Dear Friend and Reader:
A movement is afoot.В A nationwideВ tax protest has been building, started late February by CNBC’s financial correspondent Rick Santelli and now promotedВ by Fox News, called “Tax Day Tea Party”, where participants, most of them beneficiaries of eight years of Bush tax cuts,В protest the Obama Stimulus Package byВ sending bags of tea to flood the floors of Congress.
This form of protest has been nicknamed “Tea-Bagging Parties” andВ tax day,В April 15th has been deemed a National Day of Tea-Bagging, where protesters gather with signs and tea bags supposedly in reference to the original American tax revolt,В the Boston Tea Party. However, there is a minor problem. Not in the concept, but theВ brand.
I guess this gives a whole newВ twist on “My Country ’tis of Thee” andВ its refrain land of the Pilgrim’s pride.В Now I’ve never been one to object to the application of letting freedom ring, andВ having the bombs bursting in air in this instance may be more preferable for some, but not all. I guess it would depend on how patriotic we feel at the climactic moment.
But do they have to do this across the country? Can’t it be a state’s right to choose whether to tea-bag or not? In a matter of months,В there could beВ a statewideВ initiative campaign erupting in my state, qualifying who can tea-bag, where and with whom. With Pluto in Capricorn, we may end up mandating licensed tea-bagging. Damn government.В The endless court battles. One referendum after the next. The endless court appeals. The lines around San Francisco City Hall. The horror!
But this is America. The right to free speech and peaceable assembly is ours byВ constitution and everyone should have their say, even ifВ the movementВ referencesВ the nickname to a left-of-vanilla sexual act.
Regardless of whether or not someone in networkВ marketing forgot to do their demographic research, we all deserve our dayВ underВ democracy’s sun.В В Innuendo aside, even if the protesters’ sense of oppression by our government has little basis in actually being oppressed,В they deserve this day. They deserve itВ even if the “oppressed” shamelessly brought us American policies that have leadВ us all toВ the brink ofВ financial collapse.
Okay, so maybe they did name this tax revolt with intention. By protesting you’ve been victimizedВ for beingВ taxed when you have benefitted from economic policies that furthered the divide between rich and poor,В allowing youВ discretionary income to invest while other people have lost their homes, jobs, or future, you are proudly telling the country, hell, the world, that you deserve nothing less than all of it, regardless of the cost.
And nothing says “blow me”В better than that.
Happy holy days, wherever you are.
Yours and truly,
Fe Bongolan
San Francisco
Thank you, Fe. It was a clever allusion to getting screwed and I had no idea what tea bagging was prior to your post, in either sense of the term. Ha.
moonrose:
You are not imagining things. Teabags were talked about and they came up twice, the second time after we fixed a minor technical glitch.
Was this posted twice – or did I just dream that I’d already read it in the past week or two? dГ©jГ vu?
By the way,started my own backyard garden in pots, and cultivating soil. Nice to work with coffee grounds and egg shells for my own snow peas rather than toss them out with the garbage.
Spring is here, and growing green things to eat makes sense to me. Wish credit cards were biodegradable.
Gaelfire:
Go ahead and be politically incorrect. The whole thing is looking quite upside down, and laughable. No one side looks good in the whole mess, and perhaps its the breakdown we need so we stop worrying about being politically “correct” and start working on making sense.
The original “Tea Party” happened as a protest against a tax on TEA… so I think this is all rather silly. Though I am certainly enjoying all the amusing references to “tea-bagging.”
Such a protest doesn’t cost people very much (and I’m not just talking about money). Maybe they could throw their credit cards in the river instead? No, I didn’t think so.
I have more to say about this, but it’s not very politically correct, so I’ll engage my internal filter now and just stop while I’m ahead. :-}