Some more Tea, Jeeves!

The past week was full of very powerful, um... very meaningful protests, yeah. The "Tea Parties", held across the country were a gathering of Americans protesting the increase of taxes placed on them, and the ideal of hefty government spending as a whole. In these meetings, members of young republican clubs and other concerned citizens showed their solidarity against wasteful spending by, as John Stewart criticized, "buying one million tea bags and dumping them into the sea." I thought that was an interesting way to express their position. 

This whole event made me recall what they were really protesting, higher taxes. If you are holding up a sign calling for lower taxes, then it is almost assured that you make over $200,000 a year. That is if you're not into hardcore politics and strict political alining. The reason that one would be considered "wealthy" when participating in a Tea Party, is because President Obama has created one of the largest tax cuts for average Americans making under $200,000. In the end, I think the American public is seeing the reflex action by the wealthier segment of America as they now feel the burden of proportional earning taxation and a small bite out of their pocket. In the end, the visual argument was a rather weak one. 

Visual Arguments need a foundation of sound sense and purpose, and the Tea Parties certainly did not have that, and even worse, they needed the help of Fox News to convey their message. In a Think Progress analysis, one can see how much air-time and attention was paid to the Tea Parties, which seemed much less significant and powerful than the Anti-War and Stop the Hate protests that frequent the streets of American cities. If we could get big news corporations to film the issues that really matter, then perhaps our country could begin to progress, rather than regress to the possessive nature of toddlers.