Every successful revolutionary movement starts with an act of defiance – as ordinary people stand up against the tyrants who are ruling them. The Boston Tea Party of 1773 is an iconic example, as colonists dumped a shipload of tea into the harbor rather than acknowledge the right of the British Parliament to tax it. The tea party, of course, helped spark the American Revolution as its message of “no taxation without representation” gave voice to deeply held resentments throughout the American colonies.
The media have made much ado about the political Tea parties, started in 2009, that have had some level of success in protesting the government expansions under the Obama administration. Unfortunately, that movement – for all its many good points and despite the clarity of its Taxed Enough Already moniker – represents a mish-mash of ideas and has been plagued by factional disputes. The most successful mini-revolutions take place when the People are unified around a simple and clearly understood theme.
One of the best recent representations of that old defiant spirit can be found in the past couple of weeks in the Los Angeles suburb of Bell, a poor mostly Latino city of about 37,000, where about 2,000 city residents showed up and forced the resignation of worthless city officials after they learned about the way they had enriched themselves at the expense of city taxpayers. As one Bell resident said after a council member gave a self-serving justification of her $100,000 part-time salary (council members typically earn about $8,000 a year): “You were a crook yesterday, you’re a crook today, and you’ll be a crook tomorrow.”
That’s a simple idea most of us can rally around! The crooks are ripping us off.
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Updates:
1:53 pm EDT, July 31st, 2010 — Tea Party Jitters
Notes:
I’ve been keeping an eye on the Charlie Rangel story the past few days while saying little about it but I was thinking the other night that the “Dems” (aided and abetted by the GOP) are doing their very best to throw him under the bus before November. They even have Obama involved now as he came out last night and “sorta” announced Charlies enforced retirement after some 40 years of service.
Now, Charlie “being Charlie” methinks the “Dems” are in a world of hurt this day because “Old Charlie” has been playing this game for a very long time and knows full well what these morons are up to. If I have him pegged right he is not going to play nice because he knows full well that if he rolls over for them they will turn him into their electoral sacrificial lamb with all the heartache that an army of sneaky lawyers sent by the powers that be can cause him.
“Nope” — “Old Charlie” is not going to play fair and in September he’s going to drive them all nuts with a little help from a friend.
“Yah but” why would they do this?
Because if your career is gonna end in this way you may as well take as many as you can with you. That’s just human nature and Charlie knows better than most that many of them are undetected crooks.
That may change in September.
Update:
Another thought while I’m on this topic. Has anyone ever bothered to find out what the pay scales are for Toronto politicians (municipal) and people who run their “head shed”? It might prove interesting.
