The Tea Party, that corporate funded facade of a Republican Makeover (bringing the Birchers into mainstream Republicanism), often quoted Jefferson's "Refreshing the Tree of Liberty" with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Here's the actual quote, from a letter Jefferson wrote to William Stephens Smith dated November 13 1787.
God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
There were no crackdowns of Tea Party events- namely because the same corporate jerkoffs running our poor sham of a Republic are the same people behind the Tea Party. There were no confrontations with police despite Tea Partiers openly wearing guns at their events. There was no indiscriminate pepper spraying. There was no actual hardship; the Tea Party events were nothing more than a facade. The Tea Party was the gut wrench reaction by corporate powers who utilized racist outrage in Red America at the election of the first African-American President in our history. It was meant to hobble Obama, and give a public reason to filibuster everything in the Senate and try to grind the House to a halt (which they've done since the 2010 elections).
This is the sort of rhetoric that results in people shooting at the White House, just another materialized threat against this Democratic President, which has experienced a 400% increase in threats leveled at the President. This is the result of Tea Party calls for rebellion, made manifest by "lone wolves" so favored in right wing circles (What? I never asked for violence, these people are just insane, stop trying to shut me up you commie pinko fascist!)
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But what happens when a true grassroots movement of actual spontaneity by people from all walks of life mobilize such as the Occupations springing up for the past two months that criticizes and illuminates the wretched, foul machinery that routinely sells bullshit in cable and the airwaves? You get the coordinated crackdown of that Movement from New York to Oakland.
The Jefferson Quote that Tea Partiers kept (wrongly) repeating, usually as a threat to liberals, was warped and twisted to fit their needs. Tea Partiers also misappropriated the Gadsen Flag (Don't Tread On Me), trying to wrap themselves in patriotism to mask their racist bullshit.
The Tree of Liberty is being watered by people being beaten by police in all the crackdowns against the Occupy movements across the nation. And this is not being lost on the few television personalities speaking for the people and not corporations. Keith Olbermann takes Bloomberg to task in this special comment. Rachel Maddow rightly excoriates the NYPD and Bloomberg for their midnight raid and media blackout here. Ed covers the crackdown here. Lawrence covers it here.
Here's when you know that you are hitting the nerve center of the nation; when the police are beating you for exercising your Constitutional Rights of Free Assembly and Free Speech.
The Tea Partiers are a joke. Occupy is the real deal. Let's hope the Tree of Liberty hasn't already died, and the 99% (us!) can snap it out of dormancy, because the Poisonous Vines of Corporate Plutocracy are killing us all.
