The conservative movement, having lost a great deal of institutional power in recent years, is trying to rejuvenate itself with a tax day protest of, well, an assortment of grievances including tax rates they want to blame on Obama but which were fixed by Republicans. The “soaring tax rates” are a lot like the military “cuts” as the organizers avoid the inconvenient reality that there hasn’t been a federal tax rate increase in 16 years for anybody. But it’s also about the bailouts, the stimulus package, and whatever else suits their fancy. Some of the early indications in warm-up demos suggest that the nuttier elements which came to dominate the late hour McCain rallies will be back, with veiled and not-so-veiled threats of violence, signs calling Obama a communist or a Mulsim, and wacky conspiracy theories of various sorts (not that the left can throw stones there) abundant. Fox News has been pumping the demonstrations up hard, and while I was running errands in Eureka yesterday I listened in on the right wing talk shows and that was the topic of the day, and probably will be again today and tomorrow when Hannity will have live coverage.
It’s good that conservatives are standing up for themselves while their political representatives do whatever they can to distance themselves despite the endorsements from political heavyweights like Newt Gingrish and Rick Santelli. The slogans seem more appropriate for the 1980s, the golden years which are becoming the equivalent of the 1960s for conservatives. It’s democracy, to which vehement discourse is essential. But I wonder if Zombie will cover these events the same way she covers lefty events, if at all.
But it’s not fine that conservatives insiste on misrepresenting the history of the Boston Tea Party. It was not, as popularly charactarized, a “tax revolt.” The taxes had been in place without protest. The Tea Party was actually a protest against corporate monopolies and the removal of a tariff which allowed Dutch and colonial smugglers to profit by undermining the British East India Tea Company sales in the colonies. Here’s the irony, the British government lowered the taxes (actually reimbursed part of them) on the company so they could compete with the smugglers. In other words it was a tax cut to the private sector, and more specifically the removal of a tariff which allowed an early version of a WalMart to come in and dominate the markets, which triggered the Tea Party direct action vandalism.
It’s one of those lies told often enough that it’s become gospel.
Addendum: Thom Hartman elaborates on the point, also making the WalMart analogy. I guess we leftists can be as predictable as conservatives.
Second addendum: There’s a party in Eureka right now. Rose has the details.
Third addendum: The organizers put out memos warning participants about the sexual innuendo of the term “teabagging.”
Oh, and Obama is a fascist.
Sohum Parlance II 
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April 15, 2009 at 9:14 am
Fred Mangels
I don’t know that I’ve heard anything specifically directed at Obama for this years tax bill. A bit early for that and it certainly wouldn’t be appropriate. There is valid concern about his deficit spending which makes Bush looks like a piker when it comes to spending.
Agreed, though, you wouldn’t see many of the people protesting today if there was Republican in the White House.
And as far as Zombie covering the tea parties, I doubt she would as she knows there likely wouldn’t be the freaks in attendance you see at demonstrations for left- wing causes.
Maybe there will be, time will tell. I’m still wondering if any of the local Democrats will show up to counter- protest?
April 15, 2009 at 9:50 am
Eric Kirk
And as far as Zombie covering the tea parties, I doubt she would as she knows there likely wouldn’t be the freaks in attendance you see at demonstrations for left- wing causes.
There’ve been plenty of them in the warm up demos, and there were mounds of them in McCain’s late hour rallies.
And among the grievances stated by the demo representatives on television are “soaring tax rates.”
April 15, 2009 at 11:25 am
exrepublican
i hope there are some cute women at the tea party who are up for some serious teabagging!!! if i can put my sweaty balls in just 10 conservative women’s mouths, ill call it a good day…..long live the teabaggers!
April 15, 2009 at 11:44 am
Lefty
Hundreds of flag waving cheering protesters in front of the courthouse as I passed by about 12:15. Passing motorists honking their horns. I looked hard for a counter protest and I didn’t see anyone from the loyal opposition. I didn’t feel like running the gauntlet alone (call me chicken) so I came home and ate my lunch. I saw lots of women, none that I wished to share a cup of tea with however.
April 15, 2009 at 4:56 pm
trotsky
Huh, weren’t the Townsend Acts an attempt to continue taxing the colonies even as the tea-tax cuts aimed to undermine smuggling?
April 15, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Fred Mangels
To put a libertarian spin on this, Radley Balko has some comments on his Agitator blog: http://www.theagitator.com:
So I just completed the 2.5 hour drive from D.C. to Charlottesville for my speech at UVA tonight. Beautiful drive.
Along the way, I listened to some left-wing talk radio, specifically Ed Schultz. And wow. The left’s blathering idiots really are just a mirror image of the right’s, aren’t they? Cognitive dissonance, disingenuous bullshitting, demagoguery, and hateful invective all over the place. It was really something to behold.
Apparently without the slightest hint of irony, Schultz started by casting off the tea party protesters as “un-American” and “unpatriotic.” Yep. Bush has been out of office for all of three months, and the left has already adopted the “people who disagree with us hate America” crap. He then characterized tea partiers exercising their right to free speech and protest as “trying to overturn the results of an election.” Another page ripped from the right-wing playbook. Just substitute “anti-war protests” for “tea parties.”
But Schultz wasn’t done. He then said the tea party movement is primarily fueled by racism, and the parties are attended by people who can’t stand the fact that a black man was elected president. He said the whole protest was fueled by hate and “white power” supporters.
Then it got worse. Schultz actually said that Fox News anchors were secretly hoping for shots to be fired, for government officials to be killed, and for an ensuing violent overthrow of the government. He strongly implied that tea party organizers want Obama to be assassinated. He equated Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s statement in support of the 10th Amendment this week as akin to support for a bloody revolution.
This guy isn’t fringe, either. DCCC chairman and Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen was one of Schultz’s guests today. Schultz also has an evening show on MSNBC, where Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs will be his guest tonight.
Schultz’s bumper described him as the most-listened to liberal talk show host on the radio. God help us if that’s true. You have guys like Schultz gobbling up listeners on the left, and people like Hannity, Rush, and Savage gobbling them up on the right . . . and it’s we libertarians who get tarred as nut-jobs.
April 15, 2009 at 7:32 pm
exrepublican
you have to admit that seeing a group of republicans protesting GEORGE BUSH’s 2009 tax rates is amusing…..i made the mistake of voting for bush, but i wouldnt make a fool of myself at an event named for a sex act!!! it was a setup!!!
April 15, 2009 at 8:14 pm
ED Denson
I saw the tea party in Ukiah at the courthouse over the lunch hour. Interesting variety of signs. Many seemed to be protesting taxes, yet their taxes are being cut, unless they were all people making $250,000 a year or more. Others had a variety of right-wing signs. The most cogent were protesting spending trillions today which will accrue to future generations to pay off – unless Obama’s plan works, of course, in which case the stimulated economy will pay off the costs. It looked like fun. Haven’t seen that many people with signs since the PD/DA strike a while back.
April 16, 2009 at 12:07 am
Eric Kirk
Huh, weren’t the Townsend Acts an attempt to continue taxing the colonies even as the tea-tax cuts aimed to undermine smuggling?
The Townsend Acts were mostly repealed several years before the Tea Act and Tea Party. A small tax was retained mostly to send a message to the colonies that the Parliament had the power to tax them, a point of contention at the time. There were no new taxes in the Tea Act. It was a free trade act mostly, which loosened regulations on the India Tea Company to avoid the middlemen in Britain and sell directly to the colonies. The refunds allowed the company to undersell the smugglers, who had a pretty good thing going with the tax forcing the legit tea prices up.
I think what some of the colonists wanted was to force Parliament to drop the tax altogether by dealing with the smugglers to hurt the India Tea Company. By compensating the India Tea Company for the tax without actually repealing it, the British had their cake and ate it too. They maintain the presumption of the right to impose the tax, and the India Tea Company profits at the expense of Dutch smugglers and their colonial middlemen. It meant the British companies would maintain an economic hold on the colonies while Parliament maintained its power over the colonies.
But the tax itself had been in place for years, was actually lower than it had been up until 1790, and was hardly the catalyst for the direct action.
April 16, 2009 at 11:20 am
Tom Sebourn
Fox News’s ‘coverage’ of tea parties: 23 segments, 73 on-air promos in eight days.
As ThinkProgress has documented, Fox News has aggressively promoted today’s conservative, anti-Obama tea parties. A Media Matters analysis found that Fox dedicated 23 separate segments to the tea parties between April 6 and April 13; it aired at least 73 in-show and commercial promotions for the parties as well. Of all the Fox programs, Neil Cavuto’s “Your World” dedicated the most time to the tea parties:
I think we now know why there were so many confused tea baggers in the streets yesterday. Fox news is now calling it’s self a grass roots organization.
April 16, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Jane Fish
Okay there is no good place to post this but I thought it comment worthy given the looksie into the notion of what is, what should be, and what has been compromised.
From the New York Times
Holder, who took office in February, has emphasized a new approach to national security even as he adopted Bush era arguments to assert broad authority to detain enemy combatants without criminal charges and to dismiss sensitive civil lawsuits on the grounds that they involve “state secrets.”
In a speech last night to cadets at West Point, Holder told the audience that “a need to act behind closed doors does not grant a license to pursue policies, and to take actions, that cannot withstand the disinfecting power of sunlight.”
“In fact, it is in those moments — the moments when no one is watching — when we must be most vigilant in relying on the rule of law to govern our conduct,” he continued.
April 16, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Tom Sebourn
I have been waiting for the conservative U.S. Supreme Court to say that Obama can’t have all that power and rule that FISA is unconstitutional.
They would never do this to Bush. I can’t see them standing bye letting Obama have the kind of supreme power granted to Obama by Bush and the congress. Obama could be expanding this power and other Bush powers so that they do get rolled back. If the republicans don’t roll back this power they are worthless and our country may be in more trouble than we think.
April 16, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Jane Fish
It is rather like the family jewels thing. The family jewels are just as safe as the hands that are touching them.
April 16, 2009 at 8:16 pm
Mr. Greenjeans
Why do these teabaggers worship the rich. There is no way that any rich person they are fighting for would have anything to do with their sorry asses.
April 16, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Bunny
I know, that cracks me up. I saw a good example today. funny. I have one question for any “teabagger”. How in the world will we pay off this largest debt created in the last 8 years (not just the last 3 months) without us paying taxes? Is there another source of income to parallel it? Unfortunately we can now see how the next 4 years are gonna be with all the bullshit unnecessary anger from the right. That’s what America has come to, we don’t need outside terrorists to destroy us. Speaking of terroroists I think that’s what we should call the new “pirates”. Pirates is too good a name for them.
April 16, 2009 at 9:20 pm
anonymous
http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/16/tax-tea-party-opinions-columnists-protest.htm
Check out the link above. It illustrates the total absurdity of the we’re-being taxed-to-death-crowd. Taxes per income are now at a historic low in the US.
The Right is mad, they just haven’t figured out why yet.
April 17, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Jane Fish
You may have not noticed. The majority of this county for the last eight years hasn’t been interested in logic, reason, or numbers. This is just an extension to that stuff.
Get your kids an education or we will all be burned at the stake for being old someday instead of being put away in a home. Yikes.
April 20, 2009 at 7:34 am
Carson Park Ranger
“…there likely wouldn’t be the freaks in attendance you see at demonstrations for left- wing causes.”
No Fred, your tea-bagging friends are only freaks on the inside.