The Rise of Tea Party Activism

December 16, 1773. Bostonian Governor Thomas Hutchinson allowed cargo-loads of overtaxed tea to come in to Boston Harbor, and refused to send them back. Later that night, a rag-tag group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the shipment by throwing it into the ocean. Hutchinson did not believe that the colonists would choose to go without tea, a popular beverage of the day, instead of concede to the rule of a government where they had no representation in the legislature. Since then, the Boston Tea Party has become an icon of American Independence, as well as a symbol of protest in countries ranging from Britain to India.

Fast forward a few years. March 2009. The American economy is suffering greatly. Our great nation is on the verge of dropping like a stone from the ranks of economic world leaders, and there are doomsday predictions of a second Depression. Dramatic revelations have just come to light about AIG (American International Group) is paying $165 million in executive bonuses, $450 million in bonuses for the financial department, and company wide bonuses of $1.2 billion. This is AIG. The same company that had received a Federal Reserve bailout of $122 billion the year before, and promptly blew almost $1 million of that on a company-wide, all-inclusive retreat.

Let's go over the things wrong with this. In the first 6 months of 2008, AIG reported $13.2 billion dollars in losses. Shares in the company dropped like a stone from a 52-week high od $70.13 a share to a measly $1.25 a share; barely enough to buy a Coke in today's world. Wall Street and the Federal Reserve agreed that while executives of the company should not be rewarded, the economy could not afford to lose AIG. A bailout was proposed.

Then-Senator Barack Obama voted for the package, as did Senator Chuck Grassely (R-Iowa). As with most government bailouts, a large portion came from the pockets of the American taxpayers. For the time, it appeared AIG was safe.

Jump back ahead to March 2, 2009. AIG reported record losses. In the fourth fiscal quarter, the corporate conglomerate lost $61.7 billion, and announced a -$23.7 billion dollar revenue for the final 3 months of 2008. Some bailout. That's when it came to light that a lump sum of the stimulus injection was used for rewarding frivolous investing on the part of executives. Give a heartwarming round of applause to the single largest growth in the Tea Party Movement in history.

The Tea Party movement is a taxpayer protest movement built around resisting government spending as a way out of the recession, using the symbolic name as a method of invoking strong feelings. The movement is less than pleased with the proposed budget (3.8 trillion) by President Obama, which is the largest single-year proposal in history. Protest leaders also admit to being unhappy with former-President George W. Bush's "socialistic spending". See, the movement has existed since early 2007. However, it lacked support, simply because spending had not gotten us into trouble at that point in time.

I'll say it again: it's a TAXPAYER PROTEST movement. I can assure all of you that the Tea Party Movement is NOT a cover for racism and hatred for blacks. As ridiculous as that sounds, it's what PMSNBC's Keith Olbermann and guest Janeane Garofalo spent almost 9 minutes talking about on The Countdown. Some of the quotes from Garofalo range from calling Tea Partiers a "bunch of teabagging rednecks", even going so far as to say "this is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up". Quite simply, no, it's not. It may be about hatred, but it's nothing more than a hatred of Republicans wasting money, and a hatred of Democrats wasting money.

I think the Tea Party Movement is healthy. It keeps Washington honest, a city driven by greed, corruption, scandal; a city so divided by partisanship that it has party lines so thick it makes Johnny Cash jealous. The movement is a strong organization with a mindset that goes against the agenda of President Obama, and is thus labeled as racist. Interesting. And I thought Republicans were accused of playing the race card in 2008...

Pro populus, per populus.