There’s No Tea in England
by Aaron Goldstein (8/16/11)
“This is the uprising of the working class. We’re redistributing the wealth. In America you have the tea party, in England you’ve got this.” - Bryn Phillips, U.K. rioter and self-described “anarchist”(1) - Believe it or not, Mr. Phillips might very well be onto something here. In America, Tea Party activists gather across the country to peacefully dissent against irresponsible fiscal policy by Democrats and Republicans alike. In England, we have seen gangs of young Nihilists wantonly assaulting and killing people, setting buildings ablaze and redistributing wealth by pillaging goods with the notable exception of books.(2) This is what they’ve got in England indeed.
By stark contrast, of the thousands of Tea Party rallies that have taken place across the United States over the past two years or so, I don’t recall any broken windows, burning buildings or bloodied foreheads. In fact, I defy anyone to name a Tea Party activist who has been arrested for either damaging property or inflicting bodily harm. And yet it is the Tea Partiers who the left-wing chattering classes in America call terrorists, accuse of waging jihad and scold for bringing the country to the brink of disaster. (3) Well, England has gone past the brink and has been overwhelmed by disaster. You could even call it a “man-caused disaster.” Do our left-wing chattering classes condemn the hooliganism in London and beyond? Thomas Friedman of The New York Times surely doesn’t:
London burns. The Arab Spring triggers popular rebellions against autocrats across the Arab world. The Israeli Summer brings 250,000 Israelis into the streets, protesting the lack of affordable housing and the way their country is now dominated by an oligopoly of crony capitalists. From Athens to Barcelona, European town squares are being taken over by young people railing against unemployment and the injustice of yawning income gaps, while the angry Tea Party emerges from nowhere and sets American politics on its head. (4)
So when 68-year old Richard Mannington Bowes was beaten to death for trying to put out a fire near his home in London’s Ealing neighborhood and a hundred plus hooligans prevented police from coming to his aid; it was just their youthful way of “railing against unemployment.” The thug who ran off with Bowes wallet was merely protesting “yawning income gaps.” (5) Yet in the enlightened eyes of Friedman it is the Tea Party who is “angry.”
As for the Israelis who have been protesting against the increased cost of living (especially housing prices), even if one doesn’t agree with their aims they are at least redressing their grievances peacefully. (6) It is one thing for Benjamin Netanyahu to address the grievances of the protesters, it would be quite another for David Cameron to address the “grievances” of the rioters. If Cameron’s Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition embarks on some youth unemployment scheme then his government will have rewarded lawless behavior. Crime will have paid. Those Britons (if they even deserve to be described as such) were engaged in nothing more than wanton violence. To describe their actions as a political protest is an insult to those who partake in peaceful protest whether it be Israelis who want more from their government or Tea Party activists here in America who want less from ours.
The fact that Tea Party activists want less government is precisely what bedevils the Tom Friedmans of the world. To him and his brethren, wanting less government is an unnatural state of being and thus no sane person could be in favor of such a thing. In their eyes, Tea Party activists are not engaged in an authentic expression of political discontent. As Friedman put it the Tea Party “emerges from nowhere” or as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously said, “We call it astroturf, it’s not really a grassroots movement.” (7)
Yet Friedman has no trouble whatsoever in viewing the riots in England as an authentic expression of political discontent. This isn’t to say Friedman isn’t troubled by their “criminal mutations.” But since he believes they share his worldview when it comes to unemployment and the wage gap, Friedman cannot bring himself to unambiguously condemn their behavior. It could be said that Friedman views the London rioters as Keynesians in the rough. If that is the case then their actions can be characterized as a vicious counter-cycle.
Thomas Friedman and the left-wing chattering classes can disagree with the aims and objectives of the Tea Party to their heart’s content. But Friedman and company are deceiving themselves if they view the Tea Party as inauthentic and insincere in their beliefs. They are also mistaken if they believe the Tea Party sprung up from nowhere. While the Tea Party congealed during the early months of the Obama Administration, the source of its discontent has been decades of unsustainable government spending by both Democrats and Republicans alike. (8) Tea Partiers are no more amenable to President Bush’s TARP than they are to President Obama’s stimulus program. They are no more enamored with Medicare Part D than they are with Obamacare.
But as long as Friedman insists on calling the Tea Party “a Hezbollah faction” that “will take the GOP on a suicide mission” then he should be viewed as an unserious person. (9) After all, it should never be forgotten that Hezbollah was responsible for the murder of 241 of our Marines in Beirut. That Friedman would liken the Tea Party to an organization which actually carries out murder while giving the hoodlums in England a pass renders me to conclude that Friedman is incapable of reason when it comes to those who fall outside the narrow parameters which constitute his point of view.
In the final analysis, if there’s any country in dire need of a vibrant Tea Party movement it is Britain. Alas, it would appear that there is no tea in England.
Aaron Goldstein
(1) 1
(2) 2
(3) http://spectator.org/archives/2011/08/09/the-left-has-no-humanity
(4) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/opinion/sunday/Friedman-a-theory-of-everyting-sort-of.html?_r=1
(5) 5
(6) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/13/israel-protests-high-cost-of-living_n_926299.html
(7) http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/04/15/37578/pelosi-astroturf/
(8) 8
(9) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/27/opinion/27friedman.html?ref=thomaslfriedman#
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