The Real Tea Party

December 16, 1773:

This iconic 1846 lithograph by Nathaniel Currier was entitled "The Destruction of
Tea at Boston Harbor"; the phrase "Boston Tea Party" had not yet become
standard. Contrary to Currier's depiction, few of the men dumping
the tea were actually disguised as Indians.

The Boston Tea Party was a direct action by colonists in Boston, a town in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the British government and the monopolistic East India Company that controlled all the tea imported into the colonies. On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor. The incident remains an iconic event of American history, and other political protests often refer to it.
The Tea Party was the culmination of a resistance movement throughout British America against the Tea Act, which had been passed by the British Parliament in 1773. Colonists objected to the Tea Act for a variety of reasons, especially because they believed that it violated their right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives. Protesters had successfully prevented the unloading of taxed tea in three other colonies, but in Boston, embattled Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson refused to allow the tea to be returned to Britain. He apparently did not expect that the protestors would choose to destroy the tea rather than concede the authority of a legislature in which they were not directly represented.
The Boston Tea Party was a key event in the growth of the American Revolution. Parliament responded in 1774 with the Coercive Acts, which, among other provisions, closed Boston's commerce until the British East India Company had been repaid for the destroyed tea. Colonists in turn responded to the Coercive Acts with additional acts of protest, and by convening the First Continental Congress, which petitioned the British monarch for repeal of the acts and coordinated colonial resistance to them. The crisis escalated, and the American Revolutionary War began near Boston in 1775.

Imagine how pissed off everybody would  be if the Occupy crowd destroyed a bunch of corporate property.  People get angry because these guys want to camp in parks and they use the human microphone practice to amplify their speeches.  You'd think they were killing people in the street from how mad folks seem to get about them.  If they went into bank offices and started trashing furniture, people would be apoplectic. 

Supposedly, today's Tea Party is emulating Samuel Adams crowd.  Other than the dopey guys in the colonial dress and tri-corner hats, all I see are a bunch of Republicans bitching about the government.  Oh well.