Not to get the big picture too big, but we may be at the beginning of one of those Hinges Of History future historians will write about at length, much along the lines of the political realignment that saw the demise of the Whigs. The Tea Partiers are working from the ground up to capture and remake or restore the Republican Party to conservative first principles. Will it work? Who knows. But what we do know is that every event has a presaging event, and that event a presaging event, and so on, without which the event would not have happened. With the Tea Parties that event was the election of Barack Obama and his immediate voyage to change the economic and political system of the United States to European style socialism. Had Hillary or John McCain been elected it is doubtful either would have pursued the course Obama chose, and thus no Tea Parties. In my view the Tea Parties are the culmination of events that began long ago. Pick your starting point. Any will do. If Winston Churchill had not persuaded a reluctant British Cabinet in September 1914 to declare war on Germany, Germany would have won a small scale European war by Christmas 1914, territory would have been exchanged, five empires would have remained intact, there would have been no Stalin, no Hitler, no World War 2, no flight to the moon in 1969. The entire history of the world these past 95+ years would have been different. But Churchill’s speech to the Cabinet in 1914 had its own presaging events, without which Churchill would not have given the speech. So where to start? We are where we are. Churchill’s speech that led to a four year war that toppled European civilization, was, I believe, one of the Hinges Of History. It remains to be seen if the Tea Party movement is a Hinge Of History, but I think it has the makings of being one.

 

 

When citizens have had enough

When citizens get mad

They grumble, mumble curse and fret

When seeing things go bad

Obama promised hope and change

All with a wink and smirk

And once in office said that he’d

Make socialism work

He gave GM to union friends

He raised the debt to heights

That gave the decent citizens

The screaming, reaming frights

He tore apart our great health care

The finest in the world

By buying votes and making deals

All done with wet lips curled

And so the people of this land

Assembled as their right

And formed a party to oppose

Hussein with all their might

They march with placards proudly high

They march to the attack

The Tea Parties are here to say

They want their country back