George,

The Boston Tea Party of 1773 bears a greater resemblance to the group that has coalesced into what is now called Occupy Wall Street than the modern managed mob calling itself the Tea Party....in 1773 those members of a Masonic lodge who dressed as "Indians" were called "traitorous rabble" after they heaved the tea of a monopoly protected by the laws of the Crown into Boston harbor. Good old Massachusetts, even then, was thought of as "radical" and "disloyal" to the "mother country." The conservatives of that era also known as "Loyalists" were those who had the most to lose by the actions of the revolutionaries they were the moneyed class of merchants, financiers, ship owners, traders and large landholders. Akin to their conservative brethren of contemporary society, they vilified the "left leaning" rebellious members of their world..

Those who supported the early seeds of revolution, on the other hand, were those who suffered the most under the tyranny of British rule and were not being manipulated by greedy, self interested parties as we witness today with the Koch brothers pumping millions into an easily controlled group who are more moved by irrelevant issues and propaganda than the actual facts.

Endless complaints about deficits except when those deficits support the military-industrial complex and drain hundreds of billions from desperately needed infrastructure projects in our own backyard.

Rebuilding bridges, roads, schools, hospitals etc. in Iraq and Afghanistan destroyed in the phony Bush war are excepted apparently, if they are under the auspices of the military and their bedfellows with names like Halliburton, Kellog, Brown and Root or Bechtel

So while an equivalent seven trillion dollar deficit funded the United States military victory in World War Two, though until December 7, 1941, any efforts by FDR to re-arm and strengthen the nation's defenses were met with obstructionist fury from the right wing isolationists of that era, that deficit paved the way not only to victory over the true "axis of evil" but led the way for the United States to emerge in 1945 as an economic powerhouse unequaled anywhere else in the world.

History is a great teacher for our present economic troubles with the same obstinate obstructionists and their pals stopping a nation in its tracks.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best, "The Years Teach Much That The Days Never Know".

(Harry Tenney, Electronic mail, November 3, 2011).