A New American Revolution???

The American Revolution began on June 10th 1772 with the burning HMS Gaspee in Narragansett Bay in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

As reported in a London newspaper and reprinted in the Virginia Gazette (October 15, 1772 -- note they didn't have Twitter back then)

London, July 18

From Rhode Island we received advice that one of his Majesty's ships of war, interrupting the trade of some smugglers in that neighbourhood, the people rose up, and thinking it patriotism to resist the laws of this country, burnt the ship's boats, and carried their commerce in triumph to their own habitations.

The conduct of Rhode Islanders, on the foregoing occasion, it is thought, will be productive of much disturbance in America. If our government resents it with the spirit they ought we shall have fresh exclamations from the sons of liberty beyond the Atlantic; and if they do not, the colonies are immediately discharged from their dependence upon England. The Mother country and the colonies are now come to a kind of crisis, and one or the other must necessarily give way in the dispute. Should the former, however, relax from her just authority, she may as well resign all her dependent territories, and content herself with what is merely contained in her own island.

A year and a half later on December 16th, 1773...,

In Boston, the arrival of three tea ships ignited a furious reaction. The crisis came to a head on December 16, 1773 when as many as 7,000 agitated locals milled about the wharf where the ships were docked. A mass meeting at the Old South Meeting House that morning resolved that the tea ships should leave the harbor without payment of any duty. A committee was selected to take this message to the Customs House to force release of the ships out of the harbor. The Collector of Customs refused to allow the ships to leave without payment of the duty. Stalemate. The committee reported back to the mass meeting and a howl erupted from the meeting hall. It was now early evening and a group of about 200 men, some disguised as Indians, assembled on a near-by hill. Whopping war chants, the crowd marched two-by-two to the wharf, descended upon the three ships and dumped their offending cargos of tea into the harbor waters.

This morning I awoke to read and hear that The Kennedy Senate seat in Massachusetts had been captured by a Republican, Scott Brown, a relatively unknown.

Later I went to a breakfast meeting sponsored by the RISC (Rhode Island Statewide Coalition)for Small Business. The agenda was to unveil a strategy for the small business owners in Rhode Island to become a political force equal to their economic presents in the state. Small business represents 97% of the businesses in the state and employs 57% of the state's workers, according to RISC.

Underrepresented in the General Assembly, over-taxed and easily dismissed by the traditional powers that have ruled Rhode Island for close to a century, small business is stirring. RISC, founded in 2003, as a grassroots organization is inviting small business to flex its muscle.

This morning we witnessed a presentation of strategy and the tactical approach for small businesses to become politically active. The crowd of small business owners who attended the meeting are being asked to participate in a program designed to win back the General Assemble over the next 9 months. for the core of Rhode Island producers and employers. In turn, this will set the stage to bring about fundamental change in the state's economic policy. In turn it was suggested that this would set the state back on a course of positive economic growth and development.

Today we are seeing the true beginnings of a revolution in the New England political environment. What happened in Massachusetts will have national ramifications. But what happened this morning in Warwick, RI not far from Gaspee Point, will have immediate impact on the daily lives of Rhode Islanders.

In the coming days and weeks we will be following this revolution on this blog. Stay tuned.