There's a New Gang in Town: The Tea Party

When I drive into a new town, I look for tell-tale signs of a town's out-of-control poverty strategy: scribbled graffiti marking local gang territory. "Artists" battle officials who try to eradicate the symbolic protests, meanwhile ignoring root causes of poverty and dysfunctional family life.

Gangs, around since before West Side Story, entice disenfranchised teens, offering the "privilege" of belonging to a movement. Gangs become the pseudo-parent, the gathering of groupies, the feared force in a confused world. Members prove themselves to leaders, often disregarding human life in the process.

"Sanctioned" gangs -- bureaucrats manipulating safety net systems that fail to meet the need, armies of expendable men and women fighting someone else's war, wayward police officers taking laws into their own hands, Congressional alliances with self-gain as the end game -- do their share of harm too.

And we have the Tea Party...

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." --Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The New York Times story on this movement d' jour gives tea a bad name. As a green tea-drinking, cantankerous nay-sayer, I brewed up observations about this disturbing anti-dysfunctional-establishment faction. Ramifications for people in poverty, I fear, are disastrous if this tempest in a teapot is allowed to steep.

My concerns, aside from the gun-toting survivalist mentality that I may someday regret not embracing (I doubt it), and the truth/reality distortion by certain media flamethrowers that fuels fires of lesser-thinking followers, boil down to:

1. Does debased religion become the feeder program to TPers? And how can spiritually sound establishments lose -- or worse yet, send -- believers to what seems to be an every-man-for-themselves credo, the antithesis of religious foundations of most faiths?
2. What do TPers plan to do, assuming they end up with all the marbles, with the 40+ million people in poverty in this country? Sometimes it's best to not ask questions that you don't want to hear the answers to, but I'm asking.
3. Who has the most to gain financially if this appealing fringe party catches on? The likes of Beck, Palin, et al., have seen their net worth grow exponentially. Someone should follow the money.
4. With justified discontent at an all-time high, and the means to fuel the fire of hatred just a few uncensored clicks away, are we surprised the internet provides the vehicle for (mostly white?) people ironically wanting to limit the rights of others by imposing their angry ideologies?
5. What role does responsibility have in this purportedly Constitutional-loving sect? I was taught that with rights come responsibility. Sorry, but I'm having a hard time seeing how TPers include these two essential ingredients.

Seems to me we need to call their bluff. Gang-interventionists often sit down with leaders and hash it out. Transparency, respect, and accountability can go a long way -- let's break out the fine china and share a spot of tea.

Photo credit: Diane Nilan