Roanoke Tea Party

On April 1, we helped the Southwest Va Tea Party get off the gound. Their first meeting was in Chilhowie Va. They had around 100 people attend and got great press reviews. The newspaper described the meeting as “historic.” Thanks to Ronald Blevins for starting this group, and to Brad Archer and Hank Blevins for treking out to Chilhowie to help them get off the ground.

With Rick Boucher up for re-election, we desperately need groups in the area to help find Constitutionally sound alternatives to Boucher. Here is a picture. A copy of the article is at the end of the post.

We also continue to vet candidates for various races and we will be making some announcements over the next few weeks on this…We will need everyone involved with these in the upcoming elections….there will be lots to do to ensure candidates that we support get elected….and candidates that are wrecking our nation/state/localities are ousted from power through the electoral process.

Here’s the article

Crowd gathers for first Tea Party meeting

By Stephanie Porter-Nichols
Published: April 2, 2010

By DAN KEGLEY/Staff

A week ahead of Thursday’s meeting to gauge interest in the formation of a Southwest Virginia Tea Party, organizer Ron Blevins could not guess how many would show up.
“Might be 10, might be a hundred,” he said.
The upper figure was not far off. While people came and went through the evening, a rough count in the standing-room only community room in Chilhowie’s town hall tallied about 80. They ranged in age from a few pre-teens to seniors. Two-thirds were male.
In the group were veterans, retirees, working families. Some professed with a show of hands to have voted Democrat, but many more hands went up when the question was asked of Republicans.
Some were solidly behind the Tea Party, and some likely will be now that they came and got answers to questions about the growing grassroots movement, what’s next for the local group, how to foment change.
All who spoke shared concern for their country and its Constitution, as did two advisors from the Roanoke Tea Party still in formation and holding its third meeting at the same time Thursday evening.

Welcome to the revolution
“Welcome to the revolution,” boomed one of the advisors, Brad Archer, who then paraphrased Thomas Jefferson’s famous advice about periodically watering the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots and tyrants. “Speaking figuratively of course, but we get his point.”
Archer next made one of several references to the U.S. Constitution who defense in the form designed by the Founders is “common ground” for the Tea Party whose individual units, he said, are secondarily based on their own local values.
Powers not enumerated in the Constitution go back to the states, a condition according to Archer is too infrequently observed in Washington. “We gather because we’re fed up with it. Both parties have missed the point. We sent our bravest at the prime of their lives to defend this document. I’ll be damned if I’ll let them piss away their birthright. Another reason is that we’re angry or afraid or both. I fear my government,” he said.
With time and growth, the grassroots movement will “have the politicians coming to us,” Archer said. “We don’t care if they have a D or R or I after their name. We want Americans. The Tea Party is not about politics, but about good Constitutional government, giving it back to the people.”
There is historical precedent for the movement. Archer said, “We told King George we were not going to take it.”
The movement’s name reflects colonists’ dumping a shipload of tea into Boston harbor in 1773 to protest paying English taxes while lacking representation in parliament. But whether it organizes into a political party remains a question.
Archer has not always publicly taken stands, but times changed. “My political activism used to be relegated to the voting booth. Now, I’m pissed.”
The day after Congress passed the health care bill, Archer sued the federal government.
Blevins said he has “been working on this quite a while,” and urged volunteers to help. “Our country is falling to pieces,” he said. “NAFTA drained this county. We are not a political party, but activists. This is not about one party or the other but we the people. Tell [politicians], ‘you’re not the boss. We’re the boss.’”

Term limits, demands for accountability
According to Archer, the Tea Party, also seen sometimes as TEA for Taxed Enough Already, is staunchly independent and growing in numbers, is gaining enough power to influence the outcome of elections and the performance of candidates once in office, and to bring about the ouster of those whose lose the Tea Party’s approval.
He said 35 percent to 45 percent of citizens consider themselves independent. “That’s power. You can control the conduct of candidates and the outcome of elections. You are term limiters.”
If Archer had the room at “welcome,” he seemed to confirm allegiances and perhaps convert a few skeptics when to enormous applause, he said, “Two words that should never be said together: career politician.”
In a reference to U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher, Archer said, “You have a congressman here who has been in office 25 years.”
From the audience came, “He should have been gone 10 years ago.”
“Twenty,” another said.
“Here we have a fellow,” Archer said, gesturing toward Blevins, “who stood up and said let’s do something, we need to say to the politicians, ‘You don’t understand. We’re going to make you understand.’”
Archer’s Roanoke colleague, Hank Benson, said the Tea Party vets candidates, holds rallies, gets out the vote, and provides education to voters.
Archer said the Tea Party would develop a contract for candidates that would say, “If I am backed by the Tea Party, I promise to….”
“How do you hold their feet to the fire?” Benson asked. “If a senator is in for one term and voted out, they are set for life. They have the best health care and any job they want. They have no skin in the game.”
“The Tea Party can hold the Republican Party to its core values,” Archer said. “It’s the proverbial X in the center square of tic-tac-toe. You can never lose if you’re there but you can block every other move. The Tea Party standing fiercely independent can dictate how candidates conduct their campaigns.”
“If we get behind a candidate, we make them sign a pledge sheet,” Benson said. “If they break the pledge, we tell them we withdraw our support, and get them out. There’s enough people in this room to influence any local election.”

Loose Tea
A woman in the audience asked about the structure of the Tea Party, prompting Archer to say the “common ground is the constitution,” but local groups are “autonomous.”
As he spread word last week about the meeting, Blevins said his vision was that the activist group would “put pressure on people in office to work for the people and not for Washington,” he said. “The Tea Party has a national office in Atlanta, but it’s loose-knit. We want to keep it as localized as we can.”
“Each group sets its own values,” Benson said Thursday. “Roanoke Tea Party stands for the Constitution, the free market, individual freedoms, and fiscal responsibility. It has a $25 membership that lets people vote, and holds fundraisers.” He suggested putting a money jar out at rallies. “You’ll be surprised by how much you can get.”
Roanoke has bylaws for conduct and rules, Benson said.

Image issues
Archer called attention to one of the criticisms aimed by elected officials at the Tea Party and opponents in general of a relaxed immigration policy, specifically amnesty for illegal immigrants. “Calling us racist means they’re afraid,” he said.
“That’s a good thing,” said a voice in the audience.
“It’s not about racism,” said a man in the audience. “It’s about people getting killed at the border. [Politicians] don’t care about people. They care about their own power.”
Tony Callahan of Rural Retreat said, “I’m an American racist. If you’re here legally, you’re part of my race. If you’re not, then by God you’re not.”
A man standing in the corner of the room said, “Our beloved president was elected because of the color of his skin. If we did that, we’d be called racist.”
Blevins said the leader of the Tea Party in Florida is black, as is the Danville leader, according to another.
“How do we counteract the smear campaign?” a man in the audience asked, referring to efforts the Tea Party says it sees in government and the media to portray its members as troublemakers at best and extremists at worst.
“I don’t know any way to counteract that except to lead by example,” Archer said.
“If we conduct ourselves properly, we have nothing to fear,” Benson said.
“Any press is good press,” said a man in the audience.“They’re trying to tie the Tea Party to the militia in Michigan,” Archer said, referring to nine people in a militia group called the Hutaree the FBI said were recently indicted on charges of conspiracy to oppose by force the authority of the U.S. government. A woman said that erroneous media reports should be challenged and inaccuracies in print media responded to with subscription cancellations.

“Where do we go from here?”
A woman in the room asked, “Where do we go from here as everyday citizens, raising our kids, working our jobs?”
Callahan suggested becoming vigilant of what is taught in schools. He said he has a grandchild at Spiller Elementary School in Wytheville where children are hearing things preparing them to be socialists. He said he found a textbook with content to that effect, he said, on the school’s available reading list, but not in the school itself, rejected by the school board. He said he told his grandchild’s teacher she would see a lot more of him than she had.
“I’m going to keep watch on that,” Callahan said.
A second man answered the question this way: “Go out in the community. Help the community come together.”
Archer said, “Run for mayor. Run for school board.”
A man in the audience said, “The school board does have a sphere of influence in the community.”
“In children’s lives,” Blevins added.
Another man said he was concerned that a third party could end up causing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a special target of Tea Party ire, to remain in office. “What about that?”
Archer replied that the Tea Party is not ready to become a third political party.
“When will it?” a voice in the audience said.
“When you galvanize,” Archer said.
A man asked how many in the room write letters to their representatives. About 80 of the people raised hands. “You have to stay on it,” he said. “My wife and I wrote every month.”
“Government has to listen to the people eventually and say this is the direction we have to go or we won’t be here,” Archer said.
“The founding fathers were brilliant men” who devised “the mechanism of voting them out,” Benson said.
Benson said organization and communication will be key. “For the first several meetings, it will feel dysfunctional, but it will get better.”
Archer encouraged the group to develop a Web site or Facebook page as an outlet for information and event schedules. “Not My Space. My Space is so 2006,” he said to laughter.
Near the end of the meeting, Archer asked the group, “What do you want?”
Eight answers came back from the room.
“Change.”
“Education. Informed people.”
“To not feel like a pariah because I have opinions that are not like everyone else’s.”
“People in office who reflect our values.”
“Let them know Virginia goes beyond Richmond.”
“We have to conduct ourselves like patriotic Americans and not a bunch of rabble rousers.”
“If I am going to be a part of this organization, we have to distance ourselves from the wingnuts.”
“If we see someone wearing a swastika, we have to tell them to leave because they do not stand for the same things we do.”
Then Archer pointed to a young man who had sat quietly all through the meeting. “Say something,” Archer said.
Suddenly in the spotlight, the man smiled, then as quickly turned serious. “I’m just here because my young’un is sitting there in the floor and I’m afraid for his future.”
Blevins is working on the agenda for the groups’ next event, a rally April 17 starting at 1 p.m. in Chilhowie Community Park. At Archer’s prompting, eight or 10 people volunteered to help.
Benson said, “A year from now, I can see ten times the number of people in this room.” He said those people can change elections and get elected themselves. “This movement can change the school board elections. There are enough people in this room.”
“They have forced us to be here tonight. Run for office. You’ll be amazed at the change you can bring.”
Stepping outside after the meeting, Callahan, wearing a cap with the words Vietnam Veteran, said the group “needs to hold off electing officers, and meet another time or two.”
About the group he said, “What I see is veterans, retirees, family people, not troublemakers, but people genuinely concerned with the direction the country is headed.”

dkegley@wythenews.com