For about the past eight days, the rest of the world has been seeing the people of Egypt come out in frustration over their daily lives and getting fed-up with the strong-man rule of President Hosni Mubarak have come out to protest against President Mubarak and his thirty years of rule.
Off and on, I have begun to wonder, has the protesters in Egypt gotten inspiration to address their grievances which today includes a million people’s march to the palace of President Mubarak today, from the tea party movement in the United States which has been going on these past two years.
Since up until last week when the Egyptian government had shut down the internet, on YouTube, there has been many videos of tea party rallies that have taken place around the United States, including the capital city of my home state, Hartford, Connecticut, at the State Capitol. Since half of the Egyptian population is under forty years of age and are big users of the internet, this should come as NO SURPRISE. This would prove that there have been efforts building up for a while leading to which has been seen for the past eight days. IMHO, this is a sign that people everywhere, not just only in the United States, have the desire for freedom from oppression. And not just only in Egypt, Tunisia, has via many rallies have removed their own dictator. Also protests have sprung up in both Jordan and Yemen. The ONLY BIG CONCERN I do have, is that these protests are not HIJACKED by those with agendas which are not in the best interests of the Egyptians or the other Arabs that are saying, “enough is enough” in their own way. I wish the people in Egypt and in the Arab who have said “enough is enough” world Godspeed in their efforts to stand up to those who have oppressed them.
Have the Egyptians learned from the tea party movement? A classic tea party movement from Rick Santelli of CNBC on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade nearly two years who spoke the words that ended up going around the world.
From TheSmokingArgus YouTube video presentation:”Rick Santelli of CNBC calls for a Tea Party style even in response the current and former bailout/stimulus deals.
The floor of the Chicago Board of Trade erupts in support and boo’s when asked if they want to pay their neighbor’s mortgage.
He also offers a comparison of Cuba changing over from an individualist to collectivist society and the effect it has had on their economy.
He asks that all capitalists join him in July for a new Tea party on the shores of Lake Michigan.”
With MANY THANKS to both TheSmokingArgus and YouTube. Watch Video Here:
Website: \”Official Site Of The Smoking Argus\”
Update:
Even Jack “Uncle Cranky” Cafferty even brings up the role that social media has been used to organized these protests in the Middle East.
Even I have used them in regards to tea party gatherings in the past. There is no denying the fact that dictators are “fearful” of such tools, because an educated public as Mr. Cafferty says, is an enemy of dictatorships.
With MANY THANKS to both PoliticsNewsNews and YouTube. Watch Video Here:
Anne's POWER SURGE Blog 
I think MSNBC’s Ed Schultz rally in DC in response to the TEA Parties was more of an influence. Along with Democrats, Progressives there were Socialist and Communist and Labor Unions all protesting together – displaying strong anti-American anger. They left the Washington Mall trashed!
The far left protests in California last year about tuition rate hikes where windows were broken, people arrested – that is how the left protests.
The TEA Party protests were nothing like that – no violence, happy people with their kids in strollers waving flags – homemade signs. They cleaned up after themselves. Were there some who got angry at town hall meetings? YES – no violence though – it stemmed from the fact that they knew they were being lied to and being told “talking points”. Being treated as if they were stupid and couldn’t read the bills.
The idea of protesting governments is not new – I hope that the Egyptian people get freedom and democracy but as history shows us that region usually trades one bad leader for another.
First of all, THANK-YOU for your response it is a good response.
My response is that I am not surprised by the protests. I had listened in the overnight to “Coast To Coast AM” on what has been going on and I have heard that the number of people who are under the age of 40 is about close to half if not half the country. Plus many, many of these younger people have before the shutting down of the internet last week have been going online, seeing the videos of different rallies, it could very well be possible that since on YouTube there are a LOT of TP rally videos as well as well as Facebook is used to communicate. They also see how better off others are and this causes them to get resentful.
I have also heard that those Egyptian police forces who are the most supportive of Mubarak who have been doing the violent attacks causing the deaths, damage, and looting in the same show. These are not the ones who simply took their uniforms off.
As for the Muslim Brotherhood, I am still doing a lot of learning on them and if there is a MAJOR takeover of the government, then this is going to be very, very bad for not only Egypt, but Israel, the rest of the Middle East and rest of the world as well.
Like you, I wish nothing but the very best to the everyday Egyptians who want simply to have President Mabarak step down, but also it could very well not end in a good or sucessful manner.
Hey lady, if the Egyptians become obese and get a hoverround (at little or no cost to you), will you take credit for that too?
Your argument is really apples and oranges. Did these people learn to protest against an oppressive government because there were rallies held by a group in opposition to policies in the United States? No. There is no evidence to sustain that argument. Simply because there are videos of Tea Party rallies on YouTube doesn’t mean that is a possible cause why they are protesting now. If that were the case, how could you explain a nearly identical revolution occuring in Ukraine in 2004? Or in Kosovo in 2006? Or the history of riots that have occurred in Egypt’s own past … as in 1977.
The Tea Party’s gripes are with taxation and budgets and not wanting government intervention in healthcare unless it is convenient to them, i.e. Social Security and Medicare. The Tea Party’s arguments have nothing to do with censorship, denial of basic rights as freedom of speech, police brutality and overpopulation.
The only news organization trying to make the argument that you’re making is Fox News. They are the ones who are talking about a Muslim Brotherhood takeover of Egypt and that is simply not true. They support Mohammad ElBaradei, a friend of the United States who worked with the U.S. as the director of the International Atomic Energy Administration (IAEA). Conservatives like you would love that because he provided the cover to invade Iraq in 2003.
I am not advocating you stop watching Fox News. But, I do suggest, highly, that you flip the channel at least once to get a different perspective.
I would look at Iran and China as inspiration for these events since theirs have been much more in line with what’s happening in Egypt now. Public uprisings are nothing new, but being able to organize on this scale could certainly be attributed to the internet and social networking sites.
Although the Tea Party movement started off as protests, they have been much smaller, sporadic and less focused than other recent movements. Within the past year in Iran there was a very popular and sustained movement to increase democratic freedoms (including calls to remove the ruling clerics.) China has had small but constant protests for voting rights for 20 plus years. Several other Asian countries have seen real political change as a result of similar tactics.
While I don’t want to discredit the Tea Party’s influence on US politics, I doubt that they played much of a role in the situation we see in Egypt now.
The short answer: No. I don’t mean to be snide, but the truth is, the Tea Party was imagined, funded, and publicized by the kind of oligarchs who the Egyptians are deposing as we speak. The Tea Party is a fractioned, gun-toting, bigoted group of people who have a line of what ‘freedom’ is spoon-fed to them by purveyors of hate, while in Egypt, this revolution was not only spontaneous and truly grassroots, it shuns leaders altogether. It is a truly people-driven cause, wherein the Tea Party is a well-oiled, well-funded tool of the very right-wing who wishes Mubarek still in power.
Chuck Todd described what is unique to their revolution this morning: Then, this morning, Chuck Todd said it, “It’s a peaceful movement without a leader.”
Peaceful protesters who are actually succeeding. Not crosshairs threatening agitators who are inadvertently grinding the right-wing into the ground with their violent extremism.
There is NOTHING remotely similar between the Tea Party and the Egyptians claiming their freedom from tyranny. The Tea Party is unfortunately conned by tyrants.
No.
Street protests are not a new thing. Even if you only learned these tactics from the Tea Party, you really ought to have enough of a worldview to not expect that the world revolves around TP. These things happened decades before the TP, which might lead one to consider the start of the protest and look for causes there…
No.
Tea Partiers? Don’t think so. What the Egyptians are doing is out of the Anonymous playbook; in fact, American anons are helping to keep communication lines open.
If they were learning from the tea partiers, they’d just wear stupid hats and carry misspelled signs while spewing uninformed garbage.
So far, I’ve seen nothing that resonates of Tea Party in Egypt. (if they’re misspelling their signs, I can’t tell)