With the Republican National Convention underway, it will come to no surprise that the Tea Party is out in Florida in full swing.
PHOTOS: Black Tea Party Members You Need To Know
But what is the party made up of really? Is it a gaggle of like-minded xenophobic, gay-bashing, anti-education, anti-woman, racist S.O.Bs, who support ideals, which clearly don’t have their best interests at heart?
It’s a common question that arises when looking at the Tea Party. Well, the answer is very simple. The coverage the Tea Party gets focuses mainly on the extremists who make the entire party appear as such.
In actuality, the average Tea Party member has a lot in common with those who participated in the Occupy Wall Street movement.
They both want to end dependence on the Federal Reserve, and they both want to have fair representation of their elected officials, and they both want to restore America to the principles the country was founded on, minus the slavery. Their main cause for debate is taxation and government allocation of federal funding, which will be eradicated if the first three issues are solved.
It’s no secret that this country’s economy is based off a system of debt, which ensures that America will never get out of debt. Every dollar that is printed has to be borrowed from the Federal Reserve, which is a private bank.
For every dollar that is borrowed, we have to pay back with interest. To pay the Fed back, we have to borrow more money from the Fed. That’s the reason for your income tax, and part of the reason for inflation. Both groups want that system to end.
In a direct democracy, the people gather together to vote on every single issue that comes up in a society. Well, in archaic Greece that may have been an effective tool of governing, but in a country with a population of 300 million, that is an unfathomable system of governing.
So we elect those who have the interest of their constituency at heart, supposedly. Sadly though, as of right now corporate interest and political interest have become inexorable. So the idea of a representative government is the idea of justice for all.
America is based off the principles of post-Louis XVI France; we have strayed away from the ideas of the Renaissance and Enlightenment period.
What was established by the people for the people has become an autonomous system of control that seeks to keep the power in the hands of the few who wield it.
Both the Occupy protesters and the Tea Party see those truths, and seek to make change. The sad thing is both have different opinions on how to solve their common problems. If the left would stop viewing the right as a bunch of old, narrow minded, racist, xenophobic, gay bashing, nut jobs, and the right stopped viewing the left as a bunch of weed smoking, socialist, liberal, hippies, and started focusing on their commonalities, then an avenue for change will open up.
The great erudite John Henrik Clarke once said, “I am not communist, nor do I believe in capitalism. Both are systems of oppression dedicated to control of the masses. To choose one is the substitute one form of oppression for another.”
That being said, both the left and the right need to center themselves for a common goal for either of their ideas for change to occur. Are some members of the Tea Party racist nut jobs? Yes, but that does not mean that the party consists solely of them.
To put all Tea Party members in the same category is akin to saying all poor blacks are criminals due to the media coverage of inner-city neighborhoods.
Garvey Ashhurst is a young up and coming poet, songwriter, and blogger. He is the reason that the system is afraid of a black man in a library. His aim is not to be Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, or Ghandi, but he hopes to make them proud by keeping their ideals alive through his lifestyle. He hopes that one day young brothers will one day say I want to be the next him.
