-By Warner Todd Huston
(I am finally back home where I can get to my photo editing software, so this report is a few hours late, but…)
Over 50,000 patriotic Americans attended the 2010 edition of Freedom Works’s 9/12 March on the Capitol. Americans from all over the country attended and I below have a few particularly interesting stories you need to hear. But after an exhausting yet exhilarating day on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C., I finally have a few minutes to sit down and relate to you some of the things I saw this day.
The day started out drizzly and overcast and the clouds looked socked in. By noon we were beginning to worry that we’d be damp throughout. Fortunately, the Good Lord took favor on us and stopped the drizzle and even bestowed his glorious sunshine upon us not long after the program began.
On the other hand, our benevolent Metro transit authority wasn’t as benevolent and had fewer trains, delays and tracks shut down for repair. So, getting to downtown D.C. from and back to Crystal City in Virginia was no bright spot of the day.
I arrived at 11AM to pick up my press credentials and spent the next few hours roaming through the crowd asking about their trip to D.C.
One woman from New York told me that she had been to seven Tea Party events thus far and that she used to be a Democrat. “Not all of us are crazy left-wingers in New York,” she told me.
An elderly gentleman from Massachusetts told me of his service in the Army in the 1950s and was happy as a clam to have been able to make the trip to the 9/12 March this year.
But one story in particular was very compelling. I met a woman born in Cuba who said that she came to the 9/12 March because she understood communism and was dearly afraid that it was coming fast to the last place on earth that could fight its evils.
This woman, who asked that I not give her name or take her picture, told me that her father was born in China and fled there in the late 1920s. He went to Cuba, met a Cuban woman and got married. As their family grew, however, Fidel Castro came to power. In 1965, she said, they were able to flee that Communist Revolutionary and come to America.
“My family and I know what communism is,” she told me. “We knew it was coming [during the Obama campaign for president]. I am here today to say this far and no more.”
During the program, two of the speakers were also of foreign birth yet were true, blue — or I should say true red — Americans. More on them below.
The show kicked off promptly at 2PM with an address by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey and his lovely wife. He welcomed us all and set a brisk pace with his words. After the big Kahuna of Freedom Works left the stage a procession of great speakers came before us some well known by all and others less so, but all galvanized the crowd.
Our master of ceremonies was President and CEO of Freedom Works Matt Kibbe and some of those speakers were (in no particular order) Andrew Breitbart, Congressman Mike Pence (R, Ind.), Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, Vir. Attny. Gen’l Ken Cuccinelli, and our last speaker was a motivational Rev. C.L. Bryant. (A full list can be seen here)
As to some of those others of foreign birth with motivational stories I mentioned above, on the podium addressing the massed multitude was Ana Puig. Ana is one of the organizers of Kitchen Table Patriots of Pennsylvania. Ana was born in Brazil, is a naturalized American citizen, and also knows that the socialism her familia fled is creeping into our lives here, today. She went from being a simple mother to a community organizer, organizing against Obama’s socialist efforts.
And then there was Tito Munoz, famed as “Tito the Builder.” Tito is a Colombian immigrant who is the host of a Spanish-language conservative radio program also regaled the crowd with his community organizing spirit.
All these people came to America legally, became citizens, and understand clearly what we are losing because they lived in countries that were oppressive and lacked opportunity.
If we can’t listen to people that experienced the worst conditions, if we refuse to heed their well educated warnings that we are about to emulate those wretched systems, then we are sure to deserve the hell we are building for ourselves.
Some of the speakers really tore up the stage. Conservative media mogul Andrew Breitbart was one of them. He told the Old Media that they better watch their rearview mirrors because he was gunning for them. “As an organization,” Breitbart said of the Old Media establishment, “these people are evil.” As individuals, he told us, they are all nice enough people but when they get together as a group they are truly evil.
“When I get my own network, and I WILL, I am going to spend a week attacking them as they attack us,” he told the crowd. He wondered aloud how someone like Katie Couric would like a constant barrage of network news anchors “wondering if she were a racist” like she and her kind wonder if all conservatives are racists — quite despite the lack of proof for the question to even be asked.
We had some great musical guests, too. Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers came out several times and Philip Rogers and Jon David Kahn also gave us a few tunes.
The event was wonderful (and practically trash free as all these giant conservative events have been) and everyone left energized to this election season.
Now one of the things that Freedom Works was relating to the crowd was a new Contract From America, a simple ten-point list of policy objectives that hundreds of candidates and elected politicians are signing onto as we move into a Republican Majority after November 2.
- Protect the Constitution
- Reject Cap & Trade
- Demand a Balanced Budget
- Enact Fundamental Tax Reform
- Restore Fiscal Responsibility & Constitutionally Limited Government
- End Runaway Government Spending
- Defund, Repeal, & Replace Government-run Health Care
- Pass an ‘All-of-the-Above” Energy Policy
- Stop the Pork
- Stop the Tax Hikes
We have one chance to stop this socialist mess that President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as well as the entire Democrat Party have forced upon us. That chance is coming on November 2 but it will not end there because even after the GOP regains the majority in at least one House if not both we need to continue to hold these people’s feet to the fire.
Events like the 9/12 march and groups like Freedom Works teamed with the many hundreds of Tea Party groups out there are the only ones that can keep our Republicans from backsliding. But none of these groups can do so without YOUR participation. Get involved. It’s for the very life of our family and the country we love.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.