They're revolting. Families with children, bikers, seniors, pirates - by the thousands they descended on a Fullerton bar Saturday to join talk show hosts John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou of KFI in protesting tax increases recently approved in Sacramento.
Police estimated that some 8,000 people came to the Slidebar Café in downtown Fullerton to listen to a three-hour live broadcast of The John & Ken Show.
Some wore buttons. One man brought a bloody effigy head of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and waved it from the end of a pike, while the crowd joined their hosts in a chant of "Repeal, recall, revolt."
Others directed their outrage at less personal synechdoche: "Total Recall" laser discs, action hero lunchboxes and other memorabilia from the governor's Hollywood career, which they piled up and smashed with a sledgehammer.
Like many others, Kimberly Smith, 29, of Tustin, sported a button showing how much more she'll have to pay in taxes: $1,645.
I think we may have a movement here. The next steps are ballot qualification of recall movements for tax-raising legislators, and the defeat of the deceptive, tax-hike-extending Prop 1A in May.
We can’t look for salvation in the current, disgusting crop of elected leaders from both parties. If we’re going to fix things, it’s got to start at the grass roots. The tea parties springing up across the country are an encouraging sign. And the Fullerton event appears to be the biggest yet in a growing popular uprising.
No comments:
Post a Comment