Posted by E. Tyler Tucker, Editor for the First Coast Tea Party and former congresstional editor of the Washington Times

Writer Paddy Chayevsky and film character Howard Beale might have been thinking of the Tea Party in 1976 when Beale said in the movie “Network”:

“I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had 15 homicides and 63 violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be! We know things are bad -- worse than bad, They're crazy! It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone!' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone! I want you to get MAD! … So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now, and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell: ‘I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!! … Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!!!’ “

How does this connect with Tea Party participants?

Because, like Howard Beale, many Tea Party participants feel they are in a world, an illusionary life, spun by outside forces that seek to suppress them and rob them of their freedom.

After all, Americans have inherited a wealth of guarantees, including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the vote and supposedly a government comprised of unselfish servants of the people.

Tea Party participants are asked to remember the illusion of Howard Beale – courted by those who could benefit from him, then discarded like so much garbage when no longer useful.

Again, I am reminded by Murray Goff’s lyric in the song “Stand Up”:

They tell us that the Stimulus is creating tons of jobs.

They tell us that our Tea Parties are just some angry mobs.

They tell us that their Health Care Bill will really ease our pain.

I think they’re peeing on our legs and tellin’ us it’s rain.

STAND UP for the truth and the American way

STAND UP for your freedom before they take it all away

STAND UP for your children and your grandchildren too

STAND UP and be counted for the Red, White and Blue.

Uncle Sam Needs You. It’s the right thing to do.

But political forces and the media are again perched on telephone wires and squatting on digital devices like vultures trying to maneuver Tea Party participants and distort the movement’s purpose.

A recent article in the Chicago Tribune, in an apparently

staff-written dispatch from Washington, was reporting on the U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts.

The reporter said (no quote marks): The Senate race became a big moment for the sometimes fractured and ragtag group of right-wing activists.

“If you want to call patriotic Americans who love their country, are concerned about the direction it is heading and even more concerned about its financial footing in the world, a ‘rag-tag group,’ then so be it,” said Billie Tucker, co-founder of the First Coast Tea Party in Florida.

“They [opponents] have called us names for one solid year as of Feb. 27 and we are still here, which means we must not be very fractured either! In fact, we have grown in numbers and continue to do so everyday,” she said.

The Tribune report said in the wake of Scott

Brown’s win in Massachusetts that the victory [no quote marks] still had the feel of a crowd running to the sound of the guns.

“They [detractors] like to portray Tea Party participants as gun-toting, 2nd Amendment thugs,” Tucker said. “ For us, the [Brown] victory had the feel of defeat for those who oppose the Constitution and we used no violence to make it happen. It gets old hearing their same old rhetoric.”

The Tribune report further said that well-funded, well-established conservative groups are trying to corral the chaos in a direction that benefits Republicans.

What chaos?

The O’Reilly Factor, on Fox News, also has contributed to the confusion about the true nature of the Tea Party Movement.

In January, host Bill O’Reilly characterized Tea Party participants as “hard right.”

“The Tea Party Movement stands firm on constitutional principles and we do not believe that would be considered ‘hard right.’” the Tea Party’s Tucker said. “We believe our founding documents are a contract that should not be broken because one group or one individual decides it is so.”

O’Reilly also said the Tea Party participants were “anti-government.”

The Tea Party’s Tucker said emphatically that description is false.

“Our Constitution describes the level of influence our government should have over us. It was created to give us freedom and liberty with limited government influence in our lives,” she said. “We are all for limited government and understand well that we need a government to protect us and ensure our freedoms. Without government, we would be a bunch of individuals doing our own thing and we would have not one to protect us by enforcing laws.”

In a program featuring U.S. Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., O’Reilly pressed Bachmann on the Tea Party. (‘Rush’ transcript courtesy Fox News):

O'REILLY: Will the Tea the Party become the dominant force of the Republican Party?

BACHMANN: Well, I think they will. And if the Republican Party is smart, they will embrace the Tea Party movement.

The Tea Party’s Tucker, who has since met with Bachmann, said, “We like Michelle and feel she understands us. The Tea Party Movement stands outside the walls of both political machines. Our job is to put pressure on both parties to wake them up and return them to their rightful corners.”

Tucker added that the political arena is changing rapidly.

“Both [major] parties have changed drastically and do not appear to be Democrats or Republicans. A perfect outcome would be for both parties to return to their roots and get rid of the far left and far right manipulators who have taken over both parties,” Tucker said.

In December, O’Reilly interviewed Ned Ryun, president of the American Majority, an organization that trains Tea Party participants, and Fox News analyst Mike Gallagher, a radio talk show host.

“A new Wall Street Journal poll says there is a big political change going on in America right now. Thirty-five percent of Americans see the Democratic Party favorably. Twenty-eight percent say they like the Republican Party. But a whopping 41 percent now say they support the Tea Party, which is stunning when you think about it,” O’Reilly said to open the segment.

“So will the Tea Party become America's third political party?” he asked. “So the Tea Party is now, I think, threatening the Republican Party. Just — this is almost the exact opposite of what we just talked about, where the far left is threatening the Democratic Party. Now the Tea Party is threatening the Republican Party.”

GALLAGHER: I've happily traded my Republican card for a Tea Party card, if there was such a thing.

…

O'REILLY: …OK, are willing to throw the Republican Party under the bus. Why? What's wrong with the GOP?

GALLAGHER: There's a lot wrong with the GOP. The GOP isn't acting like the GOP anymore, and the Republican leadership, many men and women I admire, are acting like we have to go to the middle. We have to go — we have.

O'REILLY: So they're too wimpy?

GALLAGHER: Well, yeah, but they're afraid. They're afraid to play ball the way the left play balls. I mean, these guys play hard ball. You know what the radical left is like. And even moderate Republicans are afraid to roll up their sleeves. The Tea Party spirit, and I was all over the country… I spoke at rallies in Dallas and South Carolina and Los Angeles. The movement is passionate.

O'REILLY: OK.

GALLAGHER: It's energized and it's significant, Bill.

O'REILLY: Mr. Ryun, what is the key to somebody watching now? We're in about 90 countries all over the world. So somebody watching us now in, say, Africa, and they don't understand what the Tea Party is all about. Give me one or two sentences to sum it up.

RYUN: It's a group of very concerned and growing American citizens, who are deeply concerned about the fiscal issues that we're confronting, the idea and the role of government, and the role it should play in people's lives …

O'REILLY: So smaller government.

RYUN: ... and the lack of real political leadership — exactly.

…

O'REILLY: More power locally. Social issues? Social issues? What is that?

RYUN: You know, here's the thing. I would say a lot of them are socially conservative, but the issues that are driving them are the ideas of limited government, fiscal responsibility. …

On the first weekend of February a group called Tea Party Nation held a “National Tea Party Convention” in Nashville, Tenn., with about 600 in attendance. The “convention,” which featured former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin as keynote speaker, was not sanctioned nor attended by most Tea Party affiliates around the nation. Many of the affiliates have held larger rallies.

“We believe there is room in the movement for ALL Americans,” the Tea Party’s Tucker said. “Some people like to stand on street corners and wave signs, others like to sit at home and call their congressmen, others enjoying blogging on social network sites and some have more resources than others.

“If some Americans have the resources to attend a conference, then so be it. We wish them well. We appreciate the Tea Party message getting out to ALL Americans and we need to build the movement from the poorest of our country to the richest. Isn’t that what America is all about. An America for the People? Did the Constitution only mean for poor and middle class?

“The Tea Party Movement welcomes those who have no dollars to give and those who have millions. If we are going to make a difference in this country, we need everyone at the table,” Tucker said.

On the Feb. 5 “O’Reilly Factor,” news correspondent Chris Wallace, commenting on the gathering of Tea Party participants, said, “This is middle America. … they're 'Joe' and 'Jan' from Indiana who own a small business. These are not radicals, but they feel radicalized and want to start this new movement. They are certainly not crackpots - I was just in a workshop and this is very practical nuts and bolts stuff about how you organize a political movement."

“The O’Reilly Factor” added to the Web site information that “tea partiers seem to be winning over other Americans: ‘I don't know whether this is just a hobby or whether this is developing into a serious political movement, but there's a new poll out that shows most Americans have a favorable view of the Tea Party.”

The Tea Party Movement is a true grassroots movement and has gained participants and respect in its first year. As we watch the political landscape in 2010, the Tea Party Movement will be a force to be reckoned with – no doubt.