The "Tea Party"

A recent blog discussed how “The Party” was over. Of course I was referring to the economic bash that had been going on for a couple of decades not the ‘Tea Party.” That name was chosen to connect it to the Boston Harbor Tea Party back in 1773 to the newly founded Tea Party crowd. That 1773 Party was a way for the Colonists to tell the colonial powers in London that there would be “No Taxation Without Representation.” So there’s the first fallacy. In fact the present Tea Partiers have representation. Strangely enough they don’t seem to want it.

There may be a very universal, “underneath sort of feeling” that is bothering the country, At the present time a number of issues have have come together to create a crisis. The economic crisis that threatened and maybe still does, could put us back into the great depression that I grew up in. As the banks started to fail, learning from the Great Depression, the government decided to rescue them. At the same time what was also failing was the housing market and still is. Millions of people were coaxed, seduced, into buying homes they couldn’t possibly afford. Like in the thirties they were rapidly losing them to the banks. The government has done little or nothing for these folks compared with what they did for the banks. The number of people who can’t find jobs is adding to our present malaise.The oil spill in the Gulf has also added to the sense that “we” the country have lost control. According to the Tea Partiers it’s all the fault of Washington and big government.

(While this was going on I was pacing the house telling Kate, “if we only had some kind of an organized left in this country I would go out west and organize people to defend their homes the way we stopped evictions back in the 30ies.” But alas there was nobody to do that. Hence the Tea Party folks are filling the vacuum by giving the angry citizens a place to express that anger. The Wobblies used to call that, (“Fan the Flames of the Discontent.”)

The Tea Party is already having trouble with the controlling conservative wing of the Republican Party. You see. it was assumed that they would be natural allies. Well not so fast. The Republicans don’t want any one to mess with the Wall Street crowd who would just love to pick right up and go on with the derivative party. The Tea Partiers don’t like the bankers and Wall Street. That’s who they are ostensibly protesting. So the “trust the market” crowd just want the government out of the way.

Now the tea party slogan of “Take Back our Country” is a horse of a different color. It has always been crystal clear to me that what that slogan refers to is that “Black man in the White House.” Now that resonates well with the Republican right wing.

Since all of our politics now is acted out in the election process all we are hearing about is “Comes November, we’ll throw the bums out.” That’s both Dems. and GOP. It reflects a traditional populist response to a frustrated citenzery. The sad part of all this is the tweedle dum tweedle dee nature of the two parties. Back in the 30ies we used to sing a song went like this.

“Take the two old parties mister. There’s no difference I can see.

But with a Farmer Labor Party We could set the people free.”

Of course I’m not so sure of the sentiments expressed therein but it was at least a recognition that the two parties we have are just to much alike. In the present,that felt sense on the part of a large section of the population is an expression of the populism now sweeping the country.

This is a very complex issue as it can resonate both on the left and the right. The idea that the Government has no business messing with our lives was a major theme of the left back in the 60ies. I remember well the demonstrations declaring “I am not an IBM card.” Students burned their draft cards to protest the Vi-et Nam war. That was a very individual protest against the government interference in our everyday lives.

On the other hand there are all the benefits that, yes we the left helped pile up on the way to fighting for better living conditions. Back in the 30ies we got welfare, unemployment insurance, wage and hours act, rights of worker to join unions, Social Security and later Medicare etc. etc. Those programs saved the system from massive social unrest.

Yet there are some folks who truly believe we screwed things up because we interfered with the Free Market. It’s that notion that underlies so much of what the Tea Partiers are talking about. They would really like the free market to do what it promised. The free market just leads us from one crisis to the next and there are people who just can ‘t give up the idea that all of us should be able to do well enough on our own so we are free of government interference. That’s a utopian myth but for some reason it has always attracted a sizable following. But then utopias always have.