Updated: September 5, 2010

See the chapter meeting minutes when you log in. (RH)

Greetings!

The last two weeks have been nothing short of tremendous!  The 9.12 Projects and Tea Parties have scored some impressive victories during this time frame!  We are growing and gaining experience every day!  Last month and so far this month ALL of our SEMi 9.12 Project Chapters have gained new members!  

The experiences gained by going to the State GOP Convention was fantastic!  Yes, there were a number of inconveniences and disappointments but so what!  This is part of growing!  What I took home with me as I left the Breslin Center in Lansing last Saturday, was that Tea Party members constituted almost one quarter--may be more...maybe less but not by much--of the delegates, were citizens that belonged to patriot groups.  We must recognize that this is ONLY THE BEGINNING!  If we want to influence the process more we need to realize two things:
1.  We now have a foot in the door.  We now have tea party members that will be learning the ropes.  These people are a vanguard of sorts...so that we can begin to become an influence in the party.  The reason that the RINOs took over was because good people did nothing.  I confess that I did NOTHING!  Politics, I thought...we all thought was not our piece of cake.  And guess what...politics is HARD work.  Whether done right or wrong, it is work.  TRUST ME...I NOW HAVE FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE, even if it is what I would term junior experience.
2.  We need for more people to join this party!  Why?  Obama.  People like Obama.  People like Pelosi and Reid.  Henry Waxman, Barney Frank...need I go on?  If you want to make this country a safer place for your children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, nephews, nieces, and your friends then join. Come and make a difference! If you tell me that politics is dirty and corrupt, it is so only because we have not been the light in a dark place or the salt that we have read in both the Old and New Testaments in the Bible.  Politics is not for you?  Ok...if not you, then who?    

Don't get me wrong.  Politics is not what I would ever have dreamed of becoming involved in.  Yet, if I don't get involved, what will I tell my children...my grandchildren?

My wife and I were talking on the way home this evening and I said that had someone told me a year ago I would be doing this, I would have laughed in derision.  Is there a cost?  Of course there is.  But when I count my losses and my gains, I have WON so much more...more friends than I ever had...a deeper appreciation for my country...a better understanding of the Constitution, and the Founding Fathers.  Even a better understanding of how my faith in God works on more of a daily basis.  My life, I told my wife, is much richer.

Where ever you or I go however, we will always be 9.12ers and Tea Partiers first.  The Tea Party...the 9.12 Project is the best thing that has ever happened to this country...to the Republican party...and soon to all political parties...why?  We have seen crony capitalism...and hell, let's call a spade a spade...Marxism/communism up close, and we all knew...or at least now many many, more know that the promises made for transparency and honesty by the White House, Madam Pelosi, and Mr. Reid were as worthless as Zimbabwean dollars.

Get involved.  Come.  Make a difference.  Make the Dems and libs sweat.  

Have a wonderful Labor Day. It was with labor and the sweat of our brow that made this country great!
God Bless the United States of America!

Stephen Ross
Chairman
SEMI9.12 Project