By Mike Appleton (Guest Blogger)
In 1773 the British East India Company was broke. In an effort to prevent bankruptcy, and the resulting loss of the crown’s investment, the British government eliminated all taxes on domestic tea sales and granted the company a monopoly on tea shipments to the American colonies. In December of that year radicals boarded ships in Boston harbor and threw $75,000.00 worth of tea overboard. The first Tea Party was a violent reaction to monopolistic economic power protected by government.
The modern Tea Party doesn’t understand history, so it can’t be expected to appreciate irony. It is a mongrel movement, its leaders self-proclaimed, its agenda by turns unfathomable and incoherent, its philosophy grounded in vehemence. So how can it possibly be dangerous? Here, in no particular order, are my four Rs of the Tea Party.
1. It is racist. I know. I just played the race card. But the best way to stop someone from playing the race card is to quit dealing it. Public expressions of bigotry began as soon as Barack Obama was nominated at the Democratic convention, and continued throughout the campaign, during which prominent Republicans referred to him as “boy,” “uppity” and other vulgarities. In short order he became a socialist and a Marxist and was then transformed into an extremist Arab Muslim. Sarah Palin eventually settled on the euphemistic “let’s take our country back,” but we all knew what she meant. The Tea Party began forming before the inauguration and was printing “Don’t Tread on Me” posters while the Obama family was still unpacking in the White House. On April 15, 2009, the Tea Party was protesting a tax burden that was, and is, the lowest in 60 years.
The Tea Party has promoted ugly forms of nativism, including punitive immigration laws, English only legislation and bans on the teaching of ethnic studies. It is the 1840s once again, but the targets are Muslims and Hispanics rather than Germans and Irish.
2. It is a religionist movement. I don’t know if religionism is a word, but I use it to describe a phenomenon distinct from traditional religion: religion as political philosophy. It is the view that the Constitution was divinely inspired, that America is God’s gift to mankind, that capitalism is mandated by Holy Scripture and that the notion of “social justice” is the work of the Antichrist. It is a culmination of the fundamentalist reaction in the early 1900s to Darwin and the progressive movement. It has spawned a form of Christian imperialism that justifies the “crusades” in Iraq and Afghanistan, supports Israel uncritically and sends American politicians to Africa to lobby for the death penalty for homosexuals.
3. It is repressive. The Tea Party is committed to authoritarianism. Lawmakers in Congress and throughout the country, particularly in states with heavily Republican legislatures, have been imposing humiliating burdens on women’s constitutional rights at breakneck speed. They are simultaneously reducing taxes on business and cutting funding for education and health care. The regulation of entire industries is being eliminated in certain states. The integrity of public employees has been impugned and their rights to organize curtailed. Laws banning the phony threat of sharia are pending in a dozen states. The independence of the judiciary has been threatened by proposals to reduce courts’ rule-making authority and politicize the judicial selection process.
4. It is revisionist. The Christian right and its supporters in legislatures and on school boards have demanded that high school history texts be rewritten to eliminate references to the deism endorsed by many of the Founders in favor of promoting the false notion of America as an exclusively Christian nation. The history of slavery and the Civil War is being falsified to satisfy the desires of apologists for the Confederacy and southern “values.” Science cannot be re-written, but it can be denied. The sciences of climate change and evolutionary processes have become the subjects of unnecessary controversy.
Robert La Follette, a founder of the progressive movement, became governor of Wisconsin in 1900 and immediately took on the railroads, forcing them to pay higher taxes on their assets. When the new governor of Wisconsin took office this year, he immediately took on labor in an effort to destroy public employee unions and cover the cost of new tax reductions for business. But like I said earlier. People who don’t understand history can’t appreciate irony.
There are those in the democratic party that are urging Elizabeth Warren to run against Obama in the democratic primary. It does not look like she will do it though.
SWM,
You indeed may have a valid point….Nothing is really what it may seem….
Elaine M.,
I leave you with the works of W. Somerset Maugham to ferret out the true meaning of the words so said….
I found 43 north’s point about the far left 4% and far right 4% becoming friends interesting. He compared it to what happened in Germany in the thirties with the communists and the nazis. Isn’t that what someone on this blog is suggesting? The intention of both is to overthrow the government.
AY,
Just because two groups may be far from the middle doesn’t mean that they are in close proximity. People on the far left hold very different views from people on the far right.
Our country has been moving farther and farther to the right. What once seemed like moderate left-wing views are being perceived today as more extreme. We have Democrats talking about making changes to Medicare and Social Security–while bailing out the millionaire/billionaire crooks of Wall Street. We have an Administration that caved on continuation of the Bush tax cuts for the rich.
Elaine….OS…
It makes no sense….but if you are attempting to make sense out of words written….I think he was saying that you even though you disagree are in the same camp, even though you disagree…there is really no difference…that the/you are on the edge…no one is even close to the middle…. but hey its just my interpretation…
Otteray,
“… it’s been my opinion if you’re so far left and so far right, not to be seen from the middle then you’re both in close proximity.”
That is another comment made by 43north that makes no sense to me.
Elaine, I consider 43north a friend; he is a former peace officer and public servant who is given to rather cryptic, almost Oracle-like pronouncements. That last one, however, left me scratching my head. I eagerly await some clarification if he will give it.
43north,
“There’s a view, that the Democrats need a social anarchist of the farthest left to emerge, a movement screaming to ‘destroy Wall Street’ and giving the 9-11 attacks as an example of valid protest.
“All of a sudden, Elizabeth Warren and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau seems a very reasonable alternative.”
**********
Who has a view that Democrats need a social anarchist of the farthest left to emerge…that Democrats want to ‘destroy Wall Street’?
Do you have a problem with Elizabeth Warren? I happen to think that she is one ethical and “reasonable” individual working in governement who has Americans’ best interests at heart. Why do the Republicans fear and dislike her so much?
Larry, the JBS was met with disdain, contempt and disgust by thinking people. They were nothing more than an amalgam of the KKK without the white robes and neo-Nazis without armbands. Paranoid conspiracy theorists who saw a commie behind every door. Why should such a group be taken seriously. Just how many times do you hear of a Bircher any more, outside a neo-Nazi encampment?
They are not relevant, being just another fringe group relegated to the dustbin of history.
rcampbell said:
“They are the 21st century John Birch Society and should be ignored as the Birchers were. They deserve no more than our contempt, our disdain and disgust.”
Tell me rcampbell—what exactly is wrong with the teachings of the John Birch Society?? I’m all ears.
“I don’t know if religionism is a word”
I stopped reading after this sentence. If the writer has no concern about his own article as to not research info to see if he is correct–then I have no concern in reading it.
Jill, I understand your position as it’s been my opinion if you’re so far left and so far right, not to be seen from the middle then you’re both in close proximity.
Respectively 178 degrees behind me to either side, and 4 degrees apart from your allegedly most-hated countryman.
A Godwin’s moment: The Nazis found friends in the Communists in overthrowing the Weimar Republic. The found friends against the Jews, Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Roma, etc…, and then they turned on each other. Not that the Communists hadn’t been doing so amongst themselves for the prior two decades… or the subsequent half-century.
A prime example of diametrically opposed forces finding mutual ground against the middle.
Within very liberal circles, there’s an argument on wether or not progress can be made from the center. Much like the Republicans look so moderate, when there’s a Teahadist point-of-view on TV for comparison. Result: the Dems cave, and accept the new Republican view of ‘center’ as-acceptable.
There’s a view, that the Democrats need a social anarchist of the farthest left to emerge, a movement screaming to ‘destroy Wall Street’ and giving the 9-11 attacks as an example of valid protest.
All of a sudden, Elizabeth Warren and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau seems a very reasonable alternative.
Compared to anarchist bombs, or commodity price manipulation indictments, not to mention a 35% withholding tax on every trade, future, and dividend transaction.
UnionSuck: Who said you could breed? Specifically, there’s NO DIVING signs posted in the shallow-end of the gene pool, and apparently you ignored them.
Further, place a red-dot on my forehead and I’ll change your brain with a 162 grain BTHP. You won’t be the first.
If you’re too close for the distance gun, I’ll restate the above mentioned proposition – your vest won’t save you.
Feel free to email me, if you’d like to make an appointment.
All this from a fairly conservative (Constitutionally), Dick Nixon was the peace candidate in ’68, gay rights/womens rights supporting/abortion-hating but understanding why it should be safe, legal, and rare/fairly libertarian (ie: liberal towards individual rights) person, who sees the felonization of America, and the lack of immigration reform and secure borders as an issue. Oh, and legalize marijuana, no pot-head has ever shot any of my colleagues, something I can’t say about crack/meth/coke.
So man-up and bring your dot, only who will support your children when you’re worm-food? Oh yeah… Social Security will send them a nice monthly “survivors check”.
43north@gmail.com
UnionsSuck wrote: So explain to me sir, do you have the $245,000 you owe to this government to support it’s unlawful entirement programs? Do you have the $245,000 per child in your household? what is YOUR plan to pay back your portion of this debt? What makes you think you have a right to demand that I or my children pay for your? I look forward to each of your well thought out answers to these questions. YOU are not MY problem.
What The Fu$%: I assume that is a rhetorical question. Heh.
Unionssuk:
Are you crazy?
Those are some tasty embalming fluids!
I suppose then, there is no danger of our troll having worms.
It’s the formaldehyde that makes them taste so good, OS.