In 1773 a group of drunken rowdies hired by the agitator Samuel Adams, who was probably funded by the French government, dumped a ship-load of taxed tea into Boston harbour to protest the British government's attempt to make the colonies pay something towards their own defence. Adams tried to represent it as an expression of popular outrage at "taxation without representation", but the act was repudiated by most of those who later lead the colonies to independence and it did not acquire iconic status until the 1830s.
Those furious at a distant, arrogant government today have evoked the Tea Party's iconic symbolism, but have not yet moved to direct action. But the fact remains that they could, and if the Federal government reacts as brutally as it did under Clinton at Waco and Ruby Ridge, or if the FBI should mount another black op such as the one that produced the Oklahoma City bombing, the shit really could hit the fan in buckets.
On Spiked, Sean Collins asks "In the Tea Party debate, who's really acting crazy?", with reference to the reaction of American "liberals" (leftists) to the phenomenon.
The real issue is that, when it comes to the Tea Party, liberals have two big blind spots that render them unable to understand what’s going on. The first is that they fail to appreciate the depth of popular alienation from the political establishment. Voters are generally disenchanted with politicians across both parties. A New York Times/CBS News poll found that congressional Democrats’ approval rating was at 30 per cent, and congressional Republicans’ approval was even lower, at 20 per cent. A separate survey by Gallup found that approval rating for all of Congress is at an all-time low of 18 per cent (down from a peak of 39 per cent shortly following Obama’s entry into the White House).DOWN from a PEAK of 39 percent?
The second liberal weakness is that they cannot resist spending their energies being preoccupied with the Tea Party. They see the partiers’ rise as an independent phenomenon, but it is as much their own creation, especially by those in the media. Before the Tea Party represented much of anything, liberals drew attention to it, and warned of the dangerous consequences if it got close to power. It could have been dismissed as an irrelevant fringe movement and a sign of weakness within the Republican Party (given that it arose outside of the party’s structure). They also crowned Sarah Palin queen of the Tea Party, even though many if not most Tea Party activists reject her politics, especially her socially conservative views. In the event, liberals’ fear of the Tea Party’s rise has become a self-fulfilling prophecy: shining the spotlight has given this ‘party’ the aura of being something new, different and willing to have a go at change.Amen to that. However, the fact is that the US leftists have defined themselves in contemptuous opposition to a genuinely grass-roots movement that commands the sort of widespread support that they have never enjoyed, and are feeling as personally isolated as, objectively, they always have been ideologically.
It will burn out, of course - these things usually do because real people have lives to live. Then the zombies who draw their life-force from politics will continue as before, possibly a little chastened - but not much. A generation will pass, the lefties will try again, and the whole psychodrama will repeat itself.
To be borne in mind that when the same Massachusetts yeomen who kicked off the American rebellion in 1775 rose against their new masters under the banner of "no taxation without representation" in 1787, they were violently suppressed because, in the words of Governor James Bowdoin, America would descend into "a state of anarchy, confusion, and slavery" unless the rule of the law was upheld.
Conflicts are seldom about legitimacy - they are about who shall have the power to reward their friends and punish their enemies. Elections - and revolutions - are about turning over the dung-heap.
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The Liberal consensus in America at present seems to be that - on the eve of the mid-term elections - the Tea Party is going to split the Republican vote between the right wing of the party and the moderates and independents upon whom it depends for swing support, so that, in the elctoral outcome, the Republicans will fail in their attempt to retake the majority in both houses of Congress.
ReplyDeleteIn actuality, noone knows what effect Sarah Palin's self-promoting show tours and the Democrats' attempt to use her, as well as some of the other star players like Christine O'Donnell, to characterize the GOP as a party of radicals will have upon the electorate which is, as you point out, totally turned off at present by both parties.
In the event that we have a record small turnout at the polls in November, which party will be able to put up more of the faithful? You got me. As various Marxist pundits have pointed out, the Capitalists are also the party of real radicalism since they want to portray a dangerously unregulated financial sector which has shown itself to be addicted to gambling with other people's money as the 'Free Market'. (free profits for them, free risk for their clients). The Leftist extremes are equally obvious, but this is no weather for consensual politics and a centrist president.
I seldom bother to comment on what the US "right wing" has to say, as you can depend on the Bitchy Boys-Guardian axis of weevils to do their usual patronising thing about it. To even speak of first principles over here gets you branded as a dangerous extremist.
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