America Without a Middle Class

[loosecannon]

The Boston Tea Party was a rebellion against the British East India Company

There is no revisionism going on with Hartmann's article.
From: Boston Tea Party - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Resisting the Tea Act

The protest movement that culminated with the Boston Tea Party was not a dispute about high taxes. The price of legally imported tea was actually reduced by the Tea Act of 1773. Protestors were instead concerned with a variety of other issues. The familiar "no taxation without representation" argument, along with the question of the extent of Parliament's authority in the colonies, remained prominent.[39] Some regarded the purpose of the tax program—to make leading officials independent of colonial influence—as a dangerous infringement of colonial rights.[40] This was especially true in Massachusetts, the only colony where the Townshend program had been fully implemented.[41]

Colonial merchants, some of them smugglers, played a significant role in the protests. Because the Tea Act made legally imported tea cheaper, it threatened to put smugglers of Dutch tea out of business.[42] Legitimate tea importers who had not been named as consignees by the East India Company were also threatened with financial ruin by the Tea Act.[43] Another major concern for merchants was that the Tea Act gave the East India Company a monopoly on the tea trade, and it was feared that this government-created monopoly might be extended in the future to include other goods.[44]

It wasn't a protest over high taxes, but taxes generally, your own quoted material says so.

Which invalidates your claim that the tea party was a protest over a corporation.

Bullshit...

From the Hartmann article:

A pamphlet was circulated through the colonies called The Alarm and signed by an enigmatic "Rusticus." One issue made clear the feelings of colonial Americans about England's largest transnational corporation and its behavior around the world: "Their Conduct in Asia, for some Years past, has given simple Proof, how little they regard the Laws of Nations, the Rights, Liberties, or Lives of Men. They have levied War, excited Rebellions, dethroned lawful Princes, and sacrificed Millions for the Sake of Gain. The Revenues of Mighty Kingdoms have entered their Coffers. And these not being sufficient to glut their Avarice, they have, by the most unparalleled Barbarities, Extortions, and Monopolies, stripped the miserable Inhabitants of their Property, and reduced whole Provinces to Indigence and Ruin. Fifteen hundred Thousands, it is said, perished by Famine in one Year, not because the Earth denied its Fruits; but [because] this Company and their Servants engulfed all the Necessaries of Life, and set them at so high a Price that the poor could not purchase them."


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Let's see how our founding fathers treated corporations...

A word that appears nowhere in the Constitution is "corporation," for the writers had no interest in using for-profit corporations to run their new government. In colonial times, corporations were tools of the king's oppression, chartered for the purpose of exploiting the so-called "New World" and shoveling wealth back into Europe. The rich formed joint-stock corporations to distribute the enormous risk of colonizing the Americas and gave them names like the Hudson Bay Company, the British East India Company, and the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Because they were so far from their sovereign - the king - the agents for these corporations had a lot of autonomy to do their work; they could pass laws, levy taxes, and even raise armies to manage and control property and commerce. They were not popular with the colonists.

So the Constitution's authors left control of corporations to state legislatures (10th Amendment), where they would get the closest supervision by the people.

Early corporate charters were explicit about what a corporation could do, how, for how long, with whom, where, and when.

1) Corporations could not own stock in other corporations,
2) They were prohibited from any part of the political process.
3) Individual stockholders were held personally liable for any harms done in the name of the corporation
4) Most charters only lasted for 10 or 15 years.
5) Corporations had to represent a clear benefit for the public good

And when corporations violated any of these terms, their charters were frequently revoked by the state legislatures.
Abolish Corporate Personhood


The first thing to understand is the difference between the natural person and the fictitious person called a corporation. They differ in the purpose for which they are created, in the strength which they possess, and in the restraints under which they act. Man is the handiwork of God and was placed upon earth to carry out a Divine purpose; the corporation is the handiwork of man and created to carry out a money-making policy. There is comparatively little difference in the strength of men; a corporation may be one hundred, one thousand, or even one million times stronger than the average man. Man acts under the restraints of conscience, and is influenced also by a belief in a future life. A corporation has no soul and cares nothing about the hereafter.
—William Jennings Bryan, 1912 Ohio Constitutional Convention

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Like I said, Hartman is clearly revising history based on the account of one man.
(whether he is doing so accurately, you and I will never know)

But even Hartman's commentary is at odds with yours.

The colonists rebelled against the crown's agents imposing taxation without representation. While undermining the colonists "free trade" (illegal smuggling sans taxation).

Your own sources say as much over and over again.

The colonists were not revolting against a corporation.

Not against the "WalMart of their day".

But against the crown.

 

[Bfgrn]

It wasn't a protest over high taxes, but taxes generally, your own quoted material says so.

Which invalidates your claim that the tea party was a protest over a corporation.

Bullshit...

From the Hartmann article:

A pamphlet was circulated through the colonies called The Alarm and signed by an enigmatic "Rusticus." One issue made clear the feelings of colonial Americans about England's largest transnational corporation and its behavior around the world: "Their Conduct in Asia, for some Years past, has given simple Proof, how little they regard the Laws of Nations, the Rights, Liberties, or Lives of Men. They have levied War, excited Rebellions, dethroned lawful Princes, and sacrificed Millions for the Sake of Gain. The Revenues of Mighty Kingdoms have entered their Coffers. And these not being sufficient to glut their Avarice, they have, by the most unparalleled Barbarities, Extortions, and Monopolies, stripped the miserable Inhabitants of their Property, and reduced whole Provinces to Indigence and Ruin. Fifteen hundred Thousands, it is said, perished by Famine in one Year, not because the Earth denied its Fruits; but [because] this Company and their Servants engulfed all the Necessaries of Life, and set them at so high a Price that the poor could not purchase them."


-----------------------------------------------------

Let's see how our founding fathers treated corporations...

A word that appears nowhere in the Constitution is "corporation," for the writers had no interest in using for-profit corporations to run their new government. In colonial times, corporations were tools of the king's oppression, chartered for the purpose of exploiting the so-called "New World" and shoveling wealth back into Europe. The rich formed joint-stock corporations to distribute the enormous risk of colonizing the Americas and gave them names like the Hudson Bay Company, the British East India Company, and the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Because they were so far from their sovereign - the king - the agents for these corporations had a lot of autonomy to do their work; they could pass laws, levy taxes, and even raise armies to manage and control property and commerce. They were not popular with the colonists.

So the Constitution's authors left control of corporations to state legislatures (10th Amendment), where they would get the closest supervision by the people.

Early corporate charters were explicit about what a corporation could do, how, for how long, with whom, where, and when.

1) Corporations could not own stock in other corporations,
2) They were prohibited from any part of the political process.
3) Individual stockholders were held personally liable for any harms done in the name of the corporation
4) Most charters only lasted for 10 or 15 years.
5) Corporations had to represent a clear benefit for the public good

And when corporations violated any of these terms, their charters were frequently revoked by the state legislatures.
Abolish Corporate Personhood


The first thing to understand is the difference between the natural person and the fictitious person called a corporation. They differ in the purpose for which they are created, in the strength which they possess, and in the restraints under which they act. Man is the handiwork of God and was placed upon earth to carry out a Divine purpose; the corporation is the handiwork of man and created to carry out a money-making policy. There is comparatively little difference in the strength of men; a corporation may be one hundred, one thousand, or even one million times stronger than the average man. Man acts under the restraints of conscience, and is influenced also by a belief in a future life. A corporation has no soul and cares nothing about the hereafter.
—William Jennings Bryan, 1912 Ohio Constitutional Convention

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Like I said, Hartman is clearly revising history based on the account of one man.
(whether he is doing so accurately, you and I will never know)

But even Hartman's commentary is at odds with yours.

The colonists rebelled against the crown's agents imposing taxation without representation. While undermining the colonists "free trade" (illegal smuggling sans taxation).

Your own sources say as much over and over again.

The colonists were not revolting against a corporation.

Not against the "WalMart of their day".

But against the crown.

The Boston Tea Party was a rebellion against the 'crown' and against the agents or vehicles of the crown. The agents of the crown were the multinational corporations. The British East India Company in this case. Did you READ the quoted passage from Hewes? He not talking about the 'crown', he is talking about the COMPANY (The British East India Company) with total disdain and contempt.

Here is a post from Bruce Bartlett, who was a domestic policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan and was a Treasury official under President George H.W. Bush.


The Truth About the Tea Party (the Original One)

The Tea Party was prompted by a corporate bailout. What's not to like about cheap tea? Plenty, at least when it comes as part of a corporate bailout. Because that's what the Tea Act was: an 18th-century version of corporate welfare.

After Parliament repealed all the Townshend duties except the tax on tea, colonists seemed to ignore the assertion of the right to tax the colonies. Boycotts petered out, and colonial consumers began buying tea again. But not all that tea was taxed. A large portion -- by some estimates as much as 90 percent -- came from smugglers, who sold Dutch tea unburdened by the British duty.

Meanwhile Parliament was struggling to rescue a corporation it had deemed too big to fail: the British East India Company. The company was saddled with a large debt and even larger inventories. Its warehouses were stocked to the rafters with unsold tea (among other things), and lawmakers soon hit on a brilliant idea: lower the tax on company tea, permit its direct exportation to the colonies, and let the company undercut the smugglers.

The colonists, however, were unswayed by the prospect of legal, affordable tea. Instead they invoked the specter of monopoly, insisting that the East India Company would soon grow too powerful to resist. Colonial merchants would be ruined, the company would tighten its grip on the marketplace, and average consumers would be left at the mercy of a mercantile leviathan. As one writer noted at that time:

The scheme appears too big with mischievous consequences and dangers to America, [even as we consider it only] as it may create a monopoly; or, as it may introduce a monster, too powerful for us to control, or contend with, and too rapacious and destructive, to be trusted, or even seen without horror, that may be able to devour every branch of our commerce, drain us of all our property and substance, and wantonly leave us to perish by thousands. 1

Such complaints carried the day. Rather than settling down with a nice cheap cuppa, agitators found their way to Griffin's Wharf, boarded the tea ships, and tossed the imported Bohea overboard.

NOTES

1 Quoted in Arthur Meier Schlesinger, "The Uprising Against the East India Company," Political Science Quarterly, vol. 32, no. 1 (Mar. 1917), 74.

 

[loosecannon]

"The Boston Tea Party was a rebellion against the 'crown' and against the agents or vehicles of the crown. "

and taxation without representation

and the challenge to the illegal Dutch tea trade

And the fear that the crown would exert further control over the colonists whose lives were not easy lives.