Timing their rally to coincide with a far larger Tea Party Express demonstration in Washington, D.C., some 200 members of the Tea Party Patriots group gathered in Chicago’s Millennium Park on Sept. 12 to protest President Barack Obama’s health care reform initiative and what they see as the threat of big government.

Waving picket signs, the Millennium Park activists sounded the same themes that have characterized a season of anti-government protests around the country that began with anti-tax Tea Parties on April 15, the income tax filing deadline, and continued at various “town hall” meetings in August that members of Congress held as forums on health care reform.

“This health care plan will cripple our economy,” argued Katherina Wojtowicz, 41, of the Mount Greenwood neighborhood on Chicago’s Southwest Side, one of the organizers of the Millennium Park rally. “It has nothing to do with health care; it has everything to do with government control.”

Wojtowicz denied the frequent criticism that the Tea Parties are masterminded by the Republican Party, contending that the activists are neither Republicans nor Democrats, but citizens of the United States who are tired of what they consider controlling, partisan government.

“We’re in this freaking mess because of the Republicans and Democrats,” said Wojtowicz. “This isn’t a partisan group. These are people from all sectors of society, all just coming together. This is the people’s army.”

Another demonstrator from the Chicago area, Susan Brooks, also decried government-sponsored health care reform.

“As the government expands and takes over more sectors of the economy, it results in less liberty and freedom for Americans,” said Brooks, who rejected the idea that less-affluent Americans need subsidies to obtain health insurance and medical care.

In her view, lower-income families have access to excellent medicine at Cook County Hospital and through a network of free clinics.

“We can make health care more affordable to them to drive down costs, but it’s not a state of emergency,” said Brooks. “People aren’t dying as government is depicting. These people are being taken care of and through real solutions.”

But Robert Watkins, a Columbia College Chicago political science professor contacted for this article, said he thinks the Tea Party Patriots and their allies have a misunderstanding of government’s influence.

“These folks seem to think that government is the only significant power that’s affecting their lives, when in fact corporate power and insurance company power are affecting their lives equally strongly, if not more strongly,” said Watkins.

Watkins said he believes Obama is not trying for a wholesale increase in federal power, but has limited his goal to regulating the insurance industry.

“If the [health care] bill is passed, I think it will be largely restricted to insurance reform,” Watkins said. “The health care system is broken and it needs to be fixed.”

A more sinister view of Obama’s goals, however, was expressed by a number of the Tea Party protesters, including one who identified herself as Lynn Marie.

“I think that they are socialists and a lot of things they are doing are unconstitutional and illegal,” she said. “[Obama’s] hiring czars and giving them positions of power on the tax dime with no oversight by Congress.” That’s unconstitutional.

Don Rose, a longtime Democratic political consultant, said he thinks the opposition to health reform represented by groups like the Tea Party Patriots has inspired Republicans in Congress to stick together in refusing to back the health care legislation being drafted in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. He said that Obama’s attempt to get both parties behind such reform legislation, while laudable, appears doomed to failure.

“Bi-partisanship is dead, gone, and never going to happen,” said Rose.

Rose pronounced himself an advocate of a single-payer health care system, such as those in much of Western Europe, where the government runs health care. “Single payer is the only way to totally reform the health system and give health care the same as it is given all over the civilized world.

Rose admitted however, that such a huge shift in policy is unlikely in the U.S. He said he suspects that what will emerge from Congress will be something far short, “but the closest we can get.” He predicted that bill when finally enacted will contain a public option — the creation of a government-run health insurance program similar to Medicare to compete with major insurance companies — but it will be in the form of a “trigger,” some years down the road.

That many of the Millennium Park protestors would find that deplorable was expressed by Earl O’Connell, a U.S. Air Force veteran, who noted “I have a grandson and a daughter and I don’t want them growing up in a totalitarian state and I think that’s where we’re going.

“These are the people that hate the country,” said O’Connell, in apparent reference to the Obama administration. “They were protesting the Vietnam War and now they are in power. They hate it because they believe in a one-world government where they’re the elite and the rest of us are just serfs.

“I think that they are socialists and a lot of things they are doing are unconstitutional and illegal,” Marie said. “[Obama’s] hiring czars and giving them positions of power on the tax dime with no oversight by Congress. That’s unconstitutional.”

Don Rose, a longtime Democratic political consultant, said he thinks the opposition to health reform represented by groups like the Tea Party Patriots has inspired Republicans in Congress to stick together in refusing to back the health care legislation being drafted in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. He said that Obama’s attempt to get both parties behind such reform legislation, while laudable, appears doomed to failure.

“Bi-partisanship is dead, gone and never going to happen,” Rose said.

Rose pronounced himself an advocate of a single-payer health care system, such as those in much of Western Europe, where the government runs health care.

“Single payer is the only way to totally reform the health system and give health care the same as it is given all over the civilized world,” Rose said.

Rose admitted, however, that such a huge shift in policy is unlikely in the U.S. He said he suspects that what will emerge from Congress will be something far short, “but the closest we can get.” He predicted that bill, when finally enacted will contain a public option—the creation of a government-run health insurance program similar to Medicare to compete with major insurance companies—but it will be in the form of a “trigger,” some years down the road.

That many of the Millennium Park protesters would find that deplorable was expressed by Earl O’Connell, a U.S. Air Force veteran, who noted, “I have a grandson and a daughter and I don’t want them growing up in a totalitarian state and I think that’s where we’re going.

“These are the people that hate the country,” O’Connell said, in apparent reference to the Obama administration and the members of Congress. “They were protesting the Vietnam War and now they are in power. They hate it because they believe in a one-world government where they’re the elite and the rest of us are just serfs, O’Connell said.”

For more information on the Health Reform Bill H.R. 3200, visit http://tinyurl.com/mns8rt. For more information about Tea Party Patriots, visit www.teapartypatriots.org/