I-69 News

1,000 people protest “toll road tyranny” in Austin, TX

• Posted by i69news on March 3rd, 2007 filed in Resistance

Austin protest targets toll road ‘tyranny’

Web Posted: 03/02/2007 11:44 PM CST

Gary Scharrer
Austin Bureau

AUSTIN — A protest against toll roads highlighted a rally on the Capitol steps Friday, but the Texas Independence Day holiday put folks in the mood to raise hell about other grievances as well.

Many also complained about a national animal identification tag. Some grumbled about the state’s loss of control of its borders. A few warned about the coming “North American Union.” And some excoriated the United Nations for wanting “to take your gun,” exhorting anyone within earshot to “get us out of the U.N.”

The “liberty or death” chant of a thousand or more protesters marching up Congress Avenue to the Capitol conveyed a decidedly serious intent on an otherwise sunny Friday afternoon.

Famed blues guitarist Jimmie Vaughan elevated those feelings midway through the rally when the spotlight fell on him, and both he and audience connected with such lyrics as “I got the blues about tyranny” … “Don’t want no shackles on me” and “Down with Big Brother.”

Much of the crowd quickly joined him.

“I want to be free. It’s all about liberty,” Vaughan said later. “I was born here. I’m going to die here, and I don’t want to give it away to somebody else.”

Many of the protesters fear that state leaders are going to give away Texas soil to a foreign country via toll roads. The Spanish company Cintra could build some of the state’s toll roads under a 50-year contract.

“We feel that if we don’t get heard now, we’re going to be paying it out for the next 50 or 75 years. We’re very upset with our own government supporting these foreign intrusions,” said San Antonian Robert Throckmorton, a retired Air Force pilot.

Read the rest of the story at San Antonio Express News site.