If only tea partiers were more European

Because in Europe, when you are mad at the banks, worried about austerity measures and rising unemployment, one wouldn’t be so crass as to call people Marxists and demand that the government submit to the irrational will of angry taxpayers. After all, to pay taxes is the cost of being a member of the Folkhem.

But Tea Parties? Not in Europe. Never. The pitchfork-toting crowd is a peculiar byproduct of the misinformed, disturbed politics of the United States, where Lindberghs, Limbaughs, and Levins have always proliferated. Protest movements on the continent, like the May 1st protests in Kungsträdgården, under a sea of Cuban flags and photos of Marx and Mao, are a more civilized celebration of dictatorship and egalitarianism.

Or how about the protests in Greece, where Tea Parti…errr…left-wing protesters took to the streets again today to demand that, as the government and economy collapses, that no austerity measures be taken. The result? Three people dead in the firebombing of a bank in Athens.