The Tea Party Patriots

The ascent and notable expansion of the Tea Party and its actions in many states in the U.S. bring about fear that fascism might become a reality in the nation, according to the fears of the most pessimistic political scientists.

It’s called the “Tea Party” in English, a meeting or a gathering to drink tea. But the name recollects the significance of the so-called Boston Tea Party during the American Revolution, the assault that was carried out in 1773 by a group of citizens dressed as Indians in that city of the then-English colony of Massachusetts on three British ships anchored in port, as a protest against taxes on the importation of tea and the monopoly of the British East India Company over this valued product. Hundreds of chests containing tea were emptied into the water of the bay.

The Boston Tea Party, a divine symbol of the patriotic protests by the people of the these three English colonies in the United States against colonial attempts to impose exorbitant tributes, sparked the beginning of the struggle for independence in a war that lasted from 1775 to 1783. Independence was declared in 1776.

Since then, every protest related to taxes in the United States is usually, in some way, linked to the event in Boston of some 227 years gone by.

What motivates the Tea Party, according to its principal spokespeople, are the excessive spending habits and the exaggerated imposition of taxes by the federal administration. “Our mission is to attract, educate, organize, and mobilize our fellow citizens to secure public policy consistent with our three core values of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free markets.”

“We hold that the United States is a republic conceived by its architects as a nation whose people were granted ‘unalienable rights’ by our Creator. Chiefly among these are the rights to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ The Tea Party Patriots stand with our founders, as heirs to the republic, to claim our rights and duties, which preserve their legacy and our own. We hold, as did the founders, that there exists an inherent benefit to our country when private property and prosperity are secured by natural law and the rights of the individual,” according to core values stated by the Tea Party movement on its web page.

But the modern day phenomena of the so-called Tea Party movement and the organization of Tea Party Patriots don’t appear to be as innocent as an afternoon aperitif with aromatic cups of tea.

It seems to have surged from a revolt within the Republican Party, and has become a pawn of the most ultraconservative figures, like former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who has initiated her march toward the pinnacle while some of its leaders, like its president Michael Steele, struggle against the flow to avoid allowing the party to slide to the extreme right. This is the way the El Universal of Mexico correspondent in Washington understands it in a commentary that coincides with the opinions of many observers of the internal politics of the United States.

But the discourse of the Tea Party Patriots is anti-immigration, anti-Hispanic, and anti-black; they accuse conservative politicians of “high treason” (both Republicans and Democrats) for supporting Obama’s health care reform. They condemn abortion and the anti-abortionists who support health care reform that, from their point of view, doesn’t offer sufficient guarantees to avoid the use of federal funds to finance abortion.

The politicians forced to solicit protection from the FBI due to intimidation from members of the Tea Party are not few. Among them are the Democratic majority leader in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, and Democratic Congresswoman Patty Murray from the state of Washington, who were threatened with death.

Steve Cohen, a Democratic congressman from Tennessee, counts on the FBI’s protection since members of the Tea Party threatened that they would burn him on a cross in front of the White House.

Today, even Republicans like the former presidential candidate John McCain don’t dare challenge members of the Tea Party. “When I saw John McCain stand behind Sarah Palin, he looked more like a captured soldier in North Vietnam than he did a United States Senator,” noted Cohen in reference to a recent convention of McCain in Arizona where Palin was present.

The methods of this ultraconservative army of the extreme right-wing of the Republican Party are becoming increasingly violent.

Now they appear focused on the objective of achieving, by means of telephone threats and other messages, the renunciation of some Democratic candidates for running for re-election in mid-November. These elections shall renew domination of the lower chamber and a third of the Senate.

Particularly difficult are those Democrats with a conservative platform, who vary their positions to coincide with the least extreme positions of their own party.

“You’re dead; we know where you live; we’ll get you,” was the threat that was formulated for a Democratic representative from Michigan, Bart Stupak, so that he would renounce his intention to run for re-election in the midterm elections of November, an aspiration that he had ensured.