The Department of Homeland Security issued a report to law enforcement agencies in April 2009 stating that recent events might lead to an increased membership and activity of right wing groups. The report states that these right wing groups are using current events and fears as a way to increase membership. It states there are no specific threats, just a surge in activity. Peaceful protests like the tea parties are also increasing in frequency.
The upswing in right wing political activism, legitimate and otherwise, it seems, is due mainly to the new administration and its policies. One major point of contention is government spending to support failing institutions and to better the economy. Most of the blame falls on the Obama Administration, but it was under George Bush that the initial spending to support failing institutions was instituted.
Many of the right wing protesters have explainable and legitimate concerns. However some nutjobs base their newfound extreme and extremely absurd political opinions on the fact that the President is of a different heritage than their own, even mixed race.
Racist hate groups might benefit from ridiculous fears and must revel in the fact that the DHS report pointed them out. Some racists would never admit their feelings being based on preconceptions and perhaps their protests are based on other more reasonable sentiments. If so, where were they during George Bush II's term?
Perhaps their newfound political outrage is simply from another bias, one that is not racist, but based on party polarizations. In all the protests, amid all the hysteria, people are most frequently critical of what the opposing party does, and not what each party does cooperatively. People are most often critical of one party's disjointed doings and not their combined efforts. George instituted citizen surveillance and Barack continued it. George instigated the bailout spending and Barack expanded on it.
Some of the right wing political activists, as unfounded as they may be, are simply people taking advantage of their right to free speech. However free speech is normally used by people who have put a lot of thought into what they say. Many right wing protesters use igniting slogans pertaining to the new administration's actions being socialism, apparently forgetting the conservative and republican marches toward "socialism."-
Though the operations may be interpreted and labeled as socialism, the events are actually more accurately labeled oligarchical collectivism. This term was used by George Orwell in his best known work "1984."- An oligarchy is an institution controlled by the few, best pictured as a pyramid system. Pyramid systems or oligarchies are worldwide despite socialistic, democratic or despotic tendencies and shifts. Oligarchical collectivism is a collection of pyramidal institutions acting in coordination to maintain their control of conditions.
There might be plenty to protest and there is always reasoning to celebrate the Boston Tea Party, but celebrate it by understanding the totality of what the founding fathers did. The tea was not the important ingredient at the Boston Tea Party and is practically irrelevant to exploitive conditions of today. The peaceful yet destructive Boston Tea Party was coordinated by people who questioned the situation, people who questioned the exploitive oligarchical collectivism of the day.
It is worth noting that the Boston Tea Party style protests recently against big government and big brother were originally arranged by the Libertarian Party and then adopted and overwhelmed by the Republican Party as a platform for them to criticize the Democratic Administration. Such polarization of the two major parties eliminates attention to a third. It also eliminates attention to anything except the polarization.
The Republican Party used the recent tea party protests to their own advantage as did, one must assume, right wing extremists depicted in the DHS report. This is exemplified by the fact that the Republicans adopted the scenario as their own "grassroots"- coordination instead of pointing out the successes of the Libertarian Party and by polarizing the situation in terms of democratic and republican ideas they further detract from the Libertarian Party.
The Boston Tea Party is the archetypal patriotic act and adopting its essence in any scenario in protesting and denying oligarchical collectivism is productive. However the founding fathers did not just throw tea into the sea, the founding fathers did not simply protest, the founding fathers thoroughly questioned surrounding conditions and found the best way to counter and protest the verified exploits.
If a person is polarized based on party affiliation or worse a racist with proclaimed political interest, if opinion is limited by unfounded belief or a belief in something and not rooted in facts, then such opinionated protesters did not take the first steps to a successful tea party; questioning conditions and communicating findings with peers. There is a formula to patriotic action in correspondence to the writings and actions of the founding fathers or original patriots, and one must first question and communicate before effectively speaking out.
To simply toss tea whenever one is disheartened with state and corporate ties and policies is ineffective. To embark on understanding the archetypal patriotic event before grabbing tea is more effective. The original patriots ceased support of oligarchical collectivism, the cooperation between the British East India Company and King George III, not with tea, but individual unity. They joined together and questioned conditions before proceeding with the peaceful and yet destructive act of tossing Company tea overboard.
Sometimes conditions are so complicated that they may require extensive questioning and research and then more, continued questions in order to arrive at a reasonable conclusion.
The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax
~Albert Einstein
