Teabagging: Not Just For FPS Anymore1

Tea Bag: 1) A small porous sack holding enough tea leaves to make an individual serving of tea. 2) When you wake up to feel something that's warm, soft and fuzzy on your face and you realize it isn't a puppy.

Teabagging hits the mainstream news. Not because some Jack Thompson figure lost too many Halo 3 matches and decided to become an activist, but because the political right… well, I’m not sure they even know why, but I’m sure it has nothing to do with taxes. Also, Texas governor Rick Perry aligns with right wing extremists for secession, and I wonder if he speaks for Texans in general. I mean… you elected him. (Then again, we Minnesotans apparently elected Michelle Bachman, so I can’t really speak to that.)

So, it’s 1773, and the American colonies are protesting being taxed by the British government because they are not seeing what their taxes are being used for. “No taxation without representation.” This was an important protest, cementing its place in future American history textbooks as one step leading to when the colonies began the American Revolution against the British government in 1775.

Yesterday on April 15th, 2009, literally hundreds of Fox News viewers massed together at various sites across the country to reprise the famous 1773 protest and “Teabag Obama”. This time, however, the anger isn’t over taxes being underrepresented – it is over what the money is being used for.

If you google “tea bag rallies”, you will get a lot of news articles generally mocking the idea of these teabag protests. (Or teambag, as my Halo team says, or speedbag if you don’t have much time to pull off the maneuver.) The problem is, the message of the Teabag Protests has not been clearly articulated through the Fair and Balanced news media.

…it’s not about left or right, it’s about a government doing what the people who give them their power tell them to do. Because unfortunately right now, that’s not happening.

~Teabag Obama

According to Teabag Obama: “[...] it’s not about left or right, it’s about a government doing what the people who give them their power tell them to do. Because unfortunately right now, that’s not happening.” The article also talks about how the last 8 years under Bush slowly brought this to fruition today. Think of it like a crock pot ever-so-slowly heating water to a boil. Now Obama, a mere 86 days into his presidency, is the just the unfortunate recipient of 2,920 days of truly horrible policy. It actually has nothing to do with him, as the injudicious blog name suggests.

That could be a good rationalization. However, I think it’s possible that Teabag Obama could be partially responsible for the epic failure of this protest, because the name itself being a call to action hangs over the article explaining what this blogger believes it is about. The web site seems to be in conflict with itself, much like the protesters themselves. So, the Teabag Protests were attended by people that would love to teabag Obama, rather than protest the rash of government spending expected to offset the previous rash of government spending.

In other news, Texas governor Rick Perry is spouting off about seceding from the United States. Honestly… why not? Is Texas full of these “right-wing extremists” like him? How many people would leave Texas? Would Texas have to pay back the disaster relief they recently got? What would happen if Texas declared war on the United States? I mean… we have the greatest military in the world… but they would have Chuck Norris.