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The Tea Party has percolated...
Posted December 1st, 2007 by mosquitobite
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Why not take your money and make it a little more symbolic?
Another suggestion is to send out chain emails to other people you know that aren't necessarily Dr Paul supporters. Just draft up a generic email about rebelling against Washington's tax and spend hobby or something along those lines.
People may not donate money to Dr Paul, but they may be willing to send some tea bags to Washington (or let you do so in their name!) The size of this would make great news!
Edited to remove the wrong address information :)
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sent English Breakfast to Bernanke & Bush
As was recommended by another poster, I used the Adagio tea website. I sent the English Breakfast sampler to Bernanke and then sent a duplicate order (for which they gave me 10% off) to King George W.
woo hoooo!
Do they let you sign a gift
Do they let you sign a gift card so the recipient knows why it was sent?
sent mine off last night
a box of English Tea to Bernanke & a box to the White House.
...it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen to set brush fires in people's minds..." -- Samuel Adams
Paul McCartney Says...
Would you care to sit with me
For a cup of English tea
Very twee, very me
Any sunny morning
What a pleasure it would be
Chatting so delightfully
Nanny bakes fairy cakes
Every Sunday morning
Miles of miles of English garden, stretching past the willow tree
Lines of hollyhocks and roses, listen most attentively
Do you know the game croquet
Peradventure we might play
Very gay, hip hooray
Any sunny morning
Miles of miles of English garden, stretching past the willow tree
Lines of hollyhocks and roses, listen most attentively
As a rule the church bells chime
When it's almost supper time
Nanny bakes fairy cakes
On a Sunday morning
I'm sending tea
I got an email from my Senator in response to my complaints about HR 1955. He basically said we need to keep America secure but he will "keep my concerns in mind." And to that response I will send him tea.
Lovely...
Symbolic of what the people do when the government stops listening...
curious about the response from your senator
What state is your senator in?
I'm in GA and got a very similar response.
I'll post mine as soon as I get a chance, wouldn't it be scary if all senators have the same response for this?
mw
Texas
My Senator was John Cornyn in Texas.
Sending tea may be percieved
Sending tea may be perceived as a threat what with all of the "white powder" scares a few years back.
if so
I'll write you a letter from prison that let's you know ;)
I sent an unopened box of tea. Not tampered with in the slightest.
If they want to say otherwise, I have two UPS store employees who could back me up. They thought it was a very fun idea so they'll remember!
Hey, it's a fun idea!
Being part of a political campaign can be more than just donating money.
I'm glad there are people with the enthusiasm and dedication to the Ron Paul candidacy who are motivated to do these sorts of things and I frankly am surprised at the criticism.
It's what sets this campaign apart from many of the others!
Wow, What a Bunch of Wimps
It's one thing to say "I'm not going to participate in this project because I don't feel that it will be effective."
It's quite another thing to get all frantic and teary eyed while you demand that other free people stop expressing themselves in a perfectly legal manner.
Wouldn't they all be on vacation anyway?
Wouldn't they all be on vacation anyway?
First of all, doubtful anyone will be in Washington to open any of these letters.
Secondly, as I posted before, the odds of some nut job sabotaging the entire effort are high. It would take just one idiot claiming to be a supporter to paint the entire group in a bad light, put a damper one the TEA PARTY MONEY RAISE IN GENERAL, and circumvent all the efforts made year to date.
perhaps an idea worth considering is handing out tea bags to fellow citizens in mass along with Ron Paul campaign literature. This may have the possibility of
not only getting national and local exposure as well as maybe a few extra dollars being raised. Just my two cents.
Send it to their local offices
Don't send it to DC and send it so that it will arrive the Friday before the 16th. This will also help us get media coverage.
For all the naysayers:
There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense.
Handing Out Tea = Same possible Blowback
My subject title says it all.
Get the direct contact out of this idea to eliminate the possibility of blowback. Use an established company know for distributing tea to send it directly with a card as a gift. Lastly, only send it to Bernake, so that the quantity is overwhelming. If we have tea sent to many people in DC then the quantity is diluted amongst them all. Keep it focused on the Federal Reserve.
Solution To Potential Blowback
I have read this thread and completely agree that the potential for blowback from sending packages of tea exists. Having somebody hijack this idea by sending something else would be terrible. HOWEVER...
What if we utilized Adagio Teas (http://www.adagio.com/) to have tea sent as a gift to Bernake? This way the tea comes from a legitimate company, and can have a gift card that reads something like, "I don't want your inflation tax. I'm voting for Ron Paul."
Not only would this eliminate the possible blowback, but we might also intrigue another company into supporting the good doctor as well.
My personal opinion is to limit the tea to just Bernake, and only have it shipped from one established company (not individuals or multiple companies). It can be any established company, I just mentioned Adagio, because I know friends that have purchased from them before.
That's my two cents worth (hmmm wouldn't that be the value of a fed note?)
EDIT: corrected a couple spelling errors.
yes
good idea
Excellent Idea!!! But TOO Risky!!!
Though I applaud the idea, I would not do this. Some loose cannon could easily do something stupid mailing something they shouldn't and bring negative attention to the grassroots.
I HIGHLY NOT recommend doing this.
Boston will have tea. Join us Dec. 16 at the Faneuil Hall party.
Joe Ureneck
http://ronpaul.meetup.com...
Please don't do this
This is a terrible idea. Please don't do this.
Please
It is a great idea. Sending tea to your representatives? Classic...
Ron Paul DVD !!
Think ahead... get the Ron Paul DVD ( Ebay or RonPaulDVD.com)...
Burn copies and give them away along with SlimJims. Have them ready by the 16th !!
I've placed over a hundred... THEY WORK !!
And then, on Dec 16th, how about going OUTSIDE?
DOOR to DOOR needs to be done, and we need ALL BOOTS on the ground out there and doing it. People NEED to at least TRY to do this -- to overcome their fear and reticence of knocking on stranger's doors.
Our local group hatched an idea to help people do JUST THAT -- to get out there and TRY IT -- by getting people to Commit to visit TWO homes on the day of the TeaParty07, Sunday December 16th. We even made what we think is a cool and VERY MOTIVATIONAL video to promote it:
TeaParty07 + TWO video on YouTube
and a web page with details:
TeaParty07 + TWO details
Problem is, everyone seems to be so busy yakking about the "blimp" ("kewl" that it is) and arguing about money bombs -- that virtually NO ONE is helping promote this idea (to date the video has less than 800 views!)
So here's YOUR chance to make a difference in this campaign -- help promote THIS idea to get people OUT THERE! Get it on blogs, digg, reddit, etc. -- email Trevor to include it on his TeaParty webpage; push RonPaulGraphs to add it to the TeaParty graphs pages, etc. etc. Everyone who SEES the video gets pretty moved by it, but it needs PROMOTION, and that means it needs people PROMOTING and SPREADING the idea.
Is any one out there listening? Anyone? Bueller?
Send them copies of the Constitution + RP "calling cards" :D
*** God bless Ron Paul ***
* Ron Paul For President *
Make sure we're sending the right message
I think the best ways to asway fears of terrorism are:
1. Make sure you tell the Post Office you're sending tea
2. Include your return address on the package (packages without return labels are more suspicious)
3. Make sure the tea package is in the original shrink wrap from the store.
If we send tea to D.C. I don't want the message to simply be, "we're fed up and we want change," I want the message to be, "We want Ron Paul to be our next president!"
Someone wrote, that this should let other voters know that they aren't alone in their disappointment with government, and I like that.
Some other ideas I had, if we send tea just to Bernanke it means we're fed up with the Federal Reserve's inflation tax and we want it to go.
Another idea would be to send the tea only to GOP members of the House and Senate, and top GOP party leaders, to mean that we want Ron Paul to be the GOP presidential nominee.
Any other thoughts/ideas?
Well, since the media only
Well, since the media only seems to care about Ron's foreign policy stance maybe just sending to Bernanke might get them talking about his economic stance at least.
I think the media will report it, and it won't go unnoticed, because we are going to tell them about it.
To the naysayers: Stop being scared.
There are already people getting started doing this. I heard arguments along these very same lines before the "Guy Fawkes" Nov 5th drive over the date and the historical reference. People argued over this stuff for days, and when it was done quite a few people were eating crow.
When are you going to realize that if we don't go all-in and take risks Ron Paul will not be president. If we weren't willing to take a risk, Nov 5th may not have happened.
This is something that we should do, and the best case scenario is that it is mentioned in the media several times, and that it lets other voters know that they aren't alone in their disappointment with government.
Come up with a better idea
There's no potential upside to sending packages to government officials. Either it gets in the news as a bomb scare or goes unnoticed.
Bullshit
Send Tea to your REPRESENTATIVES.
We are the BOSS. They better accept packages of tea and understand what the message is.
To hell with that scaredy cat BS.
SEND TEA
i agree.
instead, donate to the campaign or buy slimjims and walk around.
ron paul 2008
I also agree
These days, snail mail gets diverted & scanned. No telling when they'd get it anyway. Bundle up and go walk your neighborhoods instead.
This is how freedom is lost.
If we aren't scared of terrorism, we are scared of being called a terrorist.
When Sam Adams and crew boarded the Dartmouth and destroyed 45 tons of tea, they could have been imprisoned or killed. Worst case scenario is we get called names by pundits.
The upside is the field day Cafferty and Wolf will have with this and how much Hannity will whine about it. That is the upside.
But whatever, do what will.
Blowback
This is a cute idea with possible huge unintended consequences. It would be far too easy for some crackpot to hear of this and under the guise of the campaign or supporters of Dr. Paul, put something else in the envelop.
I would rather not even suggest any of the possibilities that may come back to haunt a well intended idea. This has possible blowback written all of it.
I suggest rethinking the idea.
agreed, tea + US Mail = sinister potential
We could send 1 million normal bags of tea, and "someone" could send 1 bag of uhhhhh... something else... and the entire thing would backfire on us.
Not very good plan IMO. Almost good, but with a fatal flaw.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Get active NOW to put Ron in the general election. ronpaul.meetup.com
Paranoid Much?
"Someone" could commit (insert heinous crime here) while wearing a RP T-shirt. So no one should ever wear a RP T-shirt!
Etc.
Donate to the Ron Paul 2008 Web Site
I would rather donate to the campaign web site or help out with the SC letter writing campaign. Maybe just maybe people could help their local meetup in their state or one of the early primary states;instead of, sending tea to govt. officials. Use your thirty plus days wisely and stay away from silly stunts for media attention. Once again keep in mind that the media pays attention to what is said on the site.
Why not do it all?
We can do all of these things. Tea and stamps are cheap. Quite a few Ron Paul supporters are already going to do this, and we should all support them. If this is big, like they receive a lot of tea, this could be a huge boost of media coverage to augment the TeaParty fund raiser. If it's small or insignificant, it will be a mainstream media joke. It's a high risk thing to do, but we aren't going to win this without taking risks and generating national name recognition.
Extremely Bad Idea
If you think Boston overreacted when they were attacked by Aqua Teen Hunger Force, imagine the reaction when prominent federal officials are sent nondescript packages of tea in mass quantities. This can only end badly.
I don't think so.
First off, I can see a single tea bag from a single person as suspicious, but what terrorist is going to send thousands on the same day?
If anyone tries to call "terror threat" on this, they are going to look very, very foolish. People understood that the lite-brite looking things in Boston could have been mistaken for a bomb. There is no way the masses of America is going to believe that someone confused a whole lot of common household tea with a terror threat.
You say that now
Now I agree, people making a fuss over tea bags would seem pretty foolish. My point is that there are a lot of fools out there. Here's how I envision the story:
"This morning at 7:15 a.m., Secret Service officials were alerted to a number of suspicious packages. The white house has been evacuated, packages isolated, blah blah blah anthrax?"
UPDATE: "Packages were detonated, there has not been confirmation as to whether these packages were malicious. Possibly associated with Ron Paul campaign."
UPDATE: "Packages contained tea. Quote the local fool: 'It turns out that the packages contained tea, but in this day and age you can't do this kind of stuff. Millions of dollars and large amounts of police attention have been spent on this. Twenty-five people are being rounded up and arrested for a 'hoax device.' All are Ron Paul supporters."
Just don't do it guys. The above is the worst case scenario. The best case scenario is that nobody hears anything about it.
That's bullshit
You people are living in fear.
Whoa There, Cowboy
Unless you can show that this activity is illegal there is no reason to tell folks not to do it.
You've got a pretty authoritarian tone for a Paul supporter...
ATHF?
What did they do to Boston? Didn't hear about it.
Probe into Boston ad stunt
Probe into Boston ad stunt chaos
Have Some...
Have some "FreeTeaDom"
Fun idea... But what exactly
Fun idea... But what exactly does it accomplish? What are we trying to prove to Bush, Cheney and Bernanke? That we can send tea...? I don't get it.
It's symbolism. If we can
It's symbolism. If we can get enough people in on this, and these guys get bombarded with tea on the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, at the very least they'll be like "WTF?"
Media Exposure
The hope is a long lived media stories. That's why we need as many as possible to mail tea for as long as possible.
It makes a statement that pulls at the heartstrings of every American.
exactly!
Think about what the colonists were trying to prove with the original tea party. Now think about what the American people will think if our federal officials are all sent tea! The symbolism is what's important and makes for a great media blitz!
If nothing else, perhaps the sheer volume they get will help the GOP realize that ignoring Dr Paul will cost them not just this election but for years to come! It's a powerful visual!
...it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen to set brush fires in people's minds..." -- Samuel Adams
This is it.
I have been wondering what else to do on December 16, and you have provided my answer. I will send one packet of tea to Bush, Cheney, and Bernacke.
I really like the idea. I, in addition, cannot overemphasize that the tea packets should not be adulterated in any way. I would hate the media to interpret this as some sort of terrorist scare.