If you kept an ear open, you’ve surely heard about all the Tea Parties that were happening in protest of….lots of things? Surely these majority-Republican protests were no more organized than the majority-Democrat protests of the Bush era where you had everyone from the Free Tibet people to the Free Amadou Diallo people. But was there more of a point then?
The idea, I assume, was to show the vast divide between a government and its people as related to the Boston Tea Party of 1773. That vague concept is just about all the ‘73 and the’09 parties have in common.
1773: The British shipped some tea to colonial America. By then, the Americans saw the English pastime of teatime, and by extension tea, as not reflective of their new American way of life. They began to refuse the shipments of tea. The British ship at the Boston Harbor wasn’t going to leave until they got payment for their shipment, grossly inflated from taxes. Americans said no, British said yes, and like a thief in the night, a few Americans dressed as Indians snuck on to the British ship and threw the tea in the harbor.
2009: In the Bush years, the administration spent billions upon billions on enforcing such catastrophes as the Patriot Act and No Child Left Behind. Billions upon billions more were spent “liberating” Iraq, not only at the cost of the aforementioned billions, but at the cost of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers’ lives. Bush ends up screwing everything up for years to come. A candidate promising hope and change rallies the public, and begins the new administration right when Bush’s budget poop hits the fan. The economy tanks, haves become have-nots, and on Tax Day, people throw tea around.
You see how this illustrates a particularly horrific facet of modern American life? Are we as a society so selfish that we only care about things when they touch our personal lives, nay, our wallets? It’s ok to throw a few hundred thousand soldier’s lives right out the window in the name of such slippery concepts of freedom and security, but the minute we have to tighten our belts and give up a creature comfort or two – then the protests make the news? Then we say a revolution is underway? Because the American god needs his Cheesecake Factory dinners and his too-huge-to-be-practical Hummer that he’ll be making payments on for the rest of his kids’ lives.
Secondly, how to you get all these materials and tea you’re protesting with? Did you buy it, or did you harvest the tea and mold the magic markers yourselves? If you bought it, did you look at your receipt? Hello, Sales Tax! And if you’ve A) got the spare cash to buy protest materials and tea, B) could afford to waste the tea, then C) you can afford to pay taxes without complaint. You know…just like you’ve been doing for the past 10, 20, 30 years?
Thirdly, if you really, really want to hammer ineffective protests home, go to your boss and declare that you refuse to work if they continue to take income tax out. Then, when tax time comes around next year, after you’ve been out of a job for a year and can’t afford your taxes, send a letter to the IRS asking for a bailout. When you’re sitting in jail for tax evasion, you will have finally shown the government. Prisoners don’t pay taxes! Your plan worked! A-hahahahaha!
Tea Party protesters, you were silent the entire Bush administration. Because you liked his good ol’ boy charm? His dim wit? Because a future filled with creature comforts was within reach? Because you didn’t know any of the soldiers who died? And you speak up now, right when you have to switch to the store brands?
There’s so many more ways to protest that would have been more hilarious and more profound. But you chose tea? In any case, Los Angeles’s Tea Party was at Dockweiler Beach (not the Long Beach ports?), and ….. I’m sure a handful of tea-less people out there feel a little better.
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