I disagree with Ann on one point - the mobs on Wall Street and elsewhere IS what democracy looks like. And it is a prime reason why our Founding Fathers worked so hard not to set up a democracy. Mob rule is ugly at its best.
Agreed, another thing she got wrong was this
"As specific and limited as it was, however, even the Boston Tea Party was too mob-like to spark anything other than retaliatory British measures. Indeed, it set back the cause of American independence by dispiriting both American and British supporters, such as Edmund Burke."That was the point. It was a classic guerrilla warfare operation, support for the independence movement was tepid at best, even at the height of the war support for independence never exceeded 33%.
What was accomplished with the Tea Party was to radicalize the shop keepers, tradesmen and merchants, who had been on the sidelines while anti stamp act riots, assaults, and other protests were carried out by "share croppers", sailors, laborers, and others who had no vote, (the vote they gained during the war was generally again lost with the implementation of State Constitutions, most of which included a property clause in order to vote ) in effect, "a mob".
What the Tea party accomplished was to incite the British to take punitive actions that could only PO the better classes leading them to join the "Sons of Liberty" and motivate the moneyed classes to support the revolution.