Tea party. The party within a party.

by Capricorner

It appeared early in 2009 and it quickly amassed a following of millions. It is not an organized political party. It is a movement of like minded people across the U.S. of America. Lately, though, it has become a force to be reckoned with. It has a large following among people in their forties to seventies who share a feeling of anger and, it seems, frustration. It has no organization, no official position, only the belief that there is too much government in America. It wants a smaller government...NO department of Education. NO department of Energy. NO Environmental Protection Agency. NO Social Security. NO Medicare. NO government regulation of private business. NO regulation of the financial markets. It wants smaller government spending, lower taxes, adherence to the Constitution which according to the Tea Party renders UNCONSTITUTIONAL the provision of social benefits, and the 1964 Civil Rights Law that ensures no discrimination against Blacks. Tea Party luminaries believe that the Bible is the literal word of God, that there is scientific evidence that God created the world in six days that China plans to invade the US, that president Obama is a secret Muslim who wants to hurt America with his socialism. Some even doubt the authenticity of his birth certificate. All the Tea Party followers believe that the Republican party is slipping down a Leftist path. One prominent Tea Party congressional candidate is against premarital sex and masturbation, both being sinful acts. According to Tea Party followers: When the people fear the Government there is tyranny: so instead, their bumper stickers say : When the government fears the people there is liberty : They want to have their voice heard in Washington once again. They want to have a congress that expresses their conservatism and, yes, they would like the 2012 presidential elections to send to the White House an “American” president who will “restore” America. The Republican Party does not fully represent their views. Glenn Beck, who personifies the Tea Party, has called president Obama a “racist” with a deep hatred for white people or the white culture. Not surprisingly he even endorsed a book by a historian who writes that “business, communists and Government were conspiring to push the US into a world-wide collectivist society”. Beck provides the Tea Party with historic information, yes, many believe so. The Tea Party wants to eliminate the IRS, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Federal Reserve Bank, farm subsidies, mine safety laws and repeal the Obama Healthcare law and the national phase-out of conventional light bulbs in favor of fluorescent. It also wants America to withdraw from the Global Economy. Tea Party Thought Leaders present themselves as: l o n e l y agents of change fighting impossibly large institutional powers : with an inflexible extreme attitude likely to ignite confrontation because they are : mad as hell revolutionaries :. To them Big Government and Big Business are plotting to destroy free enterprise (and screw the small business) : Large corporations are leeches sucking the blood of the people :.

One wonders…is it not that the unregulated financial markets, the Tea Party evangelizes, were the cause of the crisis? As a result are not a number of Tea Partyers receiving unemployment benefits and the benefits of Medicare and Medicaid? Does not Obama’s stimulus spending benefit a number of Tea Partyers? In the land of the free should some be less free than the rest? Did the Lord actually dictate the bible? Where is the scientific evidence that God created the world in six days? Is it socialism, leftism, the aid to the unprivileged? The obligation of mining companies to safeguard in every way possible the life and wellbeing of the miners? Where the Tea Partyers assemble to worship God is the word l o v e ever mentioned ? Or do they hear about who to love and who not? Why do they give the impression that they go to their place of worship to “bathe their souls clean from the sins of the past week so they can start afresh the next day”. What are the ways in which the Government tyrannizes the people? What do they mean when they say: to have our voice heard : ?
The Tea Party has no political platform, no centralized leadership, only “explosives” to use against…the “enemy”. No wonder that many are preparing for war-like conditions and private militias all over the country are spreading (to have their voice heard?). The Tea Party has the funds to buck its candidates in the November elections. Freedom Works, a non profit organization which evolved from the Citizens for a Sound Economy, founded and supported by the billionaires Koch brothers, provides the millions which, under the guidance of a former House republican leader Dick Armey, will make the Tea Party movement a Political Machine that may send at least 14 Senate candidates, including challengers and incumbents tied to the Tea Party, to the November elections.

The Republican party has found itself pressured by the Tea Party to move to the extreme right. In the primaries Tea Party candidates prevailed over GOP’s nominees. Moderates found themselves compelled to “go with the wind”.
Under the influence of the Tea Party the Republicans may become a party of right wing extremism, uncooperative, accusatory, even on issues of national importance, without a plan. Fortunately, not all Republicans cheer for Sarah Palin and demagogues like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, but the pressure exerted from the Tea Party makes the course of the GOP uncertain and by extension that of American Politics. Where there is no “reason”…anything goes.