Email from a Pensacola Tea Party protester:
Mr. Outzen,
I was taken aback by your characterization (in your Vol 11 #20 issue) of tea partiers as displaying âracist-phony angerâ compared to the all these disparate people feeling ârealâ anger. I donât know how you were able to conjure up that revealing comment about tea partiersâ¦however you need to know that the tea party people tend to be better educated and more traditionalâ¦.you know the people that really led this country to be the most successful and powerful in the world!?! I am confident that the tea partiers are the antithesis of those who display racist phony angerâ¦go fine your friends Sharpton and Jackson and their ilk who conjure up the last vestiges of trumped up-blown out of proportion negativity that truly IS racistâ¦no my naïve but accomplished friendâ¦the tea partiers represent millions of us who are VERY VERY angry at people and institutions who are purveyors of irresponsibilityâ¦.whether it be BP, the current Commander in Chief (CINC), the CINCâs Marxist-Maoists sympathizing czars, or those would relish undermining our national strengths for the sake of rewarding those slothful people who choose not to work hard or who parasitize our way of life.
The TRUTH is not racistâ¦.but those who have influenced many of us to avoid speaking the truth are by far the most dangerous of elements,
Mr. Outzen.
I would dare say the vast majority of the good salt of the earth folks you interviewed in Eunice for your outstanding the BP article last week would strongly agree with meâ¦.however unlike me, truth be told, they are far more concerned about their paychecks than they are our sugar white sandsâ¦.yes Rick THAT IS politics!!!! I lived in New Orleans for seven years and recruited for the Navy all over southern and southeastern Louisianaâ¦.those folks have their âspecialâ interests and we have oursâ¦.however the thing we have in common is that we all need oil and it is foolish to so heavily depend on hostile middle eastern countries for it.
Pensacoleans need oil and sugar white sand beachesâ¦.therefore environmentalism is not an absolute black-white/clear cut issueâ¦why do you think BP is drilling in 5000 feet of water?!? It is because environmentalists have driven them off the west coast, off most of the east coast and to the far reaches of technological capabilityâ¦.hence our problemâ¦.this is most certainly a political issueâ¦.politics led to poor regulation, politics led to BP having to drill in 5000 feet of water, politics keeps the CINC interested more in taking less action to justify an anti-drilling positionâ¦.the nice little boats you and I have are of little value if the economy totally collapses because of enormous liberal monetary/policy rewards to the irresponsible and undeserving in society and in industryâ¦..
You want a solutionâ¦.then we need to pursue paradigm shifting solutions to our energy producing challengesâ¦.(i.e. perhaps hydrogen cell etc) as aggressively as we did when JFK committed us to going to the moon in the 60s…however, I suspect politics are an impediment to common sense and a solution that will ENHANCE our strength as a nation as opposed to policy that would serve a primary purpose of dragging the US down economically to the rest of the worldâs levelâ¦.
You are right about one thing Rickâ¦â¦..we are POed!!!! As evidence by my rambling discourseâ¦.. As a sixth generation Pensacolean who has lived all over the world, it sickens me that this threat to our beaches existsâ¦.but I suggest you critique those who seek to undermine our American way of life (in either party but particularly the Democrat party) not the predominantly red, white, and blue patriots in the tea party movement!!!!
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My Reply:
Thank you for writing. I missed the Tea Party protests against BP. I missed the Tea Party Protests in September 2008 when the Bush Administration asked Congress to bail out Wall Street. I missed the Tea Party protests against how poorly the Bush Administration regulated the oil industry.
I haven’t seen in Tea Party protests against those “people and institutions who are purveyors of irresponsibility.” What I have seen is a group characterize the first African-American president as Marxist-Maoist. I have seen Tea Party leaders and its biggest supporter Glenn Beck tout states rights and the 10th Amendment of the Bill of Rights…yet in this crisis they want the federal government to intercede.
The Boston Tea Party in 1773 was a protest not only against British Parliament, but also against the British East India Company and the Tea Act, the linchpin in the trading company’s strategy to monopolize the rapidly growing and highly profitable American commodities markets, starting with tea.
The Boston Tea Party was the apex of a resistance movement in the British colonies against Parliament and the East India Company. Protesters had already successfully prevented taxed tea from being unloaded in three other colonies. Government officials in Boston obstinately refused to return the tea, which led to locals boarding the ships and throwing the tea into Boston Harbor.
Over two centuries later, Americans are battling a new British company out to monopolize another commodity: oil. British Petroleum is the new East India Company, and like its predecessor, BP holds a privileged position with the British and U.S. governments. As a result, it has been frequently granted special rights and been allowed to repeatedly get away with death and destruction.
I don’t see you and your “better educated and more traditional” Tea Party members taking on BP. Instead in your email, you take the simplistic, less educated and less traditional approach of blaming environmentalists for this disaster. It’s akin to blaming the abused child for being assaulted by the pedophile. You bring up Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to prove you aren’t racist and somehow they are more negative than you.
The Tea Party is a sham, which has failed to speak out, as its namesakes would have 200 years ago, against BP and all those who collaborate with the oil giant to destroy our Gulf Coast.
And there was no tea party in Eunice five days before Blair Manuel was killed on the Deepwater Horizon platform. We actually found the people very supportive of President Obama.
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My staff attended the Tea Party Rally in Tallahassee on April 15: