^_~
The Tea Party Thread
Fri, 2010-02-12 07:45
#1
The Tea Party Thread
Fri, 2010-02-12 07:46
#2
Welp, I'll be editing this post after I get back home from school. But this thread is about that Tea Party movement in the United States. I figgur' I'll elaborate on my own thoughts, what I know, and probably share a big link dump of a variety o' sources.
Fri, 2010-02-12 08:23
#3
We'll all be sitting around our computers waiting PB. 
Fri, 2010-02-12 09:31
#4
Boom Boom
Everything stops for tea!
(with apologies to Long John Baldry...)
Fri, 2010-02-12 09:39
#5
There's nothing to do with tea.
Vigalante Parties.
Sat, 2010-02-13 05:50
#6
Mr_Nobody
I prefer a beer party myself...
Sat, 2010-02-13 09:07
#7
Welp, I'll be editing this post after I get back home from school. But this thread is about that Tea Party movement in the United States. I figgur' I'll elaborate on my own thoughts, what I know, and probably share a big link dump of a variety o' sources.
This is a topic that demands attention and discussion, PB. Don't let the tea get cold.
Sat, 2010-02-13 09:08
#8
Deleted in faavour of the following...
Sat, 2010-02-13 09:22
#9
Sat, 2010-02-13 10:56
#10
Indeed, this is a very serious topic! One that I am willing to forego my breakfast for!
Now, the Tea Party movement is extremely interesting. I'm still not entirely sure what they are. I feel hints of genuine populist resentment within the movement, there is an overwhelmingly (c)overt racial element to the dissatisfaction to the movements supports, there is genuine working class angst within a lot of the talk and there is an odd willingness to make geographic revisions to the American political landscape. Are they simply an astro-turfed movement to benefit a few media moguls, are they wholly a media creation, are they some sort of Frankenstein's monster of faux-populism turned entirely too real?
Well, I'm not entirely sure WHAT they are, but they scare the living bejeezus out of me. Somehow, beyond the obfusicating stalling tactics of the Republicans, a whole new right wing has emerged that has managed to get a broad concensus across the 'political centre' (whatever the hell that means). Recent polls (http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/12/16/wsjnbc-news-poll-tea-party-tops...) are broadly supportive. That if the Tea Party were to spit out a third party candidate, it would have a chance to win. Nothing in recent American politics can be scarier.
The Tea Party in my eyes are the defeated remenants of the Christian Right. Sure, they're still swinging, but the indulgent attitude that such political groupings took during the Bush presidency, combined with the overwhelming rage that their ideologues spouted, kind of took a hit with the recession. When you're ascendent and you take a punch, you're going to be a lot more self-conscious than someone who has been down on the ground being kicked for their whole lives. The Tea Party is an odd assortment of these people. There are those that have fallen out with the Christian Right (just a bit), there are libertarian boosters who see this populist surge as a way to dismantle state mechanisms, and most worryingly there are genuine more-radical-than-thou super-right-wingers. Whether they are survivalists, neo-NAZIs, racial isolationists, etc., I have only one observation. They have more guns than all but one political grouping in the United States. And that one political group that DOES have more guns seems to be generating a lot of down and out individuals that are seeing the Tea Party as an answer to what they see as the Big Political Problems At Home.
Of course, you should all know that in this rambling rant, that that other Political Force is the grand arbiter of the Washington Establishment - the various branches of the US armed forces. Zealous about their perceptions of America with a dangerous level of social isolation to boot. Oh, and two wars drawing down (whether or not we want to talk about it, there is going to be a huge influx of veterans from those conflicts in the next 5 years coming home). This organization does not provide for its people and will be simply dumping them off, post-Vietnam styles, into the heart of a divided country where a bunch of angry young men who have combat experience, many of whom have killed, will not be able to fit in. There aren't jobs, and any job you do get is going to be the sort that I've been working since I have been 14. You're going to scrub plates for minimum wage, you're going to push tacky electronics, you're going to flip burgers. You're going to be in a nowhere job with a lot of anger and baggage. And here are these Tea Party people. They're angry too, they have baggage (mostly bizarre nativist/racist baggage that they have to keep in the dark), and they have their own zealous interpretation of American society.
Bing, bang, boom, the most dangerous alliance that could ever arrise in American politics is being born before your eyes. They are more energetic than the left or even the moderate right, they have no problem undermining democratic norms, they are strictly majoritarian, they feel that they are undersiege, they believe in a variety of off the wall conspiracy theories. Oh, and they have lots of guns - and auxilliary allies like weak-kneed white male 'offend everyone' libertarians who are generally too blinded by weird political perceptions to see what they're hitching themselves up to. They're supported by their fellow conspiracy buffs in the militia/survivalist movement (never forget that all it takes to start that kindle is a Ruby Ridge).
Sorry for the ramble. It is really, really hard to keep on topic because whenever you post here the software decides to drag text along the whole length of the box, rather than wrapping it around like such complicated and advanced programs as Notepad -_-
Anyways, I've got a ton of links to post up - it'll just take me a while to continuously haul them out of the depths of my bookmarks page.
Sat, 2010-02-13 11:25
#11
When Cosimo Medici died, factions within Florence tried to use the transfer of power-- to his son Piero who was considered weak-- as an opportunity to overturn Medici control of the Republic. Some were idealists who wanted to see the Florentine democracy on paper become a democracy in practice. Others used that as a pretext to usurp the Medici control in favour of their own.
At one point, they could probably have arrested Piero (and Lorenzo) with aid of the mob, but they decided not to, fearing that the mob might not be satisfied with the Medici's, but also turn to the other affluent families in the City-- which was suffering at the time from an economic downturn due to some Ottoman upheaval disrupting trade.
It's clear Faux News created the Tea Baggers, but I wonder now if the somewhat literate Rupert Murdoch and his flying monkeys at his lie machine might be getting a little anxious as the monster moans on the table and opens it's eyes.
IT'S ALIIIIIIIIIIIVVVVVVEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For fans of the movie "Gangs of New York", you might not know that "Bill the Butcher" was a real person. I'm sure the movie Hollywoodized his character, but he was a sort of Sarah Palin of his day, leading the Nativist falange of the Republican Party, along with the remnants of the Whig Party (Lincoln) and the "Know Nothings".
I think the Tea Baggers are just the latest incarnation of something that periodically scurries out from under the rock of American Politics, to eventually dry up in the bright light of day.
But, one never knows.
Sat, 2010-02-13 22:34
#12
There are plenty of working class people among the tea baggers, but there is nothing particularly working class about it.\
Nor from what I can tell does it have much in particular to do with the Christian Right.
I think the Tea Baggers are just the latest incarnation of something that periodically scurries out from under the rock of American Politics, to eventually dry up in the bright light of day.
But, one never knows.
Lossely libertarian and yes, scurrying out from under that rock. But I think its a misnomer to say it will probably dry up. Even if it does, it hardly matters. Its doing its damage- fostering the effective constipation of governance in the US. And until there is some fundamental change that is nowhere in sight at the moment, when the tea baggers and their tea paries go away... the nasty politics of resentment will replace them with something else.
It will never spring into being a third party [of more than 4% of voters]- but thats no solace.
Their MIGHT be a silver lining if Sarah P can ride them to the Republican candidacy.... and even in the crazy upside down world of US politics, together they'll be the self immolating dysfunctional family in the really big time.
Because all manner of hell will break loose when the tea baggers actually have to take positions on what they would DO. They are even worse than the left for deluding themselves that their certainty about the wrong things to do manifest into some kind of plan.
Sun, 2010-02-14 07:00
#13
Mr_Nobody
I think what motivates working class people to attend the tea parties is their frustration with the current economic situation in the USA... that is a very sincere and honest reason to attend. It's also probably their first and last tea party.
It seems to me that in the end these (working class) people are over shadowed by people who are more motivated by political frustration (the right) and they get pushed aside by people in crazy outrageous costumes, props or signs.
Sun, 2010-02-14 07:52
#14
I think your grounds for excusing working class people for being involved are wrong, saccharine, and ultimately condescending even if that isnt the intention.
They are participating for the same reasons as everyone else- and for the few who happen to be getting more the shit end of the stick, the resentment that fuels them really should not be any more 'understood'.
Sun, 2010-02-14 08:41
#15
I think your grounds for excusing working class people for being involved are wrong, saccharine, and ultimately condescending even if that isnt the intention.
They are participating for the same reasons as everyone else- and for the few who happen to be getting more the shit end of the stick, the resentment that fuels them really should not be any more 'understood'.
How about some different imagery. Those participating are a "flock" and their herders are ideologues of the "right". Seen in this way, we don't have to constantly excuse ourselves for breaking the rules of political correctness and may actually describe the existing situation. The absence of a thread on this subject up to now is just more evidence of the difficulty in coming to grips with the phenom of populism when it ain't "ours."
Sun, 2010-02-14 09:36
#16
Its not just mincing about political correctness.
Two people have referred to some kind or component of working class nature of the tea baggers, or the mirror image: saying that unlike the others working class people have more reason for their resentment.
I repeat- there is nothing particularly working class about tea bagging. They are no more or less likely to be caught up in it than anyone else. If they have a paricularly working class way of being caught up when they do, well. duh.
Sun, 2010-02-14 10:16
#17
It is certainly true that there is a lot of ignorance on the left about the nature of populism.
But there are also limits to how useful the concept can be.
To be blunt, the tea baggers are by and large opponents beyond any kind of meaningful political redemption. Its always useful to understand what drives opponents- but there is no reason to get into the understanding stuff with them, in a way that it is vital with 'fence sitters' [and swing voters].
You work hard to understnad the fence sitters so you can reach them.
Opponents you just have to beat.
For reaching fence sitters- it aint rocket science of breaking through all the obstacles... what makes them what you call "the great unread". I don't really disagree whether thats what they are. In my opinion, its just hand wringing and misplaced distracting complication over what amounts to a need for more application of elbow grease.
"Elbow grease" does require some understanding of how to communicate to people rather preach to them. But in my experience getting deep into the psychology of why people are resistant to listening to non mainstream narratives is one of the likeliest ways to end up with preachy outcomes.
Sun, 2010-02-14 10:19
#18
Again, how would you explain the absence of discussion about this phenom which has been growing all winter? It's been obvious to me for a couple of years now that discussion of such vulnerability on the part of the Great Unread (just had to use that term...I'm open to other terms) has been avoided like the plague. And lo and behold, here we are into this sensitive area before very much has been said.
Please explain, Ken. I believe you said you grew up close to that milieux? So did I (in Ontario, not the U.S.) I understand the similarities (and differences). But I'm giving it a name as an explanation, and I depend on Bageant and Robert Reich for that explanation south of the 49th.
Beginning with discussion of the enduring concept "Heartland" would be a good start. That forms the basis of the "culture wars" of the U.S. The tea partiers would swear allegiance to Heartland thinking...down with guv'mint to start (unless you're old enough to draw social security and count on medicare). It's the contradictions that demand explanation.
Sun, 2010-02-14 10:31
#19
Ken:
"It is certainly true that there is a lot of ignorance on the left about the nature of populism."
I would think that the first order of business in coming to an understanding is a willingness - freedom - to discuss that world. That is not engaging in 'handwringing". It is clear that the political and religious right are now ensconced, their "values" a comfortable part of local understanding, and anyting else a distrusted, foreign, distrusted, elite distrusted liberal threat. And avoidance of discussion of that "culture", which I first observed with Farmpunk warned me that discussion of Deerhunting With Jesus would not be popular hereabouts, is not likely to break through the fog. You are afraid that such insight can only lead to "preachments." And I say that that fear is the basis of the communicaitions gap between progressives and the folks of the Heartland.
Mon, 2010-02-15 10:12
#20
There are very big consequences on HOW we go about understand communicating with "fence sitters."
You don't have to deconstruct to the roots where problematic values come from to be able to do successful outreach. There is a minimum requirement that you eschew the left's habit of didactically lecturing people on "how things ['really'] are" and get at how issues are 'framed'. Which means we're talking about the same level of social discourse dynamics as where people are talking about 'values'.
But the point is to communicate. And to successfully communicate you don't need deep 'cultural' analysis. The latter has value in its own right- both for those with the 'pure' intellectual interest, and for the potential effects on 'application'. But insisting on deep cultural analysis as a prior condition of successful communication strategies- that is at best a distraction.
Mon, 2010-02-15 10:42
#21
Lard Tunderin Jeezus
To be blunt, the tea baggers are by and large opponents beyond any kind of meaningful political redemption. Its always useful to understand what drives opponents- but there is no reason to get into the understanding stuff with them, in a way that it is vital with 'fence sitters' [and swing voters].
You work hard to understand the fence sitters so you can reach them.
Opponents you just have to beat.
Well worth repeating.
Mon, 2010-02-15 11:16
#22
Sven
Interesting post, PB. It contains a lot to digest.
One thing you touched on was this:
...they have no problem undermining democratic norms, they are strictly majoritarian...
Ultimately, democracy is majoritarian, no?
Mon, 2010-02-15 11:32
#23
I think "majoritarian" implies people who think everyone else should get the fuck out of the way.
But I don't think the tea baggers are or care whether they express majority opinion.
Anyone can say that their values are shared by 'the majority'. Because that doesn't require identifying which values and how much.
IF a majority of Americans express some degree of sympathy with tea bagging, that would not be a good thing. But neither is it what a lot of folks read into it.
Mon, 2010-02-15 12:05
#24
That which remains unspoken of in large part is probably due a hidden, yet unpleasantly instinctive awareness; the extent of which is a matter of sensitivity which no longer relegates itself merely to the alternately extreme reaction fronts, those who determine insurrection as being the inevitable and final defensive gasp remaining for humanity. The question under those circumstances then, involves the disposition of dead end Armageddonist tea partiers and the like, who will maintain the societal divisions and hatreds they've been fed to the bitter end, where, if all around them are likewise beaten down to their knees after the last shred of pretext is finally swept aside and open corporate dictatorship is set upon us for reasons of economic expediency, they're merely take it as a sign from above. What remains unspoken is the drawing of conclusions from the understanding that under such conditions, not everyone can be treated. For all the ‘unread' greatness attributed to them, they already suspect inevitability, which probably accounts for some of the anger which feeds itself. On this one account, I can't say that I blame them.
Mon, 2010-02-15 12:15
#25
Sven
I think "majoritarian" implies people who think everyone else should get the fuck out of the way.
I was thinking that the term "majoritarian" may have been used as short-hand for "tyranny of the majority" (which is actually a majority).
I've never read a satisfactory solution to the problem of "tyranny of the majority".
Mon, 2010-02-15 13:15
#26
That which remains unspoken of in large part is probably due a hidden, yet unpleasantly instinctive awareness; the extent of which is a matter of sensitivity which no longer relegates itself merely to the alternately extreme reaction fronts, those who determine insurrection as being the inevitable and final defensive gasp remaining for humanity. The question under those circumstances then, involves the disposition of dead end Armageddonist tea partiers and the like, who will maintain the societal divisions and hatreds they've been fed to the bitter end, where, if all around them are likewise beaten down to their knees after the last shred of pretext is finally swept aside and open corporate dictatorship is set upon us for reasons of economic expediency, they're merely take it as a sign from above. What remains unspoken is the drawing of conclusions from the understanding that under such conditions, not everyone can be treated. For all the ‘unread' greatness attributed to them, they already suspect inevitability, which probably accounts for some of the anger which feeds itself. On this one account, I can't say that I blame them.
This is an example of what Bageant says is the obtuse nature of liberal thought and why the "redneck" goes livid at liberal sentiment.
This is actually a thread discussing the nature of tea party folks who have no trouble in making themselves understood to folks anxious for the "truth" and "jesus".
Mon, 2010-02-15 13:17
#27
But then, Sven, you'd have to explain why people are actually afraid of speaking up about things democratic in parts of your country, and how others can say the most ignorant and anti-democratic things and get away with it because they take great care to wrap themselves first in the battle flag of the Republic. Here, your homegrown conservative bleatings, dangerous as they are to maintenance of a social safety net north of the 49th, are treated as part of the (high) price of freedom.
Mon, 2010-02-15 13:28
#28
There are very big consequences on HOW we go about understand communicating with "fence sitters."
You don't have to deconstruct to the roots where problematic values come from to be able to do successful outreach. There is a minimum requirement that you eschew the left's habit of didactically lecturing people on "how things ['really'] are" and get at how issues are 'framed'. Which means we're talking about the same level of social discourse dynamics as where people are talking about 'values'.
But the point is to communicate. And to successfully communicate you don't need deep 'cultural' analysis. The latter has value in its own right- both for those with the 'pure' intellectual interest, and for the potential effects on 'application'. But insisting on deep cultural analysis as a prior condition of successful communication strategies- that is at best a distraction.
But don't you think we here on babble should be able to talk about "workers" without going all fidgety? My point from the first is that this is the first discussion about a social/political phenom which actually threatens to turn back three-quarters of a century of social and political development in the U.S. in very typical fascist fashion. Here, discussion has all the depth of pee on a platter out of some fear of being unfaithful to a historical cause.
What is going to be attractive to "fence sitters" if they are scared shitless to open their mouths? If the media of the hills is already behind the rage of the Heartland? Will you get Appalachian radio to argue the liberal point of view? I used to collect local newspapers on every north-south journey down thataway. Can't imagine them spreading the gospel of rationality and social justice.
From what pulpit will your fence sitters get to hear your message?
Mon, 2010-02-15 13:42
#29
Lard Tunderin Jeezus
You've described the problem, George. What's the solution?
Mon, 2010-02-15 13:47
#30
Tea baggers are not at all universally christian by the way. what unites them is a fantasy romance about 'the american way of life'... which is not necessarily the 'christian american way of life'.
And its not about working class people, about your inverted comma 'workers'. Someone brought them as quintessential tea baggers in a rambling rant. I pointed out there is nothing working class or 'lower class' about tea bagging... it cuts across those lines.
You have a beef that people get hot about pointing fingers at US working class people for their alleged proclivities. There's some point to that. But I fail to see the connection to talking about the tea bagging phenomena.
Mon, 2010-02-15 13:51
#31
um, guys, you realize its an acronym - yes? not so much maybe...
TEA Party - Taxed Enough Already party.
tea bagging sould be left for comments in the sex threads. this about taxes, and how the folks who are paying them are getting tired of spending so much and getting so little in return. the tax game is to get as much out of the system as you can with out insighting a revolt. the are teatering on the brink of the revolt. the economic down turn and lack of recovery hiring is largly due to an opressive tax system thats being propsed as getting worse for the those who are in a position to hire. SO - the folks have the jobs are upset, and those who want jobs are upset. which make for an interesting cross section of people showing up at the tea parties.
Mon, 2010-02-15 13:52
#32
It's no one's responsibility to attempt a pulpit rescue of people from their own stupidity. They appear to enjoy the results they've achieved thus far with comfort zone complacency, at the brutal expense of how many lives. Fuck em.
Mon, 2010-02-15 13:57
#33
You have our heartfelt sympathies adricmorwen.
And you're right- we're in intolerant lot here.
I come by it honestly- from the Texas side of my family. Descendant of Judge Roy Bean, law west of the Pecos.
Mon, 2010-02-15 14:00
#34
You've described the problem, George. What's the solution?
I guess the "problem" here is finding the makeup of the folks who are most vulnerable to teabagger appeal. I can only fall back on Reich and Bageant for an understanding of their makeup...my old readings of Studs Turkel and others are of a period when there was the opportunity of social mobility for a working class nearly fully employed (even if they came to see themselves as "middle class" (this happened in late Victorial society too in England when the most miniscule of differences in life chances led to huge gaps in self definition. And the young Marxist sociologists from Britain who came to dominate events within the department at Trent in the early 70s were all agog at the familiarity of people across classless lines here. Took them a couple of years to see the light).
And of course we cannot solve the problem for progressives in the U.S. Bageant is very good at describing the situation but has little in the way of recommended path out for the folks of Winchester Virgina.
Mon, 2010-02-15 14:03
#35
Slumberjack- the pulpit reference was about speaking to 'fence sitters'... in this case people who might have in a limited way some sympathies with the tea partiers.
I don't know if you meant to exted a policy of 'fuck em' that far.
Mon, 2010-02-15 14:13
#36
Sven
But then, Sven, you'd have to explain why people are actually afraid of speaking up about things democratic in parts of your country...
Who is "actually afraid" of saying pretty much anything they want in the US? Christ.
Perhaps you have your geography wrong and were thinking of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, or some other country in which free speech really is an imaginary concept.
Mon, 2010-02-15 14:15
#37
Your tax point is central to what they express, adrimorwen (hope I got that right) but it is really a deep-seated class revolt, outraged by the ease with which the very richest continue to live "high off the hog" (the choicest cuts of pork along the backbone), while they can't even continue to bring home the bloody bacon. We face the same thing here except that the Cons can't work it without a complete Jekyl and Hyde makeover. (But Ithink we should begin to see things up thisaway with that threat in mind. It's mostly rural right now, but if too many folks wind up on the bread (foodbank) lines we're in danger.
Mon, 2010-02-15 14:20
#38
Sven
That which remains unspoken of in large part is probably due a hidden, yet unpleasantly instinctive awareness; the extent of which is a matter of sensitivity which no longer relegates itself merely to the alternately extreme reaction fronts, those who determine insurrection as being the inevitable and final defensive gasp remaining for humanity. The question under those circumstances then, involves the disposition of dead end Armageddonist tea partiers and the like, who will maintain the societal divisions and hatreds they've been fed to the bitter end, where, if all around them are likewise beaten down to their knees after the last shred of pretext is finally swept aside and open corporate dictatorship is set upon us for reasons of economic expediency, they're merely take it as a sign from above. What remains unspoken is the drawing of conclusions from the understanding that under such conditions, not everyone can be treated. For all the ‘unread' greatness attributed to them, they already suspect inevitability, which probably accounts for some of the anger which feeds itself. On this one account, I can't say that I blame them.
This is an example of what Bageant says is the obtuse nature of liberal thought and why the "redneck" goes livid at liberal sentiment.
LOL
I was thinking the same thing when I read that.
Not to pick on Slumberjack (because I've been guilty of this myself), but that paragraph reminded me of a quote about clarity in writing that I read recently:
"How often one hears even well-educated and sensible [people] lapsing into a ponderous jargon when they have to discuss serious matters -- a jargon whose only justification can be that it makes the ideas clearer, but which in fact merely muddles them."
Mon, 2010-02-15 14:21
#39
But then, Sven, you'd have to explain why people are actually afraid of speaking up about things democratic in parts of your country...
Who is "actually afraid" of saying pretty much anything they want in the US? Christ.
Perhaps you have your geography wrong and were thinking of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, or some other country in which free speech really is an imaginary concept.
You still haven't read Deer Hunting With Jesus, Sven? Thought you were going to get right into it. Maybe that's one that kindled Kindle's enthusiasm for selectivity and you never got the chance? Probably pick up a copy in your local Christian bookstore... And I remember when people with beards didn't get outa town without having something broken on their body. It goes in cycles down thataway. Frightenin' folks in some places (but of course Minn. is above all that...although don't wander southwest in Wyomin' eh :)
Mon, 2010-02-15 14:22
#40
ElizaQ
um, guys, you realize its an acronym - yes? not so much maybe...
TEA Party - Taxed Enough Already party.
tea bagging sould be left for comments in the sex threads. this about taxes, and how the folks who are paying them are getting tired of spending so much and getting so little in return. the tax game is to get as much out of the system as you can with out insighting a revolt. the are teatering on the brink of the revolt. the economic down turn and lack of recovery hiring is largly due to an opressive tax system thats being propsed as getting worse for the those who are in a position to hire. SO - the folks have the jobs are upset, and those who want jobs are upset. which make for an interesting cross section of people showing up at the tea parties.
Unfortunately it's really difficult to say that it's just about taxes when you have speakers at the recent Tea Party conventions getting standing ovations when talking about Obamas birth certificate, suggestions that one of the ways to get the country back is to reintroduce literacy tests for voting, comments about evil Muslim/socialist/marxists/pinko/nazi/facist/anti-christ/hitler presidents, fema reeducation camps, Obama youth armies, the evil of teleprompters, death panels, support and promotion from the dark valley of white supremist ville and on and on.
Do all people who suport Tea parties like this or believe all or even some of this stuf? No of course not but it's there all the same and some of it coming straight out of leaders and boosters mouths. So sure kid yoursef that it's JUST about taxes. Taxes are there but they sure aren't the only thing bubbling in the tea pot.
Mon, 2010-02-15 14:26
#41
Bang on, EQ.
Mon, 2010-02-15 14:27
#42
Sven
this about taxes, and how the folks who are paying them are getting tired of spending so much and getting so little in return.
That is to a large degree accurate. And the folks "paying them" are pissed when 40% of people earning an income in the US pay ZERO federal income taxes...and yet some people want to increase their taxes even more.
Those who want to increasingly tax the productive people in society have no end to their thirst for "More taxes, please!!!"
So, yeah, it's largely about taxes.
Mon, 2010-02-15 14:30
#43
Sven
Maybe that's one that kindled Kindle's enthusiasm for selectivity and you never got the chance?
Why do you keep referring to Kindles in your responses to me? I don't even own a Kindle.
Probably pick up a copy in your local Christian bookstore...
You really are clueless about who I am and my views, aren't GV? I'm an atheist for key-rist's sake.
Mon, 2010-02-15 14:32
#44
Bet the farm you feel overtaxed too, Sven. And the superrich deserve (merit) their loot.
Mon, 2010-02-15 14:32
#45
The military industrial complex sucking the life out of the economy is irrelevant it is all about taxes.
I like BC's version of a Tea Party better.
Mon, 2010-02-15 14:33
#46
Sven
...finding the makeup of the folks who are most vulnerable to teabagger appeal...
So, they are just stupid and "vulnerable"?
Mon, 2010-02-15 14:33
#47
Not to pick on Slumberjack (because I've been guilty of this myself), but that paragraph reminded me of a quote about clarity in writing that I read recently..
Well, I thought it was a fairly sensible question to put forward, in comparison with other inquiries here surrounding the angst some people have taken on about the formulation of talking points to supposed fence sitters who contemplate a dalliance with the mindless drones of fascism as the remedy for what ails them.
Mon, 2010-02-15 14:41
#48
Sven
Bet the farm you feel overtaxed too, Sven. And the superrich deserve (merit) their loot.
I would guess that most people here would be in the group paying no federal income taxes if they lived in the US.
I am not in the group.
Mon, 2010-02-15 14:47
#49
siryourbrains
That is to a large degree accurate. And the folks "paying them" are pissed when 40% of people earning an income in the US pay ZERO federal income taxes...and yet some people want to increase their taxes even more.
Those who want to increasingly tax the productive people in society have no end to their thirst for "More taxes, please!!!"
So, yeah, it's largely about taxes.
Many (if not most) of the people at Tea Party rallies are in that lower income bracket and are paying very little federal income tax. These people are just confused, and are letting the xenophobic and racist undercurrents in this movement keep them from acting in their own best interest. Would it benefit them to raise taxes on the wealthy to create a national health care system/option? Of course. But that would mean putting aside the birther nonsense and the renewed call for voting booth literacy tests.
This isn't about taxes. It's about racism, and how racism has been used for centuries now in this country to divide and conquer the working class.
Mon, 2010-02-15 14:52
#50
So the get REAL honest in teapartiers fashion....YES you feel hard done by, not being able to go out and pick up that iPad (last year you bragged about the merits of kindle...'member? And snickered at this poster's likely inability to afford one. You go from strength to strength, Sven. But I must say you do reinforce my love for old Canuckistan.
Mon, 2010-02-15 14:53
#51
I would tend to want to raise taxes on the ten percent of Americans who the bottom 90 percent are indebted to with mortgages on homes and real estate through the bubble economy. They can have democracy or great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few.