Interesting Article on the "Tea Party" Movement

[Nick]

"Dismiss the Tea Parties at Your Peril" is the title of an article that echoes some of the same concerns I have about this revitalized right wing movement and it's impact on the 2010 elections. In an off year such as this one, when voter turnout is usually low, they could have a big impact. Don't be shocked if the United States ends up with republicans in congress who's views make the Bush Administration look like a bunch of tree-huggers.

[Tomas]

"Dismiss the Tea Parties at Your Peril" is the title of an article that echoes some of the same concerns I have about this revitalized right wing movement and it's impact on the 2010 elections. In an off year such as this one, when voter turnout is usually low, they could have a big impact. Don't be shocked if the United States ends up with republicans in congress who's views make the Bush Administration look like a bunch of tree-huggers.

Nick,

First things first. Unless this Gulf oil spill is stopped soon (in about 30-45 days), or it circles the globe, and in my opinion it will, it won't matter which party takes control of the House and Senate.

That being said, the Tea Party is 40% right-leaning, 25% left-leaning and 30-35% independent/swing/disenchanted voters. I've attended a few just for the "parade atmosphere" and these tea people want nothing more than their money back, essentially their life, from the same old-same old One Party State (the two-party sham). There've been many blacks, and other "colors" there it's just that the mainstream media don't want them shown. Our pal Elizabeth and Alex Jacob still believe that "global warming" is just around the corner. That's just the scare tactic the MSM want you to take the bait.

As far as Bush goes, he was nothing more than a National Socialist (a lefty) who kicked in the Treasury doors for Barack Obama (another lefty) to walk in and take over. There is no degree of separation between the two parties, Nick. If those fucking asshole-politicians really cared they would start with all the homeless children (the most vulnerable) amongst us. But no, it's Al Qaeda and The Taliban they're after. Or the Viet Cong, the Russkies, the Nazi's or whatever bogeyman they have nightmares about. It an illusion Nick, don't you see? Money, money, money.

Everything changed in 1913 when the Congress voted in (the) direct election of Senators, thus taking away each state's power to put there own man in. The individual state lost it Ace card.

The second occurred when Congress approved the Federal Reserve System, that handed "the money"over to a cabal of foreign bankers with no oversight by the House of Representatives (the purser).

The third event of 1913 was when the taxpayer became the slave with the income tax being adopted.

You live in the Detroit area, do you really believe (think) that Barack gives a shit about your city or the surrounding area?

Whatever party (or combination of the two) are in power it remains static. Inflation goes up and the middle class, by design, shrinks.

Get used to it Nick, even Miley Cyrus is having a good time. You deserve the good life, too.

PS - The militia members that were arrested for being some sort of "domestic terrorists" were granted bail by a federal judge, she didn't think they posed a threat. The group was infiltrated by the fed and they were made out to be right-wing sinister. Just a group of potheads, drunks, religious zealots spouting off, harmless all of them (just blabbering and talking shit... but haven't we all been there? Kevin Solway deserves a wanted poster with his mugshot emblazoned on Hardball or some other left-wing media outlet. He's one, wild-eyed ex-hippie with dangerous thoughts. Crucify him!

[Nick]

First things first. Unless this Gulf oil spill is stopped soon (in about 30-45 days), or it circles the globe, and in my opinion it will, it won't matter which party takes control of the House and Senate.

What percentage of those tea partiers do you think were chanting "drill baby drill" along with Sarah Palin?

That being said, the Tea Party is 40% right-leaning, 25% left-leaning and 30-35% independent/swing/disenchanted voters. I've attended a few just for the "parade atmosphere" and these tea people want nothing more than their money back, essentially their life, from the same old-same old One Party State (the two-party sham).

So did the Germans in the late 1920's through the early 1930's.

There've been many blacks, and other "colors" there it's just that the mainstream media don't want them shown.

1 black for everyone 100 whites can't be considered "many" by any account. And if there is more than that, the mother of mainstream media in this country, Fox News, would love nothing more than to flaunt a few token black guys into the living rooms of all their loyal viewers. Although I can understand your sentiment about 1 black guy being considered "many" when your generation of whites will start watching their backs if more than 1 black guy is in the same room as them.

Our pal Elizabeth and Alex Jacob still believe that "global warming" is just around the corner. That's just the scare tactic the MSM want you to take the bait.

And you mention this because....?

As far as Bush goes, he was nothing more than a National Socialist (a lefty) who kicked in the Treasury doors for Barack Obama (another lefty) to walk in and take over.

Tell that to the tea partiers, because the next time a white republican gets elected president I'll make you a wager that these "non-partisan" protesters will suddenly be M.I.A.

There is no degree of separation between the two parties, Nick.

That's not true Tom, and you know it. While many democrats represent multi-national corporations, nearly 100% of the republicans do, Ron Paul probably being the only exception. Secondly, you can't honestly think that guys like Bernie Sanders, Anthony Weiner, Alan Grayson, and Dennis Kucinich are on the same page as guys like John Boehner, Sarah Palin, and the entire Cheney-Bush Administration. Don't be bitter just because they kicked you out of their club.

If those fucking asshole-politicians really cared they would start with all the homeless children (the most vulnerable) amongst us. But no, it's Al Qaeda and The Taliban they're after. Or the Viet Cong, the Russkies, the Nazi's or whatever bogeyman they have nightmares about. It an illusion Nick, don't you see? Money, money, money.

Yeah and the republicans are the absolute worst offenders when it comes to this kind of thing, there is really no comparison, even with the democrats. Go ask those self proclaimed non-partisan tea partiers if they ever voted for anyone outside of the republican party. I'll make you another wager you get a resounding NO. It's troubling how blind these people are to their own ambitions, and it's exactly how Hitler and the Nazis rose to power.

Everything changed in 1913 when the Congress voted in (the) direct election of Senators, thus taking away each state's power to put there own man in. The individual state lost it Ace card.

The second occurred when Congress approved the Federal Reserve System, that handed "the money"over to a cabal of foreign bankers with no oversight by the House of Representatives (the purser).

The third event of 1913 was when the taxpayer became the slave with the income tax being adopted.

I get the feeling we're not talking about the tea partiers anymore...

You live in the Detroit area, do you really believe (think) that Barack gives a shit about your city or the surrounding area?

Well, aside from the banks, the auto industry was the only other economic sector that got bailed out. Make of that what you will...

Whatever party (or combination of the two) are in power it remains static. Inflation goes up and the middle class, by design, shrinks.

No Tom, it's gets far worse every time the republicans are in control. The disparity in wealth between the super rich and the rest of the country has been spiraling out of control ever since the implementation of reaganomics.

Get used to it Nick, even Miley Cyrus is having a good time. You deserve the good life, too.

WTF are you talking about?

PS - The militia members that were arrested for being some sort of "domestic terrorists" were granted bail by a federal judge, she didn't think they posed a threat. The group was infiltrated by the fed and they were made out to be right-wing sinister.

So now those incompetent feds are suddenly competent enough to judge these low-lifes as "non-threatening" because you can identify with them?

Just a group of potheads, drunks, religious zealots spouting off, harmless all of them (just blabbering and talking shit... but haven't we all been there? Kevin Solway deserves a wanted poster with his mugshot emblazoned on Hardball or some other left-wing media outlet. He's one, wild-eyed ex-hippie with dangerous thoughts. Crucify him!

Ok, you'll have to explain bit by bit how a bunch of low-life ignorant assholes can be compared to a deeply thoughtful philosopher like Kevin Solway. Even Chris Mathews isn't that stupid. And this time pull your head out of your ass before you decide to run your mouth again.

[Tomas]

1 black for everyone 100 whites can't be considered "many" by any account. And if there is more than that, the mother of mainstream media in this country, Fox News, would love nothing more than to flaunt a token black guy into the living rooms of all their viewers.

Try this article on for size. And, from the New York Times, of all media outlets.

Black Hopefuls Pick This Year In G.O.P. Races -SEVERAL PHOTOS OF CANDIDATES-
...at least 32 African-Americans are running for Congress this year as Republicans >> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/us/po ... lacks.html

.

[Nick]

FYI I edited that statement you quoted me on there, although it doesn't change the sentiment.

Anyways, whatever gimmicks michael steele and the republicans use to gain minority and women voters, whether it be choosing Sarah Palin for VP or picking some black guys to run for congress, does not change the fact that the tea party can accurately be described as a bunch of angry old white men and the women who love them.

[Tomas]

FYI I edited that statement you quoted me on there, although it doesn't change the sentiment.

Anyways, whatever gimmicks michael steele and the republicans use to gain minority and women voters, whether it be choosing Sarah Palin for VP or picking some black guys to run for congress, does not change the fact that the tea party can accurately be described as a bunch of angry old white men and the women who love them.

What's with the angry old white men stuff? Have you attended a tea party youself. Or, are you glued to the TV for your biases? Tea Partiers are 40-80k earners.

If you don't vote why should you care? .. Do you vote in elections?

[Nick]

Looks like a bunch of angry old white men to me. Notice their trademark "Obama made to look like a fictional comic book character poster" as well. Way to make a statement about... well actually.... I haven't a fucking clue what kind of statement their trying to make with posters like that. Plenty more similar clips along the right side. Oh, and don't get too excited about the black guy there, he's just protecting the reporters.

And yes, I do vote.

[Tomas]

Looks like a bunch of angry old white men to me. Plenty more similar clips along the right side. Oh, and don't get too excited about the black guy there, he's just protecting the reporters.

And yes, I do vote.

Interesting video, thanks.

And yes, you vote, okay.

Have you even driven by a tea party as a casual passerby or attended one?

The few (about 12 or so) I've actually attended in California, North Dakota, Colorado, Oregon and Washington state, have been infiltrated by both mainstream Repubs and Dem insiders. But they stand out like a sore thumb and tend to be readily dismissed as 'party operatives'. One in North Dakota, featured a former governor Ed Schaefer (R) who droned on about high taxes for the little guy and taxes on corporations. He was exposed as a 'party operative' and politely asked to "stick it up his ass".

Both political parties are doing their darndest to hijack the tea party - don't you see?

Fox news, Sarah Palin etc. are just media diversions designed to sway folks like you... keep you voting as a Dem or Repub... One Party State. Nothing more, nothing less.

PS - Nick, this'll be my final response for the day. Take care..

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[Nick]

Have you even driven by a tea party as a casual passerby or attended one?

No.

The few (about 12 or so) I've actually attended in California, North Dakota, Colorado, Oregon and Washington state, have been infiltrated by both mainstream Repubs and Dem insiders. But they stand out like a sore thumb and tend to be readily dismissed as 'party operatives'. One in North Dakota, featured a former governor Ed Schaefer (R) who droned on about high taxes for the little guy and taxes on corporations. He was exposed as a 'party operative' and politely asked to "stick it up his ass".

While I'm certain the republicans want keep the tea partiers under the republican umbrella, I don't see that same initiative coming from the dems, not because they wouldn't love to get their votes, but because they know they would be wasting their time.

Both political parties are doing their darndest to hijack the tea party - don't you see?

No Tom, I don't see that happening at all. And it's not because I'm missing something, it's because it's not supported by the facts. The people who make up the tea party have been the lackeys and stooges of the republican party for the latter half of the 20th century, so naturally the republican brass will do whatever they can to keep them under their thumbs now that they are getting riled up in the 21st century.

Fox news, Sarah Palin etc. are just media diversions designed to sway folks like you... keep you voting as a Dem or Repub...

Fox news is the media, stupid! They are experts at propoganda, Sarah Palin is their voice, and Sean Hannity and the tea partiers are in love with each other. The democrats never even enter the equation here. That you keep bringing up the democrats every time some right wing entity gets caught fucking their own constituents is evidence of a strong right wing bias in yourself. If Obama and the democrats do something that pisses me off I criticize them for it, but I don't mindlessly and irrelevantly bring up the republicans as a distraction. Attitudes like yours are the diversion; don't you see?

[Nick]

Here's another good article by Noam Chomsky on the Tea Partiers: How the Tea Partiers Are Getting Screwed by Their Own Ideology

[Alex T. Jacob]

One of the more frustrating things, but interesting things, is the degree to which people differ. We all have two eyes and we all look out on the same world, but two people who you might even admire respectively do not 'see' the same world. Their interpretation is totally different. You listen to one person's discourse and are influenced by it, then you listen to another and you are also influenced by it. But to arrive at concurrence? Very hard.

One of the interesting comparisons I have puzzled over has been Noam Chomsky and Alvaro Vargas Llosa. As we all know, Chomsky has an 'unassailably correct POV'. Chomsky, in general, does not engage the reader in 'working out conclusions', Chomsky pretty much presents the Correct View for you to drink down. I would say this is one of Chomsky's main faults. I think it is one of the reasons why it is so easy to convert to Chomskyism, and when people do---I have both heard it done and done it myself---they repeat from a group of talking points that are really quite simple, not quite binary but reductionist. It is pretty easy to become a Chomsky fanatic as a result of internalizing his ideas. Probably no one here has read Eduardo Galeano (Open Veins of Latin America, popular in the 70s in Latin America and still widely read) but he is also a writer who reduces the issues and questions to a simple group, and as an historian (or 'historian') interprets history in a very dramatic way, so that as you go through you are brought over to his cause (The Cause) and you clearly see the terrible evil that was committed against the indigenous of the Americas, and you clearly see the perps, and you clearly see the remedy. And that was pretty much how it functioned: the book was enormously popular in the 70s and 80s and in a very real and non-exaggerated sense was internalized as Holy Writ by numerous generations of university kids. (This is the book that Chavez gave to Obama at the first conferance they both attended: Las Venas Abiertas de America Latina).

[Alvaro Vargas Llosa on Che Guevara]

The views (dependency theory and structuralism) paint a picture in which Latin America is the absolutely pure victim of Europe, of the hegemonic US, and of History and (in a queer sense) of God. Thousands and millions of Latino kids internalizing this view, and thousands going into the political sphere, influenced a whole series of attitudes and choices. Rebellion and nationalism, seeking to blame foreign powers for internal stupidity, error and bad policy, and especially the construction of a literally metaphysical and deeply superstitious view (remember, these are largely peasant people under the yoke of a backward Catholicism) of the US as a demonic potency, bent on enslavement, on the random and sadistic imposition of sadistic torture. The US as a (literally) absolute evil in the world from which the poor little pious people of the world have to liberate themselves, drive a stake in the heart of the Empire. Well---we all are quite familiar with this discourse because ALL OF US in one way or another buy into it. It is NOT rational and the structure of ideas that supports it in the mental sphere is really backed up by an invisible and unconscious structure that sees and locates 'demons' in the world. In short, this sort of view, is a kind of applied demonology.

I mention Alvaro Vargas Llosa because he and a few other intellectuals, in the early 90s I think, began to examine and to critique a whole wide group of viewpoints of the Left that were simply unexamined in Latin American culture, especially in the universities. The book they wrote as a result was called Manual for the Perfect Latin American Idiot. It examines the political philosophy that comes out of dependency theory and structuralism, and the 10 major intellectuals who influenced successive generations of youth in Latin America. In a very funny and cutting way they go though the political and economic philosophy of a group of the 10 most influential thinkers of the Left, and pretty much tear them to shreds. The book, and new ways of seeing and perceiving, has had tremendous impact in Latin America, but what interests me has more to do with the vestiges of outmoded thinking. Because I live a good part of the year in Latin America and know people there I always (always!) run up against this subliminal and interiorly-patterned anti-Americanism. It is, of course, particularly evident (or virulent) in the universities, just as it always had been. It is popular and, as always, chic. You just can't really be hip and cool and with it unless you have internalized this contempt and unless you can 'recite from the lists of horror' as I call it (name all the terrible things the US does/has done as you hold in your mind some foggy vision of the way things Should Be).

What is the point of this in relation to the Tea-Party Movement? I'm glad you asked. I would suggest that the most intelligent view would be to see the 'thinkers' of both the popular left and the popular right as being fairly much mirror images of each other. In other words, they (and we?) are all equally 'mystified' and unable to really see into our world and unable to really make an accurate assessment of it. What is so peculiar and so frightening is to witness the degree to which people become the victims of their own confusion about their own selves, their own physical existence, the structures that support them, the interrelation of those structures that extend and combine with so many others, the systems of production and distribution that it all hinges into. But not only that: there are literally metaphysical and 'spiritual' questions, the question of interpretation of the present that extend from religious views, the 'nature of this place, the 'nature and purpose of existence', and 'where it is all tending'. I think one of the things that we DO see and that disturbs us is the sense that there is no shared discourse, there is no discourse that makes sense of what is happening, we have no basis on which to form agreements, indeed we can agree on nothing! Isn't that really what one concludes as a result of the long conversations on GF?

This is not quite related, but there is a video out there of Chomsky appearing with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and thanking him for being one of the people who is working to bring light and clarity to human affairs (he doesn't use quite those terms but something like it). The utterly funny thing about this is that Chomsky is (supposedly) an 'anarchist-syndicalist' and his philosophy should shun the State and concentrated power. And yet, there he is, shaking hands with the leader of a state who has decimated the center in his own country and pushed all discourse to the extremes. According to Alvaro Vargas Llosa, the Chavez Solution of 'caudillo populismo' is just another of a long line of incarnations of the same. He believes that it will all end up in the same way: just a reconstitution of power in another (now Left-leaning but 'correct-thinking') authoritarian oligarchy. The poor will once again be pushed out of the picture of actual wealth-development (45% of all Latinoamericanos exist on $2.00 a day or less) and though they will witness a terribly dramatic political tele-novela where their buffoon-president shouts insults at everyone, in the end it will all collapse, the region will not develop (and integrate with the world economy like other underdeveloped economies have managed to do). All on the strength and as a result of a few erroneous ideas.

Chomsky on Chavez
Chavez Welcomes Chomsky
Chomsky's opposition to 'leaders' (which would seem to contradict his support of Chavez)
"The United States places at risk the very existence of the human species!"

My purpose is not to change the direction of your fine thread, Nickovsky, but to add to it that we seem so unable to arrive at sensible definitions of the present.

[Conservationist]

"Dismiss the Tea Parties at Your Peril" is the title of an article that echoes some of the same concerns I have about this revitalized right wing movement and it's impact on the 2010 elections.

What exactly have liberals done right since 1789? The world's a mess. Fuck these people, to the woodchipper!