LGBT activists are stealing some of the thunder from the right wing’s campaign to teabag President Obama on tax day. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/… In over 50 cities and towns across the country people have signed up to conduct tax day visibility actions at local post offices, handing out literature about federal discrimination against gays and lesbians to last minute filers. Check it out: http://www.jointheimpactma.com… The largest event is planned for Long Wharf (near Aquarium Station on the Blue Line) on Wednesday (4/15) at 5:30 PM, where activists in period costume will reenact the events of December 16, 1773 with a mock throwing of federal income tax forms into Boston Harbor. Unlike that of our differently winged protestors united only by their desire to teabag Obama, the LGBT presentation will be coherent, historically informed, and festive.
This was what the original Tea Party was about. It makes perfect sense for the GLBT community to take this matter on and make it their own since we all pay our fair share of taxes without receiving the same benefits. I’ll be there!
I mean, reaaaally.
you find the image that the phrase conjures up ‘icky?’
asking if Barack finds the image of himself being teabagged as icky or not.
asking if Barack finds the image of himself being teabagged as icky or not.
India gets Gandhi’s march to the sea, and the best nonviolent protest we can come up with — on either side — is the Boston tea party. An occasion where largely bored aristocrats dressed up as Native Americans for a lark, and got equally bored sailors to help them dump tea into the harbor of Boston where it promptly piled up, floating on the waters are beached at low tide, depending on who you believe.
A Tea boycott was the key to Colonial strategy to protest the new law. The patriots in other cities had successfully block the import port of tea, by cajoling (ie. threatening violence) merchants into refusing shipments. However, in Boston, under the pressure of Governor Hutchinson, the tea consignees held their ground. This posed a great dilemma for the Boston patriots: If Boston was the only city that accepted the tea shipments, they would lose face among their compatriots. They knew from the past experience of earlier boycotts that Bostonians would buy the boycotted goods anyway. (This was less true elsewhere not because citizens of other colonies were more “patriotic”, but rather than there was better access to smuggled goods that Dutch ships brought, thus New Yorkers could still drink tea and other luxuries without violating the boycott.) The Tea Party was a last ditch effort to preserve their strategy after Plan A had failed. It was a very deliberate calculated act, not one done out of boredom.
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p>Furthermore, it was quite significant in the lead up to war, because the British greatly overreacted, revoking the charter of Massachusetts colony, closing the Port of Boston, relocating the capital to Marblehead, allowing quartering of troops in homes, allowing for the trial of accused in other colonies or even Great Britain, etc. (The so called Intolerable Acts) This overreaction to the Tea Party directly led to events of Lexington and Concord and the Revolution.
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p>So yes, the Tea Party was a carefully calculated political protest and it was extremely significant in the history of our nation.
Despite the reactions of some others here, let me explain myself. It is true that the symbolism and imagery was skillfully seized upon by prominent Boston patriots — unusually educated and wealthy for the most part. It is also true that the British, particularly Townshend, drove into a level of overreaction that borders on the willfully moronic. However — and this is the part where history diverges from national mythology — the forces and people already in motion around this issue that a “Boston Tea Party” would happen eventually. The event to which we refer would have as easily been elsewhere and elsewhen if it had been rather rainy that night.
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p>Your answer confirms much of what I said — these actions were done largely in reaction to perceptions among other (again, wealthy and educated) patriots in other areas, not as a strong blow to colonialism. The British made it an historical event, the protesters themselves did not — the way that people in Tienanmen or the March on Washington did. The Tea Party is much closer to Kent State from an historical perspective than to a Shays’ Rebellion.
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p>The Tea Party act remains paired with Paul Revere’s ride as a particularly romanticized, but historically minor pitstop in the process of American secession. Longue durée forces that came to a head here instead of there. Romanticizing the event is the historical equivalent of pointing to a particular earthquake as geologically momentous, when in actuality it is part of a larger, almost inexorable process. The ignorance of the British then in charge would have given the pamphleteers plenty of material, whether it be in reaction to a tea party, or some other action. Anything beyond that owes more to the power of the patriots’ self-description than a contextual view of American revolution.
but that’s okay. While it’s certainly possible that another incident would have had a similar effect, I don’t think it was inevitable. The “patriots”, as you suggest, were a relatively small close knit aristocratic bunch and probably lacked majority support of much of their agenda. Certainly independence was considered too radical even amongst their supporters.
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p>There are two main weaknesses to your argument:
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p>Tea was a very valuable commodity, dumping an entire shipment of it overboard was a serious escalation on the part of the patriots. So while it was “non-violent”, it was a much more rebellious act than the earlier boycotts and protests had been. A modern equivalent might be blowing up an oil refinery, after evacuating all the workers.
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p>The Townshend reaction radicalized the American public and caused the revolution. Before then there had been disagreements of taxes and the degree of autonomy of the colonies, but they were certainly not irreconcilable. Putting Massachusetts under the equivalent of martial law, greatly increased support for rebellion and other radical steps. It made all the Colonials feel that they were under the thumb of an arbitrary despot who could take away their liberties on a whim. If Britain had taken a moderate policy and pushed for reconciliation, American would have likely remained under British control for several more decades.
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p>By the way, I agree with you about Paul Revere and Lexington. By that point the tensions were sufficiently high that any little spark could have started the war and reconciliation would have been very difficult.
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p>Could it have happened due to some other incident? Sure. Though this is more due to the specific personalities crafting Britain’s America policy rather than due to inexorable historical processes. (See Tuchman’s book for more of this argument.) As it turned out, the Tea Party was the decisive turning point. Had it not occurred, it’s easy to imagine another cycle of boycotts and tensions followed by an eventual repeal or modification of the offending act. Perhaps in the course of this there would have been a change of policy in Britain. After all, as the Quebec Act of 1773 showed, they were certainly willing to be accommodating when they felt it was necessary. (As it turned out, the Quebec Act further inflamed the other American colonies, mainly due to strong anti-Catholic prejudices, but I feel that this would not have been a major incident without all the other objectionable laws that were being directed towards Massachusetts at the same time.) We might have ended up with some sort of union more like Canada or the other colonies, with a gradual drift towards greater self control and independence.
I often prevaricate between longue durée and great man/event, but the American Revolution is so neatly a preview of other colonial revolutions that I have trouble buying the great man/event idea here. You make a good point on the salience of using a valuable resource in tea as part of the protest, but it still doesn’t quite explain why the sailors so eagerly went along with the exercise. I don’t expect a pitched battle on board, but they seemed as eager to dump the stuff as anyone else.
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p>The Townshend Acts were the point of no return in this, on that I agree, not least of all in bringing other colonies over to rebellion.
do you need to pick up a history book right quick.
I recommend The Boston Tea Party, by Benjamin Labaree.
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p>If you’re more interested in the political aspect, particularly in terms of the British reaction, then I would read chapter 4 of The March of Folly, by Barbara Tuchman
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p>Both should be available from the Minuteman or Boston libraries.