Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Today I came across this fascinating exposition on a facet of American History often overlooked in our educational syllabus. The Boston Tea Party, from which today’s Tea Party takes its’ name, was actually a revolt against the dominance of the largest Multi-national Corporation of its’ time and its’ monopoly of the ubiquitous tea trade. The power of this entity came through its political dominance of the British Monarchy and with its’ compliance and enforcement of this Corporation’s needs. Contrast the actual positions of today’s “Tea Partier’s” with those whose names they usurp. I think you will find this a fascinating video and I will comment after the fold.
Even if you didn’t watch this whole video, I’m sure you got enough information to understand that the Boston Tea Party was about fighting the bestowal of government privileges, including tax cuts, to a large, influential corporation. Today’s “Tea Party” is a movement created by wealthy corporate interests, guided by a powerful lobbyist, Dick Armey, and is committed to ensuring that corporations have no regulations whatsoever. I had previously documented that here:
http://jonathanturley.org/2011/08/02/tea-party-and-the-myth-of-a-grassroots-movement/
This is a fact that it seems none dare mention in the Mainstream Broadcast Media, excepting MSNBC. The average viewer is led to believe, by the bloviating pundits, that this is a “grass roots” movement of average folk, fed up by too much government involvement in their lives. The “Tea Party” has been invested by the same punditry, with the mantle of being a “populist” movement. In fact, the only resemblance to them and certain “populists” of the past is that there is a racialist percentage among them.
Today’s TP’ers are essentially anti-constitutionalists, in league with those who would be theocrats, working in the service of corporate interests. They bandy about epithets for the rest of American’s, the majority of Americans I must say, that call their opponents socialists, communists and fascists. Although all of these epithets could hardly characterize either the Democratic Party, or the President they revile, they gain currency through the repetition of the corporate “Big Lie” and are given equal treatment by the media.
The only way for real American’s to battle these anti-constitutionalists is by constantly exposing the lies and the memes they use to give themselves legitimacy, such as taking on the mantle of an historic American move towards independence. Admittedly, these are harsh words and do not necessarily represent the views of this blog or its proprietor.
Enough, however, is enough. I cannot abide the hypocrisy being displayed here, nor can I abide watching a field of Republican candidates, kowtowing to this movement, who are themselves made up of clowns, knaves and even much worse. Oh, do I long for the days of Richard Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower before him. The current crop of Presidential hopefuls in the GOP isn’t fit to step into the shoes of their Republican forebears, who were demonstrable realists with no small intelligence.
The worst part of it is that although the whole contingent of Republican Presidential hopefuls pretend to represent themselves as the people’s protectors, their history strongly suggests quite the opposite. Their greatest weapon thus far has been to seize the political initiative and attain power through erecting a Potemkin Wall of popular support. They have done this by redefining American History, the Constitution and given new meanings to words. The TP’ers have successfully infiltrated our Congress with preachers of cant and no-nothingness and because of this, we must perforce expose and oppose them, or watch the very heart of our government, our Constitution, shredded by the hypocrisy by which they justify their actions.