In the District of Columbia Tax Day traditionally brings out local activists who wish to highlight for the resurgent masses of tourists and the media the plight of the local citizens: true taxation without representation. DC Statehood and representation activists typically call up the image of the Bostom Tea Party in making this point, but today a right-aligned movement, with demonstrations across the country, has stolen their thunder.
From the point of view of this writer, who witnessed the Washington, DC gathering near the White House, it was both muddy and a muddled thunder.
- The original Boston Tea Party was as much about representation as it was about taxes. Most of the folks in attendence in DC were from out of town; from actual states where they have representation.There may be a broader point to be made about government responsiveness, but that appeared to be lost here.
- A friend pointed out an interesting fact: that the colonists’ taxes sky-rocketed after the American revolution. They had war debt to pay for and representation didn’t help them much there. Truly, that is a significant part of the problem here too, and it seems that those protesting both taxes and the budget overall would protest a deescalation of US militarism.
- It seems to be an uncontroversial point of fact that most of these folks in fact will likely see a decrease in their taxes, as few are likely part of the single digit percentage that make enough to be subject to tax increases (no, I’m not counting the nicotine tax).
- In general the protest seemed to be aimed at straw men, built up by the organizers backed by lobbyists and certain Republican politicians and aimed at the Democrats. Unfortunately this seems to serve long-standing interests and doesn’t really threaten anyone, whoever you thought was responsible for whatever you thought you were protesting if you were a participant.
- With regards to the tea party theme, the unfortunate choice to announce use tea bags as part of the protest, and to use the phrase “tea-bagging,” further alienated this particular exercise from the mainstream.
Still, they stood in the rain, proud to exercise their right to redress their grievances — so long as they were at a certain distance (I’m told they intended to be in front of the Treasury, and got moved to Lafayette Park where I witnessed them later). They were reportedly cleared out of the park when someone threw something (tea bags?) over the White House fence. I’d argue this was largely ineffective, at least in terms of the best ostensible intentions of the participants, that their indigence was used — maybe even against their own interests.
Don’t read these observations as implicit support for Obama’s overall economic policy, or for the nature of the corporate media, this writer is a critic of both. Still, there was also a chuckle or two when viewing this clip from last night’s “Countdown” on MSNBC :
We could probably do with some links and other direct citations here, but this is literally a passing observation written down as both the event and the media of it was absorbed in the course of other business.