[CTRL] Americas First Anti-Globalization Protest: The Boston Tea Party
-Caveat Lector- "Resistance was organizing and growing and the Tea Act was the final straw. The citizens of the colonies were preparing to throw off one of the corporations that for almost two hundred years had determined nearly every aspect of their lives through its economic and political power. They were planning to destroy the goods of the worlds largest multinational corporation, intimidate its employees, and face down the guns of the government that supported it." http://www.memes.org/modules.php?op=modloadname=Newsfile=articlesid=1454mode=threadorder=0thold=0 Government: Americas First Anti-Globalization Protest: The Boston Tea PartyPosted by: souljah on Dec 23, 2002 - 12:31 PM Americas First Anti-Globalization Protest The Boston Tea Party By Thom Hartmann I shall therefore conclude with a proposal that your watchmen be instructed, as they go on their rounds, to call out every night, half-past twelve, Beware of the East India Company. -Pamphlet signed by Rusticus, 1773 Now that Bush administration Treasury Secretary and former Alcoa CEO Paul ONeill has publicly called for the complete elimination of all corporate income taxes (and the elimination of Social Security), many people are wondering if history is repeating itself in a way that may be particularly dangerous for democracy. Conventional wisdom has it that the 1773 Tea Act - a tax law passed in London that led to the Boston Tea Party - was simply an increase in the taxes on tea paid by American colonists. In reality, however, the Tea Act gave the worlds largest transnational corporation - The East India Company - full and unlimited access to the American tea trade, and exempted the Company from having to pay taxes to Britain on tea exported to the American colonies. It even gave the Company a tax refund on millions of pounds of tea they were unable to sell and holding in inventory. The primary purpose of the Tea Act was to increase the profitability of the East India Company to its stockholders (which included the King and the wealthy elite that kept him secure in power), and to help the Company drive its colonial small-business competitors out of business. Because the Company no longer had to pay high taxes to England and held a monopoly on the tea it sold in the American colonies, it was able to lower its tea prices to undercut the prices of the local importers and the mom-and-pop tea merchants and tea houses in every town in America. This infuriated the independence-minded American colonists, who were wholly unappreciative of their colonies being used as a profit center for the worlds largest multinational corporation, The East India Company. They resented their small businesses still having to pay the higher, pre-Tea Act taxes without having any say or vote in the matter. (Thus, the cry of no taxation without representation!) Even in the official British version of the history, the 1773 Tea Act was a legislative maneuver by the British ministry of Lord North to make English tea marketable in America with a goal of helping the East India Company quickly sell 17 million pounds of tea stored in England Americas first entrepreneurs protest This economics-driven view of American History piqued my curiosity when I first discovered it. So when I came upon an original first edition of one of this nations earliest history books, I made a sizeable investment to buy it to read the thoughts of somebody who had actually been alive and participated in the Boston Tea Party and subsequent American Revolution. I purchased from an antiquarian book seller an original copy of Retrospect of the Boston Tea Party with a Memoir of George R.T. Hewes, a Survivor of the Little Band of Patriots Who Drowned the Tea in Boston Harbor in 1773, published in New York by S. S. Bliss in 1834. Because the identities of the Boston Tea Party participants were hidden (other than Samuel Adams) and all were sworn to secrecy for the next fifty years, this account (published 61 years later) is singularly rare and important, as its the only actual first-person account of the event by a participant that exists, so far as I can find. And turning its brittle, age-colored pages and looking at printing on unevenly-sized sheets, typeset by hand and printed on a small hand press almost two hundred years ago, was both fascinating and exciting. Even more interesting was the perspective of the anonymous (by a citizen of New York) author and of Hewes, whom the author extensively interviewed for the book. Although Hewes name is today largely lost in history, he was apparently well known in colonial times and during the 19th century. Esther Forbes classic 1942 biography of Paul Revere, which depended heavily on Paul Reveres many volumes of papers and numerous late 18th and early 19th century sources, mentions Hewes repeatedly throughout her book. For example, when young Paul Revere went off to join the British army in the spring of 1756, he took along with him Hewes.
[CTRL] Americas First Anti-Globalization Protest: The Boston Tea Party
-Caveat Lector- "Resistance was organizing and growing and the Tea Act was the final straw. The citizens of the colonies were preparing to throw off one of the corporations that for almost two hundred years had determined nearly every aspect of their lives through its economic and political power. They were planning to destroy the goods of the worlds largest multinational corporation, intimidate its employees, and face down the guns of the government that supported it." http://www.memes.org/modules.php?op=modloadname=Newsfile=articlesid=1454mode=threadorder=0thold=0 Government: Americas First Anti-Globalization Protest: The Boston Tea PartyPosted by: souljah on Dec 23, 2002 - 12:31 PM Americas First Anti-Globalization Protest The Boston Tea Party By Thom Hartmann I shall therefore conclude with a proposal that your watchmen be instructed, as they go on their rounds, to call out every night, half-past twelve, Beware of the East India Company. -Pamphlet signed by Rusticus, 1773 Now that Bush administration Treasury Secretary and former Alcoa CEO Paul ONeill has publicly called for the complete elimination of all corporate income taxes (and the elimination of Social Security), many people are wondering if history is repeating itself in a way that may be particularly dangerous for democracy. Conventional wisdom has it that the 1773 Tea Act - a tax law passed in London that led to the Boston Tea Party - was simply an increase in the taxes on tea paid by American colonists. In reality, however, the Tea Act gave the worlds largest transnational corporation - The East India Company - full and unlimited access to the American tea trade, and exempted the Company from having to pay taxes to Britain on tea exported to the American colonies. It even gave the Company a tax refund on millions of pounds of tea they were unable to sell and holding in inventory. The primary purpose of the Tea Act was to increase the profitability of the East India Company to its stockholders (which included the King and the wealthy elite that kept him secure in power), and to help the Company drive its colonial small-business competitors out of business. Because the Company no longer had to pay high taxes to England and held a monopoly on the tea it sold in the American colonies, it was able to lower its tea prices to undercut the prices of the local importers and the mom-and-pop tea merchants and tea houses in every town in America. This infuriated the independence-minded American colonists, who were wholly unappreciative of their colonies being used as a profit center for the worlds largest multinational corporation, The East India Company. They resented their small businesses still having to pay the higher, pre-Tea Act taxes without having any say or vote in the matter. (Thus, the cry of no taxation without representation!) Even in the official British version of the history, the 1773 Tea Act was a legislative maneuver by the British ministry of Lord North to make English tea marketable in America with a goal of helping the East India Company quickly sell 17 million pounds of tea stored in England Americas first entrepreneurs protest This economics-driven view of American History piqued my curiosity when I first discovered it. So when I came upon an original first edition of one of this nations earliest history books, I made a sizeable investment to buy it to read the thoughts of somebody who had actually been alive and participated in the Boston Tea Party and subsequent American Revolution. I purchased from an antiquarian book seller an original copy of Retrospect of the Boston Tea Party with a Memoir of George R.T. Hewes, a Survivor of the Little Band of Patriots Who Drowned the Tea in Boston Harbor in 1773, published in New York by S. S. Bliss in 1834. Because the identities of the Boston Tea Party participants were hidden (other than Samuel Adams) and all were sworn to secrecy for the next fifty years, this account (published 61 years later) is singularly rare and important, as its the only actual first-person account of the event by a participant that exists, so far as I can find. And turning its brittle, age-colored pages and looking at printing on unevenly-sized sheets, typeset by hand and printed on a small hand press almost two hundred years ago, was both fascinating and exciting. Even more interesting was the perspective of the anonymous (by a citizen of New York) author and of Hewes, whom the author extensively interviewed for the book. Although Hewes name is today largely lost in history, he was apparently well known in colonial times and during the 19th century. Esther Forbes classic 1942 biography of Paul Revere, which depended heavily on Paul Reveres many volumes of papers and numerous late 18th and early 19th century sources, mentions Hewes repeatedly throughout her book. For example, when young Paul Revere went off to join the British army in the spring of 1756, he took along with him Hewes.
[CTRL] Americas First Anti-Globalization Protest: The Boston Tea Party
-Caveat Lector- Government: Americas First Anti-Globalization Protest: The Boston Tea PartyPosted by: souljah on Monday, December 23, 2002 - 12:31 PM IDLW "Resistance was organizing and growing and the Tea Act was the final straw. The citizens of the colonies were preparing to throw off one of the corporations that for almost two hundred years had determined nearly every aspect of their lives through its economic and political power. They were planning to destroy the goods of the worlds largest multinational corporation, intimidate its employees, and face down the guns of the government that supported it." More at http://memes.org/modules.php?op=modloadname=Newsfile=articlesid=1454mode=threadorder=0thold=0 Do you Yahoo!? A HREF=""www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=""Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=""ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now
