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Why the tea parties don't matter
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.
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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).
no subject