006, from Senator Joe Biden of Delaware.

“And last but not least, here’s a quote from September 27 of 2007. It says, “I find it distasteful and disturbing to increase the debt limit yet again. Clearly we need to change course and this debt limit bill is just another reminder of that.” And that is from the distinguished Senator from Nevada, the majority leader. On that date in 2007.

“And yet now these same quotes in this context, what we’re talking about raising the debt limit more than has ever been raised in one vote, is extremism? This name-calling is absurd and it sets this process back.

“The other thing I hear — oh, it is not reasonable. This is a waste of time. This bill can’t pass the Senate when they talk about the House bill. So now it disqualifies the bill the fact that it can’t pass in the Senate.

“Well, guess what? The Senate bill can’t pass in the Senate — the Senate bill can’t pass in the Senate.”

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA): “Will the Senator yield for a question?”

Sen. Rubio: “Yes, I’ll yield.”

Sen. John Kerry: “I thank the Senator for doing that. That’s become somewhat unusual in the Senate today. So I truly appreciate it.

“I would ask the Senator, as ironic as it may be that on occasion people in the past have indeed voted against a debt limit — both Republicans and Democrats alike — is it not true that in those situations those votes did not hold the nation hostage, did not come at a moment of enormous economic fragility as we are in today, and did not run the risk of default because it was going to pass overwhelmingly every time?

“Is that not true?”

Sen. Rubio: “To the Senator from Massachusetts, I would say two things.

“The first is that those votes — put it to you this way. If the Senator from Illinois at the time, Senator Obama, had had his way, we’d be in the same position we are in now. Because he had voted against the debt – and I recognize the President has now said that the debt limit is — he made a mistake and he wouldn’t have said that were he here today.

“My point, I would say to the Senator from Massachusetts, is that rhetoric two years ago was not considered extremist language and now that rhetoric, which by the way I have not found. I think it is a myth. There may be a handful of people in the building both in the House and Senate perhaps that believe that the nation doesn’t have to raise the debt limit. But by and large everyone recognizes that something must be done about the debt limit.

“What we have also said – I speak for myself. Let me not speak for any other member of this chamber or the next.

“What I have also said is that it would be a terrible mistake to lose this opportunity to do something meaningful about the debt. And that the debt limit gives us an opportunity to do something meaningful about the debt, because the crisis that America faces is not one that I have defined.

“But one that has been defined by the rating houses and rating agencies who have said if you do not get your spending in order, we don’t care whether you raise your debt limit or not, we will downgrade you.

“And what that means for every American is an increase in their interest payments.”

Sen. John Kerry: “Will the Senator further yield for a question?”

Sen. Rubio: “Yes.”

Sen. Kerry: “Mr. President I appreciate what the Senator is saying. I would just say first of all that everybody understands the danger of the rating agencies right now.

“The problem is, we got to reach across the aisle and negotiate. We’ve got to come to agreement. Right now there’s not a lot of negotiating going on.

“I would ask the Senator, if he doesn’t agree that there is an enormous difference between — the Senator a moment ago said if he had gotten his way. But the whole point is, everybody knew he wasn’t about to get his way. That was a truly symbolic vote.

“Today, however, is it not true we are on the brink of a default and the absence of negotiation or the absence of a settlement presents us with a far more serious consequence to the unwillingness to raise the debt ceiling today?”

Sen. Rubio: “To the Senator from Massachusetts I would say it’s impossible to negotiate with someone who doesn’t offer a plan. How do you negotiate with someone who will not offer a plan and will not put it on the table?

“But the finger pointing of who has a plan and who doesn’t have a plan is relevant, but it’s not the central issue here.

“I would also say that in March of this year, March 30 to be exact of this year, I wrote an op-ed piece that ran in The Wall Street Journal and it outlined the things I was looking for to be a part of this debate. And I was told on March of this year that we didn’t have enough time to do all those things. Although later on we found out perhaps we did, this grand bargain and I am prepared, as I stand here today, if there is a meeting going on right after this, I’d love to be a part of it.

“I am prepared to discuss the things that I believe we need to do not just to raise the debt limit. Raising the debt limit is the easiest thing. That’s one vote away. The hard thing is to show the world we are serious about putting our spending in order so we can show people we’ll able to pay our bills down the road.

“And that is a combination of things that I have outlined very clearly, not just on March of this year in The Wall Street Journal, but in repeated speeches on this floor.

“And those are the things, we need to do two things.

“Number one is we need to grow our economy because while the debt is the biggest issue in Washington, jobs are the biggest issue facing America. And if we could get more people back to work, we would have more people paying taxes, and if we had more people paying taxes, we’d have more revenue for government.

“And so that is the first thing we need to do, is figure out how to create jobs in America and I think there is bipartisan agreement on things we can do to do that.

“The President himself mentioned regulatory reform as a necessity in the State of the Union. Let’s do it.

“We’ve all talked about tax reform. Flattening and simplifying our tax code. And if there are things in that tax code that do not belong there because they are the product of good lobbying instead of good policy, then let’s go after those things. We’ve talked about that. Let’s talk about that.

“I think we all agree that there has to be some changes in discretionary spending, but we also agree that doesn’t solve the problem. That’s a small piece of our overall budget. That we have to save Medicare because it goes bankrupt if we leave it the way it is. That we have to save Medicaid because it goes bankrupt if we leave it the way it is.

“And I can tell you that history will back up what I’m about to say and that is that there is no government run by conservatives, Republicans, put whoever you want there, if you give government the opportunity to spend more money than it has, it will do it. It will do it every time.

“That’s why I believe there are at least 20 members of the Senate in the other party who have supported some version of the balanced budget amendment and yet it’s something we cannot even get a vote on much less discuss in the Senate.

“So I believe there can be compromise on those outlines but here’s the last thing I would say.

“I believe my time is about to expire so let me close with this.

“Compromise is fantastic.

“I would love nothing more than to leave this building tomorrow night having said the republic still works. I was able to stand shoulder to shoulder with people from states far from mine with views different from mine but who love their country so much that we were able to come together and save it when it faced this catastrophe.

“I would love nothing more than compromise. But I would say to you that compromise that’s not a solution is a waste of time.

“If my house was on fire, I can’t compromise about which part of the house I’m going to save. You save the whole house or it will all burn down.

“We either save this country or we do not.

“And to save it, we must seek solutions.”

MeridianTeaParty.com will hold a Candidates Forum on July 26th, 2011 starting at 6:00pm at EMEPA Auditorium.

All candidates who responded to our Candidates Questionnaire by the deadline have been invited and will be given time on stage to talk about their candidacy. Everyone will have the opportunity to personally question candidates after the candidates have spoken. We’ll be designating different areas of the room for candidates to make themselves directly available to any voter.

Everyone is invited to attend this event and take advantage of this opportunity to spend some time with the candidates just prior to the election!

Date: Tuesday, July 26th, 2011
Time: 6:00pm – 8:00pm
Location: EMEPA Auditorium

Click here to view the embedded video.

In conversations with lots of people, I’ve found a percentage of people who are aware of the book “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand, but a much larger percentage of people know nothing about this book, its implications nor its impact some 50 years after it was written. In January, 2010, John Stossel focused on this book and explained a great deal about why the book continues to be a best-seller so long after its original publication.

I thought it might be helpful to people to understand why this book and this movie are important to our times.

Note: No copyright infringement is intended by embedding these videos in this story. The material is hosted on YouTube and has been freely available at YouTube since January 8, 2010.

Part 1

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Part 2

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Part 3

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Part 4

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Part 5

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Part 6

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In case you haven’t heard of Herman Cain, here’s a little bit of his bio from his website:

Herman Cain grew up in Atlanta, Georgia with loving parents and little else. His father worked three jobs—as a janitor, a barber and a chauffeur—and his mother was a domestic worker. Even though these jobs required hard work and little glamour, his parents knew this life was better than the dirt farms upon which they grew up. They also knew that this hard work was the key to achieving their American Dreams.

Herman’s parents had two dreams. First, they wanted to own their own house. Secondly, they wanted both of their children to graduate from college. During the segregation era in the Deep South, these aspirations might have seemed lofty, but they knew that if they kept their faith in God, faith in themselves and faith in the greatest country on the Earth, they could achieve.

The first dream was realized in a modest brick house on Albert Street in Atlanta, Georgia. After years of saving from his many jobs, Herman’s father surprised the whole family, even his wife, by purchasing a home for their family. The second dream was realized when Herman graduated from Morehouse College with a degree in mathematics in 1967. His brother, Thurman, would go on to graduate from Morris Brown College.

In 1994, as head of the National Restaurant Association, he had the opportunity to speak with President Clinton during a nationally televised town hall meeting. Here, Herman challenged the President regarding the impact on businesses if his health care overhaul proposal were passed. President Clinton attempted to assure him and the millions of viewers watching at home that his legislation would not harm American business owners and their employees.

Herman was skeptical. “Quite honestly Mr. President, your calculations are incorrect,” he said. “In the competitive marketplace, it simply doesn’t work that way.” His words echoed across America, and Newsweek named Herman Cain the primary saboteur of Hillarycare.

Through these and other appearances on behalf of the National Restaurant Association, Herman began working with business leaders across all sectors of the American economy. This led to his acceptance of a position on the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, and he was subsequently elected their chairman. In this role, he analyzed economic conditions in the region and notified the Federal Reserve of how their policies should respond.

Most recently, he hosted a radio talk show, “The Herman Cain Show,” on Atlanta’s WSB 750 AM/ 95.5 FM. He serves as a regular contributor on several broadcast networks and as a keynote speaker at conferences and events around the nation.

Despite the many professional commitments of his life, Herman continues to enjoy most the time spent with family and friends. As his children got married and had their own children, he knew that he had an extraordinary obligation to do what he could to make this a safe and prosperous nation for them. The paramount joys in his life are his wife, Gloria, his children and his grandchildren.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Hope you like the new design and will let us know what you think!

Tom Zawistowski, the Executive Director of Portage County TEA Party, Ohio published an article at RedWhiteBlueNews.com regarding some of the tactics being used by the left and it includes an honest appraisal of the lessons learned by Tea Party groups during the confrontations. The article covers events in Columbus, Canton and Youngstown, Ohio and it is a great read. While it is too long to include in its entirety here, we highly encourage you to take the time to go and read the full article. It is a hopeful and encouraging document and should give us all some education on how to deal with these potential confrontations and ultimately how to win the day.

Saul Alinsky visits Ohio for Senate Bill 5

Fellow Patriots, this past week many or our members and our groups, for the first time since our movement began, actually faced hostile crowds in numbers significantly larger than we could muster. This was a new learning experience for most of us and, as you will see, it was not a pleasant experience. After a rally in Youngstown on Thursday, February 24, 2011, it became clear to me that, though our groups and members were learning from our experience, we were not doing a good job of sharing that experience, and as a result we were unknowingly and unnecessarily putting our members in harms way. Which is why I am writing this essay for you to read.

Many of you are familiar with the book “Rules for Radicals” by Saul D. Alinsky, and if you have not read it, you should get a copy and read it now. It will make you sick. I had to actually stop and put it down several times because what Alinsky endorses is so disgusting and so demeaning that it is hard to believe anyone could stoop so low to win power. But that is the point of the book and that is why you need to read it. We must know our enemies and their tactics; and what you will learn from Alinsky is that there is nothing the left will not do to beat you and take power. Nothing. With that introduction, I am going to proceed to show you the “Saul Alinsky tactics” that were employed against the TEA Party and Patriot groups in Columbus on February 17th, in Canton on Tuesday, February 22nd, and in Youngstown on Thursday, February 24th, in an effort to intimidate us and our legislators and defeat Senate Bill 5.

Columbus – Thursday, February 17, 2011

First of all, the unions knew about Senate Bill 5 before any of us had even heard of it. The result was that they had 800 members in the Senate gallery during the first day of hearings, literally booing at the testimony and trying to intimidate senators, while we had no representation. This was a tactical error by our representatives which caused them to lose the moral high ground in the first two hours of the fight. The union message dominated the local news, and pictures of hundreds of union members in yellow shirts were on the front page of every newspaper and on every TV. Immediately, the senators and the governor were on the defensive and their logical message of fiscal responsibility was being drowned out by emotional messages of citizens turning their backs on “police and firefighters who face gunfire and run into burning buildings” and “going to war against ‘middle class workers’.” These are examples of standard Akinsky tactics. First create a powerful image by having them all wear the same colored shirts, use force to interrupt the hearings by booing the presenters, go door-to-door in the Senate to remind Senators that you have the resources to help or hurt them in the future, then come out with an emotional message that divides your opponents by class or other categories. The message to our Republican leaders: the left destroyed you on day one.

Now the conservatives were on the defensive, thanks to the ineptness of our elected leaders. Patriot groups put together a response, which was to get to Columbus as soon as we could to show that we supported the elimination of collective bargaining and binding arbitration for government employees. Across the state, Patriot group leaders began to organize a trip to Columbus on Thursday, February 17th. The Portage County TEA Party took two buses to Columbus that day; and we knew that we would most likely be outnumbered, and that we would come in direct contact for the first time with the SEIU and the government employee unions. In an effort to make sure that we could identify ourselves, all the groups in Ohio had decided in advance that we would wear red shirts or jackets. During the previous hearings, the SEIU members had worn purple and the other unions had worn yellow. We had also decided to get to Columbus early, because at the Tuesday hearings, the unions had gotten there two hours ahead of time and taken all the seats.

When we got to the State House at around 8:00 AM for the hearings that were scheduled to start at 10:00 AM, there were only a handful of Patriots on the steps outside the building. There were no union people to be seen. There was a PA system setup playing music, which at first we thought were to be used for our planned rally. Several Ohio Liberty Council (OLC) leaders were on the steps, and Americans for Prosperity members were handing out red “Ohio 180” shirts to anyone who wasn’t wearing red and wanted one. Our members went to the door to see if they could go into the State House, but were told by security that they were not allowed in because there was no room. We were confused, because we had been told several days before that they were moving the hearings to a bigger room because they were expecting a big crowd. Then we were told that they did move the hearings to a new room, but that was because they had 50 people testifying and needed the bigger room to hold them. We stayed outside.

At about 9:00 AM, there was still no sign of any union members. The number of Patriots had grown to about 700 outside on the State House steps and we were kind of waiting to hold a brief rally before trying to get inside to hear the hearings.Then, right on cue, we saw a line of at least several hundred union members, mostly police and fire, walking in line, four across like an army, approaching from the northwest corner of the grounds right towards us and the steps of the State House. You could clearly tell that this was staged to try and intimidate us. We stood there watching as they drew closer, wondering what would happen when they reached the steps. None of them were wearing colored shirts, they were wearing what looked like uniforms.

To our amazement, when they got to the steps, the doors to the State House opened up and they walked right between us, in formation, and walked right inside – after we had been standing outside for at least an hour waiting to get inside. After we had been told we could not go inside. Remember a year ago when Nancy Pelosi, flanked by every black democrat they could muster, walked through the TEA Party protestors defiantly with her gavel trying to provoke an incident on their way to sign the health care bill? This was an instant replay.

What was going on here? Well this is when we were personally introduced to the first two Saul Alinsky tactics. You see, since the police and firefighter unions were protesting Senate Bill 5, there were lots of official-looking people walking around who were not officials. The people who had told our members that we could not go into the State House because there was no room were not officials at the State House at all. They we union members taking advantage of our lack of experience with their tactics. This was pure theater. The planted people at the door to make us think we could not go in, for the express purpose of exposing us to what they hoped would be an intimidating show of force when they used their little parade to March right through us. It was actually funny to watch it unfold because it was all so phony.

So, after they went inside, our people decided that we would have our rally. However, we were told that since we did not have a permit, we could not use the steps for our rally. That is when we found out that the PA system on the steps was not for us. Those speakers were so we could listen to the hearings outside. We were told that if we wanted to have a rally we could not be on the State House property, we had to go out on the sidewalk. So, 700 of us walked out to the street and used a small portable PA system to hear several speakers for about 15 minutes. When that was done, we didn’t really know what to do, so we decided that we would just march up the stairs and see what was inside.

When we got to the door, there was no one to stop us from coming in, so we walked into the Rotunda, which by definition is a big round room. As we walked across the room and came out the other side, there was a set of stairs that led down to a room where chairs had been set up for people to listen to the hearings. Those chairs were already filled with about 2,000 union members. Union members wearing red shirts. That was Alinsky tactic number 3. By them wearing red shirts, while we were wearing red shirts, you could not tell how many of us there were because they were in the majority. It minimized us. It also caused media confusion as I later saw video footage on Fox showing “union members protesting Senate Bill 5” when there were pictures of our members yelling in support of Senate Bill 5. That was no accident.

So then they started to push in tighter and started to chant, “Kill the bill!” in an effort to confine our space and movement. This makes people nervous. More Alinsky tactics. At first we just listened to the chants. Then we started to chant, “Keep 5 alive!” and went toe-to-toe with them for about an hour. The sound echoed off the Rotunda ceiling and walls. There were some heated moments, all instigated by the union members, but everyone managed to keep in control. It was a thing of beauty watching one of our 65-year-old, 5’1” ladies, being confronted by three 6’4”, 30-year-old firemen, who looked like all they did was lift weights, and she was giving them what for!

Every union member appeared to be quoting from a script someone had written for them to memorize. Another Alinsky tactic, stay on message. As our free-thinking American members started to ask them questions and ask them to explain their positions, we quickly found that they had no idea what Senate Bill 5 was about or what they were talking about. They had no logic, just anger, and wrongful, ill-informed anger at that. Our group spent the next four hours talking to these union members and trying to get them to understand that we are out of money and if they don’t support some kind of change, many more of them are going to lose their jobs. The best part was when we talked to teachers and asked them what they were doing here during a school day, and they told us that the “Democratic Party” had paid their way. They were not kidding. Every union was being paid to be there.

Things really got pathetic in the big Atrium where all the union members were sitting. Believe it or not, they actually had grown men and women in the big room acting as “cheerleaders” for the union members. As the audio from the hearing rooms played in the room, they would actually have to tell the union members when to cheer and when to boo! It was really depressing to regular citizens to watch people we are told are professionals, like teachers and police and firemen, being led around the State House like a bunch of 5-year-olds on a field trip to the zoo. Very demeaning for them. We all left that day just sick of all the union tactics and disturbed by what we had seen.

However, despite all the Alinsky tactics, we felt that our band of 700 had won the day. First of all, their members were intimidated by our presence. Rarely have they ever faced any opposition when they were on strike or holding some sort of protest. You could see it in their eyes when they looked at us and saw calm, reasonable people who looked like their parents or grandparents, who were standing against them. It raised doubt in their minds. They witnessed the abusive behavior by some of their members and knew that our Patriots held the moral high ground. On a personal level, many of them were questioning what they were doing there that day and some expressed that to our members on a personal level.

We certainly won the day in the media, because we were the story, not the unions. The fact that regular citizens would take a day off from work and pay their own way to come to Columbus to show both the unions and our government officials that it’s our money and we were determined to have a say in how it was spent, was news. The media also reacted to the contrast between our calm positive message of trying to find a solution to our financial problems, and the union intimidation tactics and hate speech. Patriot leaders and our group members were on every media outlet in the state with with a consistent message.

Finally, we did win the day in the minds of some Senators who needed to see with their own eyes that the Patriot movement was not all talk and no action. Two Senators committed to support the bill after our visit.

Read The Rest…It is worth it….

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Sample Ballot Clarke County