Why the tea parties don't matter

[bovil]

The "Tea Party" movement is a symbolic failure.

The original tea partiers engaged in criminal acts and risked arrest and imprisonment to destroy product from a company being propped up by unfair reduced taxes by the government, at the expense of what, at the time, amounted to "small business:" the domestic importers of tea who competed with the East India Company.

The current teabaggers are buying tea and throwing it around. That's it. When the DC teabag crew showed up with a truckload of tea bags (yes, I'm serious) to dump in Lafayette Square (because dumping in the Potomac is illegal, can't do that, after all) they were informed that they didn't have the correct permits to dump their load.

So they took it away. They're a bunch of pussies. "Civil disobedience" and "protest" are just words to them. They'll always cave in to authority rather than take a risk for their alleged principles. Samuel Adams would have dumped the tea right then and there.

If they wanted a real symbolic connection with the original Boston Tea Party they would be stealing Chrysler and GM cars and trucks from distribution centers and dumping them in the drink.

But they're not.

Pussies.

Comments

[voidampersand.livejournal.com]

Well, they are also upset because their taxes are being cut and the government stopped torturing people and is doing more to uphold the rule of law. Also, they are afraid that the states are going to stop interfering in relations between consenting adults. It's grim out there.

[shutaro.livejournal.com]

I had the same thought as I was driving home from work... They were talking about the "Tea Party" here in Sacramento on the radio, and at the end of the story they mentioned that it didn't last long because everyone there had to rush home to get their taxes in the mail... It made me chuckle.

Utah tea parties

[theresamather.livejournal.com]

There's some talk of secession here in red state land. They should just let some of these dirt poor red states secede- they take far more in federal money than they pay in. Let a couple of them degenerate into the third world pits they will instantly become without the tax money of the wealthy blue states to gorge on, and that ought to teach the sponge states like Utah that are a net drain on the nation to at least be grateful for the pork they gorge on.

Re: Utah tea parties

[esprix.livejournal.com]

Good god, LET THEM. It'll be Jesusland and the United States of Canada all over again, and that sounds just fine to me.

Re: Utah tea parties

[theresamather.livejournal.com]

Since I've been called arrogant for what I've said about secession and my own state, let me elaborate. First off, secession is discussed locally. It's not a majority opinion, but armed overthrow of the government is considered a potential course of action here by enough people that it colors occasional local newspaper editorials.
This state has large families with lots of deductions and the average wage is $11 an hour statewide. The biggest product in Utah besides alfalfa, tourism and mineral extraction is fraud which we export in the form of pyramid schemes and other scams which are rarely prosecuted. Multi-level marketing is probably the number one product of Utah. It cannot survive without federal dollars. It doesn't produce enough to survive on its own. That's just reality.
I've been accused of being influenced by the mainstream media so let me just say that the papers I read each day are the Deseret News, the St. George Spectrum and the Salt Lake Tribune. I listen also to NPR which comes out of the rather conservative universities in the state, as well as BBC as well as other sources to get fleshed out International news.
I love my state, but it is how it is and it is corrupt to the core. The leaders preach morality on high and plunder to the point that there are no laws against government corruption. I would not stand with this local government as it exists against the feds because what it would offer would be worse. The pork barrel spending that is planned locally is far greater per person than the debt the feds have created for me..including a 1.5 billion dollar water pipeline (plus interest) that 175,000 people in a three county area are going to have to pay for for the purpose of keeping the local "heritage" of alfalfa farming alive and allowing for new subdivisions at the same time. They can call on my spirit of "pioneer sacrifice" all they want but I will not stand with these jackasses against the feds. I'm mad, but I'm also mad at FOX for appropriating what could have been a much needed and useful movement and making it the sounding board for Rush, Sean and all the other blathering self serving jackasses who seek only to aggrandize themselves while the real problems go unaddressed.

[djmermaid.livejournal.com]

republican teabaggers! now I HAVE seen it all!

[esprix.livejournal.com]

Worth watching the first 2 minutes just for the yuks. :)

[aramintamd.livejournal.com]

It's a Fox TV movement, and it should go right where it belongs, in the restroom.

What a waste of bandwidth...

[esprix.livejournal.com]

ICON LOVE!

[esprix.livejournal.com]

I think the MSNBC report was both lyrically hysterical and politically spot-on. They're fully represented (which the original Bostonians were not), they're just pissed that they LOST; it was more about Obama-bashing than actual substance about taxes; tax rates were actually higher under Reagan and Bush I; etc.

I think the headlines should have just read, "Waaah, Waaah, We Lost And We're Whiners." As Jon Stewart said, "It's supposed to taste like a shit taco." WHY DO REPUBLICANS HATE AMERICA?

[madoc62.livejournal.com]

Andy & all,

It's a wee bit to early to declare the whole "Tea Party" thing a dud. The day is hardly over as you wrote your entry and the MSM has done its usual bang-up job of under-reporting anything that doesn't fit their oh-so-blinkered and locked-in ideological views. From what I understand, the San Jose Tea Party Protest drew between 2,500 and 3,000 folk of "a wide mix of every demographic - student/blue collar/white collar, age, ethnicity, single/married, with/without kids, LOTS of self-identified small business owners."

This, whilst "the counter-protest, in contrast, was ~30 people, almost all hispanic-looking, quite vocal, almost all "student" age (18-30)."

And that comes from one of the guys who was actually there.

The protest and dissatisfaction is real and it's deep. Considering that Obama and the Democrats have racked up a $3.5 TRILLION in national debt in less than a hundred days in office it'd be surprising if there wasn't protest and dissatisfaction. Sure, some of the Republican's doing their protesting are pretty incompetent at it. Guess that's because they haven't had much to protest about and thus haven't the experience, eh?

Oh, and folks, enough with the whole "Red State secession" stuff. Really, just take a step back and listen to how arrogant and bigoted your comments are. This, not to mention how factually incorrect they are as well.

The whole "Red State / Blue State" thing has long since made the rounds and long since been debunked. The divorce rates, illegitimate birth rates, abortion rates, poverty rates, high school drop out rates, incarceration rates, etc., turn out to either be worse in "Blue" states or at least no better than in "Red States." Couple that with the fact that the "Red States" are the ones which produce just about all of our food _AND_ they're the states which favor private gun ownership and, well, do you really wanna push those folk? :)

Seriously though, the whole "Red State vs. Blue State" thing is way overblown by the media. When you give it a closer look the nation is not divideed into but red or blue states. Instead, when broken down to the county level things turn out to be more purple than anything else.

And it's not urban versus rural either. The nation is pretty evenly split between "liberal" and "conservative" views. At least according to survey after survey. Sure, California is well known as a "blue" state - and that's why Bush got such a huge number of votes here both times around. And Texas is well known as being a "red" state and that's why Gore, Kerry and Obama got all the huge number of votes there as well.

So let's give it a couple of days or so to see more details emerge about the various Tea Parties that got held today before pronouncing final judgement.

Madoc

[sarcasm-hime.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they're upset NOW, but where were these huge protests when Bush was racking up the huge debt in the first place? Seriously. I can't take this stuff seriously since I doubt most of the people even truly understand what the hell they're really protesting about.

[chuckles48.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they're upset NOW, but where were these huge protests when Bush was racking up the huge debt in the first place

You _do_ realize that Obama has added as much to the national debt in _90 days_ as Bush did in _8 years_?

And frankly, there were a lot of people there with a much more concrete grasp of real-world economics than you might want to realize or admit to.

[yourbob.livejournal.com]

It's the "red states" talking secession. So telling blue supporters to quit talking about it...well. And I don't recall "blue states" doing that during the last eight years.

And as for the crowd size? Um. 3000 in San Jose, the ninth largest city in the US? Um.

And do you really think a rally involving "Obama = Hitler" and "Hang Obama" signs is about taxes and debt? Come on.

[madoc62.livejournal.com]

YB,

Oh, there was mucho "secession" talk coming from various "Blue State" folk over the past eight years. The comments bandied about here - replete with their bigoted "they're all a buncha inbred bucktoothed crackers" vibe - could've come from any number of comments made on the subject by oh-so-sanctimonious "liberals" during the Dubya's reign.

As to 3K in San Jose, I don't think that's half bad for a populace which here-to-fore didn't much take to the streets. If it's still in the single digit thousands a year or two from now then that would be more telling.

And all those "Bush = Hitler" and "Cheney = Satan" signs at those so called "peace rallies" were but harmless sarcasm of the Left? Come on!

This is the price to pay for such divisiveness in the political realm - and like it or not, the political left has got a far longer and more sordid history of playing up such divisiveness than does the political right. At least so in this country. Not that the GOP is saintly in this regard. Hardly that. But I watched the wretched excess of the Left over the past eight years and nothing the political right has yet come up with has managed to equal it.

Madoc

[chuckles48.livejournal.com]

Yeah, 3000, give or take (more take - thinking about it, 2500 sounds more real).

And do you really think a rally involving "Obama = Hitler" and "Hang Obama" signs is about taxes and debt?

Didn't see any of those, to be honest. Found one Bircher, but that's about the extent of it.

[theresamather.livejournal.com]

I live in Utah, and mingle with the folks every day. Call me arrogant all you like, but I live in rural red state America. I just call it like I see it. You can tell me I don't see and hear what I see and hear all you like and accuse me of watching the mainstream media, but I do not, and I go by what the people who invited me to the local tea party were talking about on our local email lists.
If you don't believe me, spend a few weeks reading the St. George Utah Spectrum, and see what the locals are really saying. "We're the ones with all the guns" is a popular saying around here.
Over the last few weeks at least once a week there has been a letter or editorial calling for secession.

[bovil.livejournal.com]

It is the heart of arrogance to tell someone what is happening in their own community.

I work mere blocks from the tea party protests in San Jose. The Federal Building is closer to me (next to where I have lunch on Tuesdays), but protests were outside the building that hosts the local IRS offices (next to where I have lunch on Wednesdays, it's a big gold-glass cube, always good for a chuckle).

I saw it with my own two eyes. It wasn't a big protest. More people show up for the gay pride parade, and that's not a big event. The Cinco de Mayo parade used to draw a lot more people.

[madoc62.livejournal.com]

Andy,

Did I say it was a "big" protest? Did the folks setting it up promise "hundreds of thousands of millions of billions of citizens will be there?" No?

For a first time out the gate, and for such a here-to-fore unassembled crowd, it'd be unusual for the event to draw such numbers as a gay pride rally in San Jose.

Like I said, if it's still drawing single digit thousands a year or two from now then that'll be more telling.

Madoc

[chuckles48.livejournal.com]

No, it was not "next to" where the local IRS building is.

That's Market and San Fernando, looking up from the plaza. IRS is one block BEYOND where that cop has the street blocked.

Here's google's map to where that office is.

View Larger Map (http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&q=san+jose+IRS&fb=1&split=1&gl=us&ei=-pbnSfSSO4mYtAPG17z0AQ&ll=37.320244,-121.906333&spn=0.058138,0.068874&source=embed)
One block PAST San Fernando.

If you're going to lie, at least do so convincingly.

[barry-short.livejournal.com]

They tried to organize one here in town at the last minute, but then the snow came and it was called off - though I prefer to think of it as pseudo-conservatives making God cry.

More Natural Ironies

[madoc62.livejournal.com]

Barry,

That sounds kinda like when those global warming fanatics try holding a protest rally to wail about how mankind is causing the climate to heat up - only to have to cancel it because of cold weather!

[spearweasel.livejournal.com]

Are you really encouraging "right-wing extremists" (I use the term ironically) to start engaging in property destruction or violence?

I don't see that ending well for anyone.

On the other side, nobody that I know of changed their minds about environmental issues because ELF torched some SUV's. Likewise, most of the tea-party goers that I am distantly acquainted with understand full well that this is supposed to be symbolic.

In general, these protestors are law-abiding citizens with day-jobs, not the 22-year old, Che t-shirt/bandanna wearing, underemployed philosophy majors that you see throwing urine bottles at cops during demonstrations.

If the fringe right ever shows up with their own Black Bloc (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_bloc) protesters, you won't like it.

That's just not how tea-party folks roll.

As for me, I don't do rallies in general.

[bovil.livejournal.com]

Actual armed violence and criminal acts against authority would shatter the conservative movement, worse and for longer than the violent movements that came out of Viet Nam war protests damaged liberalism.

The tea-party protesters still fail at symbolism. They're symbolically reenacting an activity that they themselves would characterize as terrorism if it wasn't done by our founding fathers 200-odd years ago. They're doing it in a way that bears none of the risk that the original Tea Act protesters had to bear (who were law-abiding citizens with day jobs).

[deirdremoon.livejournal.com]

Total sidebar note: I hear what you're saying about the lack of real rebellion in the thing. But speaking as a treehugger, I'm very glad that they dumped neither tea nor cars into the drink as the specific form of their protest. That would be damaging an ecosystem that had nothing to do with the original protest, and ironically, (you'd hope) the government would just have to spend MORE money cleaning up the mess afterward.

That said, it's hard to find a symbol of extreme scorn that doesn't involve destroying something, which gives me new respect for King and other nonviolent protests that succeeded in getting so much press.