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The Boston Tea Party, 1773

Victory in the French and Indian War was costly for the British. At the war's conclusion in 1763, King George III and his government looked to taxing the American colonies as a way of recouping their war costs. They were also looking for ways to reestablish control over the colonial governments that had become increasingly independent while the Crown was distracted by the war. Royal ineptitude compounded the problem. A series of actions including the Stamp Act (1765), the Townsend Acts (1767) and the Boston Massacre (1770) agitated the colonists, straining relations with the mother country. But it was the Crown's attempt to tax tea that spurred the colonists to action and laid the groundwork for the American Revolution.

The colonists were not fooled by Parliament's ploy. When the East India Company sent shipments of tea to Philadelphia and New York the ships were not allowed to land. In Charleston the tea-laden ships were permitted to dock but their cargo was consigned to a warehouse where it remained for three years until it was sold by patriots in order to help finance the revolution.

In Boston, the arrival of three tea ships ignited a furious reaction. The crisis came to a head on December 16, 1773 when as many as 7,000 agitated locals milled about the wharf where the ships were docked. A mass meeting at the Old South Meeting House that morning resolved that the tea ships should leave the harbor without payment of any duty. A committee was selected to take this message to the Customs House to force release of the ships out of the harbor. The Collector of Customs refused to allow the ships to leave without payment of the duty. Stalemate. The committee reported back to the mass meeting and a howl erupted from the meeting hall. It was now early evening and a group of about 200 men, some disguised as Indians, assembled on a near-by hill. Whopping war chants, the crowd marched two-by-two to the wharf, descended upon the three ships and dumped their offending cargos of tea into the harbor waters.

Most colonists applauded the action while the reaction in London was swift and vehement. In March 1774 Parliament passed the Intolerable Acts which among other measures closed the Port of Boston. The fuse that led directly to the explosion of American independence was lit.

George Hewes was a member of the band of "Indians" that boarded the tea ships that evening. His recollection of the event was published some years later. We join his story as the group makes its way to the tea-laden ships:

"It was now evening, and I immediately dressed myself in the costume of an Indian, equipped with a small hatchet, which I and my associates denominated the tomahawk, with which, and a club, after having painted my face and hands with coal dust in the shop of a blacksmith, I repaired to Griffin's wharf, where the ships lay that contained the tea. When I first appeared in the street after being thus disguised, I fell in with many who were dressed, equipped and painted as I was, and who fell in with me and marched in order to the place of our destination.

In about three hours from the time we went on board, we had thus broken and thrown overboard every tea chest to be found in the ship, while those in the other ships were disposing of the tea in the same way, at the same time. We were surrounded by British armed ships, but no attempt was made to resist us.

...The next morning, after we had cleared the ships of the tea, it was discovered that very considerable quantities of it were floating upon the surface of the water; and to prevent the possibility of any of its being saved for use, a number of small boats were manned by sailors and citizens, who rowed them into those parts of the harbor wherever the tea was visible, and by beating it with oars and paddles so thoroughly drenched it as to render its entire destruction inevitable."

References: Hawkes, James A, Retrospect of the Boston Tea-Party, with a Memoir of George R. T. Hewes... (1834) reprinted in Commager, Henry Steele, Morris Richard B., The Spirit of 'Seventy-Six vol I (1958); Labaree, Benjamin Woods, The Boston Tea Party (1964).

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The Boston Tea Party, 1773 - EyeWitness to History

It's taken three trips to Kentucky, but I'm finally getting my Tea Party epiphany exactly where you'd expect: at a Sarah Palin rally. The red-hot mama of American exceptionalism has flown in to speak at something called the National Quartet Convention in Louisville, a gospel-music hoedown in a giant convention center filled with thousands of elderly white Southerners. Palin who earlier this morning held a closed-door fundraiser for Rand Paul, the Tea Party champion running for the U.S. Senate is railing against a GOP establishment that has just seen Tea Partiers oust entrenched Republican hacks in Delaware and New York. The dingbat revolution, it seems, is nigh.

This article appears in the October 14, 2010 issue of Rolling Stone. The issue is available in the online archive.

"We're shaking up the good ol' boys," Palin chortles, to the best applause her aging crowd can muster. She then issues an oft-repeated warning (her speeches are usually a tired succession of half-coherent one-liners dumped on ravenous audiences like chum to sharks) to Republican insiders who underestimated the power of the Tea Party Death Star. "Buck up," she says, "or stay in the truck."

Stay in what truck? I wonder. What the hell does that even mean?

Scanning the thousands of hopped-up faces in the crowd, I am immediately struck by two things. One is that there isn't a single black person here. The other is the truly awesome quantity of medical hardware: Seemingly every third person in the place is sucking oxygen from a tank or propping their giant atrophied glutes on motorized wheelchair-scooters. As Palin launches into her Ronald Reagan impression "Government's not the solution! Government's the problem!" the person sitting next to me leans over and explains.

Obama in Command: The Rolling Stone Interview In an Oval Office interview, the president discusses the Tea Party, the war, the economy and whats at stake this November.

"The scooters are because of Medicare," he whispers helpfully. "They have these commercials down here: 'You won't even have to pay for your scooter! Medicare will pay!' Practically everyone in Kentucky has one."

A hall full of elderly white people in Medicare-paid scooters, railing against government spending and imagining themselves revolutionaries as they cheer on the vice-presidential puppet hand-picked by the GOP establishment. If there exists a better snapshot of everything the Tea Party represents, I can't imagine it.

After Palin wraps up, I race to the parking lot in search of departing Medicare-motor-scooter conservatives. I come upon an elderly couple, Janice and David Wheelock, who are fairly itching to share their views.

Matt Taibbi on the response to this article: "Rand's Medical Group: Obama Hypnotized Voters"

See the article here:
The Truth About the Tea Party | Rolling Stone

The top Republican Party leaders from three South Florida counties are joining forces Saturday with a tea party activist known for incendiary comments she has directed at other Republican leaders.

The party chairmen from Broward, Palm Beach and Martin counties are scheduled to appear at a luncheon and discussion in Fort Lauderdale, with Danita Kilcullen, co-founder of Tea Party Fort Lauderdale.

Kilcullen spent much of the past two years as leader of a faction within the Broward Republican Party that was devoted as rooting out what it regarded as not truly Republican and insufficiently conservative often using strong words to get her point across.

Examples:

She said that Republican leaders with libertarian leanings like Ryan Anderson, Broward's state party committeeman, want "anarchy," and after getting approval of medical marijuana they'd advance to more drugs, decriminalizing prostitution and allowing same-sex marriage.

She chastised Republican County Commissioner Chip LaMarca and Republican School Board member Heather Brinkworth for participating in the annual gay pride parade in Wilton Manors last June with an email that began with the line: "Whores chasing whores, if you will."

With a new Broward party chairwoman, Christine Butler, and a new Palm Beach County chairman, Michael Barnett, elected in December, Kilcullen said the local parties have leadership much more to her liking.

"I think we have some chairpeople now who are a little bit more reasonable," Kilcullen said. "We were ripping each other apart in the last two years in our [Republican] Executive Committee. I'd like to never see that again," she said.

Kilcullen, who was a supporter of Butler's in the election for a new Broward party chief, said the leadership changes would allow the tea party to work in sync with the Republican Party. With the two organizations working more closely together, Kilcullen said she hopes the result is Republican candidates who are more to the liking of the tea party wing of the party.

"I believe the tea party and the Republican Party should pick and define its candidates and not stand by and let the establishment choose for us," she said.

See the article here:
South Florida Republican leaders breaking bread with controversial tea party leader

The top Republican Party leaders from three South Florida counties are joining forces Saturday with a tea party activist known for incendiary comments she has directed at other Republican leaders.

The party chairmen from Broward, Palm Beach and Martin counties are scheduled to appear at a luncheon and discussion in Fort Lauderdale, with Danita Kilcullen, co-founder of Tea Party Fort Lauderdale.

Kilcullen spent much of the past two years as leader of a faction within the Broward Republican Party that was devoted as rooting out what it regarded as not truly Republican and insufficiently conservative often using strong words to get her point across.

Examples:

She said that Republican leaders with libertarian leanings like Ryan Anderson, Broward's state party committeeman, want "anarchy," and after getting approval of medical marijuana they'd advance to more drugs, decriminalizing prostitution and allowing same-sex marriage.

She chastised Republican County Commissioner Chip LaMarca and Republican School Board member Heather Brinkworth for participating in the annual gay pride parade in Wilton Manors last June with an email that began with the line: "Whores chasing whores, if you will."

With a new Broward party chairwoman, Christine Butler, and a new Palm Beach County chairman, Michael Barnett, elected in December, Kilcullen said the local parties have leadership much more to her liking.

"I think we have some chairpeople now who are a little bit more reasonable," Kilcullen said. "We were ripping each other apart in the last two years in our [Republican] Executive Committee. I'd like to never see that again," she said.

Kilcullen, who was a supporter of Butler's in the election for a new Broward party chief, said the leadership changes would allow the tea party to work in sync with the Republican Party. With the two organizations working more closely together, Kilcullen said she hopes the result is Republican candidates who are more to the liking of the tea party wing of the party.

"I believe the tea party and the Republican Party should pick and define its candidates and not stand by and let the establishment choose for us," she said.

Go here to read the rest:
South Florida Republican leaders to break bread with controversial tea party leader

Charlie live session
This new latinblues is about the driver, Charlie. He is always there when you need a car and he knows the best parties in town. This video was live recorded during a studiosession at theater...

By: Mad Tea Party Amsterdam

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Charlie live session - Video