Eye On Boise

‘It’s people being peaceful’

Posted by Betsy

Jan. 18, 2010 11:50 a.m. • 3 comments

The Capitol is filled with people - parents and children watching from every floor of the rotunda at the state’s official Martin Luther King Jr./Idaho Human Rights Day ceremony; high school and college students, some of whom took part in rallies earlier; older folks who participated in a Tea Party rally; proud members of Idaho’s ethnic minorities; people wearing flags and more. Today saw a remarkably peaceful interaction between several very different groups.

At the “Tea Party Convergence on the Capitol,” close to 400 people gathered on the Capitol steps and heard speeches from lawmakers including congressional candidate Raul Labrador, R-Eagle, who told them, “We the people tell the government what to do - it doesn’t tell us what to do.” Attendees carried signs saying, “Fight Fascism,” “US Congress, a legalized criminal enterprise” and “Obama and Congress Toppling USA, Wake Up America.” Sprinkled among them were dissenters whose signs had slogans like “I respectfully disagree.”

Hundreds more gathered a couple of blocks south at Boise City Hall, for a loud, cheering rally in commemoration of Martin Luther King, for which sign-carrying demonstrators had marched from Boise State University. “The reason why we love this country is because we’re allowed to be the architects of our own destiny,” BSU Black Student Alliance President David Andrews told the cheering crowd. Attendees carried signs with slogans including, “Unity, Love, Acceptance,” “Expand the dream to mutual respect” and “Human Rights for Everyone.”

Inside the state Capitol, First Lady Lori Otter told a crowd thick with families, “Little guys, let’s turn to your parents and say, ‘Thanks for bringing me here today.’” The ceremony in the newly reopened and rededicated Capitol, she said, is “also an opportunity for us to rededicate ourselves to the dream that Martin Luther King Jr. had, and to carry it on in the state.” Gov. Butch Otter read an official state proclamation, and there were music, speeches and human rights awards.

At one point, the marchers from BSU filed up Capitol Boulevard to the Capitol, where the remains of the Tea Party people were still milling around on the front steps and the state ceremony was in full swing inside. They flowed down a wide ramp past the others on the steps, and there was no evidence of any conflicts. “I think they’re just speaking their mind and calling it good,” said Sgt. Ted Snyder, field supervisor for the Boise Police Department, who watched from his patrol car. “It’s people being peaceful, and it’s been a good turnout for all the events.”

Three comments on this post so far. Add yours!

JIMV on January 18 at 3:17 p.m.
I was at both the 9/11 rally and the MLK event in the Capital. Both were pretty impressive. The 9-12 folk are simply reminding the legislature that we are still here and growing every month. Tomorrow’s Brown win in Mass and Novembers democrat bloodbath are the result of a political class that simply could not care less what the voters want or, more importantly, do not want.
WildWest on January 18 at 4:12 p.m.
Tea Party was all white, no diversity!

Political rhetoric was all fabricated facts and fear mongering with absolutely no solutions of how to run a successful government for the people.

No government is not a solution to our society, but it is to those extremist religious righties who have cloaked themselves in the tea party banner.

If that’s the future of the republican party then we are headed backward as a society and the intolerance of a race of people and their false parallel universe will always be a road block to any successful government in our future.
fortboise on January 18 at 4:17 p.m.
I wish that there were some sort of focus to the TEA “protest.” It just seems blankly opposed to “them” with no sense whatsoever that we’re in this together.

Raul Labrador, a well-placed Republican in the Idaho Legislature, saying “we the people tell the government what to do,” as if he were storming the gates? I guess everyone nods along because the gates are so far away (and TEA Party events are not about reasoned discussion, even if there were someone interested in asking some of the obvious questions).

Jim V’s hand-waving is even broader: at a whole “political class.” Good luck with that. When (or if) the TEA loyalists get organized enough to raise up some leaders who can win elections, they’ll be somehow immunized from being members of the class themselves?

It’s certainly possible, but given the fact that our legislatures all imbue power with seniority, it’s going to take a lot more than one glorious 2010 election. Winners will face the problem the Obama administration has: congratulations, you won the job, and condolences, because you just inherited the debacle created by your predecessors. It took GWB and RBC 8 years to dig that hole, and the votes don’t want to hear that it can’t all be made right in a quarter of that time.