JOSHRUFFIN
Tea Party
False witness and a better nickname
12 METRO SPIRIT 11.03.11
is basically a knee-jerk reaction of the far right to a black man being elected president. Am I relying on sensationalism? Okay then: someone please explain to me why these selflabeled “patriots” were standing around with their thumbs up their asses while previous administrations (not, I promise you, limited to Bush’s) ran roughshod over the Bill of Rights and were complicit in laying the groundwork for both the current economic crisis and the everwidening divide between the wealthy and the impoverished. -Takes breathIt’s classic misdirection. Around the time of the original TP (snicker), the upper-class was far more concerned with its own financial status than the wellbeing of the common man; it just so happened that breaking away from England, and thus freeing up their own business interests from the crown’s tax laws, fell right in line with lower-class outrage born out of disenfranchisement — in other words, the impoverished had as much incentive to storm the gates of stateside merchants and bankers as they did to go redcoat-hunting. Howard Zinn, in “A People’s History of the United States,” recounts how in Virginia, “it seemed clear to the educated gentry that something needed to be done
RUFFIN’IT
In America, one thing is certain:* If a good idea, noble pursuit or constructive movement gestates long enough, it’s going to get bastardized, or at least give way to horrible, unforeseen consequences. “The Real World,” which in its infancy dealt sensitively with topics like the AIDS epidemic and racial politics, now plays second fiddle to clap-riddled cousin “Jersey Shore.” Plastic, a relative miracle and testament to human ingenuity that was initially mass-produced for cockpits in WW2 fighter planes, spawns refuse that now infects our environment all the way down to zooplankton. The civil rights movement and MLK laid the foundation for racial equality, but it also gave us Tyler Perry. You get the idea. It’s taken considerably longer for the Boston Tea Party to be deconstructed and reassembled into a barely recognizable golem (though the high morals and rebellious spirit of liberty normally associated with the event itself have by now been half-debunked). The original act, dubious though the motivations of its perpetrators may have been, was at least aimed at a ruling body that was legitimately overbearing and borderline tyrannous. Our modern-day “Tea Party,” on the other hand, which purports to call attention to governmental overreach,
to persuade the lower orders to join the revolutionary cause, to deflect their anger against England.” Up stepped none other than Patrick “Give me liberty, or give me death!” Henry who, as Rhys Isaacs phrased it, was “firmly attached to the world of the gentry,” but whose manner of speech appealed to poorer whites. Fast-forward to now, and Tea Partiers — for the sake of brevity, we’ll just call them “Asshats” — are trying something similar with the Occupy protests, the rallying cry for which centers around the phrase of “the 99%.” Asshats are now feigning solidarity with the protesters by way of their “53%” catchphrase. This seeks to accomplish two things: further the absurd notion that Asshats have some sort of legitimate gripe and convince this country’s disenfranchised red-staters — fun fact: most of the country’s poorest states are predominantly Republican — that Asshats are looking out for their best interests: “Look, poor whites! We sympathize! We can afford healthcare and other basic needs, but we totally get where you’re coming from!” Listen, it’s a pathetic attempt to highjack a legitimate, necessary movement in this country: Yes, a fringe element of the 99-percenters are hippie-douche blowhards, but for the most part, the Occupy protests are truly an example of democracy in action. People are pissed, with good reason, and they’re letting the higher-ups know about it. The Tea Party has no reason to gripe, except to gripe that they have no gripe. And good for them: They’ve managed, thus far, to convince this country’s poor whites, again, that they’re on the same side. As of today, Politico carries a headline reading “Income Gap Slips into GOP Talk.” Sooner or later, though, the constituents (read “proletariat”) are finally going to start asking questions. And then it will get interesting. *Actually, many things are certain, but I’m only allowed about 700 words.
ASU and Metro Spirit alum Josh Ruffin is a published journalist and poet, who just received his MFA from Georgia College & State University. He was once the most un-intimidating bouncer at Soul Bar.
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