Eugene Kane and Tea Parties

Eugene Kane is jumping on the Left's bandwagon, joining others trying to discredit the Tea Party Movement.

Kane is following Paul Krugman's lead. Yesterday, Krugman wrote a lame piece mocking Republicans and the demonstrations set for April 15, Tax Day.

Like Krugman, Kane makes some outlandish assertions.

I'm not sure if Krugman, Kane, and their ilk really don't get the Tea Party Movement and they fear what they don't understand, or if they really do get it and therefore fear it.

In either case, they're afraid.

Kane writes:

Wednesday is Tax Day. It's also Tea Party Day for some Americans who want to send a loud message about President Barack Obama's economic recovery plans.

If you plan to attend a tea party, you probably watch Fox News a lot. If you haven't heard about the tea party movement, that probably means you prefer other sources for your information.

The Left really loathes FOX News.

It's a myth that FOX is behind the Tea Parties, one that Krugman promoted, too.

It's a talking point. Everybody says this is FOX at work, unfair and unbalanced. Blah, blah, blah.

Has Kane actually talked to people planning on attending an event? Does he have a clue about them, their thoughts, their motivations?

It's ridiculous for Kane to state, "If you haven't heard about the tea party movement, that probably means you prefer other sources for your information."

Obviously, lib media are railing about the Tea Party Movement. Paul Krugman is a New York Times columnist. If you prefer sources other than FOX for news, you certainly have heard about it. The libs are obsessed with it and the "teabaggers," the derogatory name the libs have adopted for participants.

Really, Eugene, that was a silly thing to say.

Most of us learned about the original Boston Tea Party in elementary school. That's where we first heard about the scrappy patriots in 1773 who decided to make their displeasure known against a British parliament that was taking financial advantage of the American colonies.

The rallying call then was "No taxation without representation!" - and it led to the birth of a great nation. As best as I can figure, this new tea party movement has almost nothing to do with any of that save for the name.

How goofy!

Tea Parties that have already taken place and those scheduled for Wednesday don't claim to be replicating the original Boston Tea Party.

The tea party protest - some call it a tax revolt - reportedly has its roots in an on-air rant by a financial news anchor that spread when conservative bloggers grabbed hold of the idea and spread it widely on the Internet. Much of the anger is aimed at Obama and Congress for passing a multibillion-dollar economic recovery plan.

That financial news anchor's name is Rick Santelli. He's on CNBC. Kane doesn't mention that information.

Is that out of laziness?

Kane may want his readers to think this unnamed anchor works at FOX.

Here's where it all began.

Seeing as how most of Obama's plan has not been in place long enough to judge its effectiveness, it seems strange to revolt before knowing whether it will work. But sometimes all you need is a catchy idea to get folks excited.

Being taxed up the wazoo, being horrified at this unprecedented power grab by Obama, and being aghast at his assault on the private sector are the issues.

This isn't about judging effectiveness. The end doesn't justify the means when you're talking about dismantling the foundation of our way of life.

Organizers say there will be tea parties Wednesday at more than 250 locations nationwide, including Madison. The tea parties will be political rallies led by folks such as Newt Gingrich and other Republican leaders but will also feature polarizing media figures such as Sean Hannity. If you recall the images from rallies for Sarah Palin last year, I predict that's what these tea parties will look and sound like, particularly whenever someone mentions Obama's name.

Columnist Paul Krugman of The New York Times believes the tea parties are less of a spontaneous outpouring of public sentiment than a campaign orchestrated by the usual suspects. In his column Monday, Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, essentially dismissed the entire thing as a silly response by Republicans feeling shut out of any substantive policy discussions on the economy.

Kane, like Krugman, is playing on the unpopularity of certain conservative figures to fire up the Left.

Kane tries to show a tinge of originality by citing Gingrich and Hannity instead of Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh, as Krugman did. But the Saul Alinsky Rules for Radicals technique is the same: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. It's the same page out of the same radical playbook.

If predictions are true and thousands show up for tea parties in places such as Madison and Washington, D.C., that will be a hard story to ignore. I would never dismiss a movement just because it was nurtured out of earshot of the mainstream media. I remember attending the first Million Man March in 1995 in Washington. Most national TV networks and newspapers ignored the march until it became apparent the event had captured the imagination of hundreds of thousands of black men - and women - who traveled to the nation's capital in a peaceful demonstration of pride.

For a while there, I thought Kane was actually going to write a column without using a racial component.

What was I thinking?

I wonder if he's contractually obligated to do that.

The current tea party movement doesn't seem designed to do much except demonstrate that there are still lots of people who don't like Obama's plans for the economy but don't really have any alternative. There's no tea to throw into the harbor this time, just a lot of leftover bile.

The original patriots, I suspect, would want nothing to do with that.

"Leftover bile"?

Give me a break!

The Leftists are still mocking Dan Quayle's spelling.

Leftists seem to attack President Bush and Vice President Cheney nearly as often and with as much pure hate as when they were in office. That bile will be flowing for the next fifty years.

My take on the original patriots differs quite dramatically from Kane's view.

The original patriots, I suspect, would want nothing to do with citizens being enslaved by dependency on a massive federal government.

The original patriots, I suspect, would want nothing to do with a government seizing control of private businesses, property, and earnings.

The original patriots, I suspect, would want nothing to do with power grabbing politicians seeking to solidify their own fortunes at the expense of the people they've been elected to serve.

The original patriots, I suspect, would want nothing to do with that which infringes on the liberty of individuals to control their own destinies, free of government intervention.