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  1. TopTop #1
    Valley Oak
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    The Very Angry Tea Party

    The Very Angry Tea Party - Opinionator Blog - NYTimes.com

    JUNE 13, 2010, 5:15 PM
    The Very Angry Tea Party

    By J.M. BERNSTEIN

    Sometimes it is hard to know where politics ends and metaphysics begins: when, that is, the stakes of a political dispute concern not simply a clash of competing ideas and values but a clash about what is real and what is not, what can be said to exist on its own and what owes its existence to an other.

    The seething anger that seems to be an indigenous aspect of the Tea Party movement arises, I think, at the very place where politics and metaphysics meet, where metaphysical sentiment becomes political belief. More than their political ideas, it is the anger of Tea Party members that is already reshaping our political landscape. As Jeff Zeleny reported last Monday in The Times, the vast majority of House Democrats are now avoiding holding town-hall-style forums — just as you might sidestep an enraged, jilted lover on a subway platform — out of fear of confronting the incubus of Tea Party rage that routed last summer’s meetings. This fear-driven avoidance is, Zeleny stated, bringing the time-honored tradition of the political meeting to the brink of extinction.

    It would be comforting if a clear political diagnosis of the Tea Party movement were available — if we knew precisely what political events had inspired the fierce anger that pervades its meetings and rallies, what policy proposals its backers advocate, and, most obviously, what political ideals and values are orienting its members.

    Of course, some things can be said, and have been said by commentators, under each of these headings. The bailout of Wall Street, the provision of government assistance to homeowners who cannot afford to pay their mortgages, the pursuit of health care reform and, as a cumulative sign of untoward government expansion, the mounting budget deficit are all routinely cited as precipitating events. I leave aside the election of a — “foreign-born” — African-American to the presidency.

    When it comes to the Tea Party’s concrete policy proposals, things get fuzzier and more contradictory: keep the government out of health care, but leave Medicare alone; balance the budget, but don’t raise taxes; let individuals take care of themselves, but leave Social Security alone; and, of course, the paradoxical demand not to support Wall Street, to let the hard-working producers of wealth get on with it without regulation and government stimulus, but also to make sure the banks can lend to small businesses and responsible homeowners in a stable but growing economy.

    There is a fierce logic to these views, as I will explain. But first, a word about political ideals.

    In a bracing and astringent essay in The New York Review of Books, pointedly titled “The Tea Party Jacobins,” Mark Lilla argued that the hodge-podge list of animosities Tea party supporters mention fail to cohere into a body of political grievances in the conventional sense: they lack the connecting thread of achieving political power. It is not for the sake of acquiring political power that Tea Party activists demonstrate, rally and organize; rather, Lilla argues, the appeal is to “individual opinion, individual autonomy, and individual choice, all in the service of neutralizing, not using, political power.” He calls Tea Party activists a “libertarian mob” since they proclaim the belief “that they can do everything themselves if they are only left alone.” Lilla cites as examples the growth in home schooling, and, amidst a mounting distrust in doctors and conventional medicine, growing numbers of parents refusing to have their children vaccinated, not to mention our resurgent passion for self-diagnosis, self-medication and home therapies.
    The events precipitating the Tea Party movement demonstrated the depths of the absolute dependence of us all on government action.
    What Lilla cannot account for, and what no other commentator I have read can explain, is the passionate anger of the Tea Party movement, or, the flip-side of that anger, the ease with which it succumbs to the most egregious of fear-mongering falsehoods. What has gripped everyone’s attention is the exorbitant character of the anger Tea Party members express. Where do such anger and such passionate attachment to wildly fantastic beliefs come from?

    My hypothesis is that what all the events precipitating the Tea Party movement share is that they demonstrated, emphatically and unconditionally, the depths of the absolute dependence of us all on government action, and in so doing they undermined the deeply held fiction of individual autonomy and self-sufficiency that are intrinsic parts of Americans’ collective self-understanding.

    The implicit bargain that many Americans struck with the state institutions supporting modern life is that they would be politically acceptable only to the degree to which they remained invisible, and that for all intents and purposes each citizen could continue to believe that she was sovereign over her life; she would, of course, pay taxes, use the roads and schools, receive Medicare and Social Security, but only so long as these could be perceived not as radical dependencies, but simply as the conditions for leading an autonomous and self-sufficient life. Recent events have left that bargain in tatters.

    But even this way of expressing the issue of dependence is too weak, too merely political; after all, although recent events have revealed the breadth and depths of our dependencies on institutions and practices over which we have little or no control, not all of us have responded with such galvanizing anger and rage. Tea Party anger is, at bottom, metaphysical, not political: what has been undone by the economic crisis is the belief that each individual is metaphysically self-sufficient, that one’s very standing and being as a rational agent owes nothing to other individuals or institutions. The opposing metaphysical claim, the one I take to be true, is that the very idea of the autonomous subject is an institution, an artifact created by the practices of modern life: the intimate family, the market economy, the liberal state. Each of these social arrangements articulate and express the value and the authority of the individual; they give to the individual a standing she would not have without them.

    Rather than participating in arranged marriages, as modern subjects we follow our hearts, choose our beloved, decide for ourselves who may or may not have access to our bodies, and freely take vows promising fidelity and loyalty until death (or divorce) do us part. There are lots of ways property can be held and distributed — as hysterical Tea Party incriminations of creeping socialism and communism remind us; we moderns have opted for a system of private ownership in which we can acquire, use and dispose of property as we see fit, and even workers are presumed to be self-owning, selling their labor time and labor power to whom they wish (when they can). And as modern citizens we presume the government is answerable to us, governs only with our consent, our dependence on it a matter of detached, reflective endorsement; and further, that we intrinsically possess a battery of moral rights that say we can be bound to no institution unless we possess the rights of “voice and exit.”

    The great and inspiring metaphysical fantasy of independence and freedom is simply a fantasy of destruction.

    If stated in enough detail, all these institutions and practices should be seen as together manufacturing, and even inventing, the idea of a sovereign individual who becomes, through them and by virtue of them, the ultimate source of authority. The American version of these practices has, from the earliest days of the republic, made individuality autochthonous while suppressing to the point of disappearance the manifold ways that individuality is beholden to a complex and uniquely modern form of life.

    Of course, if you are a libertarian or even a certain kind of liberal, you will object that these practices do not manufacture anything; they simply give individuality its due. The issue here is a central one in modern philosophy: is individual autonomy an irreducible metaphysical given or a social creation? Descartes famously argued that self or subject, the “I think,” was metaphysically basic, while Hegel argued that we only become self-determining agents through being recognized as such by others who we recognize in turn. It is by recognizing one another as autonomous subjects through the institutions of family, civil society and the state that we become such subjects; those practices are how we recognize and so bestow on one another the title and powers of being free individuals.

    All the heavy lifting in Hegel’s account turns on revealing how human subjectivity only emerges through intersubjective relations, and hence how practices of independence, of freedom and autonomy, are held in place and made possible by complementary structures of dependence. At one point in his “Philosophy of Right,” Hegel suggests love or friendship as models of freedom through recognition. In love I regard you as of such value and importance that I spontaneously set aside my egoistic desires and interests and align them with yours: your ends are my desires, I desire that you flourish, and when you flourish I do, too. In love, I experience you not as a limit or restriction on my freedom, but as what makes it possible: I can only be truly free and so truly independent in being harmoniously joined with you; we each recognize the other as endowing our life with meaning and value, with living freedom. Hegel’s phrase for this felicitous state is “to be with oneself in the other.”

    Hegel’s thesis is that all social life is structurally akin to the conditions of love and friendship; we are all bound to one another as firmly as lovers are, with the terrible reminder that the ways of love are harsh, unpredictable and changeable. And here is the source of the great anger: because you are the source of my being, when our love goes bad I am suddenly, absolutely dependent on someone for whom I no longer count and who I no longer know how to count; I am exposed, vulnerable, needy, unanchored and without resource. In fury, I lash out, I deny that you are my end and my satisfaction, in rage I claim that I can manage without you, that I can be a full person, free and self-moving, without you. I am everything and you are nothing.

    This is the rage and anger I hear in the Tea Party movement; it is the sound of jilted lovers furious that the other — the anonymous blob called simply “government” — has suddenly let them down, suddenly made clear that they are dependent and limited beings, suddenly revealed them as vulnerable. And just as in love, the one-sided reminder of dependence is experienced as an injury. All the rhetoric of self-sufficiency, all the grand talk of wanting to be left alone is just the hollow insistence of the bereft lover that she can and will survive without her beloved. However, in political life, unlike love, there are no second marriages; we have only the one partner, and although we can rework our relationship, nothing can remove the actuality of dependence. That is permanent.

    In politics, the idea of divorce is the idea of revolution. The Tea Party rhetoric of taking back the country is no accident: since they repudiate the conditions of dependency that have made their and our lives possible, they can only imagine freedom as a new beginning, starting from scratch. About this imaginary, Mark Lilla was right: it corresponds to no political vision, no political reality. The great and inspiring metaphysical fantasy of independence and freedom is simply a fantasy of destruction.

    In truth, there is nothing that the Tea Party movement wants; terrifyingly, it wants nothing. Lilla calls the Tea Party “Jacobins”; I would urge that they are nihilists. To date, the Tea Party has committed only the minor, almost atmospheric violences of propagating falsehoods, calumny and the disruption of the occasions for political speech — the last already to great and distorting effect. But if their nihilistic rage is deprived of interrupting political meetings as an outlet, where might it now go? With such rage driving the Tea Party, might we anticipate this atmospheric violence becoming actual violence, becoming what Hegel called, referring to the original Jacobins’ fantasy of total freedom, “a fury of destruction”? There is indeed something not just disturbing, but frightening, in the anger of the Tea Party.

    J.M. Bernstein is University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research and the author of five books. He is now completing a book entitled “Torture and Dignity.”
    Last edited by Valley Oak; 06-14-2010 at 09:45 PM.
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  2. TopTop #2

    Re: The Very Angry Tea Party

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Valley Oak: View Post
    The Very Angry Tea Party...
    It's easy (and I must admit a bit satisfying) to ridicule Sarah Palin and Rand Paul et al, but, as Noam Chomsky warns, "The United States is extremely lucky that no honest, charismatic figure has arisen" (to represent the Tea Partiers).

    Chris Hedges: Noam Chomsky Has ‘Never Seen Anything Like This’ - Chris Hedges' Columns - Truthdig

    “It is very similar to late Weimar Germany,” ... “The parallels are striking. There was also tremendous disillusionment with the parliamentary system. The most striking fact about Weimar was not that the Nazis managed to destroy the Social Democrats and the Communists but that the traditional parties, the Conservative and Liberal parties, were hated and disappeared. It left a vacuum which the Nazis very cleverly and intelligently managed to take over.”

    “The United States is extremely lucky that no honest, charismatic figure has arisen,” Chomsky went on. “Every charismatic figure is such an obvious crook that he destroys himself, like McCarthy or Nixon or the evangelist preachers. If somebody comes along who is charismatic and honest this country is in real trouble because of the frustration, disillusionment, the justified anger and the absence of any coherent response. What are people supposed to think if someone says ‘I have got an answer, we have an enemy’? There it was the Jews. Here it will be the illegal immigrants and the blacks. We will be told that white males are a persecuted minority. We will be told we have to defend ourselves and the honor of the nation. Military force will be exalted. People will be beaten up. This could become an overwhelming force. And if it happens it will be more dangerous than Germany. The United States is the world power. Germany was powerful but had more powerful antagonists. I don’t think all this is very far away. If the polls are accurate it is not the Republicans but the right-wing Republicans, the crazed Republicans, who will sweep the next election.”

    “I have never seen anything like this in my lifetime,” Chomsky added. “I am old enough to remember the 1930s. My whole family was unemployed. There were far more desperate conditions than today. But it was hopeful. People had hope...

    “I listen to talk radio,” Chomsky said. “I don’t want to hear Rush Limbaugh. I want to hear the people calling in. They are like [suicide pilot] Joe Stack. What is happening to me? I have done all the right things. I am a God-fearing Christian. I work hard for my family. I have a gun. I believe in the values of the country and my life is collapsing.”

    Chomsky has, more than any other American intellectual, charted the downward spiral of the American political and economic system... He reminds us that genuine intellectual inquiry is always subversive. It challenges cultural and political assumptions. It critiques structures. It is relentlessly self-critical. It implodes the self-indulgent myths and stereotypes we use to elevate ourselves and ignore our complicity in acts of violence and oppression. And it makes the powerful, as well as their liberal apologists, deeply uncomfortable...

    to read more
    Chris Hedges: Noam Chomsky Has ‘Never Seen Anything Like This’ - Chris Hedges' Columns - Truthdig
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  3. TopTop #3
    LenInSebastopol
     

    Re: The Very Angry Tea Party

    "If you are not angry, then you are not paying attention".

    The writer emphasizes that the T.P. currently depends on the gov't for this and that (health mostly). Finds that those folks are angry, yet denigrates all of their upsets rather than attempts to use all his brain power and degrees to find common ground. wow, what an intellectual! and he gets paid for New School thought? and research?

    The writer notes the gov't is there to help those failing in their mortgage, and those banks involved in such. It was the gov't that mandated banks help those to which any sensible business person would not lend money. That was all under the guise of race/color, but as once said and oft repeated, "The color of America is not Black or White, it's green". Banks did not lend money to folks who couldn't pay it back, but the gov't made them!
    This and the other president have taken over the means of production, not to the extent that most here desire, but G.M. is now inside the pocket of the gov't. The largest banks and insurance companies have been all but nationalized, while many here are demanding B.P. be taken by the gov't. Many in and out of the T.P. do not want such to continue, however every time I see T.P. demonstrators they do not display the anger of which this guy writes. What is up with that? To coin a phrase, when I see some "leftist" demonstrate all to often it is with garbage cans flying, cops in a line or store windows broken, and on the rare occasions a Molotov of urine or worse.
    The good profs metaphor of love to politics is ludicrous and fails in about every sense of the word. We vote in or out, so what corresponds to such in love/marriage?
    Despite what he writes ('must be true, he wrote it') we are not bound to together via gov't. If we were, then would we not wish to be bound, as slaves, but wish to be unbound to each other and live in freedom? That means "lesser" or smaller gov't thus breaking that which binds us. If we are bound it is because of a free association, not coerced, as all gov't is force, and we may 'unbind' because we are free and not under restraint of gov't force. Personally, I don't want the T.P. to coalesce and hope they remain amorphous; none need that unleashed into the formula of gov't. That does not stop this erudite guy from being an idiot.
    Again, "if you are not angry, then......."
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  4. TopTop #4

    Re: The Very Angry Tea Party

    Chomsky: "...this country is in real trouble because of the frustration, disillusionment, the justified anger and the absence of any coherent response."

    How is it possible you so completely mis-read the above sentence (among others)? Frankly, I'm skeptical.


    Quote Posted in reply to the post by LenInSebastopol: View Post
    "If you are not angry, then you are not paying attention".

    The writer emphasizes that the T.P. currently depends on the gov't for this and that (health mostly). Finds that those folks are angry, yet denigrates all of their upsets rather than attempts to use all his brain power and degrees to find common ground. wow, what an intellectual! and he gets paid for New School thought? and research?

    The writer notes the gov't is there to help those failing in their mortgage, and those banks involved in such. It was the gov't that mandated banks help those to which any sensible business person would not lend money. That was all under the guise of race/color, but as once said and oft repeated, "The color of America is not Black or White, it's green". Banks did not lend money to folks who couldn't pay it back, but the gov't made them!
    This and the other president have taken over the means of production, not to the extent that most here desire, but G.M. is now inside the pocket of the gov't. The largest banks and insurance companies have been all but nationalized, while many here are demanding B.P. be taken by the gov't. Many in and out of the T.P. do not want such to continue, however every time I see T.P. demonstrators they do not display the anger of which this guy writes. What is up with that? To coin a phrase, when I see some "leftist" demonstrate all to often it is with garbage cans flying, cops in a line or store windows broken, and on the rare occasions a Molotov of urine or worse.
    The good profs metaphor of love to politics is ludicrous and fails in about every sense of the word. We vote in or out, so what corresponds to such in love/marriage?
    Despite what he writes ('must be true, he wrote it') we are not bound to together via gov't. If we were, then would we not wish to be bound, as slaves, but wish to be unbound to each other and live in freedom? That means "lesser" or smaller gov't thus breaking that which binds us. If we are bound it is because of a free association, not coerced, as all gov't is force, and we may 'unbind' because we are free and not under restraint of gov't force. Personally, I don't want the T.P. to coalesce and hope they remain amorphous; none need that unleashed into the formula of gov't. That does not stop this erudite guy from being an idiot.
    Again, "if you are not angry, then......."
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  5. TopTop #5
    ian-snazz
    Guest

    Re: The Very Angry Tea Party

    I think that I have discovered an interesting pattern to the arguments made by many who attack Mr. Chompsky. They seem to be incoherent knee-jerk reactions based much more on emotion than real substance and rationality. But what should we expect from a society who attributes little or no value to the understanding of logic and common fallacies? Yet we love to "argue" and "debate"- hurl emotional attacks at each other.
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  6. TopTop #6
    LenInSebastopol
     

    Re: The Very Angry Tea Party

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Clancy: View Post
    Chomsky: "...this country is in real trouble because of the frustration, disillusionment, the justified anger and the absence of any coherent response."
    How is it possible you so completely mis-read the above sentence (among others)? Frankly, I'm skeptical.
    Remain skeptical.
    I was not responding to Professor Chomsky. To do so required more time than necessary as he is no dummy, but in so doing there is so many layers to deal with that it makes it difficult. That plus his fans on this site would inundate the issues with BS responses, much like I give!
    Just kicking it, how about the following from the posted prof's misgivings:
    "“The United States is extremely lucky that no honest, charismatic figure has arisen,” Chomsky went on. “Every charismatic figure is such an obvious crook that he destroys himself, like McCarthy or Nixon or the evangelist preachers. If somebody comes along who is charismatic and honest this country is in real trouble because of the frustration, disillusionment, the justified anger and the absence of any coherent response. What are people supposed to think if someone says ‘I have got an answer, we have an enemy".
    What if the enemy he has is White folks or just White guys? What a conundrum! Or what if it is rich White capitalists?
    He is very charismatic even sexy, he came in with hope & change as the mantra ,almost savior-like in some areas.
    I think that subconsciously many see a Black man who has a right to be angry (race based), yet does not display such. A man in control of his emotions with a lot of less than-rich White guilt bringing him through the pass and into our current office.
    Ah, just kickin' it. Probably makes no sense anyway.
    BTW, Nixon was not charismatic; far from it. Joe McCarthy as well; maybe a fast & good talker, but not charismatic. But then the good prof has to kick them every single time.; never let a good chance pass you by even if you go to make one, eh?
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  7. TopTop #7
    Hotspring 44's Avatar
    Hotspring 44
     

    Re: The Very Angry Tea Party



    I think the very angry tea party = jilted lover is an excellent analogy.
    Their attitude and their antics are just like a jilted lover with a gun that is ready to commit mass murder!
    Kind of like where the guy that gets jilted by his girlfriend and then goes to her workplace to shoot her and ends up shooting a bunch of other people also.
    It’s kind of like; if “I” can’t have her; nobody else can; either / by way of gun violence (murder).

    What I'm saying is (that) their actual statements, such as, they are going to “take the country back” intertwined with such an emphasis on carrying guns to protests is a show of anger, frustration, and insecurity; (is) also (a) show that they are willing to kill (logical conclusion of the gun toting) if they can't /don't get what they want through (peaceful) political means; and coupled with the fact that they actually intimidate physically; people that disagree with them whom are current political representatives (and others) at the town hall meetings; in so doing, they essentially by way of violence, threats, and intimidation have taken over the public forum in the town hall meetings with what is essentially violence or the threat of violence; Hence the terms “angry mob” and “mob rule”.

    I did not hear the whole discussion of Noam Chomsky. Interesting that he did not mention Ronald Reagan because Ronald Reagan was charismatic, and ironically, a Hollywood actor to boot! Isn't it interesting that they (the far right) bitch about how Hollywood and the so-called liberal media is so bad, and yet the apparent love for Ronald Reagan that is expressed by the far right is like they have amnesia like the Alzheimer’s disease that Ronald Reagan had which caused him to have amnesia, which was obviously affecting him at the end of this second term.

    About the comment of: "If you are not angry, then you are not paying attention" of course people are angry at a multitude of things for a multitude of reasons. It's just that the tea partiers are angry about things that they have stated that (some of which the are the main reasons they repeat so often) aren't even (factually) real! Of course the exception could be; if fantasies are real. So the question is; if people believe in fantasies that aren't real; Are they really mentally fit to own guns when the gist of what they're saying is, violent revolution?

    So anyway, what do they (the “angry” tea partiers) really mean when they say they're “going to take the country back”? Let's see, they don't like healthcare the way it went down; so are they going to go into hospitals or doctors offices with their guns and take their tax money back from the doctors and patients that are utilizing it?... … Just who are they going to go for with their guns and take back what it is they think was stolen from them?... …Food stamps from single mothers with dependent children?... … Unemployment checks from people that have been unemployed for longer than they (the angry tea partiers) think they should be who are getting unemployment checks? Do you really think they could, even if they tried to go to the Federal Reserve and take “their” money back from them? Or maybe they will forcibly; with their guns, run everybody out of subsidized housing?... … Are they going to (with their guns) rob banks or large financial institutions because they didn't approve of the bailouts? What else are they going to do, are they going to go to City Hall (with their guns) and start blasting all the politicians they don't like?... … Or to schools and blast the teachers that belong to the teachers union? Are they going to take over the union halls in America because they think they're being paid too much money for their labor? Are they going to go to road maintenance yards and rob them too because they don't like amount taxes they pay for roads in their area? What about the fire department? or the police department? What about irrigation districts? The list goes on, but I think I made my point here.
    Could anybody with reasonable, critical thinking skills honestly believe that the rhetoric they use, which propagates a plethora of falsehoods and riddled with erroneous assumptions is rational or sane?

    I get the gist of what Noam Chomsky was apparently trying to say about it's a good thing they don't have a charismatic leader. I did hear some of an interview with Noam Chomsky on KPFA, but it was not the complete version of the interview, because they were doing a pledge drive when I was listening to it, and it got cut into and dubbed.
    It seems to me that Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party would have been a good comparison for what I believe Noam Chomsky was saying.

    Other than that, calling it (the angry gun toting tea partiers) an angry mob is pretty darn accurate.

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  8. TopTop #8
    LenInSebastopol
     

    Re: The Very Angry Tea Party

    Hot Spring, you mention "fantasies" and then you launch into yours about T.P., carrying guns into hospitals, banks, Fed Reserve, robbing maintenance road yards, plus more of a whole lot of tripe that has nothing.....oh..... wait it's a fantasy....yours; I apologize. I really don't like interrupting others' dreams & fantasies. There is so much hard news around that we need to 'fly out' occasionally. I understand your searching in vain for evidence of any such things you fantasize over since there is no real evidence of the claim about T.P. but only rhetoric from the fear mongers you follow.
    Your notion of TP=jilted lover, while fanciful is not an analogy, as the inference does not agree with the comparisons you attempted to make. The OP tried the analogy but was blown out by the fact that we can't vote out a spouse. The wooing of BushCo to our country has a different tone than that of our current occupant. I am sure you've had experience with jilted loves and if you can compare that to running a gov't, then have at it.
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  9. TopTop #9
    Hotspring 44's Avatar
    Hotspring 44
     

    Re: The Very Angry Tea Party

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by LenInSebastopol: View Post
    Hot Spring, you mention "fantasies" and then you launch into yours about T.P., carrying guns into hospitals, banks, Fed Reserve, robbing maintenance road yards, plus more of a whole lot of tripe that has nothing.....oh..... wait it's a fantasy....yours;… .
    You apparently either don't know , or pretending not to know the difference between questions and statements. It’s not a fantasy to ask a question with elaboration. But it is fantasy, or an outright lie to make certain statements, like, for example. Obama is not a legitimate president because he was not born within the United States, or that Obama is a communist socialist, or that Obama was the one that started the bank bailouts. Actually it was the Bush administration that started the bailouts in the first place. Not to mention wreaking havoc with the economy before Obama got elected.

    Don't get me wrong, I'm not so absolutely pro-Obama; I think he should be more hard core to the left and far harsher on the banks regarding the bailout situation than he ever would be.

    It’s not a fantasy to realize the fact of tea partiers actually pushing and shoving and acting violently towards people that disagree with them at the town hall meetings in the recent past.

    It’s not a fantasy that the FBI has stated that there have been more death threats to politicians recently than ever before; most of whom are Democratic politicians or so-called leaning left Republicans.

    It is not a fantasy to assess the risk factor in people that are acting a certain way. Some people do, act somewhat like a spoiled child or a jilted lover when they don't get or can't have what they want politically; (that) coupled with the fact that they are displaying guns, albeit right now those guns may have been unloaded. However taken to its logical conclusion someday, those guns could be loaded and the people behind them would most likely be aiming them at somebody with the intent to shoot if they don't get what they want. That's the whole point of what their statement is about regarding the second amendment rights etc. etc. I could elaborate more on the statements they've made, but I think it's your turn to do some homework instead of other people spending their valuable time doing it just so you can paraphrase out what you don't agree with and your fanciful way of omitting certain facts and over-simplifying it to the point where the facts get somewhat jumbled and convoluted out of context.

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  10. TopTop #10
    LenInSebastopol
     

    Re: The Very Angry Tea Party

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Hotspring 44: View Post

    You apparently either don't know , or pretending not to know the difference between questions and statements. It’s not a fantasy to ask a question with elaboration. But it is fantasy, or an outright lie to make certain statements, like, for example. Obama is not a legitimate president because he was not born within the United States, or that Obama is a communist socialist, or that Obama was the one that started the bank bailouts. Actually it was the Bush administration that started the bailouts in the first place. Not to mention wreaking havoc with the economy before Obama got elected.

    Don't get me wrong, I'm not so absolutely pro-Obama; I think he should be more hard core to the left and far harsher on the banks regarding the bailout situation than he ever would be.

    It’s not a fantasy to realize the fact of tea partiers actually pushing and shoving and acting violently towards people that disagree with them at the town hall meetings in the recent past.


    Last night, between innings of a losing game, I watched Hard Ball with Chris Mathews and his piece on The New Right and the interview afterwords. I am starting to understand the fear folks have of the T.P., and it sells soap well. The fast photo montage of T.P'ers, then guys-with-guns, back to T.P folks, then guys-in-camouflage, then T.P rallies and signs (oh, the signs) and back to guns, the flags Don't Tread on Me by guys-with-guns, etc all quickly displayed with Chris' driving voice. Well done in creating a sense of general hysteria. Very well done. Had to smile when Buchannan made the valid point that it is as if one were to tell the history of the Civil Rights movement beginning with
    Malcolm X, the Black Panthers walking into the California Legislature with rifles, Stokley Carmichael and the like. IOW, rather than give the issue some light and air, he begins with, and continues, with the worst fringe elements and then states, as if fact, that is the whole story. Hello? Anyone home?
    Oh, and to "ask questions with elaboration" kind of indicates the closed mind type of question, which is not a question at all but more of a statement-with-inflection. As in, "How LONG have you been a witch"?

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Hotspring 44: View Post
    It’s not a fantasy that the FBI has stated that there have been more death threats to politicians recently than ever before; most of whom are Democratic politicians or so-called leaning left Republicans.
    It is not a fantasy to assess the risk factor in people that are acting a certain way. Some people do, act somewhat like a spoiled child or a jilted lover when they don't get or can't have what they want politically; (that) coupled with the fact that they are displaying guns, albeit right now those guns may have been unloaded. However taken to its logical conclusion someday, those guns could be loaded and the people behind them would most likely be aiming them at somebody with the intent to shoot if they don't get what they want. That's the whole point of what their statement is about regarding the second amendment rights etc. etc. I could elaborate more on the statements they've made, but I think it's your turn to do some homework instead of other people spending their valuable time doing it just so you can paraphrase out what you don't agree with and your fanciful way of omitting certain facts and over-simplifying it to the point where the facts get somewhat jumbled and convoluted out of context.
    Pot:kettle } black.
    With your stance, as well as the T.P. this president may go down in history as one great guy! I've gone to observe both T.P. rallies as well as 'Peace demonstrations' over the years. Please, don't tell me about violence there. Went to the Boxer thingy in Petaluma during the bailout hearings and in spite of your claims here, there was nothing but politeness from the 'right wing' pros when I asked opposing questions and I was cursed at several times by 'left wing' advocates for asking them similar questions, with "Your either with us, or you're not".
    So to me 'the people' demonstrate their words and behavior on a personal level. As for violence, yeah, I gather you did not see that Black fellow get called racial epithets as he was knocked down and stomped by SEIU T-shirt wearing goons?
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  11. TopTop #11
    Hotspring 44's Avatar
    Hotspring 44
     

    Re: The Very Angry Tea Party

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by LenInSebastopol: View Post
    Last night, between innings of a losing game, I watched Hard Ball with Chris Mathews and his piece on The New Right and the interview afterwords. I am starting to understand the fear folks have of the T.P., and it sells soap well.
    I don't think its soap; I think it is real, legitimate concerns. However, people in the media including Chris Matthews Hamm it up a bit, but there are serious concerns regarding the issue. By the way, the real peace that Chris Matthews is doing is going to be done sometime this evening; yesterday was just a snapshot of the whole article.

    Update: I just watched Chris Matthews hardball special edition, it was quite well done and not so hyper bowl as the not so fair and balanced Fox news and their absurd prejudice, hateful pundits like Beck and Limbaugh.

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by LenInSebastopol: View Post
    The fast photo montage of T.P'ers, then guys-with-guns, back to T.P folks, then guys-in-camouflage, then T.P rallies and signs (oh, the signs) and back to guns, the flags Don't Tread on Me by guys-with-guns, etc all quickly displayed with Chris' driving voice. Well done in creating a sense of general hysteria.
    Ultra right-wing, tea partiers, berthers etc. all have their own brand of hysteria mongering techniques; Chris Matthews is just putting it together to expose it. BTW, tonight he did a very good job at it too.

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by LenInSebastopol: View Post
    Very well done. Had to smile when Buchannan made the valid point that it is as if one were to tell the history of the Civil Rights movement beginning with Malcolm X, the Black Panthers walking into the California Legislature with rifles, Stokley Carmichael and the like. IOW, rather than give the issue some light and air, he begins with, and continues, with the worst fringe elements and then states, as if fact, that is the whole story. Hello? Anyone home?
    When we are to compare the differences of how tea partiers or their family, friends, and relatives have (actually) been treated by the authorities. Have they been treated in the same or even so much as similarly (as the Minorities were) by the police force, courts, workplaces etc in the areas in which they live as minorities were treated during the 50s and early 60s? I'm sure the answer in percentage is below 1%.

    I'm not justifying what the Black Panther people did; (bring guns into courtrooms or the legislature and turn it into a shooting gallery.). I'm saying quite the opposite; I am saying that nobody should be doing or implying that they would do that. Like, for example: the ones that are stating things like we are going to “take our country back” in ways that are most definitely implying the usage of second amendment rights with (some of) their actions, statements and antics.

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by LenInSebastopol: View Post
    Oh, and to "ask questions with elaboration" kind of indicates the closed mind type of question, which is not a question at all but more of a statement-with-inflection. As in, "How LONG have you been a witch"?
    Saying something like, "How LONG have you been a witch"?... ...;.. … to make a more accurate comparison in your juxtaposed assessment; it would be more like me asking (if I did, but I did not ask it like that which you imply); the question like this; how long has it been since you went into a hospital with a loaded gun and tried to rob the people in it, etc..

    Juxtapose all you want, but I know the game.

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by LenInSebastopol: View Post
    Pot:kettle } black.
    With your stance, as well as the T.P. this president may go down in history as one great guy!
    Not if the R.W. and T.P. have anything to say about it!

    BTW, with or without my stance; just because I don't think that Pres. Obama has gone far enough in the direction I'd like does not mean he won't go down in history as one great president.
    I never said that he would not go down in history as a great president.

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by LenInSebastopol: View Post
    I've gone to observe both T.P. rallies as well as 'Peace demonstrations' over the years. Please, don't tell me about violence there. Went to the Boxer thingy in Petaluma during the bailout hearings and in spite of your claims here, there was nothing but politeness from the 'right wing' pros when I asked opposing questions and I was cursed at several times by 'left wing' advocates for asking them similar questions, with "Your either with us, or you're not".
    I think I have heard that your either with us or against us sentiment in regards to the previous administration and certain aspects of the Patriot Act.
    Where were those pro-constitutionalist then? Why didn't they speak up as adamantly against something unconstitutional, as they do now at that point in time? My conjecture is that they hate Muslims so therefore they ignored it, but once a black person got into the presidency than they totally freaked out.

    Then, some of them did freak out because Obama stated something that was equivocated in their brains, as spreading the wealth by taxing wealthy people more.
    But we really have a huge deficit recession to deal with. After all, we used to have far higher taxes on the wealthy in the 1950s and early 1960s, than we do now. And it certainly was not a totalitarian state government then. Then there were the John Birchers in the past that actually were claiming that Eisenhower and his brother were communists! What a bunch of bull crap! Same kind of absurd, hyperbolic, bull crap, lies as is now, just different players and some different specifics in the game, but yet the same old finger-pointing exaggeration fear mongering tactics as previously mentioned.

    Generally speaking the right wing “pros” as you put it, are not necessarily the same as the tea party, but not all of the right wing pros are so mellow, some of them are downright abrasive to say the least. Dick Cheney for example telling Patrick Leahy to go F himself: CNN.com - Cheney says he felt better after cursing at Leahy - Jun 25, 2004

    Tea party (the new American tea party) rallies over the years? I thought they only existed for about the last year and ½ or so. Has the tea party, as it is today been around for years?... … Or are you just exaggerating your experience regarding the tea party?
    Have you been to any tea party events outside of the SF bay area or in other states?

    Well I'm disappointed but not surprised that you or anybody else for that matter were cursed out for asking questions, I think that was rather ignorant of the people that cursed at you but I ask; did any of those cursing people that presumably only used words have friends outside carrying guns? Were you pushed and shoved, threatened, or bullied beyond mere, commentary, curse words, like what the (angry) tea partiers did to people at the meeting in Virginia where Sen. Specter was? If so, shame on the people who did that, they should have been arrested for assault or battery, or maybe even both if they did go beyond mere opinionated, commentary words or especially if they did make credible threats of bodily harm to you or anybody else.

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by LenInSebastopol: View Post
    So to me 'the people' demonstrate their words and behavior on a personal level. As for violence, yeah, I gather you did not see that Black fellow get called racial epithets as he was knocked down and stomped by SEIU T-shirt wearing goons?
    I do not know what SEUIT is (or stands for), but I'm guessing you're implying that that is somehow connected to the left wing?... … Or are you referring to the incident in Washington DC where a couple of black Democratic representatives had racial slurs yelled at them. And if my memory serves me correctly, they also were spat at?... ...Or was it something else?

    All I can tell you is that the left-wingers I know are opinionated but the very large, vast majority of them are not (violent) like that.

    I also have some first-hand experience at protests from when I was very young, there were several infiltrators trying to incite a riot so that the protesters would get billy-clubbed and tear-gassed by the cops, and of course discredited. That is a well-known tactic which (the) organized hate mongering, (war) profiteering entities use which is a common, predictable element that we antiwar activist types are all too familiar with.

    More specifically, regarding this thread and “the very angry tea party” of which this thread is named; the fact is that many people at those tea party rallies have expressed their anger in very graphic ways making implications and insinuations of violent actions.

    Also, I might add, there are wing-nuts from all sides right, left, up, down, center, etc. but it is not so hard to tell the general attitude and direction of a particular side, wherever it may be from.

    The fact is that the tea party has expressed extreme anger.
    The tea party has not come up with any real solutions other than cutthroat type of solutions whereas if they had their way there would be allot more homeless people in the streets than there are today. Some of them (or at least the candidates for whom they supported in the past midterm election cycle that has gone on so far) actually want to abolish Social Security. Imagine a bunch of 70-year-old people homeless, broke, and destitute because of that! This isn't a fantasy, this is real words and came out of real politicians mouths; that really got elected in large part because of the support those candidates received from the tea party movement.

    I think (in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way) that if the tea party has their way the homeless (of which there will be many more, than there is currently) should be (constitutionally by way of Second Amendment rights) allowed to keep and bear arms to form a militia to preserve the constitutional rights (of themselves) and also so that other people would not unconstitutionally abuse them so readily; so they too; like, the tea party advocates; also can take their government, homes, jobs, civil rights, dignity, etc. back when it's time for their upcoming revolution.

    They preach Constitution, but they seem to ignore some of the facts of why the Constitution exists. One of the reasons it exists is because the founding fathers knew how dangerous tyranny was and still is (would be in the foreseeable future) today. Unfortunately the tyranny of large corporations is in large part, ignored at the cost of the very livelihood of the not so wealthy.

    The tea party that I have seen has been hypocritical, prejudicial, unsympathetic and hateful towards the poor and downtrodden, they don't believe in civil rights, unless it has to do with their own personal preference of such. Also the vast majority of them do seem to be middle aged white people; which do not represent the country as a whole in an even demographic sense.


    Considering that their mouthpieces like Rush Limbaugh and Mr. Beck, whose salaries are paid to them from the very large corporation, which also owns Fox news, which by the way is essentially owned by a man named Rupert Murdoch whom is an Australian and not an American are using vast amounts of money to influence American politics, but somehow, the tea partiers do not believe that it matters enough to get upset about. No, instead, many of them believe that Pres. Obama is not American, and shouldn't be president.
    Who is being ignorant, and so readily willing to be (prejudicially) misinformed?
    Do you think it might have to do with how prejudice may be directing some of their members political leanings more so than doing their home-work on the subject of foreign entities dumping a huge amount of money into the media and political campaigns through corporate conduit, whereas the net result is that they (large corporations that have shareholders that are not necessarily American citizens, which by law corporations are obligated to favor their shareholders investment over everything else) are influencing our American politics with those contributions? Some people in the past history of America that were true patriots who actually did put their lives on the line every day would have called something like that treason, wouldn't they? I'm talking about foreign entities having (being aided and abetted in) a financial or any other (way) influence of our election process.

    I did not hear any tea partiers complaining about the Patriot Act, or that the Supreme Court justices since they have allowed corporations to dump all the money they want into campaigns even though many of the entities within such shareholders lists are not American! Where are/were they? The answer to that is (albeit they may be unknowingly) in the pockets of the multinational big money banks and corporations.
    Some (tea partiers and ultra right wingers) are in their own Christian-based church and have absolutely no respect or consideration for other religions. I'm not advocating anti-Christian views, what I am stating is that some of those tea partiers are anti-anything that they are not, they twist the Constitution into what they wish it to be; such as making statements like: “America is a Christian nation”, and that the Constitution actually states that specifically, somehow.

    I guess you could say similar things about some left-wingers, but as a general rule of thumb; left-wingers are far more tolerant than right-wingers (are) of differences of lifestyles and other religions then their own, as long as they are not being forced into something they don't believe in, like prayer from a different religion forced upon your child in public school instead of being taught science for example.

    What I see is when middle-class people feel the pinch that the poor people have felt they generally become bitter, angry, scared; they realize (sometimes the first time in their lives) their vulnerabilities and their (human) weaknesses, and they really, really,
    really, hate that with a passion!!!... … it makes them very angry! So I'm saying to the middle class that has now become below that (comfortable) income level and financially more desperate is; that, I love them too. We're in this together, (whether we all like it or not) regardless of whether or not, they stomp on poor people or help poor people, because someday it might be their turn to actually be quite literally, poor, homeless, and in a real full-blown destitute situation. So we (as a society) are really better off if they wouldn't stomp on the poor just because they feel those horrible feelings of insecurity, and they want to lash out at another person, just below them on the income bracket, so to speak. Just because that person (those people) whom is/are lower on the income bracket is/are easier to kick and abuse when they are down does not make it right just because somebody else (that feels insecure and whom is slightly above that income bracket level) is frustrated with the way the government runs the economy.

    It's all too easy to take out one’s frustrations on somebody that is easy to beat-up on than it is (to beat-up on) somebody that it's impossible to beat-up, even though the one that it is impossible to beat-up may actually be the primary source of the (frustrating, angering) problem. So (IMHO) unfortunately people allow their emotions to control their actions and we all too often end up with the exact opposite of what we were trying to accomplish.
    In this case it could be a more totalitarian state, with government actually getting deeper into people's privacy. Like drug testing people that are on unemployment for example; this is something that was just mentioned in the news today, not a fantasy of mine.
    Like I say there are wing nuts on all sides, it's just that the ones on the right smell the blood of the left-wing so to speak so they are going mad-dog for it.


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  12. TopTop #12
    Hotspring 44's Avatar
    Hotspring 44
     

    Re: The Very Angry Tea Party

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Hotspring 44: View Post
    ...Update: I just watched Chris Matthews hardball special edition, it was quite well done and not so hyper bowl as the not so fair and balanced Fox news and their absurd prejudice, hateful pundits like Beck and Limbaugh.



    Ultra right-wing, tea partiers, berthers etc. all have their own brand of hysteria mongering techniques; Chris Matthews is just putting it together to expose it. BTW, tonight he did a very good job at it too.

    It's called "Rise of the New Right"; At the moment, clips of it can be found here:
    Hardball with Chris Matthews
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  13. TopTop #13
    LenInSebastopol
     

    Re: The Very Angry Tea Party

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Hotspring 44: View Post

    Like I say there are wing nuts on all sides, it's just that the ones on the right smell the blood of the left-wing so to speak so they are going mad-dog for it.
    OK.
    Must be tough being you.
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  14. TopTop #14
    Hotspring 44's Avatar
    Hotspring 44
     

    Re: The Very Angry Tea Party

    Conjecture, on your part.
    Quote Posted in reply to the post by LenInSebastopol: View Post
    OK.
    Must be tough being you.
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