One thing I’ve always liked about Americans is their ability to protest peacefully and creatively (most of the time). This doesn’t happen in many parts of the world. When I was in Chile protests occurred frequently, and often involved fires, tear gas, and water cannons, as well as massive interruptions of the public transportation system. Some might say that Americans have it pretty good and there is little to get really riled up about. In response to that I must point at the Civil Rights Movement. I would have honestly understood if African Americans had gotten really ticked off and started lighting stuff on fire. They dealt with a lot of crap from the government and if anybody has the right to protest in that way, they did. Instead, the Civil Rights Movement was largely peaceful, and accomplished a great deal.
This brings us to the Tea Parties of April 15, 2009. Sometimes it’s nice to see Conservatives protesting about something for once, and you have to admit the whole idea of the “Tea Party” is fairly clever. However, can we just do a little side-by-side comparison? The Boston Tea Party of 1773 was mostly a protest against taxation without representation. The dumping of the tea was symbolic and principled- Americans would rather go without this tea than pay the unfair taxes. It involved a certain sacrifice, and it marked the moment where the people finally got fed up enough to take action. It was an iconic movement that helped launch a Revolution, and I am convinced it is a major reason why tea does not hold the same status in America today as it does in the UK.
The Tea Parties of 2009 are protesting taxes, sure, but it is hardly the same idea. Whereas the tea dumping had a very clear and specific meaning for the colonial era, this meaning has become much more abstract today. So, when 2009 Tea Party-goers dump fake barrels of tea in the water, I am not quite sure what they are trying to say. The bailouts make me very wary, too, and I am nervous about the amount of debt we are getting ourselves into. However, these protests aren’t going to mean anything if they’re all talk and abstract principles. Dumping fake tea isn’t going to have as much of an impact because it’s irrelevant. If we were willing to repair our own GM cars when the warranties sink along with GM, that would be more significant. Sometimes with capitalism, things fail, and maybe that’s ok. It sucks that we can’t get a loan to buy that $500,000 house, so for now we’ll just have to stay in our 2-bedroom apartment that most people in the world would kill for. But you know what? It’s ok. It really is ok. We just need to convince the government that we can handle it.
So why aren’t we dumping our GM vehicles in the harbor instead of fake tea? I submit that we are really not all that pissed off. Yet.




