MODERN TEA PARTY HISTORY: the definitive edition

[BostonPirate]

ok I am tired of all this bickering about when the teabaggers were formed, where they were formed, and why.

This thread is designated as an on topic thread and I want to consider it a fact finding bi partisan effort. IF you can find documentation on when they started, where, how many of them, what their platform was in writing, who has been financing them and when that began, and any contextural articles to shine light on who they are and why IF they were in existence BEFORE Obama, they only started with the rallies AFTER he took office, leaving Bush alone for the most part.

MODERATORS PLEASE ASSIST US IN KEEPING THIS CLEAN AND USE THE HIGHEST STANDARDS. NO PERSONAL ATTACKS IN ANY WAY PLEASE AND NO DIVERSION FROM THE TOPIC IN ANY WAY.

ok heres your chance guys... I am one of the independents that you need. My hatred for the republicans means I am ripe for the picking if you can prove your independence from them and show me a unique history and identity that is NOT reliant upon the republican machine for its existence.

Just saying they were around before Obama took office is not enough, becuase that is when the hate signs first started showing up at the McCain rallies. I want to know that they are not WED to a party, and that they are WED TO AN IDEOLOGY.

IF nothing but crickets and democrats post in this thread, then I guaranttee you it is proof that their sole existence is based on hate for one man, that being the black president Obama.

I am asking you to be positive and shine. I have been convinced to change my mind on topics in this forum by four people so far.... Construct, Opinterph, Kulindahr, and Moltenrock.

I AM moveable if your argument has logic backed up by facts, and is presented in a non confrontational manner.

so lets have this discussion once and for all and then use all the documentation we collect as a point of reference as we move into the elections.

 

[MercuryJones]

I don't understand precisely what you're asking, so it may be harder to be on-topic than I'd wish.

But I would offer that how a thing began may have little to do with what a thing is, even if it carries the same name. I think of Theseus's Paradox, or the more contemporary version of the Grandfather's Broom.

But I'd like to introduce yet a variation on the theme: The Hagia Sophia.

The Hagia Sophia was a Christian cathedral from the year 360 to 1453. It was then a Muslim mosque from 1453 to 1934. It was then secularized and reopened as a museum in 1935.

While the building's existence has been continuous, it's purpose and identity have not. It seems to me the Tea Party talk here is analogous. There are some who insist that the "movement" isn't essentially a Republican, anti-Democratic entity because it was not established to be that. That would similar to - in the year 1800 insisting the Hagia Sophia wasn't a mosque because it was built as a church - even though its use was only as a mosque at the time,

I would contend it only became a movement when it became the locus of various, generalized opposition to Obama and Democrats, and may have little or nothing to do with the founding of the Party.

 

[BostonPirate]

This is the discussion that I want to have. It seems that some believe that the teaparty began before Obama.

If so I am asking for dates and proofs.

Then I want to know who sidetracked them into becoming what they are IF there is documentable proof that they DID exist before Obama's victory, or apparent inevitable win.

In otherwords.. I want to know if they began before his candidacy or after.... I want to know what their original platform was in writing.

I know that they constantly say that they are grass roots, yet they have MULTI BILLION dollar inflows of money from conservative organisations..... that means they are NOT grassroots.... the discussion on WHAT a grass roots org is would be important as well so that we can talk about whether they are in fact one of those.

IF they were hijacked and didnt mean to be what they are today, then we need to find that proof.

 

[BostonPirate]

ok so I have found two articles on the timing, date, and reason for the organisations founding....

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/04/15/a-tax-day-tea-party-cheat-sheet-how-it-all-started/

It’s here!
For the Johnny-Come-Latelys in the MSM who will be dispatched by their editors to file obligatory stories about the hundreds of Tax Day Tea Party protests across the country today, here is a cheat sheet to get you up to speed.
Feb. 15: Keli Carender, who blogs as “Liberty Belle” spread the word about a grass-roots protest she was organizing in Seattle to raise her voice against the passage of the trillion-dollar stimulus/porkulus/Generational Theft Act of 2009. It’s the first time she had ever jumped into political organizing of any kind. She is not affiliated with any “corporate lobbyist” or think tank or national taxpayers’ organization. She’s a young conservative mom who blogs. Amazingly, she turned around the event in a few days all on her own by reaching out on the Internet, to her local talk station, and to anyone who would listen.
Feb. 16: An energetic crowd of about 100 people came downtown to lambaste the Chicken Little process and the lard-up of the stimulus bill:

this places its origin in the Obama presidency territory.

next....

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123975867505519363.html

So who's behind the Tax Day tea parties? Ordinary folks who are using the power of the Internet to organize. For a number of years, techno-geeks have been organizing "flash crowds" -- groups of people, coordinated by text or cellphone, who converge on a particular location and then do something silly, like the pillow fights that popped up in 50 cities earlier this month. This is part of a general phenomenon dubbed "Smart Mobs" by Howard Rheingold, author of a book by the same title, in which modern communications and social-networking technologies allow quick coordination among large numbers of people who don't know each other

.

and it also says this in that article....

The protests began with bloggers in Seattle, Wash., who organized a demonstration on Feb. 16. As word of this spread, rallies in Denver and Mesa, Ariz., were quickly organized for the next day. Then came CNBC talker Rick Santelli's Feb. 19 "rant heard round the world" in which he called for a "Chicago tea party" on July Fourth. The tea-party moniker stuck, but angry taxpayers weren't willing to wait until July. Soon, tea-party protests were appearing in one city after another, drawing at first hundreds, and then thousands, to marches in cities from Orlando to Kansas City to Cincinnati.

As word spread, people got interested in picking a common date for nationwide protests, and decided on today, Tax Day, as the date. As I write this, various Web sites tracking tea parties are predicting anywhere between 300 and 500 protests at cities around the world. A Google Map tracking planned events, maintained at the FreedomWorks.org Web site, shows the United States covered by red circles, with new events being added every day.

So I am getting direct info FROM CONSERVATIVE SITES that this movement started as a flash mob exactly on feb 15/16 2009.

President Obama's term becan on January 20th 2009, just three weeks prior to the first tea rally

So heres what I am finding....

they started blaming Obama for the debt, deficit, and a HOST of other issues when they called their first founding flash mob three weeks after he was sworn in.

Not only is does this support the idea that they are based on nothing but being against him personally, it places them as complete and total reactionaries to a black president.

At three weeks in office, he hadn't done anything but met with congress, began putting together a cabinet, and ordered the nations military to stop torturing people in captivity for any reason.

does anyone have any documentable proof that this is NOT the case?

otherwise we will establish feb 15th 2009 as the birth date of the movement.

 

[rareboy]

On January 24, 2009, Trevor Leach and members of the Young Americans for Liberty in New York State, expressing a desire for a freer economy with less government intervention, held a protest against proposed new taxes on "non-diet sodas" in NY. Several of the protesters wore Native American headdresses, similar to the band of 18th century patriots who dumped tea in Boston Harbor to express outrage about British taxes, drawing parallels to the original Boston Tea Party.[23]
A Tea Party protester holds a sign saying "Remember: Dissent is Patriotic" at a Nashville Tea Party on February 27, 2009.

New York Times journalist Kate Zernike reported that leaders within the Tea Party credit Seattle blogger and conservative activist Keli Carender with organizing the first Tea Party in February 2009, although the term "Tea Party" was not used.[24]

Other articles, written by Chris Good of The Atlantic[25] and NPR’s Martin Kaste,[26] credit Carender as "one of the first" Tea Party organizers and that she “organized some of the earliest Tea Party-style protests”.

Carender first organized what she called a "Porkulus Protest" in Seattle on Presidents Day, February 16, the day before President Obama signed the stimulus bill into law.[27] Carender said she did it without support from outside groups or city officials: "I just got fed up and planned it." Carender said 120 people participated, "which is amazing for the bluest of blue cities I live in, and on only four days notice!! This was due to me spending the entire four days calling and emailing every person, think tank, policy center, university professors (that were sympathetic), etc. in town, and not stopping until the day came."[28][29]

Carender also contacted conservative author and Fox News contributor, Michelle Malkin and asked her to publicize the rally on her blog.[28] Carender held a second protest on February 27, 2009 and said, "We more than doubled our attendance at this one."[24] By Tax Day six weeks later, 1,200 people gathered for a Tea Party protest.[28]

From Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement

And:

On January 19, 2009, Graham Makohoniuk, a part-time trader and a member of Ticker Forum, posted a casual invitation on the market-ticker.org forums to "Mail a tea bag to congress and to senate".[30] The idea quickly caught on with others on the forum, some of whom reported being attracted to the inexpensive, easy way to reach "everyone that voted for the bailout."[31]

Forum moderator, Stephanie Jasky helped organize the group and worked to "get it to go viral."[32] Jasky is also the founder and director of FedUpUSA - a fiscally conservative, non-partisan activist group whose members describe themselves as "a group of investors" who sprung out of the market-ticker.org forums.[33] The group had previously held DC protests in 2008.[34][35] On January 19, 2009, Jasky had posted a formal invitation "to a commemorative tea party."[36] She suggested they all send tea bags on the same day (February 1, 2009) in a coordinated effort.[32]

The founder of market-ticker.org, Karl Denninger (stock trader and former CEO),[37] published his own write-up on the proposed protest, titled "Tea Party February 1st?," which was posted in direct response to President Obama's inauguration occurring on the same day, and railed against the bailouts, the US national debt and "the fraud and abuse in our banking and financial system" which included the predatory lending practices currently at the center of the home mortgage foreclosure crisis.[38] Karl Denninger, who helped form FedUpUSA in the wake of the March 2008 Federal Reserve bail out of Bear Sterns, had been a guest on both Glenn Beck and CNBC Reports.[39][40] By February 1, the idea had spread among conservative and libertarian-oriented blogs, forums, websites and through a viral email campaign.[41]

On February 11, talk radio host and Fox Business Network personality Dave Ramsey appeared on Fox and Friends, waving tea bags and saying "It's time for a Tea Party."[28] He was on the show criticizing the newly confirmed Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, who that morning had outlined his plan to use the $300 billion or so dollars remaining in the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds. He intended to use $50 billion for foreclosure mitigation and use the rest to help fund private investors to buy toxic assets from banks.[42]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_protests

 

[Orlandude]

really? I mean... really?

regardless of when they showed up, there are a myriad of reasons why that have nothing to do with the fact that Barack Obama is half white. immediately springing to mind is the fact that we haven't had a democratic president in 8 years and we hadn't had a democratic president that was presiding over record deficits and a cratering economy since Carter.

as much as people love to bring out the race card, I'd imagine that simple partisanship has a lot more to do with it.

I respectfully disagree. The Tea Party is a community of likeminded people coming together to assert their individualism and subvert the established order. Unlike the New Left,which was young and looked forward to a new Aquarian age, the Tea Party is old and looks backward to a capitalist-constitutionalist paradise that, needless to say, never existed. The strongest note in its tannic brew is nostalgia. Tea Partiers are constantly talking about “restoring honor,” getting back to America’s roots, and “taking back” their country. How far back to take it back is one of the questions that divides the movement. The tricorn-hat brigade holds the most extreme libertarian view: a constitutional fundamentalism that would limit the federal government to the exercise of enumerated powers.

This does not constitute simple partisanship.

 

[BostonPirate]

From Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement

And:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_protests

thanks Rareboy this furthers the established idea that the tea party movement occured at the point of Obama's inauguration, or at least shortly after he won the race for the whitehouse.

 

[BostonPirate]

I have been pouring over page after page of blogs and opinions that say the tea party Ideology started before Obama, but never say that an organized teabaggger or teaparty event or structure occured before the dates listed above.

Ideology does not make an organization, although an organisation can be spurred on by an ideology.

If there are no dates that occured when a rally billed as a teaparty or tea baggger rally, as they first called themselves, can be documented and posted, then this settles one urban myth of the Teabaggers.... that they predate the Obama presidency.

 

[BostonPirate]

But in order to set the record straight, we’re going to focus on this particular modern movement and where it stems from. Yes, for decades since the original Tea Party, patriots have been talking amongst themselves about having another Boston Tea Party, some people may have even pondered over mailing tea bags to our congressmen and Senators. But this current Tea Party movement can be traced back to one single persons post on one single thread on one single forum and I’m about to show you proof and evidence by tracing back.

Anyone who knows anything about the current Tea Party movement knows that it originated from sending Tea bags to the white house to protest TARP. Watch the following YouTube Video Dated April 15th 2009

http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/who-started-the-tea-party-movement_02162010

I ama getting more and more annoyed because of all the screeching lately that the tea party or tea bagger movement started before this.

All the people that actually STARTED the movement place its beginnings weeks after Obama's Inauguration.

I am getting a headache reading all this republitrash blatherings in the blogosphere, but so far...

the January 2009 date stands.

 

[MercuryJones]

I ama getting more and more annoyed...dent? Isn't that highly... partisan of them?

 

[BostonPirate]

Interestingly, the Tea Party Express is now bitching about Lisa Murkowski running as an independent?

Isn't that highly... partisan of them?

they are republicans now, and function as a radical arm of the party.

Not liking independent runs for office is a BIG tell on what their intentions are.

Well as no one is even trying to contest the date of origin of the teabagger movement, it is time to start figuring out how they function and where they get their funds from.

 

[BostonPirate]

I guess I'm just scratching my head and wondering why it matters.

they presumably get their funds from the people who oppose the people who are funding OFA, Media Matters, MoveOn.org, and DailyKos.

It matters because it defines what the investors expect and determines whether or not it is a grass roots organisation.

Grass roots orgs tend to NOT have corporate sponsors, and therefore have no money masters to answer to lest they lose the cash.

is that clear or would you like a more detailed answer?

 

[BostonPirate]

ok, but does it matter if it's not a grass roots organization?

I mean, what national political movement is?

it is the basis for what it says it stands for, my dear man.

They say they are NOT insiders and that they are not associated with a political party or an agenda other than their own.

There ARE grass roots political movements. They tend to last as long as they are needed.

The Vietnam anti war protest movement was organized in that it got the word out as to where and how the protests were going to happen, but they did NOT have corporate sponsors. The REAL boston tea party of the 1700's had no corporate sponsors...lol

Really

you KNOW these answers.

f you are trying to apologize in advance for who funds the tea baggers, I think that may not work.

 

[opinterph]

[Persons associated with the Tea Party “Movement”] started blaming Obama for the debt, deficit, and a HOST of other issues when they called their first founding flash mob three weeks after he was sworn in.

Not only is does this support the idea that they are based on nothing but being against him personally, it places them as complete and total reactionaries to a black president.

At three weeks in office, he hadn't done anything but met with congress, began putting together a cabinet, and ordered the nations military to stop torturing people in captivity for any reason.

does anyone have any documentable proof that this is NOT the case?

H.R. 1 was introduced in the 1st Session of the 111th Congress on January 26, 2009.

I think that is an important item to add to your list of what Obama did during and before his first days in office. I also think that issue offers a more likely basis of explanation for the associated “anti-Obama” messaging than his race.

In conjunction with my premise, please note that President-elect Obama began his public push for the economic stimulus during his first [Democratic] radio address on November 8, 2008.

 

[BostonPirate]

well thats a good point.... for contextual understanding I need to find a first one hundred days article and compare it.

Also, and someone can correct me if I am wrong, But I believe Bush consulted with Obama on Tarp as President Elect. I am interested in knowing whether that was a heads up kind of consult or a what should we do consult.

 

[BostonPirate]

heres the best I could find... it is an interactive calendar on TIME's website.

http://www.time.com/time/interactive/0,31813,1894244,00.html

 

[jizzeater]

I have been pouring over page after page of blogs and opinions that say the tea party Ideology started before Obama, but never say that an organized teabaggger or teaparty event or structure occured before the dates listed above.

The first Tea Party rallies happened on Dec. 16th, 2007, the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.

In 2007, the Ron Paul "Tea Party" money bomb, held on the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, broke the one-day fund-raising record by raising $6.04 million in 24 hours.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUzD59Wr5gk[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvGS12EoZUE[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNP1-bokv2g[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGB8BeUWtwA[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBSiLbmHlUM[/ame]

 

[BostonPirate]

The first Tea Party rallies happened on Dec. 16th, 2007, the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUzD59Wr5gk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvGS12EoZUE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNP1-bokv2g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGB8BeUWtwA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBSiLbmHlUM

interesting

this is what I found for this date and it is explanatory of its intent....

this "tea party" was for Ron Paul's presidential Bid He even brags about the amount of money he raised....

go to the page....

http://mysite.verizon.net/nathanielyao/index.html

The Boston Tea Party helped ignite the American Revolution 234 years ago

On Sunday, December 16th, 2007, Americans "dumped" over
$6.04 Million
(The largest one day political donation ever!)
into the Ron Paul 2008 Presidential Campaign

A total of 58,407 Americans just like you donated an average of $102
to protest the oppressive and unconstitutional inflation tax -
which has enabled a flawed foreign policy, a costly war
and the sacrificing of our liberties here at home.

The new American REVOLution has begun!

This time the revolution will not be fought with bullets, but with ballots...
not with muskets, but with sound ideas & principles.
Those ideas & principles are embodied in the
Presidential Campaign of Congressman Ron Paul.

Liberty is lost through complacency...America was born of protest [and] revolution...
- Congressman Ron Paul, August 9, 2004

What can you do? - Click here

so the tea party movement... IF this was its real start, was nothing more than a fundraising theme, based on the presidentail platform bid of Mr Paul.

I find it hard to believe that this could be described as the beginning of the movement, but for me it makes it easier to see why people can twist that into the beggining, AND it makes it clear why, Kulindahr, the dedicated libertarian, clings to the idea that it began earlier.

Is there any reason, based on that one page in which the organizers gloat on how much money they raised for Rand Paul's presidential bid, is there any reason to believe that a new ideology began on this date?

were there any manifestos or speakers there that did anything other than praise the then presidential candidate, Mr Paul?

 

[jizzeater]

Ron Paul vs. Sarah Palin for the Soul of the Tea Parties

There's trouble brewing between the Ron Paul libertarians who staged the the first modern tea party in 2007 by dumping tea into Boston Harbor, and the neocon war hawks led by Sarah Palin who are furiously trying to hijack their message.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-hamsher/will-palin-and-the-neocon_b_456824.html

There's no twisting going on. That's when it began. Those videos are only a small sample of the beginning of the revolution that is continuing now in this election cycle.

You asked about the funding and alleged grass-roots nature of the Tea Party. The fund raising, held on that day in concert with the rallies, addresses that. They raised millions from real people, in small amounts over the internet. It wasn't some powerful Republican organization in the beginning.

 

[BostonPirate]

There's no twisting going on. That's when it began. Those videos are only a small sample of the beginning of the revolution that is continuing now in this election cycle.

You asked about the funding and alleged grass-roots nature of the Tea Party. The fund raising, held on that day in concert with the rallies, addresses that. They raised millions from real people, in small amounts over the internet. It wasn't some powerful Republican organization in the beginning.

Ok

so the founder of the tea party movement was Ron Paul's fundraiser and his presidential campaign platform was the basis for the entire movement to begin.

then lets look up his platform and see how it holds up to the movements ideology, and lets look up the fundraising chairman of the rand paul pres bid and see if he is a member of the movement.