The song "Proud to be an American" blared from the south lawn of the Ralph Brown Draughon Library as a mass of protesters gathered for tax day Wednesday, April 15, at noon.
"It's a tax day tea party, but we're really trying to be non-partisan," said Caroline Wren, chair of the College Republicans. "It's a group of people who feel like the national debt, government spending and the expansion of government are out of hand - the Democrat and Republican side alike. Many of us within the Republican party are upset about the past eight years and the budget deficit that was helped by the Bush administration, but we're also even more upset by the Obama administration."
As local conservatives gave speeches, people painted their own protest signs and lined the corner of Miller and College Streets.
"The whole point of this is to protest spending, and I didn't want to spend a bunch of dollars on banners and things like that," Wren said. "We home made signs and people brought their own stuff. Nothing here is wasteful spending of money. We didn't want to order any of those professional made banners because that defeats the purpose of the tea party."
A small pool was in front of the stage for the audience to toss tea bags in to.
"It's silly," said Ben Hand, an Opelika lawyer. "But it's to encourage people to start doing something. It's to show that we're going to do something after today."
Will Ford, a former employee of the Fayette Sun, was taking a census of what people in the audience were personally protesting.
"There are very few who say spending," Ford said. "Most are saying no higher taxes."
Across the nation, about 300 "tea parties" were planned, according to taxdayteaparty.com. In all, 14 took place in Alabama. This included places like Auburn, Birmingham, Dothan, Huntsville, Mobile, Montgomery and Tuscaloosa.
According to The Freedomworks Web site, the concept began back on Feb. 19. CNBC's Rick Santelli was broadcasting from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, asking nearby traders if they wanted their tax dollars to pay other people's mortgages, as required by the so-called Homeowners Affordability and Stability Plan. He also invoked the notion of a "Chicago Tea Party" and the imagery of the Boston tea tax protests of 1773.
The organizational landscape of the tea party movement is comprised of three national level conservative groups: FreedomWorks, dontGO and Americans for Prosperity, according to freedomworks.com.
All three groups vehemently deny that the movement is a product of Astroturfing--fake grassroots activism organized from the top down--as some on the left have claimed. They will tell you that citizens-turned-activists, upset with President Barack Obama's economic agenda and the financial bailout, have been calling them, asking for help and how they can organize protests on Wednesday. The movement, they say, is entirely organic: they are mostly providing help and resources to this new class of outraged conservative free-market populists, some of whom are their own members and some of whom are outsiders to politics with whom they've never communicated before--not even on an e-mail list.
"I believe today that we are standing on the tipping point of liberty," said Mike Fellows, an Opelika attorney. "No person and no government is neither wise enough nor benevolent enough to control another human being. Republican and Democrat alike have charmed us with their promises of what government will do for us, if only they are elected. If we are to have self government, we must be willing to govern ourselves."
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