Crazy Protest Coverage By Stacy & Nicole

Nicole Robinson and Stacy Vieux

Anti Tax or Anti Obama? National Tea Tax Protest Looses Sight of its True Mission

Wednesday marked the day where millions of Americans across the nation begrudgingly turned in their tax returns. And many across the nation organized massive protests against what they call “big spending”.  These protests were called “tea party” protests based off of the 1773 Boston Tea Party so long ago.

 

Protestors clad in colonial wear, tea bags and even explicit tee shirts about “stimulus packages” came out even in our own Tampa UT area. The epicenter of the protest was located on Kennedy and Ashley just two blocks from school.

 

Although the focus of the national protests seemed to be against increased government spending and bailouts, it seemed that the Tampa protest was more focused on Obama bashing.

 

Signs that read, “Obama Kills Babies!”, “Obama Musolini Hitler Castro” , “ALL HAIL THE SUADI KING IT’S A MOSLEM THING” and children that had signs that said, “Keep Your Hands Out of My Piggy Bank!” all cluttered the block full of yelling screaming protestors.

 

“Save our constitutuion!” was the chant of one man who claimed that Obama was a “socialist fascist” who was taking away more American “constitutional rights” every day. “The government is spending out of control,” he exclaimed. He was one of the many people who blamed President Obama for recent problems in America’s Financial Debt. He went as far as to compare President Obama to people such as Hitler and Musolini.

 

Standing outside for hours on their feet protesting was the Clapp family consisting of 40 year-old Michael Clapp and his 10 and 12 year old sons Zack and Schyler. This family blames America’s financial problems on a series of bad decisions starting decades ago. 10 year-old Scyler say that he wants the government to “stop using his generation as collateral.” Michael Clapp says he and his family had to be apart of the protest because there are “100 people in Washington leading us down the wrong path and it has been happening for four decades.” Clapp says that its not Obama’s fault however it is his responsibility to fix the problems that have arisen because of Washington’s past decisions.

 

A couple of familiar Spartan faces were seen in the midst of the protest action as well, “Dan Mixa an International business major explained his reasons for protest, “ I’m not satisfied with the change, the abortion laws that Obama has passed I’m just strongly against it”.

 

People who wanted to go on stage were allowed to yell their frustration at a supportive and zany crowd. At one point a woman in her seventies took the platform and yelled out her own frustrations at the Obama administration.

 

Many in attendance yelled Obama jeers although he has been in office for only three months. Some used the protest as a chance to voice their opinions on taxation while others used the protest as a chance to bash Obama.

 

Through the mayhem and false pretenses of an anti taxation protest was the crystal clear message that these people were frustrated. But one must ask, were all those venting protesters directing their anger at the right person? Is there a need to blame someone at this point or should we not come together as a nation and rather protest the gap between the two major political parties of our nation? Should we not follow the saying that they all seemed to be leaving out of their banners and signs, “United We Stand”?