William Rivers Pitt: Tea on the Common

I know, I know, it was just last week that I vowed never to write about these Tea Party people again. I would be more than happy to do just that, but you see, they're coming to my town, hell, to my neighborhood, and tagging along with them is none other than the Queen Of Duh, Sarah Palin.

Wednesday morning, beginning at 10:00 AM EDT, the Tea Party Express will park itself on the sacred ground of Boston Common for a three-hour extravaganza capped by remarks from the former half-term governor of Alaska and McCain campaign stage weight herself. You can be sure she will deliver many witty comments about death panels, socialism and why the Census is evil, punctuated by the occasional "Gosh!" and "Heck!" for flavor. From Boston, the 'Bagger parade heads to Washington, DC, for a rally on tax day, which will in all likelihood earn itself a first-ballot nomination to the Public Stupidity Hall of Fame.

But that's Thursday. The Common on Wednesday is going to be a very interesting place, and I intend to be right in the middle of it, blogging the affair for your entertainment and edification. It is going to be quite a show, I think. You see, the average American has been well-trained to believe Massachusetts is some far-left haven dotted with statues of Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, with abortionists and gay marriage chapels on every street corner and drifts of marijuana seeds in the gutters. Granted, this is a Democratic state (Scott Brown notwithstanding), but the liberal stereotyping of Massachusetts does not dovetail with the reality on the ground.

Massachusetts, and Boston, enjoys a decent-sized Republican/conservative contingent. The fact that they generally struggle to win seats on the state level here makes them energetic in the extreme, so I fully anticipate a large and boisterous crowd will be on hand to greet Palin and her friends. Adding to this is the ugly subtext of racism, which is all too prevalent in this very old town. Boston is one of the most strictly segregated cities in America, and overt racism is never difficult to find. With Obama in the White House, the combination of 'Bagger bedlam and Boston-style racism will almost certainly turn Boston Common into an open-air insane asylum complete with pigeons poop and trolley services.

Interestingly enough, the arrival of Palin and the 'Baggers is making trouble for the newly-minted Republican senator from Massachusetts. The front page of the Boston Herald (the local New-York-Post-wannabe rag that uses exclamation points in its headlines) carried a picture of Scott Brown under a headline which blared "PARTY POOPER" on Monday. You see, Senator Brown has declined an invitation to attend the Palin/'Bagger rally on Wednesday, despite the fact that his campaign was heavily funded by Tea Party elements all across the country.

Boston 'Baggers were less than thrilled with the snub. On Tuesday, the Herald reported:

Boston's right-wing radio helped propel U.S. Sen. Scott Brown into office, but some of his devoted on-air loyalists are ripping him for turning his back on tomorrow's Tea Party rally starring Sarah Palin.

"Scott Brown belongs there," said WTKK-FM (96.9) midday host Michael Graham, one of the featured speakers at the Boston Common event. "The most important thing that's happening in America right now is this big fight between Team Government vs. Team the People."

Graham, an op-ed Herald columnist, said the Wrentham Republican makes a great point when he says he has a job to do in the US Senate and committee hearings, but said "this is where the fight is."

"It would have been very difficult for Sen. Brown to win without the energy and the self-organization that the people called the Tea Party did for him," Graham said.

Yesterday, Brown called into Graham's radio show after hearing the host criticize his snub. "The members of the Tea Party and the constituents in Massachusetts sent me down there to do a job and that's what I'm doing," Brown said. Jeff Katz, the morning-drive host on the newly launched conservative station WXKS-AM (1200), said there's going to be a lot of people "scratching their heads wondering where Scott Brown is."

Katz said he plans to attend the rally and Brown should, too. "It's easy enough to hop on a plane," Katz said. "Realistically, these are the people that not only voted for him, but went out and worked really hard to elect him."

So, yeah, I wasn't going to do this anymore, but this might be pretty special. I'll be there to cover the whole thing, so keep an eye here on Wednesday. A friend suggested I show up with a big cardboard outline of Russia on my head, just to make Palin feel more at home, but that seems a little much. We'll see.

Cross posted from Truthout: http://www.truthout.org/tea-common58545

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: "War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know" and "The Greatest Sedition Is Silence." His newest book, "House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation," is now available from PoliPointPress.

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