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    Take Our Country Back
    Take Our Country Back
    Take Our Country Back
    Ebook126 pages1 hour

    Take Our Country Back

    By Chris Cassone

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDunham Books
    Release dateFeb 21, 2012
    ISBN9780983990642
    Take Our Country Back

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      Book preview

      Take Our Country Back - Chris Cassone

      Freedom.)

      Introduction

      What is the Tea Party movement? Who were these people who burst onto the national political scene in early 2009 with a series of rallies demanding that their voices be heard? How did those rallies get organized? Why did it start when it started, rather than sooner or later?

      Many pundits have taken a stab at providing answers to those questions, trying to explain the meaning and motivation of a movement that, as the 2010 mid-term election approached, appeared on the verge of revolutionizing grassroots politics in America. Other people can give their own answers, and maybe their answers will be different from the explanation you will read in theses pages. Because this is one man’s story, told by the man who provided the Tea Party movement with its own anthem.

      Chris Cassone isn’t a politician. He’s not a gun nut or a militia kook or some other kind of extremist. So many in the mainstream media have tried to portray Tea Party people as fringe radicals that it’s hard for those who haven’t been part of the movement to understand that these are your friends and neighbors—everyday Americans who just got tired of sitting around on their sofas being spectators in their nation’s civic debate. So they decided to get involved, and each of them did whatever they could to help. Some of them made signs and banners. Some of them gave speeches and wrote articles. Some ran phone-banks for congressional campaigns, and some decided to run for Congress themselves.

      Chris Cassone wrote a song. That’s who he is and what he does. A professional musician and recording engineer for decades, Chris found himself inspired one day in early 2009 to pick up his guitar, strum a few chords and put words to music, to give voice to what was becoming a widespread sentiment: We the People were losing control of our own government, not just because our leaders weren’t listening, but because too many of us were too lazy to stand up and, as the song says, draw a line in the sand, so they all understand.

      What happened next was nothing short of astounding. In the space of a few months, Chris went from singing his song for a few dozen people gathered on the town square to playing larger and larger rallies until he sang for hundreds of thousands in front of the Capitol dome in Washington, with a national TV audience watching while every voice was raised to join in the triumphant chorus: Take it back!

      Every generation has its anthems, songs that capture the mood of a place and time. At this point—this book goes to press just weeks before the 2010 mid-term elections—it’s hard to tell where Take Our Country Back may someday rank in the annals of popular folk protest songs. Chris is a humble man who would blush to think that anyone would rank his contribution alongside such classic Sixties anthems as Dylan’s Blowing in the Wind or Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth. In the end, the significance of this song will owe much to the success or failure of the Tea Party movement and the people in that movement who sang along at so many rallies.

      Chris was in the middle of it all from March 2009 onward. Along the way, he met and spoke to hundreds of Tea Party people—from the famous and powerful to the regular rank-and-file folks—who helped make this grassroots movement something that our leaders could not ignore. Those everyday patriotic Americans are still proud to be citizens of a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. It is on behalf of those people and in defense of those rights that Chris Cassone is proud to sing, Take Our Country Back.

      Chapter One

      Take it Back…Take Our Country Back

      All the hotels in D.C. were sold out, so the closest room I could find was in Crystal City, Virginia, overlooking the Pentagon. From the hotel window, I could see the Washington Monument in the distance on the far side of the Potomac River. It was September 11, 2009, not a day to be taken lightly (I could see the wall where American Airlines Flight 77 hit), but the next day I was scheduled to play in front of the biggest audience of my entire career. If you held a gun to my head as a twenty-five year old burgeoning songwriter in 1975 I would have never come up with this vector of my life—a full-fledged member of the Tea Party.

      Not even on the radar at the Obama Inauguration, this true grassroots movement coalesced as February turned to March. Millions of disgruntled Americans needed a push and they got it from the Santelli Rant. That, coupled with relentless talk radio chatter and Fox opinion shows like Glenn Beck, Hannity and O’Reilly, pushed them even further—this time into action.

      Through Internet social sites like MeetUp and Ning, people started to meet up, and sign up, and more. Tea Parties blossomed by Tax Day and pollinated into the summer. By September, millions were primed for a March on Washington like no other. And I had a full access pass and a slot on the agenda.

      Nerves? There were no nerves, just a feeling deep inside that I’ll believe it when I see it. Local TV news in Washington that night didn’t have coverage about the rally planned the next day on the National Mall in front of the Capitol. No surprise—the media had been trying its best to ignore the Tea Party movement ever since it began with a few scattered events in February 2009. We had come to expect next to no coverage by the mainstream media, but this was shaping up to be the perfect storm. The lack of coverage revealed the bias that was palpable. So we turned to each other.

      On my way down to the hotel lobby for coffee the next morning is when it started to seem real. Stepping off the elevator, I found myself engulfed by a group of Texans all wearing the same Tea Party T-shirts. My Reagan for President button tipped them off and there was an instant spirit of camaraderie. Leaving the hotel with my keyboardist, Gordon Gebert, we encountered more and more rally participants. Some were dressed in Revolutionary War costumes. Some sported America flag shirts or hats with patriotic messages. Most were carrying hand-made signs and everyone was in a cheerful mood. Approaching the Metro subway station, the crowd got larger as groups morphed into small crowds. Gordon and I needed a cab to carry our equipment to the Capitol.

      As the cab crossed the Potomac and headed towards the Mall, I thought back to my first time here. I was a fifth-grader in Iona Grammar School on our Washington Trip, a huge experience for a ten year old. And I had been raised in a patriotic family. Why, we even sang patriotic songs in the car on family vacations. So a love of country was instilled very early on.

      We couldn’t contain our amazement when the taxi turned onto Independence Avenue and we caught sight of the stage, flanked by two giant video screens. Lugging our gear across the lawns up to the security fence, we met early risers who had staked their claim to front-row seats. The excitement was palpable and infectious. We checked in, got our badges and still had three hours before we performed. Time to think. Time to remember. I’d been here before, but as I looked up at the Capitol dome, I realized I’d never been this close—and never with such a purpose.

      This new excitement in the air, this Tea Party movement, was electrifying people far and wide, and for good cause. For years, and particularly in the first months of 2009, many of us felt disempowered and alone, and now there was hope. Like-minded people from all walks of life—from all corners of the country—were awakening from a long sleep. The Silent Majority was proud of its title back in the 70’s but they stayed just that: silent. Now we were not only concerned about the direction of the country, we were angry and now vocal. Angry because of the callous disregard for our American way of life. Vocal for the disdain of the balance of powers. And this newfound energy propelled us to become active, especially because of the arrogance of the liberals in power.

      But this populist rebellion spreading across the land was nothing new. In fact, it comes from the very wellsprings of the heart of the nation. We looked to the founders for the model of rebellion, the Boston Tea Party, and many have rediscovered these men who started it all.

      In his letter to South Carolina’s State Representative, John Taylor, Thomas Jefferson voiced an eerie premonition to our current affairs as he railed against the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798:

      A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt. If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake.

      —From a letter to John Taylor (June 1798), after the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts.

      While we have no witches and spells, per se, the overwhelming desire to restore (our) government to its true principles is what resonates

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