'Tea Party Coloring Book' is kiddie propaganda art

As kids, lots of people had their first participatory art experience with coloring books. Simplified contour drawings in thick black lines leave blank spaces to be filled in with crayons or colored pencils.
 
Now, just in time for the November election, a small Midwest publisher has come up with a distinctive hybrid: a coloring book merged with kiddie propaganda.

"The Tea Party Coloring Book for Kids" is a 32-page "special edition" on the right-wing political movement, produced by a division of Really Big Coloring Books Inc. The online imprint of the St. Louis-based publisher produces one other special-edition product: a 2008 coloring book on then President-elect Barack Obama.

Cheerful in tone, semi-literate in its writing and factually challenged, "The Tea Party Coloring Book for Kids" offers itself as "a teaching and learning tool" for children ages 2 and up.

There aren't any drawings of tea bags suspended from sun hats, nor racist depictions of Obama as a witch doctor with a bone through his nose. Instead, puzzles, lyrics to patriotic songs and line drawings of the Statue of Liberty, edifices in Washington and the facade of the New York Stock Exchange are interspersed with free-market-obsessed texts.

Next to a big dollar sign, "Freedom of Choice and Economics" extols the "ability to choose your job in America's free market." Bright-eyed teen doctors flank "Good Health Care for All Americans," which means private medicine "not restricted by federal or state governments." "No more taxes!" is largely self-explanatory, a sentiment floating in the clouds above Mt. Rushmore.

Some of the drawings are funny. Pigs at a trough ("pork") look sick to their stomachs. The Mt. Rushmore presidents appear grave but worried. All of the citizens -- young or old -- wear big smiles on vacant, happy faces. Cluttered details on some of the drawings make the prospect of actual coloring dubious.

One drawing apparently cheering the virtues of agribusiness subsidies for the production of corn-based ethanol wouldn't cause Van Gogh to lose any sleep. A composition near the end, just before the workbook section on how to write your congressman, shows a wedge formation of striding young citizens that would likely pass muster with the Kukryniksy, the Moscow art collective that rose to the rank of People's Artist in the old USSR.

The texts are less funny. Government is "suppose [sic] to use our tax dollars" wisely. Federal debt has "become a life style because as [sic] this will bankrupt our country."  Run-on sentences are rife, which would have caused my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Adams, apoplexy.

But it's the premise of the coloring book that is the real eye-roller. Inside the front cover, the unidentified author explains that the origins of today's tea party are found in the iconic 1773 event in Boston's harbor -- and gets the history wrong.

The coloring book casts the pre-Revolutionary War episode in full fairy-tale mode, as a dispute between freedom-loving American colonists and an oppressive, far-away government that imposed taxes without their input.

In reality, a government deal with the British East India Company, one of the first and largest transnational corporations in history, meant that small businesses in the Colonies were going under because they could not compete. The Boston Tea Party was a popular uprising against big corporate tax cuts enacted by the British Parliament, many of whose members were, like King George III, major company stockholders. 

Speaking of deals, in 2004, Really Big Coloring Books entered into a partnership with MeadWestvaco Corp. to print and distribute its product line, an arrangement expanded in 2008 and now including the "Tea Party" tome. A business with global interests in packaging, office products, chemicals and real estate in 30 countries, the company also has an active political action committee based in Richmond, Va.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, MeadWestvaco's PAC has spent more than $95,000 in the current election cycle on contributions to 17 House and nine Senate candidates, 91% Republicans. In May, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich led a forum at MeadWestvaco's Richmond offices calling for repeal of healthcare legislation passed this year by Congress.

A report by Britain's Guardian newspaper says the coloring book, which retails for $3.95, has sold in the thousands. It is being reprinted daily, presumably without corrections, to keep up with demand.

-- Christopher Knight
twitter.com/KnightLAT

Photos: "The Tea Party Coloring book for Kids." Credit: Christopher Knight /Los Angeles Times

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Comments

[Donald Frazell]

Exactly what does all this, and I mean the lib's nonsense books as much as the right's, have to do with American culture, let alone our COMMON human culture?

True art binds groups together, this tears it apart into smaller groups. Culture is OUR identity. What does any of this have to do with US? And U.S.?

This is trolling for ratings, something I have been accused of, when simply pointing out that art is the highest common denominator, this isnt even the lowest, except in revealing our prejudices and ignorance.

art e media delenda est

[Long Beach Mark]

"It's so obvious when comment writers are Republican staffers paid to troll around the web and pretend to be "regular citizens." They really should shut down comments on (real) news websites.

Posted by: Tuthmosis | September 30, 2010 at 10:40 PM"

Yup. Nothing is going on here. The Tea Party is a total media and pollster fabrication. Every contrary opinion expressed is from an RNC staffer. All will be well in November for liberals....Good one. Very funny.

What I notice lately Tut is how few democratic staffers posing as "regular citizens" there are on blogs now. It is dramatically different than 2008 and 2009.

Where are all your dew-eyed dreamy liberal buddies on a blog like this? Are their comments on the cutting room floor of the fascist secret right wing censorship section of the LA Times?

Do you prefer to drink Socialist RED Kool-Aid or Environmentalist GREEN Kool-Aid while constructing your conspiracy theories and suggestion that the LA Times comments section be shut down on this "real news" story so you don't have to see conservative and tea party comments?

[Mighty Cthulhu]

"The Boston Tea Party was a popular uprising against big corporate tax cuts enacted by the British Parliament, many of whose members were, like King George III, major company stockholders."

The East India Trading Company was an entity entirely controlled by the British Government, it was not a private enterprise. In a nutshell, the British Government was shutting down on private enterprise in the colonies. They were monopolizing the colonies natural resources and forcing them out of competition with East India. On top of that, they were imposing high tariff taxes on finished imported goods. It was government imposition which sparked the uprising, not "corporate tax cuts".

Personally, I would go to an actual historian for this kind of information, Thom Hartmann is woefully ignorant on the details.

[Donald Frazell]

Um, real historian here, Donald aka LBC,ex basketball coach and artist too. It was Parliament who kept on attempting to put taxes on the colonies to PAY for our part of the Seven Years War, aka French and Indian War. No taxation without representation is one thing, but the Boston tea party was pure selfishness, refused responsibility by dressing up as Indians, and ingrained in the American psyche, a myth. As with now, we refuse to pay our share, and always point at the other guy, both left and right.

We in the middle are sick of both of you, we are independants. And truly need a third party, but too busy paying our bills and tking care of our kids. I have two boys in the military, and that we run a deficit and CUT TAXES during war is as un American, and stupid, as you an get. Never been done in the history of the world. Such irresposibility on both parties part has left us where we are.

If you do it, pay for it simple as that, not wait for imaginary savings. Until you can get cuts done, you dont cut taxes and run deficits. Simple arithmetic and economics, and lost on the selfish American of left and right.

Ross Perot was as close to middle as we got, hated daddy Bush, W even more, and actualy helped Clinton, who was basically a Rockefeller Republican, as they dont exist anymore. PAY you damn bills, thich is what grownups do. Let the Bush tax cuts end, they are part of what got us in this situation, but no new taxes til the economy revives. Shut up, suckitup, and pay up, and lets work together, and that means, those seldom heard words. responsibility, and SACRIFICE. Which of course to both left AND right is for everyone else.

[Russell]

You state, "... St. Louis-based publisher produces one other special-edition product: a 2008 coloring book on then President-elect Barack Obama."

But, who is calling that propaganda? Also, when I go to the publisher's website, they have dozens of specialty books. They range from genral thing such as dogs, to the wonderful story of the Amistad.

[Cato]

The East India Company had far more in common with Government, er, General Motors than it did with Wal-Mart. Indeed, it was more like a public utility, akin to the old AT&T, granted legal monopoly status in many markets by the British government. This is hardly the tea party model, which explicitly rejects corporate welfare, an integral part of Obama's economic program. But of course I'm sure Mr. Knight has difficulty grasping nuances like that while his worldview is mired in outmoded stereotypes.

[RichardM]

Just so I can be sure I understand....All the Pro-Obama coloring books are OK. The two that do nothing but viscerate George Bush are OK. But the Tea Party one is propoganda and harmful to kids.

SOunds like you have a problem with anything that is NOT Frindge Ledt, Progressive Liberal by nature...So much for non biased news reporting huh?

[Synova]

And what is "Why Mommy is a Democrat?"

Squirrel art?

[S Fortney]

Can you say INDOCTRINATION of MISINFORMATION. After all, isn't that what the Tea baggers represent?

[Ex Liberal]

Such a joy to come to a site here that is usually frequented by the far-left.

There is no intellectual curiosity on the left when it comes to those in the Tea Party, no, just the mindless, ever repeated talking points we hear on TV or in the news at our favorite far-left sites like HuffPo or MoveOn.

Funny it is that the left, which prides itself on open-mindedness and vilifies the right for supposedly treating people based on stereotypes has no problem stereotyping the Tea Party and treating them poorly.

As an former liberal I always thought we stood for fair play and treating people well and also wanted to cut out corruption and hold elected officials accountable.

But so much has changed, Media Matters, run by a guy who was a hatchet man for Republicans and vilified is now cheered for doing the exact same thing TO Republicans.

Corruption in the Democrat Party is accepted as long as elections are won, Alan Grayson is a hero.

Ah liberal Democrats, you have come so far...

[AmericanMommy]

Like the great Dr. Savage declares: LIBERALISM IS A MENTAL DISORDER!!!

[Tim G.]

Along these same lines, go snag a copy of "Why Mommy is a Democrat" and the sequel, "Why Daddy is a Democrat" for some REAL mind-numbing propaganda.

[Synova]

I think that the author would have liked the book better if it had pictures of witchdoctor Obama with a bone through his nose.

I mean really!

The criticism is that it *doesn't* have that picture?

And typos... the criticism is that there are examples of poor (or no) copy-editing and cut-and-paste mistakes?

And the "factual" criticism is that instead of an involved lecture about the intricacies of British politics and trade interests and how tax changes were causing hardship in the colonies... the book just tells the familiar Tea Party story about how taxes were causing hardship in the colonies?

Really?

And to top off the big heaping pile of offense... a conservative company published a conservative coloring book!

By *that* measure, anyone who gives money to liberal causes loses their right to also speak to liberal causes. I won't even say "hypocrisy much?" because it's more like irrationality than hypocrisy.

And the folks who wrote "School House Rock" should be flogged and locked away for... "They even had the nerve to tax our cup of tea... to put it kindly, King, we really don't agree... we're gonna show you how we feel, we're gonna dump this tea... and turn this harbor into the biggest cup of tea in History!... With no more King.... etc."

Because we all know that it was the equivalent of a university fraternity prank... dressed up like Indians, too!

Silly dang founders. At least they could Party!

[Michael Lane]

I thought the left was all about freedom to express oneself through art. Is it propaganda only when it does not fit in to their poitical views? I guaranty you that if this was a Michale Moore coloring book about evil greedy capitalism they would be all for it.

[Jim Webster]

I will take the writer's word (Christopher Knight) that the book was poorly drawn and poorly written, but I couldn't help detecting Liberal venom dripping from each word he wrote. Hopefully, the next children's coloring book that is published, praising patriotic Americans, who attend 'Tea Party' events, will be more deserving of their subject. That book will also be condemned by Liberals, but at least instead of criticizing the art work and the wording, they will be forced to criticize lower taxes, fewer regulations, smaller government, more individual freedom and getting back to following the Constitution, that the newer book espouses.

[StewartIII]

NewsBusters| LAT: Tea Party-themed Coloring Book 'Kiddie Propaganda'
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/lachlan-markay/2010/10/01/lat-tea-party-themed-coloring-book-kiddie-propaganda

[Donald Frazell]

The Constitution says nothing of what you just listed, except liberties, which are in the Bill of Rights. At first it was thought people would simply do the right thing, but thousand of years of history proves otherwise. And 200+ years more has validated.

Libs always want a hand out, but T-bags never want to give a hand. The rest of us, as the creators of the declaration of Independence and Constitution desired, take the middle path, for there is no freedom without responsibility. Neither wings wants to bother with such tough and difficult concepts

[Booses]

First off: The original Tea Party was about taxation without representation. We have representatives in the house. Not the same story.

Second: You people want no taxes but you want us to fix the deficit. It doesn't work that way. Tax cuts for all increases the deficit by $4 trillion dollars over the next decade. Find me $4 trillion to cut without affecting education/medicare/our safety.

If you don't want to pay taxes then move to your own lawless island without medicare and social security.

Pubs have been the party of "hell no" but then they point the finger when nothing has gotten done. No party in the history of US has been so obstructionist for so long.

Have you noticed that all the Tea baggers are white, middle aged, and slightly obese. Your going to push your party so far to the right that nobody is going to vote for you. Keep buying your coloring books because after november the pubs are going to stay to the hell away from you.

[TJefferson_Now]

Is it not PC enough for the people on the fringe of the Left?

I didn’t hear death threats over the “Stuff” video that’s being shown in public schools.

This is a coloring book, if you don’t agree with it. Then you have the choice to not buy it for your child or children.

It’s not like the indoctrination that happens in the public schools from the Left, which is tax payer funded.

Perhaps it’s because people are awakening and the Left in America is in panic mode?

[Donna]

This is yet another example of biased reporting that has led to the decline of true journalism and the financial problems many papers are facing. This article has such an obvious slant, for those that actually use their brain and research the facts, it is an afront! A scant mention of the coloring book about Obama, yet no details as to the content.

The author intimates that the company only publishes conservative, radical ideas and does so because they are in the political pockets of the Republicans. He forgets to mention that this company has also published coloring books on the "Green" agenda, "African American Leaders", and Spanish only or Spanish-English coloring books.

This is a company that makes coloring books for anyone that wants them. They can be used for advertising or fundraising. All of which are made in the USA. Liberals are oft to report that Republicans want to outsource all jobs and are in the tank for big business.

Well, it would seem that this company is open to publishing all kinds of ideas for all kinds of people and keeping the jobs in the US. So, what exactly is wrong? Is it that the biased reporters of the LA Times just don't agree with the message? Rather than critically attack the message based on its merits, they go after the messenger? The writer now attacks the message, the messenger and his friends. The company will print almost anything for anyone if they are willing to pay. It's a BUSINESS. They are in it for the money for crying out loud.

If you want to attack based on business associations and PACs, the LA Times might want to address Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, William Ayers, and Rashid Khalidi to name but a few. The LA Times has written articles in the past, but like this one, it is cursory when it talks about the strong ties between them and the President.

If you want to talk about PAC funds and their associations with the President and his crowd, where do you start? ACORN, SEIU, AFL-CIO, firefighters unions, teachers union, police unions, George Soros, defense contractors, health companies, and oil companies. He has personally received millions of dollars during his election campaign and the Democratic party received millions during the same time! So, exactly where is it OK to donate money and when is it not? It seems it is always OK if you are a Democrat and never OK if you are a Republican. You can slander, attack, criticize and outright lie if you are a Democrat but not a Republican?

The Tea Party evolved because of the contempt shown to the American people by Congress and the Legislature. The Tea Party is the voice of the "silent majority" who have been silent long enough and won't stand quietly anymore lamenting the changes being forced upon them. The US has turned into a remarkable parody of what will of the people actually means! Like our ancestors before who fought against tyranny of British rule, exorbitant taxation, fiefdoms, and decreased freedoms, so too have the Tea Party and the American people.

Don't forget, the Revolutionaries had to fight against the odds to have their voices heard. They had to fight against a much stronger and much better financed British army to win their fight. The Tea Party started as a grass roots campaign, much like the Early American Revolutionaries, but they slowly became stronger and louder until people weren't afraid to listen and support, thus leading us to freedom from a dictatorial ruler.