This is the way the world ends…not with a bang, but with a teabagging

History is nothing if not self-reflecting and repetitious, each new attempt to recapture an old event being an increasingly farcical version of the last. And, more importantly, history's repetitions become more “merchandisable” with each iteration, turning meaningful actions into trinkets in "idea markets" and the participants into hypocrites.

The Levees of Hypocrisy are, as it turns out, constructed entirely from heaps and heaps of teabags, dipped in irony, being lobbed by “protesters” all around the country, whose organizers have spent significant funds to rally against what they see as wasteful government usage of funds.

Some unlucky individual effectively became the first “teabag-tossing terrorist” (different than a "teabagging-terrorist tosser"), flinging a lovely, perfectly good, box of Earl Grey onto Obama’s front porch. Of course, while this doesn’t sound too threatening, this brainless act caused a facility-wide lock down as a bomb-sniffing robot inspected the strewn-about packets, which were filled with some sort of “powdery substance” (where have we heard that before?).

The logic in teabagging the President’s place, apparently, is that Obama will save $10 of taxpayer money now that he doesn’t have to buy his own tea. Actually, now that I think about it, while we’re at it, I’d say that the teabaggers might just have a point; maybe instead of wasting government funds on firetrucks and libraries we can just get off our asses and pay for them ourselves? Right?

I felt that I owed it to the radicals to give them the benefit of the doubt. After all, they claim to support the American people at large. Here is just some of what I uncovered:

The definition of “grassroots” doesn’t include lobbyists, so I was “shocked” and “appalled” when I learned from the website of the right wing organization "Freedom Works" (http://www.freedomworks.org/press-releases/tea-party-movement-explodes-across-the-country) that these rallies are being organized by such a large, lobbyist-friendly, group.

Furthermore, FreedomWorks is itself run by Dick Armey. A consummate lobbyist, Dick has attempted to marshal a veritable army of teabaggers (all puns assuredly intended). Dick was unable to massage his connections enough to create true grassroots, bottom-up, protests. What DID happen, however, was a fairly mediocre turnout in most instances (nationwide turnout was just shy of 112,000 people).

Conspicuously, each “tea party” hosted by Fox News anchors Greta VanSusteren, Neil Cavuto, and Glen Beck, showed a higher level of attendance than other such patriotic celebrations around the country. Fox News maintains that it is appropriate to spend time “promoting” these teabaggings, without actually “sponsoring” them. Of course, they are paying their people to organize parties, so you can judge for yourself where the sponsorship line is crossed.

I only feel bad that supporters of the “movement” (fad) will finally be forced to give up their picket signs once they realize that they’re “recycling” the imagery of the Boston Tea party, a quintessential American cliche. I don’t mean that it’s the lack of creativity they'll be worried about, but rather performing an action associated with saving the environment ;-)