Current Tea Parties Vs. The Boston Tea Party

As we briefly discussed in class, the original Boston Tea Party took place in 1773 just after the French and Indian war. During this particular time, Parliament wanted to collect money from its people in order to obtain enough money to cover the war expenses. However, the people being taxed felt no obligation to pay taxes to a government that did not represent them. The people did not select the government, and they were unaware of the places that their tax dollars would go. Therefore, multiple taxpayers started the Boston Tea Party, something that essentially encouraged the protest of taxes.

Today, there exist several more tea parties across the nation, but this time for different reasons. People are now mainly protesting on tax day because they feel that they should not have to pay larger tax dollars to cover other Americans’ debt. An article online includes various letters to the editor of Palm Beach Post. These letters are detailing the differences between the modern day tea parties to the Boston Tea Party. The letters state that, “the original ‘Tea Party’ was against taxation without representation. Today, voters ignore true representation. Protesters should fight for real honesty and openness when protesting high taxes. The voters, not the legislators, should determine which services should be reduced or eliminated in order to reduce taxes” (Katz). This letter is clearly from a position that believes that instead of protesting taxes, the modern day tea parties should focus on protesting the authority of the government just as people in 1773 did. However, other letter-writers disapprove of the current tea parties, stating that, “perhaps socialism is what is needed in this country. We have seen the major corporations, especially the financials, bleed the middle class almost dry...we are Americans, and we could probably do socialism far better than any country ever has” (Foster). It appears as if each letter promotes a different idea toward the modern-day tea parties. Some people, like Foster, completely disagree with the tea parties stating that the country may need a sense of added socialism. Other people, such as George McLellan, believe that tea parties should be held because Congress should be stopped from freely spending citizens’ money. Despite the different points of view, it still seems as if the modern day tea parties are similar to the Boston Tea Party in that people are rallying together to protest against taxes. The Boston Tea Party resulted in large amounts of tea thrown into the Boston Harbor by protesting colonists. These protesting colonists had some of their taxes repealed by the English government. They were then only required to pay a tea tax to essentially inform the colonists that they were still subject to British rule. The similarities between the tea parties now and then make me wonder whether the modern-day tea parties will ever have the same effect as the Boston Tea Party.

Michael Moore's Visual Argument

As I read chapter 14 of “Everything is an Argument”, I immediately thought of the Michael Moore film, “Roger and Me”, that we watched and discussed in class. While Moore did not use a picture to illustrate his thesis, he did use visual arguments discussed in chapter 14 by embedding various video clips into his film in order to clearly depict his argument. While trying to convey the struggles that the General Motors employees of Flint faced in the 1980’s when the factory closed down, Moore strategically placed several visual artifacts into his film. He captured the emotion of a family that was evicted on Christmas Eve as tears flowed from the childrens' faces, and the parents cursed and screamed at the situation. Moore then placed further emphasis on this tragic situation by juxtaposing it with the General Motors CEO, Roger Smith, declaring the greatness of the Christmas season. Moore also grasps the viewer’s attention and made me personally sympathize for a few laid-off employees that are now attempting to survive by selling rabbits or teaching lessons on style strategies. Also, by playing the overwhelmingly happy song “Wouldn't it be Nice” by The Beach Boys along side several video clips illustrating the impoverished, deserted town, Moore makes it clear that he is opposed to the situation in Flint. He further tries to portray the Roger Smith as an evil man by showing himself on several occasions not being able to achieve an interview with Smith.

There are several more instances in which Moore uses visual artifacts to convey his argument. By using the visual strategies mentioned above, Moore’s thesis can easily be identified. He is greatly opposed to the factory closing down in Flint as seen in the pathos he uses in hopes that the viewer will feel sorry for the town and its laid-off employees. I believe that through his use of visual artifacts, Moore is able to show the severity of the situation in flint more than if he had simply written a picture-less article.

Holidays Link the Recession to the Depression

In the poem “Being Poor”, the author mentions that, “Being poor is a box of crayons and a $1 coloring book from a community center Santa”. This idea of not receiving gifts for any particular holiday due to financial problems immediately reminded me of the Easter holiday that is approaching, and how the recession could potentially affect the sales of Easter candy and gifts.

According to an article detailing the events of the Great Depression, not many people received Christmas presents during that particular time period. Millie Ruchel, an 82-year-old that lived during the time of the Great Depression, speaks of her father’s unemployment, and that, "Because of [her] father's continued unemployment, [her family] received no gifts [for] Christmas." She then discusses how one Christmas, her father wanted to give his children a gift, so he hand-crafted a teeter-totter out of wood. Ruchel appears to have fond memories of that teeter-totter, and it seems that not receiving any store-bought toys was a common during the years of the Great Depression.

A similar scenario is now emerging in the current recession that the economy is facing. The article, “Will the recession slow down the Easter Bunny?”, discusses the predicted outcome of Easter sales this year. The article states that, “the National Retail Federation says a survey shows people plan to spend about 15% less on their Easter celebrations this year” (Famuliner). It continues to state that this 15% decrease in shopping will most likely come from people purchasing fewer gifts such as clothing or flowers for others, but the amount of candy sales is projected to stay the same.

The projected fall in spending this year for Easter is very similar to the Great Depression Christmas sales fall, and may be an indication that the world is heading toward a similar situation to the Great Depression. I hope that lack of holiday sales is not a foreshadowing of a depression to come.

A Modern Day Depression

A News and Observer article entitled, “Recession Calls Up Sacrifices”, reminded me of the Great Depression Dust Bowl photographs that we discussed in class. The Dust Bowl pictures illustrated the great deal of sacrifice that the majority of people living in the Great Depression had to make in order to continue making money. Some people in the photographs were seen walking large distances, instead of taking the train, to get a job in order to save a few valuable dollars. Others were seen dancing for nearly 50 days, sacrificing their happiness, to gain at least some money. Further sacrifices are seen in the photograph of a family living out of their car instead of a house because it presumably saves large amounts of money. Currently, while the scenarios may not be as severe, people and businesses are making several sacrifices in order to keep their lifestyles and companies alive.

The article states that businesses are attempting to avoid firing employees by making sacrifices such as, “reducing hours, freezing wages and suspending matching 401(k) programs” (Murawski). Other sacrifices that several businesses are making include employees bringing their own lunches instead of having catered food, and not having offices cleaned nearly as much as they were in the past. I remember a few years ago hearing of several companies entertaining their clients over a round of golf, or a meal at an expensive restaurant. However, according to this article, those days are now sacrificed and overshadowed by inexpensive company sponsored meals. Initially, I had thought that employees and management would be disappointed by these sacrifices, however, the article states that the workers have accepted the changes and are just happy to have their jobs. This especially reminded me of the Dust Bowl photographs as the majority of the pictures illustrated people that appeared to come from high-paying jobs, due to their attire, and seemed to settle for essentially any occupation that they could find. While the workers discussed in the modern-day article are not making the same immense sacrifices that the people in the Great Depression photographs made, the two situations are similar in that in each scenario people are sacrificing the things they previously took for granted in order to continue making money. I simply hope that people in present day scenarios do not continue having to make sacrifices until they are living out of their cars, or participating in 50-day dance competitions.

Past and Present Company Strategies

After discussing the nature of business this week in American Studies, as well as magazine and commercial ads, I have noticed myself become much more aware of various companies’ marketing strategies. For example, this week while I watched CSI with Taylor Swift as the guest star, I noticed several commercials regarding her future performances at concert arenas and award shows. Also, when I watched a televised college basketball game, I observed several alcoholic beverages being advertised. In both scenarios, the companies seem to attempt to appeal to an audience that they believe is watching. This is something that I was never aware of before. Playing certain commercials on particular stations seems to be a key strategy to cause privileged Americans to believe that they need more than they already have. However, one company that I kept seeing reoccurring ads for, regardless of the station, was Geico, the car insurance company that has forever embedded the line, “15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance”, into my mind.

I completed some research to discover the reasons that this company to receives so much airtime and discovered that it is because car-insurance appeals to a mass amount of people…almost everyone who drives a car. An article entitled, “The Best Ad on Television”, states that Geico appeals to, “Pretty much everyone—man or woman, gay or straight, black or white, hip or hick. If you drive a car, they want your business” (Stevenson). However, I also noticed that these ads are very diversified. They range from understandable tame ads for serious drivers, to comedic ads that younger people may like.
Various ads, such as Geico, have made me more aware of the strategic plans of the advertisers. These companies realize that people may, for instance, already have car insurance, so they place multiple commercials on a variety of stations to convince people that their insurance is somehow better. This is similar to several magazine ads we discussed at in class such as the Verizon Wireless ads that appeal to both teens who desire to become popular, and older customers, who may desire a simpler styled phone.
All of these ads ultimately reminded me of the story of the car company General Motors. A company that caused people to yearn for their product by changing the style and color of cars, and convincing people that what they have is not quite good enough, and that they need to have something better. Whether it is a humorous car-insurance advertisement, or a different paint color on a car, it seems that the base of advertising has not changed a lot since the 1920’s. Companies still use similar strategies in order to persuade customers to buy their product.

Modern Day Triangle Shirtwaist Factory

As we discussed in class, The Triangle Shirtwaist factory was clearly unequipped for hazards such as fires. The fire escape in the building was indeed approved by the fire department, however, the doors on certain floors were locked to ensure that none of the workers unionized or escaped during the course any given day. After a fire hit and hundreds of workers died, mainly because of the poor fire equipment, the Triangle Shirtwaist factory was remade. One may think that the management would have learned their lesson after the fire struck the eighth floor, but in their new building, they still proceeded to cover the fire escape with a sewing machine. This finally caused the fire department to disapprove of the factory’s fire equipment.

After learning of this terrible situation that occurred in 1911, I completed some research to investigate if similar events are still happening in modern day situations. I was shocked to find a related situation that had occurred last April in India.

In Mangalore, India, very minimally paid laborers are, “hired to dig trenches in Atturkodi area in Kutherthoor village by the Mangalore Refineries and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL)” (Mondal). These laborers were hired last spring to search for an oil-leak. The trenches that were being dug had been polluted by hydrocarbons. Supposedly these hydrocarbons have caused the trench diggers to begin to develop severe skin conditions. These laborers have repeatedly told their management of these skin problems, and even, “requested the officials of the refinery for protective gear but nothing had been done in this regard” (Mondal). One worker developed a dangerous burning sensation on his legs and hands. However, the officials threatened him after he told a television station about the skin conditions that the laborers are developing.

This modern day situation greatly reminded me of the Shirtwaist Factory in that the management did not care about its workers, but only the job they completed. This situation Mangalore greatly saddened me to know that people have still not learned from the mistakes of the Shirtwaist Factory. In 1911, a sacrifice was made, and I wish the world could learn from those mistakes. However, because similar situations are still occurring today, it causes me to believe that maybe this attitude will always remain in human nature. However, people should learn from events such as these and begin to care more about people than the work that they complete.

Can the Stimulus Package Help Susie American?

Last week in class, we discussed an average scenario that the majority of Americans are living today. This is the scenario of Susie American. In case you don’t remember, Susie was a single mother of two who bought a house for $100,000 and then later used the home “flipping” strategy to sell the house for $150,000. After selling that home, Susie hoped to do the same with another. But the bank told her that with a loan, she could buy a $200,000 home. With Susie’s reasoning, she had thought that she could make more money buying the $200,000 home because the interest would grow faster with a more expensive home. Unfortunately for Susie, and many other Americans, the price of the home did not rise as expected, but it greatly fell because too many people, like Susie, took out loans from the bank that they could not afford. Then, because the entire country was in financial turmoil because of situations similar to this, Susie lost her job and was left with a home she could not pay for, a large loan that she could not afford, and two children to provide for. The question is, what are the government and president going to do to make Susie, and millions of Americans like her, become financially stable again?

Obama’s new housing plan unfortunately does not focus on the many Americans like Susie, instead, according to cnnmoney.com, the plan focuses more on helping around 9 million people that owe more than the home’s value, but can still afford the payments. Unfortunately, “The program does virtually nothing for the unemployed, who often don't have enough income to make any reasonable monthly payment affordable” (Luhby). This is very unpleasant news for Susie and a large mass of Americans who recently became unemployed due to the financial recession that the country is currently in. However, the article did later mention that those who were currently unemployed could potentially benefit from Obama’s bill in the future because Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus package “is expected to create or save up to 3.5 million jobs” (Luhby). After reading about the stimulus bill, this appeared to be the only benefit to the large amount of people living with similar situations to Susie.

This seems to be a very terrible thing for the majority of Americans, and I hope in the future, there will be a bill that focuses on helping the mass of Americans instead of the small amount the this bill supposedly helped. Unfortunately, this bill realistically may not appear for months, or maybe years. Therefore, I suppose that one important thing Americans can do is look at what exactly caused the housing market to crash and the economy to fail, and learn from our mistakes, ensuring that it never happens again. Until the next bill, focusing on a greater mass of Americans, arrives, it seems that all Americans can do is become self-reliant and attempt to solve their own financial problems. As mentioned before, this is an unfortunate situation, but one that can be solved with several bills and efforts that will hopefully arrive in the future.