The Goo-goos, the Bad and the Ugly

Everything Old is New Again. Although it is portrayed as an Obama-inspired phenomenon, at its root, the Tea Party movement is a reincarnation of the Goo-Goos and Mugwumps. Born at a time when government at the state and national level was enthralled by the Spoils System, the "Goo-Goos" were intent on reforming both political parties and dismantling the patronage machines they saw as turning government increasingly corrupt and incompetent.

For the Tea Partiers already riled by the failures and indifference of government Obama's election was a galvanizing lightning rod. Like their Goo-Goo forebears alarmed by the immigrant hordes pouring into their cities, the Tea Partiers see Washington's ills as a result of their vote being marginalized by the unwashed and uneducated. Never mind that as the Washington Post reveals under Cheney and Bush aided by a disinterested Republican Congress, the government has largely been outsourced to corporations (Booz Allen Hamilton, L-3 Communications, CSC, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, SAIC and thousands of others): [there now exists], "a Top Secret America created since 9/11 that is hidden from public view, lacking in thorough oversight and so unwieldy that its effectiveness is impossible to determine... "affluence is another attribute of Top Secret America. Six of the 10 richest counties in the United States are in these (tax-payer funded) clusters."

B.A.D. Beyond All Decency: A black woman whose farmer father was murdered for defending his rights sacrificed on the altar of white victimhood to appease ... Glen Beck?

There are villains, cowards and hypocrites to spare in the defaming of Shirley Sherrod but what the episode exposed is the ferocity with which those who profit from the selling of our government keep us grabbing for each other's throat. As the wise old farmer said scoffing at the charge of racism against Ms. Sherrod, "there's somebody trying to stir up trouble."

An Ugly History

The Mugwumps and Goo-Goos like the present-day Tea Partiers, were nothing new. Before them were the Nativists and the Know-Nothings and the Americans for the Star Spangled Banner, all convinced the moment times grew dire that only they were the true Americans.
Over time those Yanks have grown to accept the Irish, the Italians and the right kind of Jew, not once realizing that without the mess called democracy, those poor immigrants would never have risen to join their blessed middle class. For others, like Shirley Sherrod, that line stays drawn at color. Let's hope as the time again grows dire that the real bad ugliness is behind us.

Between 1865 - 1920, immigration trends shifted from Western Europe (Great Britain, Germany, Netherlands) to Southern and Eastern Europe (Italy, Poland, the Balkan states). This trend alarmed the mainly Protestant “old immigrants,” who felt threatened by the mainly Catholic “new immigrants.” Nativist organizations demanded literacy tests and quota systems to curb what they saw as a demoralizing and worsening situation for the country. Such efforts culminated in the passage of the National Origins Act in 1924.

During the Great Depression, the Federal Bureau of Immigration and local authorities rounded up Mexican immigrants and naturalized Mexican American citizens and shipped them to Mexico to reduce relief roles. More than 400,000 repatriodos, many of them citizens of the United States by birth, were sent across the U.S.-Mexico border from Arizona, California, and Texas. In Los Angeles, the only Mexican American student at Occidental College sang a painful farewell song to serenade departing Mexicans.

The National Origins Act of 1924 set no legal limit on immigrants from the Americas.