Tea Party
This is a very interesting new protest movement. It tends to underline some deep changes which have occurred within the soul of the United States.
The War of Independence against Great Britain was fought because the colonists disliked being ruled from afar and being made to pay taxes which thay considered had little to do with their lives as they wanted to lead them. The Civil War was fought on broadly the same issue. Although history has taught that it was a war to end slavery, this is not accurate. Slavery would have ended in the U.S., as it had everywhere lelse in the world without the need to kill six hunderd thousand young Americans in the process.
What made the half starved and barefoot troops of the South fight with such tenacity for so long, was their vision of true independence. They did not want to be governed from the centre. Their State was their country. They were happy for their State to be part of a loose confederation in which their State remained sovereign. They were willing to give their lives and suffer greater hardships than any Americans in any war since, in order to resist the power of a Federal Union, whose sovereignty would be paramount. They lost the war, but it is clear after one and a half centuries, that they won the argument.
When America voted for Obama it voted for change. But it did not vote for bigger government and higher taxes. It voted for competence in government, economic recovery, controlling Wall Street and restoring America’s image, so ruined after the international sympathy and goodwill following 9/11. America is happy for its President, whoever it is, to strut the world stage with imperial grandeur, but at home it wants the person who occupies the White House, from whatever party, held in check.
That is what these Tea Parties are about.