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It was just a happy coincidence. Or un-happy, depending on whether you are a member of the Tea Party or not.

Now they've adopted it themselves. See the link in Bedstuy's signature.

resedit wrote:

The term was not coined by the organizers of the movement, it was coined by those opposed to the movement and by members of the media who are clueless.

You're just plain wrong on that Res. (or you are trying to revise history)
There were teabaggers from the very beginning going on about how they were going to "teabag" congressman X, and Teabag Senator Y. They filmed the street interviews where they'd say it!

It was freaking hilarious.

resedit wrote:

However, the phrase took off because the opposition liked it as a way to mock the tea party.

They did it to themselves. Was the opposition supposed to ignore it?

I've always known what the term meant.

iSeamas wrote:

resedit wrote:

The term was not coined by the organizers of the movement, it was coined by those opposed to the movement and by members of the media who are clueless.

You're just plain wrong on that Res. (or you are trying to revise history)

No. I'm not.

resedit wrote:

iSeamas wrote:

resedit wrote:

The term was not coined by the organizers of the movement, it was coined by those opposed to the movement and by members of the media who are clueless.

You're just plain wrong on that Res. (or you are trying to revise history)

No. I'm not.

No true teabagger!

The fact remains that the tea bag was the symbol that the protesters themselves chose as their symbol obviously to invoke the memory of the Boston Tea Party. Now that it is common to "verbify" any noun in order to denote an action, it was sort of inevitable that the waving around of tea bags and mailing tea bags to local and national representatives became known as teabagging. It is also equally clear that when the term was used this way in early 2009, the protesters had little idea that it had another meaning. From the Rachel Maddows Show on MSNBC of April 13, 2009:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  They‘re going to try and send teabags to D.C.

D.C. teabagged the White House.  Teabag the fools in D.C.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

There is a bit of schadenfreude I take in thinking that this guy probably showed this clip to all of his friends and relatives and said "Look! I'm on TV!"

It was also around April 2009 that people started to question the use of the terms teabagging and teabaggers. You can read the rest of that transcript from the Rachel Maddows Show where the host is rather incredulous that people would be unaware of the other meaning. Yes, she does have some fun with the double entendre but it should be clear that those protesters were using the terms on themselves and about their actions.

Last edited by D'Eyncourt (2009-10-22 7:18 pm)

So, they're protesting unfair tax levies by King George?  I'm confused...  So far, it has seemed that the Tea Party has just been the latest in blanket ultraconservative movements.

Jokotai wrote:

So, they're protesting unfair tax levies by King George?  I'm confused...  So far, it has seemed that the Tea Party has just been the latest in blanket ultraconservative movements.

The funny thing is the original tea partiers were protesting the tax situation because the corporate multinational was getting tax breaks and representation that was allowing them to eliminate their unrepresented small business competition. They were losing their jobs, their money, and their rights. The modern day teabaggers are ultimately supporting the party that's caused them to lose their jobs, their money, and their rights.

I would have put it their post one.

resedit wrote:

But don't let the facts get in your way.

ScifiterX wrote:

Jokotai wrote:

So, they're protesting unfair tax levies by King George?  I'm confused...  So far, it has seemed that the Tea Party has just been the latest in blanket ultraconservative movements.

The funny thing is the original tea partiers were protesting the tax situation because the corporate multinational was getting tax breaks and representation that was allowing them to eliminate their unrepresented small business competition. They were losing their jobs, their money, and their rights. The modern day teabaggers are ultimately supporting the party that's caused them to lose their jobs, their money, and their rights.

The modern day tea party, which officially refer to themselves as "tea party" and therefore tea party is the proper way to refer to them, are using tea party in reference to the Boston Tea Party. Whether the analogy is correct or not is moot.

I hear members of the African American community refer to each other by a certain term that starts with N all the time.
The fact that SOME of them do it is not justification for me or you or anyone else to refer to them that way, is it?

Hell - the CP in NAACP stands for "Colored People" but it would be incorrect for me to call them Colored People, because of the connotation of what Colored People means.

Tea Bagger is no different. The connotation is a gross sexual reference and it is not appropriate to refer to them that way.