What I saw as I wandered through last week's Wasilla Tea Party rally

By Bill Hess - Wasilla, Alaska, by 300

The following is an excerpt from Bill Hess's post: What I saw as I wandered through last week's Wasilla Tea Party rally

Of course, it is always a little bit challenging to remain respectful and civil when right away after you get out of your car and walk into the crowd you come upon the smiling face of a man who is telling you that you have a mental disorder. I know it doesn't really mean anything. It is just rhetoric. Everyone does it. So what the hell. Let him wave his sign.

I wonder, though - why is he wearing Mickey Mouse boots? And why is his friend wearing Bunny Boots? Those boots are designed for 40 below and it was 40 above.

One could develop sweaty feet this way. It still gets pretty cold at night. Maybe they were out all night, setting up.

And you who wave that flag just remember that it is not a conservative flag, it is an American Flag. Yes, wave it with pride, but don't forget that we who see the political situation differently than you do also love that flag - no less than do you.

Never have I felt more proud than I did on that day when I saw that flag draped across my father's casket as he was carried to his grave by six of his fellow warriors. They were much younger than he and I knew that some had fought or soon would fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Maybe one or more would themselves return in a flag-draped coffin.

I looked at those soldiers who carried my father and I felt love - pure love; strong, heart-piercing love. Tears streamed down my face and they were not all tears of grief. There was pride in those tears. Afterward, I thanked them, but I owed them so greatly that I knew my thank you to be vastly inadequate.

Remember after 9/11, how flags few from just about every home, be it occupied by conservative, liberal, middle of the road, unsure?

And then there was that very chilly January 20 of last year, when I stood with my youngest daughter and wife in the midst of two million others on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Two million people, two million flags, all waving, people smiling, people cheering, tears of pride streaming down cheeks - white cheeks, black cheeks, brown cheeks, yellow cheeks, red cheeks; all the cheeks of a diverse America; an America that had become a place of greater equality and thus greater potential than had been the America that I grew up in.

And then, as we waited in the chill for the hour when the man who, under the provisions laid out by the US Constitution had been duly elected as President would be sworn in as Commander-in-Chief, images of Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger appeared on the many gigantic screens spread throughout the the mall. Chilled though they were, two million joined in the song, "this land is your land, this land is my land..." two million flags waved... Powerful! How proud we all were to be Americans. How proud I am to be an American. And how proud I am of the vote that I cast to make what happened that day on our National Mall possible.

Nothing that anyone could say or do or write upon a sign can ever take that pride away.

So wave your flag, but remember: it is not your flag alone - it is OUR flag.

And when you shout, "Patriot," remember that a liberal can be every bit as much a Patriot as any conservative and a conservative can betray his country as quickly as can a liberal. Liberals also wear the uniform. Liberals also shed their blood for America. They die right alongside conservatives, as Americans.

Read the full post HERE.

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Many thanks to Bill Hess for giving us permission to post this excerpt! We are big fans of Bill Hess. He has the most amazing posts and pictures. Never have we been able to get better insights into life in Wasilla and Alaska. Please check out his blog!

In addition, I would like to post a fabulous new clip by "New Left Media" - which is a project formed by Chase Whiteside and Erick Stoll, who are currently students at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.

This must-see, highly entertaining and revealing footage was taken on April 15, 2010 in Washington D.C.

I just love the clips of these two guys, because it's an excellent example of what citizen's can achieve in the new media world. In their numerous clips, they thoroughly exposed the fans of Sarah Palin and the teabaggers as ignorant, shockingly uneducated and sometimes often as just plain crazy. Easy targets for Fox News, Sarah Palin and the others - rarely have we seen a group of people which basically is screaming to be manipulated, because they just WANT to believe the propaganda which is fed to them.

Amongst other things, this new clip contains a crazy female singer screaming on stage "There is a communist living in the White House", a teabagger who claims that President Obama "considers banning fishing in America" and even a loony British Lord!

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