then they ridicule you
then they fight you then you win. For those of us in the Tea Party, few statements are more applicable to the current state of the movement's struggle. Mahatma Gandhi once said, First they ignore you
then they ridicule you
then they fight you
then you win. For those of us in the Tea Party, few statements are more applicable to the current state of the movement's struggle. More than a year ago, in response to the historic misuse of the people's money through the Bush/Obama bailouts and the Obama Stimulus Plan, the Tea Party movement first emerged from the citizenry of this nation.
At the time, it was completely ignored by all but the conservative-leaning media outlets. On the day of the first official tea party protests, Feb. 27, 2009, when more than 30,000 Americans gathered across the nation to protest, the mainstream media were largely silent. Even as the Tea Parties increased in popularity, the media upheld their apparent decision that these protests were not newsworthy.
Despite the media's disregard for the Tea Parties, the movement continued to gain steam. It soon became clear to those in power that ignoring the Tea Party was not an effective strategy to defeat it, so the tactics of dismissal gave way to the tactics of ridicule. While Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi labeled the movement Astroturf
denying its grassroots nature, the mainstream media finally broke their silence.
As the massive Tax Day protests of April 15, 2009, grew closer, in which more than a half million Americans turned out to protest the government's spending spree, organizations such as MSNBC began acknowledging the movement, if only long enough to mock and ridicule it with lewd names for the protesters, such as teabaggers.
Today, the ridicule is subsiding to some degree in favor of the third stage that Mahatma Gandhi predicted. As outpouring of accusations against the Tea Party as racist and
inciting violence
the established powers of this country are gearing up to destroy the Tea Party with force. There have already been cases of violence against Tea Party members, including the Aug. 7, 2009, incident in St. Louis in which two men dressed in SEIU uniforms beat an African-American Tea Partier, Kenneth Gladney. They accuse Tea Partiers and their leaders of inciting violence, even though all Tea Party protests have been remarkably nonviolent with almost no arrests, especially compared to some of the left-of-center protests during the eight years of the Bush administration.
We are in the last, and most difficult stage, before victory. They can no longer continue to ignore us, and they can no longer rely only on the tactics of ridicule to oppose us. They now outwardly fight us and condemn us, but we must remain nonviolent in our means of protest. Martin Luther King Jr., whose political movement was also accused at the time of instigating violence, once said, We who in engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.
Tougher times are ahead before we achieve victory. We must continue to speak out and question with boldness. We must continue to articulate our grievances to the government and our intentions to use the hammer of nonviolence to see these grievances redressed. Others will challenge us, smear us, attack us, but the cost of inaction is the continued loss of the liberties our forefathers thought to secure for us.
These liberties belong to the people by divine providence, not at the will of the government. We have a duty higher than our duty to the state, and that duty is to secure these rights for future generations as our forefathers did for us.
Eric Brakey is a senior studying theater performance.
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Opinion
