For years, colonialists have
been angered by the policy of taxation without representation. The
famous protester, John Hancock, arranges a boycott of the large company
British East India Company. Hancock begins to smuggle tea into the
country illegally without paying taxes. Britain responds by allowing
the East Tea Company to sell directly to the colonies thereby
undercutting the profits of smugglers.
The East Tea Company is aided by lobbyists and powerful members of
Parliament. The smugglers, including Samuel Adams and John Hancock,
call for East Tea Company colonial employees to abandon their jobs.
Meanwhile, in an underground cellar in a Bostonian pub, the Sons of
Liberty, the secret organization of American Patriots, are detained by
British guards. Unbeknown to SoL members, they had been infiltrated by
British spies, who have been reporting the group's activities to His
Majesty for the past five months. The Sons of Liberty are now a
"terrorist organization," and the members are arrested. The group is
never able to meet Adams and Hancock at the harbor in order to dump the
tea.
Undeterred, Adams and Hancock decide to dump the tea themselves. The
Revolutionaries don war paint and feathers and sneak toward the ship.
They are immediately stopped by Captain Roach and the royal governor of
Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson.
Hutchinson: Where's your permit?
Adams: Our what?
Hutchinson: Your permit. You need a permit to protest here.
Hancock: Well, we didn't have time to apply for one. Drastic times call for drastic measures, you know.
Adams: Anyway, there's really no permit available for what we want to do...
Hutchinson: Which is what?
Adams: Dump the East Tea Company's tea.
Roach: Good heavens! That's positively Revolutionary!
Adams: That's sort of the idea, yeah...
Hutchinson: You don't really intend to break the law, do you?
Adams: Indeed.
Roach: Jesus H. Christ! The absolute Gall!
Hutchinson: No go. Sorry.
Hancock: Oh, C'mon!
Hutchinson: Nope. No.
Hancock: C'moooooon!
Hutchinson: Tell you what: You can throw one tea bag
into the harbor, but only one of you can go onto the ship. And you
can't make any noise. And take off those silly costumes. And the other
one of you has to wait in a little pen I will construct out of wood and
some mud. And did I mention you mustn't raise your voice, or I will
fine you a week's wages?
(Enter stage left): A man appears from the shadows, scribbling furiously on parchment.
Man: Thomas Paine: citizen journalist! Are you repressing their right to freedom of expression?!
Hutchinson: (Tasers Paine)
Roach: That freedom doesn't exist yet, punk. (Kicks Paine in the kidney)
Kaine: (Cries in pain)
Adams: Holy crap!
Hutchinson: So what were you boys saying?
Adams and Hancock: Nothing! Nothing....
Adams and Hancock back away, hands held up in surrender before they turn and run away.
END SCENE
Americans take for granted their rights to taxation with
representation, to protest, and to maintain certain human dignities.
Oftentimes, they forget that the founding fathers were radicals, who
broke the law, and faced the possibility of execution as they thumbed
their noses at King George.
The $700 billion dollar bailout of Wall Street is exactly the kind
of taxation without representation that the founding fathers fought to
reject over 200 years ago. Taxpayers, who had no control over predatory
lending and shady deregulation, are now responsible for paying the bill
while CEOs jump out of windows with their golden parachutes strapped
safely to their backs.
At today's Wall Street protest, Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzales, the
Independent party presidential and vice-presidential nominees, called
for the immediate termination of this taxpayer bailout. Just as the
founding fathers rejected the tyrannical reign of King George, so
Nader/Gonzales reject the tyrannical reign of George W. Bush and his
corporate cronies.
In none of the presidential debates have either Barack Obama or John
McCain called the bailout exactly what it is -- the bailout of
Capitalism and the unfair continuation of socialized debt with
privatized profit.
Reaction to the worsening state of the economy has been tame for
obvious reasons. The protest of America's forefathers would be
impossible today as illustrated in the fantasy Boston Tea Party above.
Protesters would be immediately arrested and incarcerated if they took
to Wall Street and lit Federal Hall ablaze. That kind of behavior would
be called radical, Anarchist, and obscene.
So it's too much to ask for a revolution, but at the least,
politicians should speak frankly about the hold corporations and
crooked Capitalism have on the country. The media has performed a
blackout on third party candidates during this sham of an election,
which is entirely financed by corporations like AT&T and Wachovia.
Americans can't expect to have a frank and honest discussion about
Constitutional violations (like wiretapping) and taxpayer bailouts of
banks when the sponsors of their debates are the very entities under
scrutiny: the phone companies and the banks. This is like asking
McDonald's to finance health education programs. Sponsoring debates
about their own failings would work against the interests of these
corporations, which is why there has been zero talk about wiretapping
phones and the faltering of Free Trade policies.
For the sake of the American spirit, citizens must summon the same
outrage felt that day on 1773. Citizens must reject the bailout, the
neutered election process, and they must open the debates to third
party candidates in order to reinvigorate the environment of passionate
discussion missing in this 2008 election. Nearly half of the American people think Ralph Nader should be allowed in the presidential debates.
They long to see the candidates challenged on issues like universal
health care and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, instead of the normal,
bland repeating of tired stump speeches. Now is the time to
reinvigorate the American political process, and the first step is
letting third party candidates into the debates.
