“One day we woke up and we’re socialist!” cried Corinne Miller, as activists dumped tea into the New Haven Harbor in protest of Tax Day.
Protesters rallied on a waterfront hill on Long Wharf Drive on Wednesday, waving dozens of American flags and joining in chants like, “Hey hey! No no! Get your hands off of my dough!” They held signs with anti-Obama slogans and sayings that included “Income Redistribution Sucks!” and “Taxed Enough Already!”
The New Haven anti-tax “Tea Party” was part of a nationwide network of similar events intended to mark April 15, Tax Day, with an outcry of opposition to taxes, bailouts, bloated government spending, and the specter of socialism in America. Organizers said that the event was the product of a grassroots network of similar-minded people, linked up through social networking sites on the Internet.
The three-hour event culminated with the dumping of a bucket of tea in the Long Island Sound, a reference to the Boston Tea Party of 1773. In the lead-up to the dumping, protestors waved flags and chanted slogans while country music and Tea Party songs played over loudspeakers.
The New Haven Tea Party kicked off at 11 a.m. with the singing of the national anthem, led by students from the Barean Christian Academy in Milford, dressed in colonial costumes. Corinne Miller, the school’s Constitutional Law teacher, sang nearby.
Miller (in photo above), who lives in Milford, said that she organized the tea party in cooperation with several others, including Branford’s Pam Fowler. They gathered followers through Facebook and other websites and joined a nationwide grassroots movement of similar events.
Miller said the tea party phenomenon has been going on for several months. She traced the roots of the crusade to an on-air rant in February by CNBC reporter Rick Santelli, who warned that America was turning into a socialist state. His tirade touched off a populist movement of similar-minded people across the country.
“People just started looking for each other,” she said. “Facebook was a big part of it.”
There have been a number of tea parties held in the last months around the country, but Miller said that the April 15 date had particularly significance, for obvious reasons.
“This is the day where the enterprisers of America surrender 40 percent of their wealth,” she said.
Miller predicted that the tea party movement was just beginning. “I would not be at all surprised to see civil disobedience increase,” she said. “Like when the blacks started sitting at the front of the bus.”
“People are just waking up now,” Miller said. People are realizing the danger of big government and are concerned about a movement away from free market principles and towards socialism, she said. She worried aloud about a “redistribution of wealth through a graduated income tax,” and the government’s control over social security.
Tanya Bachand, of Wallingford, was another of the event’s organizers. She said that the rally started with an “anti-bailout, anti-stimulus” focus and “morphed into” a way to let elected officials know that “we’re not happy and we’re gonna vote them out.”
Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd’s name came up many times at the tea party, in the form of signs and chants of “Dump Dodd Now!”
Rob Simmons (pictured), a former U.S. congressmember from eastern Connecticut and current Republican candidate for Dodd’s Senate seat, was one of the first to address the gathering. He said that he spent four years in Vietnam fighting for freedom and now, years later, was back in Connecticut, surprised to find that he was again fighting for freedom.
He criticized the federal stimulus bill, saying that it would not create jobs and decrying a lack of assistance for small businesses. Simmons then took on the Connecticut delegation in DC for not examining the stimulus bill before passing it. “The lawmakers just aren’t doing their job, he said. “They didn’t read the bill.”
Simmons was followed by Chris Cassone, a musician who appeared on Wednesday morning on Fox and Friends, the conservative morning talk show on the Fox network. Playing along with a pre-recorded track, Cassone sang his “Tea Party Anthem,” calling for his listeners to “take our country back!”
Under a tree nearby, protesters added tea bags to a bucket of water, making the ceremonial tea for dumping. Scott and Leesan Villa of Branford photographed their three sons as they added they teabags to the water. Scott said that he had come to the rally because of concerns about excessive government spending. The government should be spending within its means, just like his family has to, Scott said.
“Not that we’re against things like health care,” said Leesan. She said that she and her husband had worked since they were 18 and paid for their own health care. “We feel like we can’t get ahead,” she said. Scott held a sign that read “The more you make, the more they’ll take.”
Dressed in colonial garb, Michael Alcock of Trumbull, drew a connection between the current national situation and the plight of the founding fathers. The revolutionary war was fought over taxation without representation, he said, and right now “we don’t have representation in Washington.”
“They just sign on the dotted line without reading,” he said. “They’re not doing their job.”
Bringing in more recent history, Alcock said that the FDR’s government spending did not help the country out of the Great Depression. “His programs did absolutely nothing.”
Just before the pouring of the tea, organizer Tanya Bachand rallied the protesters for an open mic. One after another, protesters stepped up to speak out against big government and warn against the current administration’s alleged slide towards socialism.
Larry Czajkowski, Major, U.S. Army, retired, from Orange, called for Connecticut to vote out “Rosa the Queen of Pork… Joe the turncoat… Chris the Crook.”
Speakers warned that the public schools are indoctrinating children in liberal, leftist, ideology and “draining their minds.” They spoke of illegal immigration, and gun rights, the dangers of gay marriage, and the falsity of global warming.
Bill Shields, of the anti-illegal-immigration group Southern Connecticut Immigration Reform, read off a to-do list of 16 items. To much applause and cheering, he called for the election of judges, term limits for congress, the deportation of illegal immigrants, the use of the ten commandments as a basis for laws, the impeachment of “the long-legged mac-daddy Obama,” the end of affirmative action, prohibition of gay marriage and the “gay mafia,” and “reparations for Irishmen.” He also mentioned that conservative Americans should have more babies.
Ed Doesn’t Get It
“I don’t understand this,” said Ed Anderson. “It’s like they’re speaking in code.”
Anderson, a self-employed New Havener, showed up with his video camera and his Golden Retriever, Bo Diddley, to take in the protest. A self-described progressive, Anderson was mystified by the tea party.
“We just had the revolution,” Anderson said, referring to the election of Obama. “Where were these guys?”
“Power to the people? Wasn’t that what we just did?” he said.
Anderson said that he believes that wealthy people should be taxed more than poorer people, and couldn’t understand why the protesters seemed to feel so persecuted by the government.
“They’ve got a persecution complex,” he said. “These people all feel like there’s someone out to get them.”
“Hey this was awesome!” Anderson (at right in photo) called out to organizer Tanya Bachand (at left). The two found themselves among the last people on the hill as the crowd dispersed, post-tea-pouring.
Bachand said that she was pleased with the turnout. “It was way more than I expected,” she said.
Anderson struck up a conversation with Katie of Bridgeport, who declined to give her last name.
“We need to stop the spending and stop the taxes,” Katie said. “We’re just going to end up bankrupt.”
“Don’t you think the rich should pay more taxes?” Ed asked.
“We need to be more mindful of what’s going on,” Katie responded.
“I don’t understand,” Anderson said as Katie walked away. “Talk radio, whatever they’ve done, they’ve done it well… It’s going over my head.”
I look at all these pictures in this story and I think, WoW.... would you just look at all those WHITE people. The tax issue is now another euphemism for RACISM. White people are still under the ellusion that their tax dollars are going to welfare mothers. Sorry folks, its not true. Your tax dollars are going to other RICH White folks who have learned to game the stock market and speculate in real estate and have no concern for you or your children. You guys are idiots! Wake up!