{"id":539369,"date":"2010-04-22T08:27:35","date_gmt":"2010-04-22T12:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/illinoiseducationassociation.org\/?p=7380"},"modified":"2010-04-22T08:27:35","modified_gmt":"2010-04-22T12:27:35","slug":"why-the-sos-rally-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/539369","title":{"rendered":"Why the SOS rally matters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fifteen thousand taxpayers came to Springfield Wednesday to tell the members of General Assembly to do the job they were elected to do by raising the taxes of the protesters.<\/p>\n

Isn’t people demanding their taxes be raised sort of a classic “Man bites dog” story, the kind of story that defines what is considered “news?”<\/p>\n

The SOS rally received a brief wire story<\/a> in the online New York Times business section.<\/p>\n

The number of attendees was many times the number of participants of any Tea Party event. \u00a0Yet, people who are heavy users of government services (transportation, Medicare, Social Security, etc…) demanding tax cuts are considered to be some sort of significant “movement” that is reshaping our country.<\/p>\n

Rachel Maddow used the SOS rally to make this very important point last night. \u00a0 You can see the entire program here<\/a>. <\/strong>Watching it is a sort of “sanity check” for those of us who are having trouble understanding why our state government has allowed the current budget crisis to fester for so long. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The most oft-asked question about the rally is, “Will it make a difference?” <\/strong>We think the answer is “yes,” because there is no reason to believe that the politicians will fix what’s wrong on their own. \u00a0They have to be asked, pushed, cajoled. \u00a0Rallies like Wednesday’s are an important part of the process.<\/p>\n

But there is another reason to take the action that was taken in \u00a0Illinois yesterday.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

As Maddow’s guest, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell stated, “If we’re going to go down in November, and I don’t think we are, but if we do, let’s go down fighting for the things we believe in.”<\/p>\n

So, does it makes a difference? \u00a0Yes. \u00a0And, it also is something that we have to do for ourselves because it reflects our values.<\/p>\n

Be sure to watch the Maddow story about SOS. \u00a0You might want to send the link to a friend who wonders whether all of this matters.<\/p>\n


\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fifteen thousand taxpayers came to Springfield Wednesday to tell the members of General Assembly to do the job they were elected to do by raising the taxes of the protesters. Isn’t people demanding their taxes be raised sort of a classic “Man bites dog” story, the kind of story that defines what is considered “news?” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5336,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-539369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5336"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539369\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}