This may come as a surprise to some of you, but the Tea Party on Feb 27, 2009, was the first event that I had EVER been involved in organizing. It was a lot of fun, but I only had 4 days, so there were not a lot of expectaions, either. It turned out to be SO much more than anything I imagined it would be. Thanks to many very helpful people, it turned out to be a tremendous success. Afterwards, I ended up with invitations to join, or speak to, many different groups, and really, got the "star treatment", which was, I must admit, FUN!
But, soon after, I returned to my full time job, and started to plan the Tax Day Tea Party, that is coming up next week. At first, I thought it would be easier, because I had so much more time to do it.
BUT......and there is always a but that follows a statement like that, isn't there? BUT, it slowly began to dawn on me that there would be much greater expectations from an event that actually had time to be planned, and, I still wanted to make sure we were doing it at the same time as other cities across America, so we had planned it for April 15th, Tax Day. Also WEDNESDAY. In other words, a WORK DAY! In the middle of the week, no less.
So, immediately the complaints, and suggestions started coming in.
"Have it on Saturday"...we wanted the national attention, and symbolism of Tax Day.
"Have it someplace besides downtown!"...Downtown is central to the whole area, plus MANY people work downtown, and can coume on their lunch break. And, we'll have one in S. Tulsa, too!
So we scheduled on at LaFortune Park at noon, so people in that part of town could make it on their lunch break.
"Have it in the Evening" ....Ok, we'll do one in the evening, too! That will give more people the opportunity to come, and give us an opportunity to educate more people about the Tea Party Movement, and our need for smaller gov't, lower taxes, and a return to the values of our Founding Fathers, as put forth in the Constitution.
Now, just to get the media, and the speakers. Emails and phone calls are only returned by the same 2 radio stations as before....KRMG & KFAQ. KFAQ asks to be part of the event this time, instead of just reporting from the sidelines, and is even willing to be billed under KRMG. All they want is to be part of the movement. KRMG is offered the same role they had in the previous event, and they refuse, because they don't want to work with KFAQ. AUUURRRGHGHH!! Some ugliness, and bickering ensued, but we ended up with a pretty good amount of coverage for all events.
Finally, everything should be great, RIGHT?....WRONG!!
Now for the speakers! We got a the speakers lined up, and posted them on the website
along with links to several other events around the state.
Then the emails started coming in, "we don't like so and so, because (fill in the blank)"
Some don't want ANY politicians. But, the whole purpose of the Tea Party is to get our elected officials to listen to us.
Some don't like a particular group, for any number of reasons, ranging from "not conservative enough" to "way too far Right". But, ALL of the groups coming out have openly expressed their support for the 3 major tenets of the Tea Party. Smaller Gov't, Less Taxes, and The Constitutional Values of the Founding Fathers. So, there's no reason to be fighting over one or the others commitment to ALL of the ideals that the others have. If they did share all of the same ideals, they wouldn't be separate groups!
I guess, there's no way to make everyone happy, so we are just going to stick to the Tea Party ideals, and hope everyone gets on board.
Because, if we can't put aside our differences, and focus on our shared beliefs, the Left are going to continue to take away our freedoms, and destroy this Republic that we all Love so dearly. The only way to defeat communism is to unite against it!
