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

[bovil.livejournal.com]

When I went past (a bit before 3-ish), the cops had Market street blocked at Market and Post, and that's where the protesters were. Now if you want to tell me I didn't see protesters at Market and Post in the afternoon yesterday, you can, but you would be wrong.

Oh, but wait, that wasn't your "official" tea party.

[chuckles48.livejournal.com]

Well, I pulled in at 5PM precisely (which, you might note, is when the permitted protest started, and when the counter-protesters showed up, and when the speechifying started). And all the action was in the park.

So I guess what you saw wasn't "official", any more than the nice folks who went black-bashing last November weren't "official" anti-Prop 8 folks.

Seriously - pick a standard. Just make sure you're willing to live with it.