Changing Times

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

The 1960’s; John F Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Kent State, Bob Dylan (the author of the above lyrics), The Beatles, Woodstock, and protests, protests, protests. Those are some of the first things that come to my mind when I think of the 1960’s and the turbulent time that it was. Now granted, being born in 1962 I don’t remember any of it. What I know about it came later as I discovered first the music, then later on in life, the politics of the day.

There has been a lot of upheaval of late regarding folks protesting the government, or perhaps more accurately, its policies. Much of the upheaval (as is more often than not the case anymore) is created by the media. Sometimes they create it by not giving the full story, sometimes they create it by not reporting a story that should be reported, and sometimes they just flat out lie.

Lately, much attention has been given to “protests” conducted by the “Tea Party Movement”. It’s brought out a lot of things; some good; some not so good.

Before I go any further, you should know something about me, because you’re likely going to wonder as you read my blog entry. I am “not” a member of the tea party movement. That doesn’t mean I won’t be in the future. I have been to one of the “protests” if you will. I went to one very early on, shortly after they first started. I was moved by it to be honest, all of the flags, just the idea of people getting involved and speaking out and doing it in a very peaceful way.

I started with the lyrics from a very famous song of the 1960’s. I think it fits, because the times, they sure are a changing. It’s kind of ironic. Who would have ever thought protesting would become this common again and that it would be done by those who are more right, or at the very least, centrist in their political views.

One thing the media is not doing is giving us any idea that there is diversity in these groups. They are in no way shape or form driven by the Republican Party. There are Democrats, Republicans, (many of whom were very upset with the some policies of George W. Bush) Libertarians’ and those like myself, Independents. It also isn’t a bunch of crew cut white collar business men in suits. There are businessmen, wives and mothers, farmers, manual labor types, and more. I recently posted a video on Facebook that contained interviews of black citizens at the Washington D.C rally. I don’t know how some of you define diversity but when I see a black lady look into the camera and say she doesn’t understand why people of her race blindly follow the Democratic Party when they have done nothing for them in 40 years, well that tells me the country is getting very diverse (in a good way). I appreciated a black gentlemen who said he wasn’t a Tea Party member but shared many of their concerns and was getting tired of the left constantly using race bating to stir up division. He went on to say he traveled in many circles politically, with both whites and blacks. I personally think that’s the majority of America as opposed to the entitlement groups (black and white).

But alas, we have the other side of the coin. The ones, who stir up trouble, make outlandish statements and get everyone worked up. Janeane Garofalo point blank said in an interview that attendance at one of the events was about “hating a black man in the White House, racism straight up. I guess if she saw the very diverse colors in my family she would accuse me of setting that up to deflect the reality of my deep hatred for the black race.

Regardless of whether you support the views of most Tea Party goers; you need to pay very close attention to what’s going on with the criticism of these events; because you’re not immune. Just a couple of days ago, a group protesting the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that the military has taken where the gay community is concerned was actually forced to remove itself from Liberty Park, a very popular location for folks to gather and protest against their president and his policies (all past presidents included). I can’t sit here and claim that their removal was orchestrated by the President or his staff, but it’s something that rarely happens and shouldn’t as long as the protest is peaceful and no laws are being broken (the few that handcuffed themselves to the White House gate were probably guilty of trespassing so I had no problem with their removal). True lovers of free speech, of the 1st amendment, realize how important it is to defend that principle, even if the group speaking has views quite different than your own. That is why I was and still am deeply concerned about how that was all handled. It didn’t surprise me that it got virtually no attention from the media, at least it hasn’t up to the point and time of this blog entry

This is a perfect example of an issue that all freedom loving people should come together on; Republican and Democrat, conservative and liberal. Instead, we fall for the media tricks, believe every rumored event that was supposed to have occurred at a particular event and tear each other apart. Free speech has and will always mean you have to defend a person’s right to speak on an issue, even if you detest what he or she is speaking about. If you start wanting to shut others down, look behind you because in this very politically correct society, you will be next.

“The times, they are a changin”, but are they changing for the good? Hope and change just may be in the eye of the beholder.