lawls
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Pass notes No 2,710: The Tea Party movement
A collection of tax-hating gun nuts and single-issue cranks who bombard the White House with teabags
Age: Not yet a year old.
Appearance: Annual Picnic for the Disgruntled.
What is it? A loose coalition of disaffected American conservatives gathering sporadically to protest big government generally, President Obama specifically and socialism, vaguely. Initially they objected to the government's fiscal stimulus package, but the movement has grown to encompass an amorphous range of gripes both national and local.
When? Originally the idea was to mount nationwide protests on Independence Day – 4 July – but most events coalesced around 15 April, the deadline for filing US income tax returns.
What's it got to do with tea? The name echoes a seminal moment in American history when colonists chucked a shipment of tea into Boston Harbour, in protest against taxation by the Crown without the consent of their own elected representatives.
Does the Tea Party movement go in for similar direct action? They have a form of protest called teabagging – putting a teabag in an envelope and sending it to the White House – that unfortunately shares a name with a sexual practice which you'll have to look up on the internet.
I may disagree with their politics, but if it's a genuine grassroots movement who am I to say they're a bunch of morons? Critics contend it's merely an "astroturf" movement, funded by rightwing thinktanks and heavily promoted by conservative media outlets such as Fox News, masquerading as a populist uprising.
Has it got a future? In February the first Tea Party National Convention is being held in Nashville, with the aim of uniting disparate organisations under one ideological banner.
What sort of person could unite this rag-tag collection of tax-hating gun nuts and single-issue cranks? Sarah Palin will be the keynote speaker.
Do say: "OBAMA: SOCIALIST PIG" or, alternatively, "OBAMA = HITLER"
Don't say: "Mine's milk, no sugar, thanks."
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Pass notes No 2,710: The Tea Party movement
A collection of tax-hating gun nuts and single-issue cranks who bombard the White House with teabags
Age: Not yet a year old.
Appearance: Annual Picnic for the Disgruntled.
What is it? A loose coalition of disaffected American conservatives gathering sporadically to protest big government generally, President Obama specifically and socialism, vaguely. Initially they objected to the government's fiscal stimulus package, but the movement has grown to encompass an amorphous range of gripes both national and local.
When? Originally the idea was to mount nationwide protests on Independence Day – 4 July – but most events coalesced around 15 April, the deadline for filing US income tax returns.
What's it got to do with tea? The name echoes a seminal moment in American history when colonists chucked a shipment of tea into Boston Harbour, in protest against taxation by the Crown without the consent of their own elected representatives.
Does the Tea Party movement go in for similar direct action? They have a form of protest called teabagging – putting a teabag in an envelope and sending it to the White House – that unfortunately shares a name with a sexual practice which you'll have to look up on the internet.
I may disagree with their politics, but if it's a genuine grassroots movement who am I to say they're a bunch of morons? Critics contend it's merely an "astroturf" movement, funded by rightwing thinktanks and heavily promoted by conservative media outlets such as Fox News, masquerading as a populist uprising.
Has it got a future? In February the first Tea Party National Convention is being held in Nashville, with the aim of uniting disparate organisations under one ideological banner.
What sort of person could unite this rag-tag collection of tax-hating gun nuts and single-issue cranks? Sarah Palin will be the keynote speaker.
Do say: "OBAMA: SOCIALIST PIG" or, alternatively, "OBAMA = HITLER"
Don't say: "Mine's milk, no sugar, thanks."
