MODERN TEA PARTY HISTORY: the definitive edition

[BostonPirate]

I'm dubious about your openness right off since you essentially begin by equating the Tea Party with hate.

The current one is filled with it? shall we take a stroll down that memory lane ONE MORE TIME????

good lord

I am dubious about your ability to have a discussion about this, quite frankly, because the libertarian movement means so much to you, and these people have dragged it in a direction you don't like.

This much is Obvious...

the Ron Paul fund raiser was just that, a fund raiser, not a movement. The movement was nothing but a presidential campaign, and IF there is a movement then it would have to be nothing more than a cult of personality revolving around Ron Paul, and that is just NOT the case.

we have his son trying to capitalize on the movement, but I doubt that has anything to do with his father so much as Rand just wanted an easy way to office.

Ron Paul AND Rand Paul have BOTH said they have problems with the constitutional amendments regarding civil rights, and there have been racist remarks in the Ron Paul newsletter. These remarks have been safely attributed to some shadow writer, but Mr Paul takes responsibility for them.

Then we have the wild and ridiculous racist displays at the tea party functions that culminated in the Brietbart video that nearly destroyed a womans life.

Now YOU are saying my motives are DUBIOUS because I associate the movement with hate....

well champ, I have to tell ya.

If you can't see a hate proiblem in all this then you are blinded by what you want instead of what you see.

the ONLY saving grace lies in one thing... the name.

that is the point of logic where the continuity fails. IF this is the same party that was hijacked, then why did the 2009 version of it mistakenly call itself the teabag movement.

This makes me think that Beck, the thread that sews this mess all up was there, took the opportunity, used the money he got from FOX, Armey, Freedomworks, the Koch Brothers, and pretended it was a grass roots movement to further his own agenda.

I don't think its the same movement at all. I think that the fundraiser was just a fund raiser. It began and ended with the 6 mill it got from the public and the failed pres run of Ron Paul.

You have said the movement was hijacked. after poking around all day and having people contribute to this thread, I see two different movements that just seek to capitalize on a historic event, and have nothing else really in common.

The new tea party is hardly a libertarian movement. It is a capitalist republican movement.

 

[BostonPirate]

I honestly think there is more than one. The evolution of the movement(s) is yet incomplete.

I am having a hard time finding any central organization, thats for sure. They are more of a loose collection of local clubs that don't always get along well with each other.

I think the tea party express seems to weild the most influence amongst them. The House of Reps has its tea party caucus, headed by Michele Bachman, but that seems once again to be more or less just the person they pay the most to speak at rallies trying to make political hay out of a speaking gig.

Armey, Palin and bachman seem to be the closest thing they have to national leadership.... and there is little there to glean on policy. They are all rather honesty challenged...lol

 

[altlover85]

The current one is filled with it? shall we take a stroll down that memory lane ONE MORE TIME????

You were starting by trying to tell us where the Tea Party started. Other people are saying that it started with Ron Paul and thus not with hate.

the Ron Paul fund raiser was just that, a fund raiser, not a movement. The movement was nothing but a presidential campaign, and IF there is a movement then it would have to be nothing more than a cult of personality revolving around Ron Paul, and that is just NOT the case.

Can you explain the underlined part?

Now YOU are saying my motives are DUBIOUS because I associate the movement with hate....

I thought you were talking about the beginning of the movement and not where it was pre-Obama?

that is the point of logic where the continuity fails. IF this is the same party that was hijacked, then why did the 2009 version of it mistakenly call itself the teabag movement.

I thought it called itself Tea Party and called the members teabaggers?

This makes me think that Beck, the thread that sews this mess all up was there, took the opportunity, used the money he got from FOX, Armey, Freedomworks, the Koch Brothers, and pretended it was a grass roots movement to further his own agenda.

I don't think its the same movement at all. I think that the fundraiser was just a fund raiser. It began and ended with the 6 mill it got from the public and the failed pres run of Ron Paul.

Your entitled to your opinions and thoughts, but that doesn't make you right or wrong necessarily.

You change the question mid-thread just so it fits with your own pre-formed conclusions.

 

[Kulindahr]

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.

I think that's a pretty good model for starters. I suggest another one, though: the city of Constantinople, as it grew, took within it villages that already existed. Each contributed to what the city became. The Tea Party movement didn't come from just one place; I recall "Tax Freedom Day" tea parties in the 90s. They didn't call themselves the "Tea Party", they were just getting together to observe the day on which Americans on average are no longer working for the government but for themselves. The "Tax Freedom" folks have been around since the 70s; some of them used the tea party symbol, but never claimed it as a label.

If so I am asking for dates and proofs.

So I should have taken pictures of the Ron Paul people in Portland.....

Which I didn't because I was in a hurry to get somewhere, and if I could remember where, I could pin down a date, anyway. The point, though, is that pictures would have shown two of the Ron Paul people carrying not tea bags but small boxes like miniature tea crates similar to what would have been tossed off that infamous British ship.

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.

I have no evidence, but IMO it was Ron Paul himself who sidetracked them, not by any action, but by holding enough personal bigotry to make bigots feel welcome. When the primaries were over, the bigotry started to boil. Where the ReligioPublicans slunk in I have no idea, only bad guesses.

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.

In writing? If you look at the origin -- one of those various villages -- in the Tax Freedom movement, there would be no need to write any platform, any more than it would have been for those Ron Paul people with their miniature tea crates; it could have been said in two words: lower taxes! How much and by what means was a matter for discussion.

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.

I've been wondering when the Kochs started pouring in their cash. For me that would be a smoking gun.

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.

While I stand on the claim it wasn't formed "against that black man", I think you're too easy on the movement: just as bigots jumped on the Ron Paul train, they jumped right on over and invited others when the Ron Paul Express parked on the sideline. Definitely when the stunt of mailing tea bags got pulled plenty of the trash folks were still around; the simplicity of it would have appealed to them... and they were hooked. So while a lot of people may be there because Obama's a Democrat, a lot are there because he's black. I call them barnacles on the hull; it doesn't really matter to them what the message of the movement is, so long as they can use it to convey their primitive tribalist racism.

 

[Kulindahr]

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.

Kind of like claiming there were no tsunamis till they had a name....

 

[Kulindahr]

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.

That's rather like saying there was no Roman Empire until someone in Rome claimed the title of Emperor.

Movements aren't about labels and stunts, they're about the people involved. On at least two tracks, the movement already existed before some bright boy sent a cute email.

Do those articles indicate where he got his idea? Was it, perhaps, from a Tax Freedom Day acquaintance? or a Ron Paul Revolution marcher with a miniature tea chest?


edit: You mean the people who claim to have started the movement. Since a lot of people were already moving, I find it more credible to conclude that they were trying to co-opt something for some benefit to themselves.

 

[Kulindahr]

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.

When it was just the Tax Freedom Day and Ron Paul people, they funded themselves.

Then at some point the Koch brothers started infusing cash. That matters because when a grass roots organization suddenly gets a river of money from an outsider, there is a serious question of whether that outsider has an agenda, and whether that agenda is even compatible with the goals of the movement.

I'll just weight in and say that the Kochs are part of a number of billionaires whose basic agenda is to establish a society where billionaires run the show and the rest of us are peons. That's not what the Tea Party movement is supposed to be about.

 

[BostonPirate]

You change the question mid-thread just so it fits with your own pre-formed conclusions.

I started this thread asking for people to change my mind. if you have an issue with that then you should just stop participating.

snarkiness is not doing it, nor is school marmy finger wagging. I am looking for the truth and sometimes the truth is not neat and clean. sometimes it doesn't have a direct answer. There was a time when people could have a conversation without this nonsense.

If you have a point, make it, or get out of the way so I can focus on what kulindahr is trying to say.

 

[opinterph]

… 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.

IMO, it was neither.

George W. Bush reminded everyone that he was still “Decider.”

 

[BostonPirate]

You mean the people who claim to have started the movement. Since a lot of people were already moving, I find it more credible to conclude that they were trying to co-opt something for some benefit to themselves.

this

this is what I am finding as well, although it has taken a day of reading to get there.

The idea was original and since then a host of people have swooped in to capitalize on it for their own reasons... and it makes me wonder whether or not Paul is sorry for not officially organising it in the beginning.

The guy that found the titanic didn't file papers of ownership because he mistakenly thought the world would respect the site and leave it alone. what happened in reality was people realized they could make a buck if they took a trip down there, and they are destroying the remains of the wreck in the process. IF the guy who found it had just claimed it as his, the integrity of the ship would still be intact.

now its a ransacked mess on the ocean floor.

thats kind of what the Koch brothers and freedom works have done to the Paul teaparty.

I want to say that philosophically I disagree with the whole mess.

IF theres any lesson here it is just this... if you say even in honest intent, that you think the 13th or the 14th amendment were unconstitutional and misguided, and have NO racial prejudice when you say that, in the end, you attract people that may believe as you do, but for all the different wrong reasons.

when you wake up and find out they have jumped on your bandwagon, you either get off the wagon or get rid of the wagon, but you don't just let it ride.

 

[Kulindahr]

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.

Or getting instructions from the same people who bought Bush.

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

Doh!

I sent in a small amount; I should have remembered that. A friend monitored it the whole way.

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


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?

It was a fundraising theme for striking against big government just as the original Tea Party did. People gave to Ron Paul in hopes of striking a blow for freedom.

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.

You're hung up on the "founder" bit. That fundraiser would be like one of the villages that grew together into Constantinople, along with others. What this shows is that the movement had different sources, already up and running, before Obama.


It interests me that you have a regular need to impugn the motives of anyone who disagrees with you. I thought this was about finding out what really happened.

So far what really happened, by the given evidence, is that the Tea Party movement grew from at least two strands that were added to by a cute internet stunt. I presume that stunt caught the imagination of all the precursors and a lot who'd only fantasized about doing something.

 

[BostonPirate]

oh lord.... I hate waiting for him to catch up. why cant he just read the whole thread first, before commenting on each post one at a time.


AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

this is his revenge, I am now sure.

It interests me that you have a regular need to impugn the motives of anyone who disagrees with you

and that comment does just what it says about other comments....lol

 

[altlover85]

BP, perhaps you could answer the questions I posted when quoting you instead of just writing some snarky remark and telling me to get out of the way?

You seem hell-bent on simply proving your own points. When someone tells you that there are multiple aspects of the beginning of the Tea Party, you just ignore it and go on with your own theory.

If you aren't willing to address some of the issues raised and the fact that you changed your question mid-thread, why didn't you just make a general Tea Party thread?

 

[BostonPirate]

BP, perhaps you could answer the questions I posted when quoting you instead of just writing some snarky remark and telling me to get out of the way?

You seem hell-bent on simply proving your own points. When someone tells you that there are multiple aspects of the beginning of the Tea Party, you just ignore it and go on with your own theory.

If you aren't willing to address some of the issues raised and the fact that you changed your question mid-thread, why didn't you just make a general Tea Party thread?

ok..

drop the attitude and I will do the same.

ask a direct question and I will answer it.

 

[altlover85]

BP, read post #46 and answer my first and third question. You can disregard the rest of the post and the second question.

 

[BostonPirate]

BostonPirate, you need to watch Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show regularly. She's been reporting on/commenting on some of the questions you are asking for the past year and a half.


The following, though, is from ThinkProgress's Lee Fang 9 April 2009 (the original article includes links that are not reproduced here):

I am aware of the money trail from watching her show. I find the rest of the mess so convoluted and hard to follow that my head almost explodes when I try to follow it.

Money is a game I am always on top of. That is why I quickly responded to that whole line of reasoning on why does it matter who finances the movement.

I know who and I know how and I know why. That is sort of the world I exist in.

 

[Kulindahr]

Ron Paul's Campaign Manager, 49, Dies Uninsured, Of Pneumonia, Leaving family $400,000 Debt

Wow -- I didn't know that. Crazy that he didn't have insurance! I may be facing homelessness, but at least I have medical insurance.

so this is the guy that started it and he died. The fundraiser that became a movement lost its leader and the general theme was hijacked by an entirely different movement once the Ron Paul candidacy ended and Mr Kent passed away.

Now we are getting closer to the story that JB and Kulindahr have been describing.

He started a tributary, to use a new metaphor. At this point I don't know if "hijacked" is appropriate, though -- "set adrift" seems better, because if he and the Paul campaign in general had been leaders, we're looking at a movement now on its own.

Now can we correlate this, the "mail a tea bag" stunt, and the appearance of Koch cash?

Does anyone know what Mr Kents personal philosophies were that are DIFFERENT than the current tea party? Is this the SAME movement or has it been hijacked by the people given at the feb 16th date?

was this guys idea stolen by another group of people?

where is that proof?

Other than small government constrained by a strict reading of the constitution, I have no guess as to what Mr. Kent's views were. Those were pretty obvious. Paul's bigotry got played down by the campaign, so he either wasn't a bigot or knew that it was a poor position.

Maybe that's when the bigots felt comfortable moving on in -- Paul himself had little problem with them.

C'mon, man. Let's not go there. The Tea Party began with Ron Paul and his presidential campaign.

Do you remember the time after the 2008 election? The GOP was decimated. They had to pick themselves up and try to figure out a way to get back in the game after getting their ass kicked by Obama.

Here it is 2 years later, and they've done just that. How did it happen? By co-opting Ron Paul's message, and harnessing the enthusiasm, fund-raising power of his followers, and the Tea Party concept that were such a media sensation during the 2008 campaign season.

That just shows that the Ron Paul Revolution and Tea Party were useful to the Republicans. BP's question about the funding that took this from being a grass roots phenomenon which provided millions to a questionable tool that sucks up millions is still important.

It doesn't take a genius to look at the Tea Party movement and see it has a case of cancer, Ron Paul's own bigotry at its worst and then some. And it's hardly unreasonable, especially to people who were familiar with the Paul Tea Party efforts as well as the Tax Freedom Day "celebrations", to look at then and now and ask, "WTF?!"

I'm willing to bet that if pictures of what we wee now as the Tea Party movement had been available online back then, there would have been no record fundraising for Mr. Paul. I know seven people who donated in that made dash, and not a one of us would have sent one cold cent.

Ron pauls message was what was carried, but lets remember this is billed as a grass roots movement, and you have revealed that to be a flat out lie.

it was never a grass roots movement. it was a fundraising day title made up by the guy in charge of fund raising to make Mr Paul president in a national campaign that raised 6 mill in one day

If I am not wrong, I think we may find a more pure libertarian message in Mr kent than we will in mr Paul, so don't be dismissive just yet.

It was a fundraising title, but it was one that went to the hearts of literally millions of people who wanted Paul to run. He'd gotten emails, he'd gotten letters, he gotten offers. As I recall it from that night, the pitch wasn't just for money, it was for enough of us to send enough money to let Rep. Paul know people really did want him to try. To a great extent, that Tea Party bit was the meeting of a grass roots movement unacknowledged by its focus with a man who knew how to get the two connected. A friend who monitored the whole thing reported that the higher the numbers got, the more people started asking if Paul would really run, and they sent money as their way of saying "Run!"

So I have to say it was grass roots, too.

My guess is that Kent was free, or at least mostly so, of the bigotry that would have kept from from enthusiastically supporting Paul had I been a Republican -- though I would have voted for him just to reduce McCain's count.

 

[BostonPirate]

BP, read post #46 and answer my first and third question. You can disregard the rest of the post and the second question.

IF there is a movement then it would have to be nothing more than a cult of personality revolving around Ron Paul, and that is just NOT the case.

Can you explain the underlined part?

If the tea party started at a campaign fundraiser then it would be dependent upon the person the funds are being raised for to give it meaning and direction. That means that the movement would not have and ideology so much as a leader who calls the shots... sort of what Palin is trying to be for them right now.

I thought it called itself Tea Party and called the members teabaggers?

ahhhh I don't think so....

http://theweek.com/article/index/202620/the-evolution-of-the-word-tea-bagger

 

[altlover85]

BP, what I meant was when did the party call itself the Teabag movement?

 

[BostonPirate]

Rachel Maddow aired this on Friday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wYfmY57jGs

There's quite a bit of commingling of Tea Party movement, conservative, and Republican principles and statements and agendas and manifestos (or "manyfestos," as Maddow snarkily refers to the plethora).

she has a way of stating things doesn't she?