Also at The Albany Project
The local teabaggers around Albany, NY, have stayed pretty active in the year since a few thousand people turned out for their first Tea Party rally.
They harangue Democratic politicians (especially Rep. Scott Murphy of NY-20) at every opportunity, meet weekly for Bircher education and planning, wave yellow flags at roadsides, have worked on a few losing campaigns and one winner (Scott Brown), attended rallies in Washington organized by Republicans, and kept their anger white-hot on several message boards.
Yesterday they held their second Tax Day rally, and 500 or so showed up in Albany's Corning Preserve.
It seems that there are just not that many Paul/Beck/Bircher government-haters who especially despise Obama and Democrats around here.
Details, below.
For photos of the rally, check out Sotto Voce's diary.
For speakers, Albany's rally did not attract Fox News personalities or Republican politicians -- besides one wacko from western New York (the keynoter), the speakers were all local teabaggers.
And they exhorted the crowd to become more active teabaggers, by joining and/or donating to the various local teabagger groups.
Kevin McCashion, a local Bircher leader, put it this way:
I hold weekly meetings that have with 30 or 40 people.
I know there are other organizations that hold weekly meetings that have 30 or 40 people.
snip
As you leave here today, if you did not sign up to join one of these patriotic groups, you're part of the problem.
snip
You gotta sign up, you gotta join a group, or you gotta start a group.
McCashion also promoted a free Bircher CD about the evils of the Federal Reserve, available at the Bircher tent.
And he made some stuff up:
Reagan tripled the deficit, Bush tripled the size of government, and Obama tripled spending in the first half of the year.
The keynote speaker was Leonard Roberto, whose group provides "primary challenge" training and wants to "abolish New York state government."
Back in 2006, Roberto challenged an incumbent Republican state senator, and was crushed. In 2008, he came in third in a GOP primary for an open Assembly seat. So he does know how to get on the ballot, but not how to get beyond that. This year, he plans to challenge Rep. Brian Higgins, NY-27, and may actually get the GOP nomination.
Roberto told the credulous crowd that his plan to repeal the state constitution would eliminate personal income and property taxes.
Stand up like men, stand up with a purpose, stand up with pride and dignity and we can take out country back from the liberals and the leftists and the criminals who have taken it over.
Even wackier than that was the final speech by local Oath Keeper leader John Wallace, a retired state trooper.
Wallace read out the Oath Keeper's 10 orders they will refuse, including this fantastic one -- "We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps."
He then cited the "freedoms" the Oath Keepers stand for, including:
freedom from the United Nations and those enemies within our own country who are pushing for a New World Order
freedom from unconstitutional and excessive taxation at every level of government
freedom from government-controlled health care and mandatory vaccinations
freedom from the chains and shackles of servitude forged by our own federal government and from those traitorous individuals and organizations who pull the strings of the politicians and the media like puppet-masters from behind a curtain of secrecy, bribery and deception
Wallace hit on every Bircher/militia conspiracy theory, and got a cheer from the dwindling crowd for each one.
In sum, that is why the teabagger movement, at least around Albany, NY, is not growing.
Hundreds of people have attended tea party events, heard the Paul/Beck/Bircher fantasies, and decided to live in the reality-based world.
The teabaggers may have recruited a few more to join their hard core yesterday, but they will remain a far-right micro-minority as long as far-right Paul/Beck/Bircher conspiracy theories are the basis of their movement.