Tempest in a Tea Pot - Where the Tea Party Movement Goes Now
Sean Scallon
November 11, 2009
Was it all just a tempest in a tea pot?
Beginning in last spring, a spontaneous movement spring up around the country, organic and uncentrally planned, of persons concerned about the direction the U.S. down the path of further government control of the economy that even before. They were known as tea parties named in the spirit of the Boston Tea Party that helped to begin the nation´s Revolution so many years ago.
The temperature in the tea pot began to rise and rise throughout the spring and summer as the federal government spent billions and billions of money it didn´t have in so-called stimulus programs, in bailing out banks and auto companies, in bonuses for those same bankers who wrecked everything to begin with and everything else our already socialist economy spends money on, not to mention the wars we currently fight in.
And it´s going to spend billions more centralizing the nation´s health care services as well.
Billions here and billions there and we´re not talking about real money Ev Dirksen. We´re talking printed paper and computer transactions.
It was health care that brought the tea pot to a boiling point in August. The tea partiers across the country met their representatives in Congress in town halls and other meeting places and let them in uncertain terms that more federal intervention in the private health care system was unacceptable.
Some made their points louder than others and in so doing gained the tea partiers all sorts of attention from the media. They even gathered together in Washington as the water in the pot bubbled and churned and steam filled the room.
Now the pot is back to a simmer but the boiling didn´t seem to scare or even impress the politicians. The Senate Finance Committee still voted to approve a health care reform measure.
Maybe the final bill will have a public health care option, maybe it won´t. But in any case, regardless of what passes muster in Congress and is signed by the President, the federal government will still bring its heavy hand into the health insurance field in the name of "reform."
So again, was it all just a tempest in a tea pot?
At certain vantage point it looks that way. Once the Democrats realized that many tea partiers were the kinds of people who probably wouldn´t vote them anyway, they stopped quaking their boots. Establishment Republicans now wonder if it was such a good idea to stir up the pot lest they get burned in the process. Of course, the opportunists and hustlers of Conservative Inc. don´t mind because they win either way. They can keep themselves busy by organizing the tea parties and then get their names on lists to raise what little money they have off of them to keep themselves in business.
But from another vantage point what could be happening is the reemergence of a radical middle of U.S. politics that could create an upheaval in the entire process and affect the scene for decades to come.
Middle American Radicals or MARs as the late Sam Francis would refer to them, last enjoyed their heyday in the early to mid-1990s, emerging in the aftermath of the Cold War. Their champions were Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan. They managed to break the Republican lock on the presidency and end Democratic control of Congress. They stirred things up enough to force the politicians to bring the deficit under control and enact welfare reform.
The growing economy in the late 1990s tempered the MARs in the late 1990s and allowed Clinton and company to flourish and 9-11 welded them to Bush II and the national socialist Republicans through much of this decade.
But the issues of globalization and ever more centralization in government and finance and the growing power of military and security establishment to protect it along with the upheavals to community and culture being caused by mass immigration and the deindustrialization of the country still were out there through all this time. And when the wars went south and economy with it, many became radicalized again.
There are those on the left who will say such people didn´t emerge until there was a Democrat in the White House, a black Democrat with a Muslim sounding name. That might true for a few but the not for most. Do they not forget that the Minuteman movement that began during Bush II´s second term? Do they not forget the Ron Paul campaign shortly after that? These took place without the stamp of approval of the powers that be or even Conservative INC. The Real ID and repeal of No Child Left Behind,
10th Amendment movement, all began before 2009 as well. The tea parties sprung up organically as these groups did. And where does there distrust government come from? From the same things that leftists complained about all through the Bush II years, from Patriot Act to Hurricane Katrina, from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to be harassed in airports by TSA employees. Maybe it´s true that some waited until Bush II was gone and the fear of being sent to Gitmo or more than likely being ostracized by neighbors and family and friends in their communities is gone now that GOP is now out of power. But its also true than many see the light later than others do and need to lose an election, lose their jobs and see their bank fail to have their eyes opened or illusions shattered. After all, where would religion be without converts? And does the left thing that such people should now trust the Feds again just because the Democrats are in charge?
MARs can have the same political effect they did a decade ago but they have to know what they´re aiming for and they have to channel their outrage constructive lest they be characterized and marginalized or worse yet, be put in prison. Yes, it takes anger, frustration and outrage to build a movement of people. Whoever heard of organizing the content? But where it all goes is the question. If it goes towards hate it will destroy itself and eventually burn itself out as militia man of the 1990s or Weatherman of the 1960s will tell you. If it goes towards the political process it has a chance of accomplishing something. Myself and others would love nothing better than to create to a new national major political party but since MARs don´t have deep pockets and since engaging in the help of eccentric rich people has its own drawbacks, then that leaves the two major political parties, particularly the weaker of the two, the Republicans. Such activism has already started to have an effect on the GOP if one looks at resolutions passed at conventions and new party leaders and groups established. A winning Senate campaign by either Rand Paul or Peter Schiff would have enormous transformative effects. But again all that comes down to knowing what you want. It´s easy to dismiss someone protesting government health care by saying they don´t their Medicare tampered with.
If one is a Middle American Radical, one is calling for solutions that are radical especially to the centralized system of elites that runs the nation and the world. One cannot run away from this. A radical solution to the U.S. health care problems would be to change the tax code to make health care from an employer based system to one persons cold purchase like auto or home insurance and change laws to make such insurance buyable across state lines. Alas, most GOP politicians don´t talk like this because they don´t want to offend their paymasters in the insurance industry so there´s nothing constructive or intellectually viable in their opposition. As such they will be steamrolled and we will have nationalized health care because just saying no is the response of Neanderthals not a principled, thinking opposition with something to say and coherent worldview. MARs will have to change this.
If MARs want a smaller government they will also have to change the party´s slavish devotion to corporate interests, whether its agribusiness or military-industrial complex. They will have to do not just from a national level but also a state and local level, such as getting states to opt out of nationalized health care through nullification or 10th Amendment movements. They will have to use their activism to push squeamish politicians towards making radical policy that they would not normally dare to do. Again, this has already started to take effect in polls like Texas Governor Rick Perry talking about secession for example.
Ultimately, the tea parties will be successful if establishment is drinking tea, not if the pot is boiling over.
Sean Scallon is a freelance writer and newspaper reporter who lives in Arkansaw, Wisconsin. His work has appeared in Chronicles: A magazine of American Culture and The American Conservative3. His first-ever book: Beating the Powers that Be: Independent Political Movements and Parties of the Upper Midwest and their Relevance in Third-party Politics of Today is now out on sale from Publish America. Go to the their website at www.publishamerica.com to order a copy.
Beginning in last spring, a spontaneous movement spring up around the country, organic and uncentrally planned, of persons concerned about the direction the U.S. down the path of further government control of the economy that even before. They were known as tea parties named in the spirit of the Boston Tea Party that helped to begin the nation´s Revolution so many years ago.
The temperature in the tea pot began to rise and rise throughout the spring and summer as the federal government spent billions and billions of money it didn´t have in so-called stimulus programs, in bailing out banks and auto companies, in bonuses for those same bankers who wrecked everything to begin with and everything else our already socialist economy spends money on, not to mention the wars we currently fight in.
And it´s going to spend billions more centralizing the nation´s health care services as well.
Billions here and billions there and we´re not talking about real money Ev Dirksen. We´re talking printed paper and computer transactions.
It was health care that brought the tea pot to a boiling point in August. The tea partiers across the country met their representatives in Congress in town halls and other meeting places and let them in uncertain terms that more federal intervention in the private health care system was unacceptable.
Some made their points louder than others and in so doing gained the tea partiers all sorts of attention from the media. They even gathered together in Washington as the water in the pot bubbled and churned and steam filled the room.
Now the pot is back to a simmer but the boiling didn´t seem to scare or even impress the politicians. The Senate Finance Committee still voted to approve a health care reform measure.
Maybe the final bill will have a public health care option, maybe it won´t. But in any case, regardless of what passes muster in Congress and is signed by the President, the federal government will still bring its heavy hand into the health insurance field in the name of "reform."
So again, was it all just a tempest in a tea pot?
At certain vantage point it looks that way. Once the Democrats realized that many tea partiers were the kinds of people who probably wouldn´t vote them anyway, they stopped quaking their boots. Establishment Republicans now wonder if it was such a good idea to stir up the pot lest they get burned in the process. Of course, the opportunists and hustlers of Conservative Inc. don´t mind because they win either way. They can keep themselves busy by organizing the tea parties and then get their names on lists to raise what little money they have off of them to keep themselves in business.
But from another vantage point what could be happening is the reemergence of a radical middle of U.S. politics that could create an upheaval in the entire process and affect the scene for decades to come.
Middle American Radicals or MARs as the late Sam Francis would refer to them, last enjoyed their heyday in the early to mid-1990s, emerging in the aftermath of the Cold War. Their champions were Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan. They managed to break the Republican lock on the presidency and end Democratic control of Congress. They stirred things up enough to force the politicians to bring the deficit under control and enact welfare reform.
The growing economy in the late 1990s tempered the MARs in the late 1990s and allowed Clinton and company to flourish and 9-11 welded them to Bush II and the national socialist Republicans through much of this decade.
But the issues of globalization and ever more centralization in government and finance and the growing power of military and security establishment to protect it along with the upheavals to community and culture being caused by mass immigration and the deindustrialization of the country still were out there through all this time. And when the wars went south and economy with it, many became radicalized again.
There are those on the left who will say such people didn´t emerge until there was a Democrat in the White House, a black Democrat with a Muslim sounding name. That might true for a few but the not for most. Do they not forget that the Minuteman movement that began during Bush II´s second term? Do they not forget the Ron Paul campaign shortly after that? These took place without the stamp of approval of the powers that be or even Conservative INC. The Real ID and repeal of No Child Left Behind,
10th Amendment movement, all began before 2009 as well. The tea parties sprung up organically as these groups did. And where does there distrust government come from? From the same things that leftists complained about all through the Bush II years, from Patriot Act to Hurricane Katrina, from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to be harassed in airports by TSA employees. Maybe it´s true that some waited until Bush II was gone and the fear of being sent to Gitmo or more than likely being ostracized by neighbors and family and friends in their communities is gone now that GOP is now out of power. But its also true than many see the light later than others do and need to lose an election, lose their jobs and see their bank fail to have their eyes opened or illusions shattered. After all, where would religion be without converts? And does the left thing that such people should now trust the Feds again just because the Democrats are in charge?
MARs can have the same political effect they did a decade ago but they have to know what they´re aiming for and they have to channel their outrage constructive lest they be characterized and marginalized or worse yet, be put in prison. Yes, it takes anger, frustration and outrage to build a movement of people. Whoever heard of organizing the content? But where it all goes is the question. If it goes towards hate it will destroy itself and eventually burn itself out as militia man of the 1990s or Weatherman of the 1960s will tell you. If it goes towards the political process it has a chance of accomplishing something. Myself and others would love nothing better than to create to a new national major political party but since MARs don´t have deep pockets and since engaging in the help of eccentric rich people has its own drawbacks, then that leaves the two major political parties, particularly the weaker of the two, the Republicans. Such activism has already started to have an effect on the GOP if one looks at resolutions passed at conventions and new party leaders and groups established. A winning Senate campaign by either Rand Paul or Peter Schiff would have enormous transformative effects. But again all that comes down to knowing what you want. It´s easy to dismiss someone protesting government health care by saying they don´t their Medicare tampered with.
If one is a Middle American Radical, one is calling for solutions that are radical especially to the centralized system of elites that runs the nation and the world. One cannot run away from this. A radical solution to the U.S. health care problems would be to change the tax code to make health care from an employer based system to one persons cold purchase like auto or home insurance and change laws to make such insurance buyable across state lines. Alas, most GOP politicians don´t talk like this because they don´t want to offend their paymasters in the insurance industry so there´s nothing constructive or intellectually viable in their opposition. As such they will be steamrolled and we will have nationalized health care because just saying no is the response of Neanderthals not a principled, thinking opposition with something to say and coherent worldview. MARs will have to change this.
If MARs want a smaller government they will also have to change the party´s slavish devotion to corporate interests, whether its agribusiness or military-industrial complex. They will have to do not just from a national level but also a state and local level, such as getting states to opt out of nationalized health care through nullification or 10th Amendment movements. They will have to use their activism to push squeamish politicians towards making radical policy that they would not normally dare to do. Again, this has already started to take effect in polls like Texas Governor Rick Perry talking about secession for example.
Ultimately, the tea parties will be successful if establishment is drinking tea, not if the pot is boiling over.
Sean Scallon is a freelance writer and newspaper reporter who lives in Arkansaw, Wisconsin. His work has appeared in Chronicles: A magazine of American Culture and The American Conservative3. His first-ever book: Beating the Powers that Be: Independent Political Movements and Parties of the Upper Midwest and their Relevance in Third-party Politics of Today is now out on sale from Publish America. Go to the their website at www.publishamerica.com to order a copy.
Print
Email
