The New Tea(bag) Party

Today, many lunatics from the Sean Hannity, Glen Beck and Fox TV camps will be protesting our “tax and spend” federal government at various public places around the country. They will do this by bringing tea (bags) to the steps of post offices, City Halls and legislatures and other governmental buildings and by mailing tea bags to their elected officials. These crazy people will be lured by various extremist ideologies, including the wacky Libertarian belief that it is unconstitutional for the federal government to collect a tax on wages.

I spent a large part of my day yesterday listening to disparaging comments directed at these “tea-partiers” by many in the media, some made by my own friends and political compatriots. Many right wing pundits have latched onto this protest idea as if it is their own and many on the perceived left now see this action as a brazen, corporate attack on their shiny new president. With a Democrat now firmly ensconced in office, its easy for them to imagine that all of the people who will be involved today are Republicans or right-wingers or racists.

Well, I’ll be one of those “lunatics” and I am not a Republican, a right-winger or a racist. I know many others who will be out there as well who are not so easily or accurately defined by these labels. In fact, the organizer of our local protest is a Vietnam veteran who has been fairly active in the peace movement for years. He does not belong to either major political party (he dismisses them both as “War, Inc.”).

While he may not share many of my more progressive views, he is a good and respectful man and he is also a successful tax resistor. It is pretty clear to me that he is not lead by people like Beck or Hannity (or by anyone else, for that matter). He seems to be a pretty well-read guy who figures things out for himself.

To me, this situation is similar to how all the peace vigils suddenly ended once Obama was elected. Why did this happen? The wars certainly aren’t over! Guantanamo certainly isn’t closed. There are currently more mercenaries in Iraq than at any point previous. Extraordinary rendition has continued. Why then, don’t the peace vigils continue? Were they really just anti-Bush vigils?

Many would level this accusation at the whole anti-war movement. They would say that we were just working with moveon.org to protest Bush in order to get a Democrat elected. Well, I was definitely not out there for those reasons. I was out there to protest a war for resource that we didn’t need to be involved in. The lack of a substantial peace movement today makes me scratch the old noggin, though. Were the right-wing pundits correct about the bulk of us?

I have finally realized that many in the Peace movement really do only object to war when it is clear that the war in question is a Republican war. But the criticism concerning ulterior motive was regularly leveled at all of us by conservative pundits and this is unfair. Many people did only fill the streets because moveon.org told them to but it is of vital importance to know that there were also many of us who were not there merely to support corporate machine politics.

While there is no doubt that some among us may have been wearing Democratic Party T-shirts under their anti-war uniforms and while they may have put those uniforms up on that shelf in the back of their closet (at least until the next “changing of the guard”), these people are not the whole peace movement. Not by a long stretch.

In my world, being an advocate for peace is still absolutely necessary, especially now that the Democrats are running the show. When a “bad” war falls under the jurisdiction of the Democratic Party, it doesn’t, all of a sudden, become a “good”war. The death toll (of both American soldiers and Middle Eastern civilians) doesn’t suddenly become a necessary and incremental step towards the peace. It is still a terrible waste of human life perpetrated by resource-hungry corporations and our military industrial complex. It still needs to be opposed!

During the Bush regime, many in the right-wing media excoriated anyone who was seen as supporting moveon.org or UFPJ or Code Pink, all of whom were involved in organizing protests and vigils. I never went to a single protest or rally coerced to do so by any of these groups (though one or more of them may have had their hand in the planning or promotion). To paint me as a Democrat and a follower just because I was there, rather than a principled peace advocate, is entirely unfair.

Now that the fake corporate party shoe is on the other fake corporate-party foot, I feel it is equally incorrect to say that everyone out there today opposing the collection and expenditure of taxes by our federal government is automatically being lead by right wing pundits and the Republican Party. Not correct! Some may well be there for these reasons, but not all of us. Don’t forget that. I will be at a tax protest today for several reasons …

1) I am no lawyer but I believe that it is unconstitutional to collect taxes on wages. Prior to interpretation by the courts, this actually seems pretty obvious and is stated quite clearly in our founding documents.

2) Based on what I have read, it does seem that the 16th amendment (the one allowing the eventual birth of the federal income tax) was never properly ratified. The court that finally claimed it to be properly ratified was stating this in relation to its use in collecting income made by sale of property and not income derived from a person’s labor.

3) I can’t think of too many things I like that the federal government (run by either major party) has done with my tax money in pretty much all of my adult years and I am very happy to have one more way to protest it.

4) Some members of my local community share my upset about how our taxes are collected and abused and I wish to show them support in expressing our collective frustration.

I will not be there because Glen Beck or Sean Hannity (or even Alex Jones) told me to be … no matter how badly some folk want to believe this is so.