Aug. 28th March on Sacramento: Photo Journal Shows We Are Not “All Wee Wee’d Up”

Dear Readers: I was one of the 10,000 Californians at the Aug. 28th March on Sacramento: Saving California from Big Government Ego-regulations. Hundreds of tractors and 200 trucks circled the Capitol Building this past Friday, to spotlight how devastating environmental activism has been on our trucking, mining, farming, and and logging communities. I was delighted to be provided a press pass, courtesy of the Southern California Tax Revolt Coalition (one of the organizers). This week’s stories will focus on what I observed and noted through the five hour event. Today’s post will highlight the messages that fellow Californians wanted to convey to their representatives — and this is the very best place to start.

As I didn’t have a laptop or any convenient means to write during the event, I coordinated my efforts with Kimberly Dvorak of the San Diego County Political Buzz Examiner. I called in with interviews, quotes and observation, and she prepared the stories. I urge everyone to read her three pieces:

Tea Party Patriots take California’s capital by storm (Part One)
Tea Party Patriots sound off in Sacramento (Part Two)
Tea Party event concludes (Part Three)

I must underscore that all the people I talked to were very circumspect about the state of current events. They cited specific founding documents, current legislative bill numbers, and could actually name their state and federal representatives. In other words:

Ecosense9, who writes the blog entitled Fight for California, has a great video synopsis of the event, Sacramento, the shot heard round the world. I would like to share three of his clips with you directly, to give a flavor of the serious nature of our event’s theme, and how informed our citizens are concerning their representatives and their actions:

Ben Bergquam sends the message of the next American Revolution. (This will highlight a general theme of many weblogs that I have read recently — that we are in the middle of a “Gentle Civil War”.)

Piedad Ayala speaks for his people at the Sacramento Tea Party August 28, 2009. An American of Mexican descent, speaking sometimes in Spanish, shows how the horrendous environmental restrictions cripple farms, employment and livelihoods of all Californians — no matter the ethnicity.

Mason Weaver – We have had enough! Motivational speaker and potential congressional candidate for Susan Davis’ seat underscores the fact Americans are tired of being fractured into specialty groups and want less government intrusions in all aspects of their lives. There are many great quotes, including “instead of Hope and Change we got Rope and Chains”.

Finally, here are some signs that capture the main themes my fellow Californians wanted to convey to the assembly members and their staffs, who looked on during the event from the windows of the Capitol Building. Going undercover, in a neutral t-shirt and shorts ensemble, I noted that the citizens who went into the Capitol Building to use the restrooms were studiously avoided and ignored by the people who are suppose to be serving them. Furthermore, I overhead terms to describe them in the halls as “uniformed”, “right-wing lug nuts”, and “troglodytes”.

I talked to many citizens who were running family business, some of which had been open for nearly half of our nation’s history. Shelly Archer, pictured below, is one of those citizens. The regulations of the California Air Resources Board (CARB) threaten her 18-employee enterprise, and she may be closing her doors in a couple of years if the current regulations remain intact.

Citizens are well aware of the astro-turf efforts of ACORN (Association of Comunity Organizers for Reform Now) and SEIU (Service Employees International Uniton) to impose their draconian controls over others. These two organizations were the target of much derision and mocking.

Citizens noted very specific legislation and proposals they either opposed or supported. Furthermore, it seems many of them are in the mood to “Just say No” to the current suite of representatives — at both the state and national levels — during the next election cycle. I sense they will not be changing their minds by Nov. 2010.

There was a steady stream of petition signers for all the proposition proposals being offered. One of the most popular was the one for the part time legislature for California (click HERE). A Recall Adams booth was also gathering many signatures (Anthony Adams being a Republican Assemblyman who voted to raise taxes earlier this year); the Recall Adams groups informs me that they seem to be ahead of target numbers. This was probably one of the most successful aspects of the event — informing fellow Californians of eachothers’ plights and helping direct everyone to potential solutions.

One of the most serious groups there were the farmers. Areas of the Central Valley are experiencing up to 40% unemployment and once healthy farms are now barren, because thoughtless enforcement tactics under the Endangered Species Act have killed the crops and destroyed the jobs.

The main messages are summarized in the following signs:

******************************************************************

MUT’s Money Links:

Michelle Malkin notes that Obama’s force-sterilization-supporting, global-warming-advocating Science Czar John Holdren will be on David Letterman’s show. The news inspired me to write CBS.com and all the associated shows that I USED to watch about my continued boycott of their network. I have found Home and Garden TV and “What Not to Wear” on TLC my favorite new views, and I am certainly not going back to watching “CSI” or “Two-and-a-Half Men” anytime soon.

Michelle also highlights the tired “eco-fear” tactics of the left: New eco-fearmongering message from Dems: “The fate of our planet hangs in the balance!”. I think we can safely say, based on my report, that this tired message just won’t get the same reception in California that it once did. Furthermore, concerning astro-turfing, the money-man of the canned protest set — George Soros — has an author trying to bribe people into reading his book with a grand prize Hawaii trip.

Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey reports the happy news that Rasmussen polls shows his approval ratings at a delicious new low of 46%. Ed also has a post up that summarizes voter discontent with the current establishment, which underscore the mood obvious in Sacramento.