There sure were a lot of them in Washington DC last weekend. They rivaled the size of any of President Obama's largest crowds during the election and otherwise. (www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1213056/Up-million-march-US-Capitol-protest-Obamas-spending-tea-party-demonstration.html)
But who are these TEA (stands for Taxed Enough Already) Party people? Do they represent Middle America or are they just a lunatic fringe? Or both? Are they mostly middle class, lower class, or upper crust? Are they bitter small town folks who cling to religion and guns (www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=11 ) or are they from the city? How many come from rural areas?
I would like to run an unscientific survey.
Here are my questions: How many are white? Black? Latino? Asian? How many are men, how many women? How many are gay or bisexual? I'm just asking.
What is the average age of the TEA protestors? Are they baby boomers or Gen-Xers?
What is their primary political affiliation: Republican, Democrat, Independent, Libertarian, or Green Party? Or are they starting a new party of their own? Just wondering.
What is their main religion: Christian, Muslim, Buddhism? Are there any atheists?
How many are pro-life? How many NRA members are there? Any environmentalists? Just curious.
Is this a grass-roots movement or Astroturf as the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has stated? (thinkprogress.org/2009/04/15/pelosi-astroturf/ ) Are these protests being orchestrated by Republicans to oppose the President and the Democrats? (jeffrey-feldman.typepad.com/.../tea-party-movement-planned-months-ago- by-gop-billionaires.html) Or are both true?
What are TEA baggers for?
I know what they are against: President Obama (whom they call a Socialist), Health Care Reform, taxes, big government, bail-outs, huge deficits, and the Democratic controlled Congress. But what are their solutions for our economic woes?
Every great revolution has a clearly stated agenda: The "Peace Movement" (www.english.illinois.edu/maps/vietnam/antiwar.html), "Civil Rights" (en.wikipedia.org/African-American_Civil_Rights_Movement_ (1955-1968),) "Women's Liberation" (scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/wlm/), "Gay Rights" (www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0761909.html), "Human Rights" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights), the "Pro-Life Movement" (www.nrlc.org/ ) and the GOP's "Contract With America" (www.house.gov/house/Contract/CONTRACT.html) express their goals in their titles.
I heard Glenn Beck tell Greta Van Susteren on her Fox News show (www.freedomslighthouse.com/glenn-beck-tells-greta-van-susteren-he.html) that he believes that most of the TEA Party protestors on 9/12/09 never demonstrated before.
To that I say to you TEA people, where have you been for the last half-century?
Where were you when Dr. Martin Luther King expressed his "dreams" for the civil rights movement in 1963? (www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEMXaTktUfA) Where you there when women burned their bras (www.now.org/history/protests.html) and young men torched their draft cards in the 1960s to protest the Vietnam War? (www.picturehistory.com/product/id/16897) How about the ACT-UP AIDS marches of the 1980s? (dictionary.sensagent.com/protest/en-en/)
Surely some of you attended the anti-abortion rallies that followed the Roe V. Wade Supreme Court decision. (www.marchforlife.org/)
No? Were you sleeping on the couch? Well, welcome to the club. However, we are living in America where we have a right to protest our government. Congratulations on going out and having a peaceful demonstration last Saturday!
However, I must admit that some signs that were being carried bothered me: "We Come Unarmed, This Time!" (www.discourse.net/archives/2009/09/unarmed_this_time.html) Is that a veiled threat? Kind of sounds like the Weather Underground of the '60s to me. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Underground_Organization)
Another one read: "Bury Obama-Care With Kennedy." (rawstory.com/blog/tea-party-bury-obamacare-kennedy) Senator Ted Kennedy died only two weeks ago. The man devoted his entire life to creating Universal Health Care. That sign is just down right mean-spirited to me.
Who and where are your leaders? Rush Limbaugh has said you have none.
Can a movement get very far without inspirational leaders? Would the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 have passed without Martin Luther King? (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964) Would women have the right to vote without Susan B. Anthony? (www.susanbanthonyhouse.org/biography.shtml) Would there be so many women in Congress today without the Feminist Movement championed by Gloria Steinem? (www.feminist.com/gloriasteinem/) Would homosexuals be able to marry in so many states today if not for the work of Harvey Milk? (www.time.com/time/time100/heroes/profile/milk01.html)
One more question: what do you mean when you say "we want our country back?" Who are the "we" and what do you want to go back to? The last eight years where we had a President who ignored polls and never listened to the will of the American public while serving only the wealthy few? (www.nytimes.com/2007/01/08/washington/08tax.html) I'm just asking.
I am not totally unsympathetic to you TEA baggers. I was a Hillary Clinton supporter during the Democratic Primary and I witnessed first hand the unfair media treatment she received while Barack Obama was idolized by the press. (en.wikipedia.org/Hillary_Clinton_presidential_campaign,_2008) I feel your pain when the mainstream media refuses to fully cover your events. I am glad that you have Fox News.
I also disagree with the claims of racism made against you by some in the Democratic party including an ex-President (Carter). (www.foxnews.com/carter-racism-claim-draws-widespread-criticism/ - 16 hours ago -) I found it very disturbing when that untrue term was used against Bill Clinton and others during Hillary's campaign. (elections.foxnews.com/bill-clinton-blisters-over-racism-portrayal-in-radio- interview/ -) There may be a small number of lunatic fringe members in your movement that are racist but I'm sure it is not the majority.
As you can see, I have a lot of questions regarding this TEA party phenomenon. I am fascinated by it and I am calling on anyone reading this blog for help to give me some clarity. I'm just asking.
Timothy Karr: Does Astroturf Ever Die?
These fake grassroots groups have scored some amazing successes. Working together with lobbyists and a pack of sputtering media pundits, they've bullied Washington's timid leadership.
The tea party I attended featured speakers who were also worried about mortgaging the future of our children, as well as concern about the big tax bill for the middle class which will eventually be due. I didn't get to hear "crazy gun-nuts" or racist's rants. The concerns that were addressed were fiscal.
I do have one question, though: Did you protest during the Bush (W) years at all?
I protested against the war, and I continue to protest against the war. I've written the White House (not sure if the read it) and told them I voted for Obama to get us out of the war, and that he won't get my vote if we're still in the middle east by the next election cycle.
Are you against health care reform? If so, why? I really would like to know as well.
Thanks!
Go on there it's a blast!
While most people are seeing the rank-n-file mob of mostly white male conservatives marching in the streets, there are other dark forces at work. What we are seeing is corporate financed republicans, like Dick Armey, using scared, confused and potentially racist conservative common white folks to achieve the goal of defeating Obama in 2012. Most of the Tea-Baggers are pawns on a chess board being manipulated so the the republican party can rise to power once again. They are the sorest losers in the world and they lost to the "black guy." That is why the rethoric is so fierce. Sadly, their tactics seem to be working.
In August, Tea-Baggers and other corporate driven protesters were successful in crashing Town Hall meetings throughout the nation. They derailed the healthcare debate and turned it into a 3-ring Circus about death panels and socialism. Obama's poll numbers dropped and the Senate Republicans out-raised the Democrats. It doesn't matter what Obama does throughout the next 4 years this group of corporate Republicans will continue these tactics until they win.
OR... is that the point?
I wish there were some good investigative journalists working this out with census data and election maps.
Particularly this question:
"Are they bitter small town folks who cling to religion and guns (www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=11 ) or are they from the city? How many come from rural areas?"
Just because you don't understand why it's important to build sidewalks, doesn't mean the rest of us should go without sidewalks. No: it means you have to give up on "believing" in everything your tax money gets spent on. Welcome to the real world: I wouldn't choose to spend a dime on adventurous wars of choice in the Middle East, myself, so we're in the same boat.
I am in the NRA, but I am not just pro guns, I am also pro choice. I support gay and lesbian marriages. I believe that the legalization of many controlled substances would positively affect this country. I would like to see illegal immigrants granted amnesty with tax penalties. I want freedom for our people and we cannot truly be free until we are allowed to think for ourselves.
You seem to express the Randian view that businesses will somehow cease to exist because they are taxed too much. Can you point to any such incident in the history of, say, humanity? Can you point to any major corporation in America that is so onerously taxed today that it cannot afford its CEO’s multimillion dollar salary? Can you name any corporation, ever, that has ceased operations due to the effective tax rates that Obama is proposing?
Do you seriously believe that if a business were to decide to cease functioning because of taxes the demand for that business would go away as well? Do you seriously believe that in the most entrepreneurial culture in the world, others would not step in to meet that demand, forming smaller businesses that are taxed at lower rates?
Do you not understand that this form of economic Libertarianism goes directly against the clear intent of the Founders? The Government is enjoined in the Constitution to promote the general welfare and to regulate commerce. When an elected government regulates commerce it’s called Democratic Socialism. Paine proposed the first progressive income tax, and stated clearly that he wanted it to keep people from getting too rich. Jefferson wanted to tax industry into near-extinction to keep the country agrarian. Washington called up the army to force people to pay taxes on their whiskey production.
What if there were laws designed to make sure that you were actually disabled? What if you would not under even the best of circumstances “make the same amount of cash sitting at home”? What if that put a hard ceiling on your income potential for as long as you remain “disabled”? What if you got caught and prosecuted for fraud?
And finally: Why don’t you? I ask this sincerely; if you think you could get away with it, you could do it now, and make about 2/3 of what you’re making plus whatever you can make on the side, under the table of course so the IRS doesn’t catch you. What is it that stops you from doing it? Something more than money, perhaps?
You don't want health care reform? Why? What about our health care system is so great that reform must be resisted?
And, how exactly did you have your country before Obama? And how did Obama take it away from you? Because I just remember a runaway train named "Bush/Cheney." How do you remember it?
What do the Teabaggers stand for? What is it that they want done? Because the original Boston Tea Party involved resisting usury, how do the teabaggers use the Boston Tea Party as inspiration, and does anyone in the Teabagging movement see the cognitive dissonance between not reforming our current health care system and the goals of the original Boston Tea Party?
I saw many a mean spriited sign during the Bush years from whacked out lefties. I am not saying that the Teabaggers should do the same--they should not. Especially since many call themselves "Christians" but don't seem to act the way Jesus did when he walked the earth.
These large gatherings are always a mish-mash of "cause" freaks. However, the one thing that I don't see at these right-wing protests that I have seen at left-wing ones is destruction of property. WTO in Seattle 1999 is the best example of that.