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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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 Posted: Wed Oct 20, 2010 5:17 pm Post subject: A View of What's Left: a Tea Party |
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I find interesting a statement such as this:
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| The nice thing about American politics these days is that people are completely polarized. This way, when your favored party is in the minority, they'll still viciously prevent the majority party from doing much of anything (since it would 100% for sure destroy the USA). |
because I find it echoed in the media still today: polarization.
The above suggests that, as of 2006, the Dems blocked Congress so that Bush was unable to function during his last 2 years in office. Hmmm... I really don't remember that happening. What was it that got blocked in that time period?
Some issues like wiretapping were challenged, but what major legislation was blocked?
Come 2008, that all changed.
So, I'm missing the tat among the *beep*. If the country is polarized, what, I ask, is so polar about the left at the moment? As soon as legislation commenced, a significant quarter of the left announced they were Blue Dog. Was there a Red Dog revolution during those 8 years of Bush? Hmmm...I don't recall anything like that.
So, that's what the left got. A congress. Then a president to go with the congress*** oh but not really. Now, we get to have a right-wing congress again.
Ummm...I don't really think Obama's been bad, but the idea that he's a communist is silly. He's taking a beating over something he can't really control (although I don't think health care was the right thing at the right time). And yet it prevails, and so I leave it there. The Leftist congress never materialized.
The Leftist congress never materialized: That is a problem for the Left. When you get a majority but don't have a majority, something's wrong. The previous 8 years indicate that the Right doesn't have such a problem. This is a party problem. I'm not voting this time around to support Democrats who have proven to represent me less and less. I don't have confidence that voting for them when key members can suddenly go Blue.
Yeah, so it sucks to be here where I am. On the other hand, everything can't be all interesting everywhere at the same time. 
My side's screwed. The Left needs a radical overhaul.
What would have never crossed my mind until recently is that the overhaul of the Left is going to come from an overhaul of the Right!
TEA PARTY IN DA HOUSE!
So, what does it mean? Religion can finally go die, conservatives are going to push through the legalization of pot, and we can temporarily indulge the absurd notion that business needs freer reign from government.
I say OK. Cool. I don't think I'm Right, but a right freeing itself of medieval bigotry is more than Obama could have ever promised.
One thing at a time.
-an unpolarized NWM
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comm
Joined: 22 Jun 2010
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| Posted: Wed Oct 20, 2010 6:36 pm Post subject: Re: A View of What's Left: a Tea Party |
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| Nowhere Man wrote: |
TEA PARTY IN DA HOUSE!
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The problem, as with all libertarian/constitutionalist movements I've been aware of, is that the Republicans desperately drag every bit of it into their party that they can.
Well financed Republicans with charisma start showing up and talking about oppressing personal freedoms, the real libertarians burn out of the movement, and the Republicans use it as a way to pump up the base a little bit. |
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Illysook
Joined: 30 Jun 2008
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| Posted: Wed Oct 20, 2010 8:40 pm Post subject: |
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| The Tea Party keeps putting people like Sarah Palin and Christine O'Donnell forward, and you think that religion is going to go die? What have you been smoking? |
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catman
Joined: 18 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Wed Oct 20, 2010 8:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Unfortunately the Tea Party has turned into a pro war movement as well. |
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Wed Oct 20, 2010 10:40 pm Post subject: Re: A View of What's Left: a Tea Party |
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| Nowhere Man wrote: |
| push through the legalization of pot |
| Nowhere Man wrote: |
| the absurd notion that business needs freer reign from government. |
Oh dear. Irony anyone?
| Nowhere Man wrote: |
| Religion can finally go die |
No thanks. I'll take religious conservatives over the likes of you any day |
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mc_jc
Joined: 13 Aug 2009
Location: C4B- Cp Red Cloud, Area-I
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| Posted: Thu Oct 21, 2010 2:11 am Post subject: |
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The above suggests that, as of 2006, the Dems blocked Congress so that Bush was unable to function during his last 2 years in office. Hmmm... I really don't remember that happening. What was it that got blocked in that time period?
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The Democratic Congress blocked aspects of the FY07 defense budget that would prolong the wars. There was bipartisan haggling to agree on a budget that would in effect shorten the American involvement during that time.
I remember this because my shipping orders from Korea were halted until congress came up with the money to pay for supplies to be shipped from Korea to the units on the front. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sat Oct 23, 2010 5:12 pm Post subject: |
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Only mildly related, but I don't want to start a new thread.
Karl Denninger expressing his disappointment for what the Tea Party has become on Dylan Ratigan's show, followed by a written rant about it:
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=2222649
Even Tea Partiers see what a pathetic, co-opted mess the Tea Party has become. |
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Sat Oct 23, 2010 6:02 pm Post subject: ... |
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@comm- Fair enough. When it all started, this was, I thought, Ron Paul's dealy. Was it bought out because they feared him, or because they wanted to shift the conservative agenda from culture to business?
@illysook- Did the TP choose Palin, or the other way around? O'Donnell's religiosity came to light after she was chosen, not as the reason for choosing her. Moreover, thinking Robertson and Buchanan, I don't see any leaders of congregations running for office, nor do I hear talk of family values.
@catman- Yes, that happened quite early. Many of planet Nibiru's contingent waved goodbye to the Dems. It was probably one of the best things to come of it all. They're very bipartisan about who is building death camps.
@Sergio- Oh the irony indeed. The good activists-come-businessman who run the medicinal dispensaries in Cali are one of the largest contingents opposing legalization. It's a very promising statement about plutocracy when marijuana legalization is based upon how much money is made and who gets it. Hey, that's how it was made illegal, wasn't it? The attorney general is gearing up to fight it, so I guess there'll be ample time for the free pot=socialism argument. Should be fun and ripe with evidence of how big business > government.
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asylum seeker
Joined: 22 Jul 2007
Location: On your computer screen.
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| Posted: Sun Oct 24, 2010 8:43 am Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
Only mildly related, but I don't want to start a new thread.
Karl Denninger expressing his disappointment for what the Tea Party has become on Dylan Ratigan's show, followed by a written rant about it:
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=2222649
Even Tea Partiers see what a pathetic, co-opted mess the Tea Party has become. |
It's even worse than that- the Tea Party was never truly "grass roots"- It was started with seed money from right-wing billionaires:
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All three tycoons are the latest incarnation of what the historian Kim Phillips-Fein labeled �Invisible Hands� in her prescient 2009 book of that title: those corporate players who have financed the far right ever since the du Pont brothers spawned the American Liberty League in 1934 to bring down F.D.R. You can draw a straight line from the Liberty League�s crusade against the New Deal �socialism� of Social Security, the Securities and Exchange Commission and child labor laws to the John Birch Society-Barry Goldwater assault on J.F.K. and Medicare to the Koch-Murdoch-backed juggernaut against our �socialist� president.
Only the fat cats change � not their methods and not their pet bugaboos (taxes, corporate regulation, organized labor, and government �handouts� to the poor, unemployed, ill and elderly). Even the sources of their fortunes remain fairly constant. Koch Industries began with oil in the 1930s and now also spews an array of industrial products, from Dixie cups to Lycra, not unlike DuPont�s portfolio of paint and plastics. Sometimes the biological DNA persists as well. The Koch brothers� father, Fred, was among the select group chosen to serve on the Birch Society�s top governing body. In a recorded 1963 speech that survives in a University of Michigan archive, he can be heard warning of �a takeover� of America in which Communists would �infiltrate the highest offices of government in the U.S. until the president is a Communist, unknown to the rest of us.� That rant could be delivered as is at any Tea Party rally today. |
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29rich.html
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| A Republican campaign consultant who has done research on behalf of Charles and David Koch said of the Tea Party, �The Koch brothers gave the money that founded it. It�s like they put the seeds in the ground. Then the rainstorm comes, and the frogs come out of the mud�and they�re our candidates!� |
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Sun Oct 24, 2010 12:21 pm Post subject: |
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| asylum seeker wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
Only mildly related, but I don't want to start a new thread.
Karl Denninger expressing his disappointment for what the Tea Party has become on Dylan Ratigan's show, followed by a written rant about it:
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=2222649
Even Tea Partiers see what a pathetic, co-opted mess the Tea Party has become. |
It's even worse than that- the Tea Party was never truly "grass roots"- It was started with seed money from right-wing billionaires: |
Says you and that ridiculous "opinion" piece from that leftist rag of a newspaper. Ron Paul was never even mentioned in the article, and he was certainly never bankrolled by the Koch family. The Koch brothers (whose family fortune is owed in large part to dealings with the USSR under Stalin) are the "right wing" equivalent of George Soros. They're pseudo-libertarians and have been known to run smear campaigns against real libertarians/Austrians (incl. Ron Paul, who is on the Ludwig von Mises Institute side of things). Ron Paul, however, is the real deal, and his rallies in 2007 should not be confused with now co-opted Tea Party.
Moreover, the truly rich and powerful (ie. the banking establishment) always bankroll socialism, and have since the beginning. Socialism is the elite's most powerful tool of domination over the rest of society. The government is their muscle. The Kochtopus and George Soros are relatively small potatoes in comparison. |
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comm
Joined: 22 Jun 2010
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| Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2010 6:28 am Post subject: |
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Say what you will about its origin, Ron Paul can be traced as the real root. The former leaders of the Tea Party movement have stated that neocons have taken it over.
The fact is that the basic principles of personal and economic freedom are popular. The republicans want to screw it up with "dont do that with your own body" religious-style moralistic crap and democrats want to screw it up with "you cant keep your money when other people need it" social-welfare-style moralistic crap.
If I can't have the libertarian ideal, I'd have rather the democrats hijacked the movement. I'm really jealous of other countries' systems of multi-party representation. |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2010 7:50 am Post subject: |
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| The "Tea Party" movement was in existence in 1980, if not before. A tea party song was featured on a nationwide morning news program in 1982, on April 16th. It was a purely Libertarian movement at the time. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2010 10:20 pm Post subject: Re: A View of What's Left: a Tea Party |
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| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
| Nowhere Man wrote: |
| push through the legalization of pot |
| Nowhere Man wrote: |
| the absurd notion that business needs freer reign from government. |
Oh dear. Irony anyone?
| Nowhere Man wrote: |
| Religion can finally go die |
No thanks. I'll take religious conservatives over the likes of you any day |
Whaaaat? Talking of irony.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF0gnIaD_Cc |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2010 10:32 pm Post subject: |
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The Tea Party movement: deluded and inspired by billionaires
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| By funding numerous rightwing organisations, the mega-rich Koch brothers have duped millions into supporting big business |
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The Tea Party movement is remarkable in two respects. It is one of the biggest exercises in false consciousness the world has seen � and the biggest Astroturf operation in history. These accomplishments are closely related.
An Astroturf campaign is a fake grassroots movement: it purports to be a spontaneous uprising of concerned citizens, but in reality it is founded and funded by elite interests. Some Astroturf campaigns have no grassroots component at all. Others catalyse and direct real mobilisations. The Tea Party belongs in the second category. It is mostly composed of passionate, well-meaning people who think they are fighting elite power, unaware that they have been organised by the very interests they believe they are confronting. We now have powerful evidence that the movement was established and has been guided with the help of money from billionaires and big business. Much of this money, as well as much of the strategy and staffing, were provided by two brothers who run what they call "the biggest company you've never heard of".
Charles and David Koch own 84% of Koch Industries, the second-largest private company in the United States. It runs oil refineries, coal suppliers, chemical plants and logging firms, and turns over roughly $100bn a year; the brothers are each worth $21bn. The company has had to pay tens of millions of dollars in fines and settlements for oil and chemical spills and other industrial accidents. The Kochs want to pay less tax, keep more profits and be restrained by less regulation. Their challenge has been to persuade the people harmed by this agenda that it's good for them.
In July 2010, David Koch told New York magazine: "I've never been to a Tea Party event. No one representing the Tea Party has ever even approached me." But a fascinating new film � (Astro)Turf Wars, by Taki Oldham � tells a fuller story. Oldham infiltrated some of the movement's key organising events, including the 2009 Defending the American Dream summit, convened by a group called Americans for Prosperity (AFP). The film shows David Koch addressing the summit. "Five years ago," he explains, "my brother Charles and I provided the funds to start Americans for Prosperity. It's beyond my wildest dreams how AFP has grown into this enormous organisation."
A convener tells the crowd how AFP mobilised opposition to Barack Obama's healthcare reforms. "We hit the button and we started doing the Twittering and Facebook and the phonecalls and the emails, and you turned up!" Then a series of AFP organisers tell Mr Koch how they have set up dozens of Tea Party events in their home states. He nods and beams from the podium like a chief executive receiving rosy reports from his regional sales directors. Afterwards, the delegates crowd into AFP workshops, where they are told how to run further Tea Party events.
Americans for Prosperity is one of several groups set up by the Kochs to promote their politics. We know their foundations have given it at least $5m, but few such records are in the public domain and the total could be much higher. It has toured the country organising rallies against healthcare reform and the Democrats' attempts to tackle climate change. It provided the key organising tools that set the Tea Party running.
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comm
Joined: 22 Jun 2010
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| Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2010 11:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
Oldham infiltrated some of the movement's key organising events, including the 2009 Defending the American Dream summit, convened by a group called Americans for Prosperity (AFP). |
Note that that's 2009.
The original Tea Party (as it was established based on basic principles of economic and personal freedom), like any other party, is easily hijacked by people with money and an interest in diverting it from its natural path.
If I generate some discussion in my home town, name my group the "Path of Liberty Party" and start posting some fliers for a BBQ, people will show up. If the "Path of Liberty Party" gets very popular, a powerful group will start hosting their own "Path of Liberty Party" events. Only their events will be advertised in newspapers, online and on TV. Their event wont be a BBQ, it will be a media circus complete with big name national figures who will bring their own personal (and financial) interests into the event. And in the course of this, everyone will forget what the "Path of Liberty Party" was when Comm started it, but only know it as the "Path of Liberty Party" which is over hyped by Fox news, filled with moralists and headed by Sarah Palin. |
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