Tuesday, March 17, 2009

A Tin Ear to the Coming Populist Revolt

It was the great taxpayer revolt of 2007. Indianapolis taxpayers fed up with increasing property taxes and a dramatic increase in Marion County's local option income tax, overthrew the popular Mayor of Indianapolis Bart Peterson, replacing him with the unknown Republican Greg Ballard. It was a populist revolt that had repercussions throughout the state. In 2008, fearful legislators enacted property tax reform, which Republicans and some Democrats want to make permanent by writing the caps contained in the 2008 reform into the Constitution. As the 2009 legislature proceeds, however, legislators appear to begin backing off the property tax reforms.

Three months deep into 2009, taxpayer activists are told that any populist uprising now would be merely an aftershock of the 2007 earthquake. Wrong analogy. What happened in 2007 was World War I. It was called "The Great War" at the time. But what they didn't know then was that a much bigger war, World War II, was just down the road.

I could be wrong. My crystal ball has been cloudy before. But I have never seen this level of populist anger in the electorate. It easily dwarfs that of 2007 and appears to be growing larger every day. Elected officials do not seem concerned, seemingly oblivious to the storm clouds on the horizon. This should be an interesting next couple of elections.

4 comments:

Patriot Paul said...

There is definitely a populist return to fiscal accountability. From Friday until Monday, the volume of scheduled protests has grown from 111 to 150. The 4-5,000citizens in the Sunday Cincinnati downtown protest sent a media shock carried all evening on Fox News from O'Reilly to Glenn Beck, despite mainstream's foot dragging.
House Speaker Bauer's comment about the Governor's Rally, referring to protestors as "beating a dead horse" is exactly the pathetic attitude that pervades the General Assembly. They simply don't care and don't care to hear us. They are more interested in sustaining a government; not the people. It's going to be a long hot summer including a giant march on Washington D.C.
Locally, if our government cared anything about Hoosiers, it would rush to address the unrest well before our Superbowl image is replaced by protest signs.

M Theory said...

Paul is right about the populist.

Website hits on the REVOLT AT THE STATE HOUSE site quadrupled overnight.

The column you wrote yesterday about the lack of transparency in Indiana government is now posted on the revolt website. Parties from state government are hitting the REVOLT website daily. We're promising REVOLT attendees that they are going to hear an earful and will leave far angier than when they arrived at the REVOLT. We are priming them for multiple revolts over a long period of time until THE PEOPLE PREVAIL.

I have at least 20 times the numbers of volunteers I had when I coordinated the 2007 protests.

No longer are people clueless about the fraud being perpetuated on us. Everybody gets it now and they are fully up to speed.

There is an army of patriots putting posters in public areas all over central Indiana now. Before the army is finished, thousands of pitchforks will be plastered all over the city.

The days of "rallies" were so 2007. Revolt is the theme for 2009.

And I'm quite sure that God, the power who gave us our rights, is squarely on the side of The People.

Anonymous said...

Melyssa, I agree that God is on the side of the people. In fact, God is on the side of all people. Believe it or not, he's even on the side of those whom we might call our enemies. If there's one thing I've learned about God, it's that he's a team player - and all of us are on his team, whether we realize it or not. He's rooting for all of us.

If we all had that awareness, no government would ever be able to mobilize the media to use religion as a tool to manipulate us into supporting hatred and warfare. We would recognize the lies at face value.

With regards to the "Populist Revolt", every bone in my body is screaming "be careful what you wish for - you might actually get it."

Why?

Because I know how the media operates. They've lied our country into war, they've refused to report the true source of government appointees and decades worth of corporate control over the nation by a corporate controlled cabinet, they've allowed our treasury to be decimated without revealing the true nature of the problem, they've protected an illegitimate tax system by refusing to place the Constitution and the facts surrounding tax law in front of the common people (us!), they've promoted manufactured agenda's as a means to create tax programs and global controls over domestic industry, they've begun to advertise our contrived financial crisis (which they also kept hidden as people further indebted themselves) as a situation that requires a global solution, and more and more and more.

These media propagandists are the same people who lampooned, ridiculed, criticized, and poo-pooed Congressman Ron Paul throughout his entire campaign. Are we really going to take heart when all of a sudden they are promoting something that actually has value?

I'm sorry, but 'been there, done that".

There's an agenda, and I believe it's a shared agenda. I don't know the short term goal, but I can assure you that the long term goal will be aligned with the ultimate goal of bankrupting our country and worse. The main indicator here is that the worst of the worst in terms of propagandists and liars are promoting this, along with the rest of mainstream media. When the same machine that lied us away from Ron Paul and into Iraq is promoting a revolt, know that they are working towards an expected, planned result.

Don't buy into it.

M Theory said...

Shorebreak,

You know the Tea Partys are coming right out of the GOP and they won't help any grass roots projects with publicity. I spoke directly with part of their leadership out of Chicago about that.
.
They are purposely harnessing grassroots anger. And it is not because they all of a sudden found God.
.
Their disciples are like sheep.