Stop the Tea Baggers

Under the guise of a "tax revolt", a loose coalition of right-wing groups are putting together what they are calling "tea parties" to protest Obama's economic policies. A number of them are taking place on April 15th, including one here in Boston at the State House.

Now... the original Tea Party took place right here in Boston and was a protest against foreign overlords and those who participated could possibly have been sentenced to death for insurrection. Now we have these groups of people who were free to vote and whose political philosophy was roundly rejected trying to appropriate the term "Tea Party" and somehow equate their butthurt whinging about Obama to the actions of the original Patriots.

I say a pox on these Tea Baggers! I think we, the citizens of the Commonwealth, need to put together our own little counter-demonstration.

Now, what these folks are doing is perfectly within their rights and I'm not advocating any direct confrontation or violence toward them. But in true b0st0n form, we must snarkily make our displeasure known.

What I am proposing is that people show up with teabags. Yes, teabags. Feel free to wave them at the tea baggers. Show up in costume. Bring signs. Street musicians feel free to show up and caterwaul anti-teabagger songs. If you're really disgusted, maybe we can have bags for soggy teabags. Whatever. There's no real organization to this and no rules other than don't be a douchbag.

If we can get people to volunteer to bring trash bags and hang out to collect the tea bags- and folks can arrange to do shifts- that would be most excellent. Once we collect all the teabags and do some media-whoring, we can donate the (non-soggy) teabags to some of the local homeless shelters/soup kitchens. And if anyone's into composting and wants the soggy tea bags, let your desires known.

If folks want to do some kind of shift organizing as to who will be there with garbage bags to collect the teabags, most excellent. I have a full-time day gig and can only swing by after work, so it's up to other folks to organize this, if you're interested.

But damn, folks. Let's not let these people steal a vital piece of Boston history without a fight. Stop the Tea Baggers!