Tea Party Tempest
All of a sudden it has become fashionable for worried liberals to start pandering to the Tea Party fringies, saying how their anger and frustration is understandable and rational. Please count me OUT of that absurd trend.
The Washington Post wrote a "news story" that is little but a thinly-veiled press release for the National Tea Party Convention now underway. So, let's see, 600 people showed up there. And the crowd might double or triple by the time Sarah Palin shows up to deliver her $100k keynote speech. Give me en effin' break. That's a smaller crowd that hundreds of large urban churches get from one neighborhood every Sunday. Imagine sending three WaPo reporters to the services of the Crenshaw Christian Center in South Central L.A. so it could breathlessly report about how the election of Barack Obama was driving crowds of 10,000 people to gather every Sunday and demand an end to White Supremacist rule.
Look, anyone and everyone living in the U.S. right now has the right to be angry and frustrated. There'd be something wrong with you if you weren't. The question is: what are you angry about and who do you blame and what do you propose?
The fact that Tea party wingers dressed up as Minutemen and like, trained seals, applauding overt racists like Tom Tancredo and ignorant crackpots like Barracuda Palin seem to have what you might call misplaced priorities. They're angry alright.
Angry that the president of the U.S. is black.
Angry that the same president isn't really an American.
Angry that the same president wants the terrorists to win.
Angry that the president and half of congress are Socialists (even though the entire congress are servants of Goldman-Sachs).
Angry that the people who do all their dirty work for them speak Spanish.
Angry that the Judeo-Christian ethos (at best) isn't made mandatory (though many aren't so sure about that first half of that hyphenate).
Angry that their tax dollars might be used to bring us a civilized health care system but have no problem pissing away a trillion dollars in Iraq.
The Tea Partiers are, overwhelmingly, what we used to call white, right-wing Republicans (who historically are always angry when liberal Democrats are in power, even if unemployment was at 2%).
Are there some other, less ideological folks among them? No doubt there is a minority of such. But I am ready to affirm that those less ideologically inclined who show up at gatherings like the one in Nashville this weekend are what pollsters and consultants politely call "low-information voters." The rest of us call them dumb-asses.
When you applaud for a jerk like Tancredo. And when you stand in line and pay real money to be educated by such an obvious fraud as Ms. Palin, you surrender any rights to claiming to be an "independent." Independent, my ass.
You become an official Fool.
What liberals have to worry about isn't the support of the Tea Party fools (who would never support them in any case). What they have to worry about is their inability and unwillingness to fire up what could have been and should have been a much larger and powerful constituency who didn't feel the need to don a Paul Revere costume but who were lined up to hell push the real reform that a majority of Americans voted for a mere year ago.
February 6th, 2010 at 3:39 am
Low-information voters? Yes. Led by low-information office holders: http://bit.ly/bQxd2Y
February 6th, 2010 at 6:59 am
But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln …
Seriously, anyone who thinks that Tea Partiers are going to join forces with liberals is a low information strategist.
Oh, and speaking as a progressive pastor, I’ve long thought that what goes on in churches is more newsworthy than so much of what finds its way into the mainstream media. Perhaps if we launched a few balloon boys …
February 6th, 2010 at 7:01 am
Amen, Marc.
February 6th, 2010 at 10:44 am
I agree with Marc! Democrats and liberals should totally ignore the tea-party movement…just like they did in Massachusetts. Please do.
Also, a voter who is illiterate or can’t read English has about as much ability to cast a knowledgeable vote as a ten-year-old; so, maybe we should stop discriminating against ten-year-olds and let them vote for Democrats just like illiterate or non-English reading people do.
Also, we should put a poll tax on the rich!
February 6th, 2010 at 11:21 am
Finally, something that shuts down Washington that can’t be blamed on Bush or the Republicans: Snow piles up, paralyzing nation’s capital This blizzard, of course, is the result of global warming.
February 6th, 2010 at 11:28 am
“a voter who is illiterate or can’t read English ”
Lots of those in the South, and they’re pretty rabid right-wingers. I don’t think you’d want to lose those votes if you’re Republican. The GOP depends on stupid people for its survival.
Also, here’s how the dumb-dumb game works:
Random person: People who voted for Bush are unintelligent and uneducated.
Republican: Elitist! You’re out of touch with America!
Random person: Democracy requires participation from all people.
Republican: Bleeding heart! Stupid people shouldn’t vote!
Translation: Let stupid people vote if they vote for Republicans.
“Democrats and liberals should totally ignore the tea-party movement”
You’re completely missing Marc’s point. If anything, please, please, please continue to give the teabaggers coverage. I love it. As always, Charles Johnson does a great job of zooming in on the nuttiness:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/35725_TeaBagCon-_Theocrat_Judge_Roy_Moore_Bashes_Gays_Calls_Obama_Immoral
February 6th, 2010 at 11:38 am
More trouble from the tea partiers: Obama Statue to Leave Indonesia Park. The tea-party reach has no limits.
February 6th, 2010 at 11:49 am
Since Woody isn’t illiterate, what’s his excuse ?
February 6th, 2010 at 11:53 am
Woody’s right about the blizzard and global warming.
Either he’s so stupid he thought that was clever irony or it’s the stopped clock phenomenon…
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/02/06/gop-snow-storm/
February 6th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
When you applaud for a jerk like Tancredo. And when you stand in line and pay real money to be educated by such an obvious fraud as Ms. Palin, you surrender any rights to claiming to be an “independent.” Independent, my ass.
You become an official Fool.
**********************
Marc must stop insulting Woody !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
February 6th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
You should get angry more often, Marc.
Bravo.
February 6th, 2010 at 5:31 pm
Marc:
What a rabid bunch of lefty bull shit artists you people have become. I’m angry about none of the above, but I’m very angry that the empty suit in the White House hasn’t the foggiest idea about what he is doing and you folk in the peanut gallery think he is the best thing since peanut butter and jelly.
Pitiful, just pitiful!
February 6th, 2010 at 5:50 pm
Marc: Well put.
A brief thought: We talk a lot about how good the Republicans are at scaring people. At the same time, we are plenty scared about some things ourselves. For example, every person who gets health insurance through employment ought to be worried, considering the huge increases that Anthem just put on their individual-policy holders. We are next. We are also all in danger of the cost getting so out of control that our employers will either bow out of the health insurance system or refuse to continue coverage without large increases in our own payments. When you think about it, this has already happened to a considerable extent.
We have not communicated this fear to the large majority — that even if you work for AT&T or the local college, you are going to get sliced and diced by rising health insurance costs unless you do something political, and if you lose your job and then get a stomach ache, it could happen sooner, and you could lose everything you own.
February 6th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
Why People Who Vote For Liberals Are Functionally Retarded, Part the Umpteenth of a Possibly Ongoing Series (Economics in simple language)
February 6th, 2010 at 6:00 pm
[...] Tea Party Tempest (marccooper.com) Social Bookmarking Posted in Uncategorized | Tags: republican party, supreme court decision [...]
February 6th, 2010 at 6:05 pm
GM Roper must not be reading carefully, if he thinks the liberal/left loves Obama’s work so far. If only…as for Woody, apparently he’s not a careful reader, either, if he thinks Marc’s point was that it’s okay to ignore the Tea Partiers. We do ignore them at our peril, not because they’re right, but because in these perilous times they’re dangerous–to all of us, but especially to themselves, because they insist on running with scissors (metaphorically speaking, of course). Spot on again, Marc!
February 6th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
When I helped organize Iraq antiwar rallies, the media would often focus on the extreme wackos and ignore the mainstream protesters.
As John Robb recently said, the Tea Partiers are open source protest and will grow. I think there’s some common ground. I don’t mean pandering. But on the banksters, the bailouts, there’s plenty of agreement.
If we ignore them, the Right gets them by default.
February 6th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Palin-loving Roper yammering about Obama as an “empty-suit” is the funniest – and most asinine – thing I’ve ever read here – and that’s saying a lot given his friend Woody’s serial drivel. Remember “I have an IQ of 140?” Wow. If he’s not totally stupid, he’s obviously insane. I listened to a few minutes of Palin addressing the Teabaggers with that $100,000 speech and she’s the most vacuous, demagogic, glib (did I say “money-grubbing” ?) idiot in politics – with the exception dozens of the clueless GOPers in Congress. Anyone applauding that lady’s steaming crap is beneath contempt.
February 6th, 2010 at 6:29 pm
Mr POS Roper – you claim you’re NOT “Angry that their tax dollars might be used to bring us a civilized health care system but have no problem pissing away a trillion dollars in Iraq.”
I call bullshit.
February 6th, 2010 at 6:59 pm
Do tell. By the way, what happened to the infrastructure that helped get Obama elected? And, the folks who make that infrastructure hum?
February 6th, 2010 at 7:27 pm
Brad, Marc is not taking the tea party movement seriously. His point is that the left should be able to organize better. He doesn’t see a realistic threat from the tea partiers.
Also see: http://marccooper.com/the-tea-potty-epidemic/ and http://marccooper.com/walking-in-circles-where-right-meets-left/
Oh, yes. Ignore them.
February 6th, 2010 at 7:42 pm
Today would be Ronald Reagan’s 99th birthday. Maybe, on this day, we’ll see a revival to return to the America that he envisioned.
February 6th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
GM Roper claims he’s not angry that the President is a “Socialist” – so he puts this picture up on his blog…
http://s237.photobucket.com/albums/ff292/gmroper/politics1208/?action=view¤t=commisarcopy.jpg
…just to make clear he’s angry that the President is a “Communist.”
February 6th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
“Reagan taught us deficits don’t matter.” – Dick Cheney
February 6th, 2010 at 8:56 pm
What a rabid bunch of lefty bull shit artists you people have become
Oh my God! GM used a curse word.
February 6th, 2010 at 10:42 pm
Tea Party = Jekyll & Hyde, what I learned about the angry white people in Tennessee (a.k.a. How C-SPAN is transmitting scratchy finger nails on the chalkboard)
What they said:
I wanna get involved in politics.
I never vote.
I hate politicians.
I have lots of favorite quotes from Reagan.
I really hate politicians.
I wanna run for congress myself.
I will stand for principals.
I acknowledge I need the best PR man.
I want politicians to only represent conservatism.
I am one of ten people with ten different views of what that is.
I hate money in politics.
I need you to buy my tee-shirts.
I want our movement to stay united.
I don’t want to support your pet issue.
I say that the young’ns are the future of America.
(I have no idea how much the young’ns oppose everything I just said.)
Fooking aye. I’d rather have bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy. Now to raise the commentary about the Tea Baggers by 1 million per cent, take it away Joey…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMD7Ezp3gWc
February 7th, 2010 at 12:20 am
Funny how little honest coverage the anti-globalization movement got a decade ago compared to the Tea Baggers even though the movement actually had substance and numbers. I guess it didn’t fit into the media narrative of American political culture. So much for the liberal media jive.
February 7th, 2010 at 12:21 am
Woody and GM love a good tea bagging. Can you imagine them at a covention?
February 7th, 2010 at 4:23 am
I don’t think irony comes any thicker than this. Just watch the very short video: http://www.politicususa.com/node/7489
February 7th, 2010 at 7:07 am
Or ire.
February 7th, 2010 at 7:24 am
When I listen to Sarah, I ask myself if she would interest me at all if she looked anything like Janet Napolitano……and if she has dyed her hair to a brunette.
February 7th, 2010 at 7:25 am
Wow – I just read that Judge Roy Moore link posted above. What a despicable, dishonest old fool, wrapped in his petty resentments and bigoted bullshit. This Teabag gang hates the real America, i.e the America that is racially, ethnically, politically and religiously diverse and increasingly rejects their narrowness, fear and anger. The Teabaggers are the same crowd that bought into the Bush administration for eight years, peppered with crank right-libertarians, racists and paranoiacs.
Unfortunately the Teabaggers are getting lots of attention for the same reason the Answer types were able to dominate the organization of so many anti-war activities – and the Obama kids and oldsters determined to put an end to the Bush era were able to dominate the ’08 campaign cycle. You have to be a little bit crazy or very, very determined to sit through all of these meetings and take to the streets in the first place. The Obama organization dropped the ball in terms of it’s own energy and grassroots outreach, but the truth is that at any given moment the people who are most energized can dominate the news cycles.
Palin might be an ace in the hole for liberals. If she actually became President, it would validate the nihilism of equally cliche-driven characters like Sergio. But seeing her out there, using the Teabag crazies to promote her career, could be the red flag needed to get “Obama” and like-minded people back off of our asses. (I totally acknowledge that I’d become a spectator – albeit a vocal one – again this past year.) It’s also a fact that our task is more complex – most of “us” are not just “anti”, which is easy, but want to both watch the President’s back AND push him. A job for adults.
February 7th, 2010 at 7:50 am
Here are some better images of La Palin’s PalmPrompter:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stefan-sirucek/did-palin-use-crib-notes_b_452458.html
She increasingly gives off the vibe that she’s twelve years old. I’m guessing she practiced reading her speech in the mirror.
February 7th, 2010 at 8:00 am
People who use the term “teabaggers” to describe conservatives concerned for their nation surely shouldn’t mind the term “niggers” for a lot of black people. One deserves respect as much as the other.
February 7th, 2010 at 8:04 am
“…want to both watch the President’s back AND push him. A job for adults.”
Pushers pushed him to overreach and stumble. Pushers got him hooked…..on power.
Pushers is a job for adults, reg, whether it’s drugs, prostitution or power. It can get graphic, pornographic.
It’s the pushers on both sides that keep the war hot and the possibly of peace cold. Take no prisoners. Cede no ground.
What was that definition of insanity again….
February 7th, 2010 at 8:05 am
Are you been listening to your own President?
February 7th, 2010 at 8:07 am
He’s saying “stop the pushing and shoving”.
February 7th, 2010 at 8:12 am
Holy Earl Grey!
The comments @ 8:00 am come from the guy who claims to have a Masters Degree(!) and claims he’s aways, um, sober…
February 7th, 2010 at 8:16 am
In the own words:
http://www.slicksno.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/tea-bag-o-tampa.jpg
February 7th, 2010 at 8:19 am
“their”
February 7th, 2010 at 8:32 am
The two year terms for Representatives and four years for Senators was reasonable back when the job was seen as a temporary one of serving your country, then returning to your money-making one required to survive.
It has evolved into a full time career, not serving the country but keeping the career. It’s evolved into a highly paid job with a million dollar support budget.
The evolution has left us with professional politician in full time campaign mode with all the partisan shit that goes with an election battle. There is no time or atmosphere left for peaceful good-willed negotiation required to legislate.
These terms need to be doubled and you can only have two in the House and Two in a 6 year term Senate. That is a total of 20 years, enough for one career, then you MUST retire or win the Executive.
We must get our expensive elected representatives doing the job they were elected for. Oh, and cut their salary and budgets in half. They’re, well, pornographic.
February 7th, 2010 at 9:21 am
I guess the commenter at 8:00 AM took the “Masters” part of his degree literally.
The style has become predictable. Can I make a request? Would you mind leaving your bait-fest displays of open racism at home? If you and Roper are going to complain about foul language, then be consistent.
February 7th, 2010 at 9:32 am
Good God, Jim. Grow up. You make my point about a lot of the childish bullshit out there. You’re “pushing” me not to push the President to do the right thing on health care and jobs. That’s just dumb stuff. Obama campaigned on moving aggressively toward universal health care. Were you asleep during the campaign. And do you really not understand that without strong health care reform – frankly more in the direction of a public administration of the insurance piece and universal coverage than Obama’s compromise bill – we are screwed in terms of the amount of GDP that goes down the drain of a profit-based health care system. Look at the numbers objectively of our spending vs. the French, Canadians, Swiss, Germans or any of the other varieties of public, mixed or regulated-private universal coverage. Argue from evidence, not emotion.
February 7th, 2010 at 9:32 am
Dan O,
Think the wingnuts will stop criticizing Obama for using a teleprompter? Obama proved that he could think on his feet when he spent ninety minutes intellectually filleting the Republicans at their meeting.
Unless that’s moose flop she forgot to wash off, she should be ashamed of herself.
GM, your embrace of Sarah Palin means you have zero credibility in referring to Obama as an empty suit.
February 7th, 2010 at 9:33 am
“Pushers got him hooked…..on power.”
Bullshit…
February 7th, 2010 at 9:39 am
Dan O,
I have an idea. As the MWTM is an fact, a master baiter, perhaps he should beat off or have one off with his missus before posting here.
He seems determined to show everyone how much spunk he has; perhaps divesting himself of sone of it before hand might lead to some coherence – and a lot less racist hypocrisy.
February 7th, 2010 at 9:39 am
Also, the truth is that the “compromises” pushed by the Blue Dog Dems and Lieberman are the pieces of the health care reform that are least defensible. Obama invited the major players to participate and came up with a shitty bill that doesn’t do enough at ground-level for the American people who will pay for it. But as Marc has pointed out, it’s a start toward the kind of regulation and universal provision of health insurance we need and worth supportiing as that first step. Liberal and progressive health insuraance reform advocates like Ezra Klein and Jon Cohn have engaged in their critiques to make the bill LESS political and LESS of a “compromise” with special interests. If that’s “pushing”, I’m with the pushers.
February 7th, 2010 at 9:41 am
Jim R
Term lengths are simply not the issue. Hell I like some people to have been in for a long time; they know a lot. Their experiece is important.
The issue is a system awash in money from interests who don’t really care about everyday middle-class and poor people.
The issue is a Congress that is 45% millionaires, because we have an election process so sick that you must be wealthy or famous to have a real shot at winning.
The issue is captured agencies, and committees. Term limits are likely to make that last problem even worse, as aides control the institutional memory and elected people rely on them even more.
The issue is perverse gerrymandering which have constructed a bunch of seats designed to be safe and thus encouraging more strident candidates, and at minimum reducing the odds of turnover.
Money in politics is an age-old struggle that will never be “settled,” only mitigated, but it’s the undue influence of people and corporations with shit-loads of money which is the real problem.
Career politicians don’t bother me–the people should be free to elect Strom Thurmond or Ted Kennedy forever if that’s who they want. But let’s do that with publicly funded campaigns, mandatory bi-partisan district drawing, and a constitutional amendment (I’m dreaming here) to get rid of corporate personhood. Oh and repeal the filibuster too.
Term limits are like treating syphilis by having sex less.
February 7th, 2010 at 9:48 am
RE: the 8:00 am comment, creepy as it happenst to be, I read it as the perfect exclamation point on my earlier post about these cranks and bigots.
February 7th, 2010 at 10:32 am
In line with that 8:00am comment, Palin explains here why it’s okay when Rush Limbaugh says “retard” :
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/07/palin-considering-2012-ru_n_452602.html
This cohort of demagogues and dimwits would be a joke if 20% of the country and a major cable network didn’t take them seriously…
February 7th, 2010 at 11:17 am
All she had to say was that “It’s okay if you’re a Republican.”
February 7th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
# Woody Says:
February 7th, 2010 at 8:00 am
People who use the term “teabaggers” to describe conservatives concerned for their nation surely shouldn’t mind the term “niggers” for a lot of black people. One deserves respect as much as the other.
Since when do foul mouth white trash like you, Woody, need an excuse…
February 7th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
“Angry that the president and half of congress are Socialists.”
————————————
I’d be as proud as postman Mario Ruffalo in IL POSTINO; and I’d bet that the people would have universal coverage and the troops would have come home by now.
February 7th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Reading comments from long time posters on this board I can see that liberal democrats are not interested in meaningful healthcare reform as they are not prepared to hold their elected officials accountable at the polls; nor are they ready to reform their party.
Mostly content to be the second place finishers in a sprint to the right… ‘We’re being pragmatic ‘, they say.
Indeed.
February 7th, 2010 at 4:22 pm
Obama needs phonetic spellings on his teleprompters. It’s Time To Face The Facts, 0bama Is A Moron.
February 7th, 2010 at 5:07 pm
And what have you got to offer us Pablo ?
I’m also curious what the “Socialists” have done for Chile lately, other than effect compromises and help legitimate the center-right.
Talk is cheap.
February 7th, 2010 at 5:54 pm
No favoritism here. Keep moving.
Obama’s aunt ‘allowed to stay in US’
What a convenient time to announce it…during the Super Bowl. Who’s going to notice…except me.
Why don’t we consider looks when letting people stay in the U.S.?
Bulgarian-born Niles woman, bestowed U.S. citizenship in 1981, struggles against sea of bureaucratic red tape while worrying she could be deported
February 7th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
The story here is that neither of these women have been ordered to leave the country while their cases are being decided.
Yawn! I think I’ll keep moving on…
February 8th, 2010 at 5:56 am
This post was such a relief to read. Thank God some people still have common sense and aren’t afraid to express it — even if ABC feels the need to torture me by replaying the Palin speech for 36 hours straight.
And congratulations on your cohort of right-wing wackos. If they keep coming back, it must be because you freak them out. That makes me happy.
February 8th, 2010 at 8:25 am
# Pablo Says:
February 7th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
“Angry that the president and half of congress are Socialists.”
————————————
I’d be as proud as postman Mario Ruffalo in IL POSTINO; and I’d bet that the people would have universal coverage and the troops would have come home by now.
Though I agree with your Romantic view point, always, Pablo, the message implied in Il Postino is that the poet and idealist are always mowed down–dispatched into the void by the whim of cruel and whimsical fate.
February 8th, 2010 at 9:20 am
“the poet and idealist are always mowed down–dispatched into the void by the whim of cruel and whimsical fate.”
Another interpretation is that “poets” and “idealists” should get out of their masturbatory worlds and get to work. I find it amusing (and probably not accidental) that pablo refers to other people not holding elected officials accountable, or not being willing to reform their party.
Pablo seems like a more refined version of sergio, whose bone-rattling “death to empire” cries are a mainstay of this blog’s comment section. Precious and pure idealists, here’s an inspiring task for you: go hang out with real people–no, that doesn’t include your academic comrades or your teacher’s union–and share your scintillating ideas with the dim-witted and duped masses. Maybe try Woody, if you’re too lazy to turn off the computer, since he most certainly fits the bill. Though I think you’d be better off getting actual face time with the Palin-lovers and Limbaugh-listeners whom you walk by each day.
I mean, come on, what are you waiting for? Why waste your time with us disappointingly pragmatic (ewww! shudder!) liberals? Think of the millions of FOX viewers who have yet to hear you explain to them coherently the benefits of a single-payer system? Isn’t this where the real possibility of change lies?
Good luck, comrades! Venture forth….
February 8th, 2010 at 9:30 am
“Term lengths are simply not the issue. Hell I like some people to have been in for a long time; they know a lot. Their experiece is important.”
Experience has it’s positives Dan. But how valuable is that experience when used primarily to the advantage of the Congressman, his State, and the Club itself, in that order. Congress has specifically designed it’s rules to encourage voters to keep their guy in office. Seniority gets them in front of the slop trough as heads of powerful spending committees that determine what State our money is spent, and which of their political businessmen connections in their State it is funneled too. We are all well aware how this seniority system has handsomely profit one State over another, but mainly the Congressman. Just drive through West Virginia and notice the name Byrd stuck on everything, as just one but example of our Lords serve themselves.
“The issue is a system awash in money from interests who don’t really care about everyday middle-class and poor people.”
Exactly. And one of the biggest reasons is the human selfish desire to become famous, memorialized on every public property they can get their fucking name on. This requires a career in Washington.
“The issue is a Congress that is 45% millionaires, because we have an election process so sick that you must be wealthy or famous to have a real shot at winning.”
No Dan. We have a House of Lords that is sick. Self designed, at our high expense, to reward themselves with big salaries, big staffs, big expense accounts, big perks, big protection from unethical and illegal conduct, big protection from challengers, and big control over our pocketbooks. The original revolutionaries recognized this as taxation without true representation….from the original House of Lords. We went to war over it then.
“The issue is captured agencies, and committees. Term limits are likely to make that last problem even worse, as aides control the institutional memory and elected people rely on them even more.”
There are negatives to term limits, and limits debates have been going on for a long time. Some States have them, but the House of Lords will NEVER allow it. It is against THEIR interest, so we are just having a friendly but useless debate here.
It would actually require a new Revolution to pry their cold dead hands from their grip on us.
“The issue is perverse gerrymandering which have constructed a bunch of seats designed to be safe and thus encouraging more strident candidates, and at minimum reducing the odds of turnover.”
This is another example of how the two political parties work together, at the State level in this case, to protect their careers at our expense. Thanks for pointing out a negative against allowing Lords for life.
“Money in politics is an age-old struggle that will never be “settled,” only mitigated, but it’s the undue influence of people and corporations with shit-loads of money which is the real problem.”
Agreed.
“Career politicians don’t bother me–the people should be free to elect Strom Thurmond or Ted Kennedy forever if that’s who they want. But let’s do that with publicly funded campaigns, mandatory bi-partisan district drawing, and a constitutional amendment (I’m dreaming here) to get rid of corporate personhood. Oh and repeal the filibuster too.”
I will agree to public funding if you will agree to terminate these old fools before they can embarrass themselves and OUR Congress by orating until they can hardly stand or talk, with droll cups in hand. DISGUSTING!
“Term limits are like treating syphilis by having sex less.”
This problem is solved by not fucking everyone around you. These lifer bastards all have syphilis, and we are forced to bend-over and accept IT, as they help themselves to our wallet and credit cards to pleasure themselves.
Ones opinion regarding term limits will be largely driven by their political view. Liberals believe in redistribution, largely driven by the abuses of capitalism let run wild. This requires a large and powerful central government. Conservatives believe in self reliance and independence, largely driven by the abuses of socialism let run wild. This requires a limited central government, the one our founding fathers defined in the Constitution after a very bad experience with the far away and powerful original House of Lords.
A new far away and powerful one has evolved, of the Lords, by the Lords, and FOR the Lords.
February 8th, 2010 at 10:31 am
Gee, Kyle, MLK worked pretty hard…as did not a few of Marc’s friends in Chile who were murdered…Gandhi was no slacker…
February 8th, 2010 at 10:35 am
And if liberals etc don’t become pragmatic we are going to have little frau Palin to salute come 2012. She finally has come out and said she would considering running for president–not that we all didn’t know that was her plan. Never mind she quit her post as governor to start paving the road to her Nuremberg. Sneer and be smug at your peril, comrades.
February 8th, 2010 at 10:43 am
Interesting footnote to one of Woody’s bullshit links…
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201002080023
February 8th, 2010 at 10:51 am
Apparently, in Palin’s book, she describes her father has a fanatical hunter who tried to initiate her by having her hold the gouged out eyes of a moose he had just killed.
Charming. Explains everything.
February 8th, 2010 at 11:32 am
Interesting conservative take on the Tea Party brouhah by Jonathan Kay at “FrumForum”:
One of the keynote speakers, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah, spent roughly a third of his lengthy oration demanding to see Obama’s birth certificate – echoing the discredited “Birther” conspiracy theory that claims Mr. Obama to be a Kenyan-born foreigner, and therefore constitutionally disqualified from the presidency. Everyone applauded wildly at this nonsense. As the weekend progressed, it became clear that a speaker could hurl literally any slur he wanted against Obama, and people would scream enthusiastically and smack their hands together.
For people who claim they want to change America, the speakers in Nashville spent very little time discussing what they would actually do if they ran the country. Smaller government was the dominant theme – but not a single speaker, to my knowledge (I wasn’t able to attend all of the overlapping breakout sessions), actually identified a government program that should be cut, or how. Everyone agreed Obama’s healthcare plan would wreck America. But no one discussed how healthcare costs might be controlled under a status quo that has 17% of American GDP going to medical costs.
The explanation for this vapidity goes to the Tea Party activists’ self-conception as ideological heirs to the Founding Fathers. (Several of the delegates even dressed up as 18th-Century yeomen, to the great delight of media photographers.) The “Tea Party” motif isn’t just a clever name: In their grandiose statements, its activists really do present themselves as protagonists in an existential struggle for America’s soul – a mission that somehow transcends the dry bristle of ordinary politics.
“We’re in a crisis, a crisis as profound of the [American] Revolution, the Civil War, the Great Depression, or World War II,” filmmaker Stephen K. Bannon told the crowd on Friday night. “You just have to ask the Kaiser, you have to ask the military junta that ran Japan in World War II, or the Nazis, or the fascists – no power on earth has ever stood against the common working-man part of this country.”
This statement seemed like a lunatic exaggeration – as crazy as anything I’d heard from the Iraq War-era activists who compared George W. Bush to Hitler. Yet everyone around me nodded their head and applauded, basking in the notion that they were the enlightened vanguard who would protect America. For all the jus’-plain-folks posturing of Tea Party activists, it is hard to ignore how massively inflated is their own self-regard.
February 8th, 2010 at 11:33 am
We can see some progress here; but let’s remember how seldom
Marc Cooper has written in this fashion about the more colorful
inhabitats of Woody’s world. Take out the phrase “Angry that
the President is Black” and insert “Angry that that the
President has an Air Strip down in Arkansas he uses for his
drug running”, and you get the idea. We saw a whole other
Marc Cooper in those days. He was following a trend in
our national political writers that would play a large role in
putting George W Bush in the White House, not that they
will ever own up to it.
It’s nice that Marc Cooper slaps the hapless Palin, but
what about his old pal Lindsey Graham? Why is the real problem, the utter group think and block voting of the obstructionist right ever called out? When 12 to 15 percent
of the Democrats stand in the doorway, Cooper tells us
what a utter foolish, worthless party of hacks and fools
they are. 100 percent of Republicans standing in the
doorway? They get a we noodle slap and later it’s passed off
as a kind of integrity when nothing gets done.
Somersby wrote last week about George Will inventing the
new line of bullshit the Republicans will be laying on voters
threw their stenographers in the press, that the Obama
White House has increased discretionary spending 84%. It’s more
nonsense, but who in our “liberal media” is going to
attach this lie to the liars? Christopher Hitchens?
So one sympathies with Ariana Huffington and others
who don’t want to make teabaggers the issue. They’re
not. No, I don’t expect and of this Woodyesque bozos
to start thinking and voting wisely. What’s Lindsey Graham’s
excuse? The guy almost completely tows the line for
them anyway, and they still hate him.
February 8th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
reg, well put. but in a nut…the TPs and in their icon, Palin, represent the last vestige of the mad fantasy of what the de racinated crazy white people of America imagine America IS. A few years back there was a documentary on Coke trying to change its flavor. It was the same sort who are now TPs who got up in arms associating Coke with the American flag, patriotism and moral fervor. Coca Cola was tampering with righteousness…
Its an element of Americana that needs to DIE and unfortunately its death throws are the spectacle we are all now having to be subjected to.
Its a form of psychic possession. The phenomenon needs an exorcism not your reasoned responses!
Woody needs a priest.
February 8th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Woody, hold off having any pea soup for awhile.
February 8th, 2010 at 1:07 pm
Interesting footnote to reg’s Media Matters link: So, what? What a stupid and irrelevant point that you tried to make. One only has to read Marc’s comments to see the validity of liberals being “all-knowing and condescending.”
- – - – -
You guys sure are worried about Sarah Palin. Why? She doesn’t hold an office and, according to you, is an idiot. So, why dwell on her? I’ve never seen such a paranoid bunch.
Of course, she did help to derail Obama’s socialist medical plan by bringing up the death squads.
- – - -
John Murtha has died. Thank goodness he died before the death squads made him suffer.
February 8th, 2010 at 1:08 pm
“It was the same sort who are now TPs who got up in arms associating Coke with the American flag, patriotism and moral fervor. Coca Cola was tampering with righteousness…”
You must always remember to use your power only for good Anna.
If you weren’t so cute, I could be so mean.
February 8th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
It’s unsurprising, but disappointing nonetheless that the mediocre media coverage of the Tea Party convention failed to dwell on whether the real nutcases are in that party or the GOP and what the schism means.
While the focus of the convention is slagging Obama, the mere existence of the event is living, breathing proof that Bush, Bushism and the decade of GOP control of all three branches of government is an anger-inducing turnoff, even for the party’s white identity-conservative voters.
I think this is the point that some liberals commenting to the media have been trying to make.
The Tea Party is as yet uncongealed, regardless of the disturbing psychographic composition of the handful who coughed up the cash to sit at Palin’s feet at Opryland.
The racist component of the party is a sad reality, but one that’s indistinguishable from the code-speaking, closeted bigotry found in the GOP.
But the question won’t go away: why aren’t these people working for the GOP?
And can a party that has at its center the fringes of the Ross Perot movement and the far edge of Pat Robertson’s 700 Club stay together longer than a few months?
February 8th, 2010 at 2:21 pm
We don’t have to worry about the Tea Party. These are the idiots who should be causing us the most concern: (Gallup Poll) – Most Democrats View Socialism Positively.
I guess that you guys will be in NYC on May 21st for /your party’s convention.
February 8th, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Socialism is a big political problem for you, Woody. And not for the reasons you fantasize about.
It’s a problem for you because the record shows clearly that GOP voters actually love socialism, as long as the program is aimed at them, their churches, their schools, their healthcare, their military, their roads, their police, their firefighters and so on. In practice, the GOP policy is: socialism is great for me, but bad for everyone else.
And so it is the Tea Partiers are really just Republicans too stupid to fathom that all that talk about evil commies is just coded BS to funnel government money away from the urban poor and too the suburban middle and upper middle classes and to keep the military flush.
This cognitive dissonance gone to seed has its clearest representation in the GOP’s intense contradictions over Medicare and Social Security. Where is the party on those two critical issues? Their rhetoric suggests that want to drive a very big nail into the coffins of both programs. Their votes — and their coded pleas in the mediocre media — suggest they would never lift a finger to deny either programs’ benefits to anyone in line to get them.
February 8th, 2010 at 2:37 pm
Once more Woody proves just how far from reality his tribe dwells…
February 8th, 2010 at 3:23 pm
after all, to the extent that Sarah Palin has had a real career in politics — rather than playing a leader on TV — she has been a devoted petrosocialist presiding over Alaska’s multi-billion dollar state-run oil business.
The Tea Partiers are either too dumb to understand that, simply ignorant of it or too spun up in their paranoid struggle for identity that they remain in complete denial.
February 8th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
BB, I don’t like socialism as an economic model. It never works. I don’t oppose government doing those things for which it has a legitimate purpose, like national defense and interstate commerce.
For you guys, everything takes a village…and, then the village takes everything. Some of us want to be left alone and can do quite well without the government taking our money and deciding how much to give back.
If my tribe is far from reality, then the reality is that this naiton of tribes is heading for a big fall.
February 8th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
“Some of us want to be left alone”…
How does that square with your decision to parade your insanity ?
February 8th, 2010 at 6:15 pm
Damn BB, you’re on fire!
Several direct hits.
February 8th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
And Saint Sarah Palin?
To the extent she has had an actual political career it was as an enthusiastic Petro-Socialist, happily redistributing profits that “belong” to oil companies, according to the gospels.
February 8th, 2010 at 7:37 pm
Apologies for the double posting. My first attempt got caught up and wasn’t posted, so I took a second swing.
My problem with the GOP isn’t that it embraces free market principles but that it perverts them and, because of its marketing position as “The Freedom Party” ends up being far more duplicitous and corrupt about it than their liberal opponents are.
The free market can only work when the rule of law is administered well enough to prevent routine predatory behavior such as cartels and other forms of market collusion, self-dealing and fraud.
While American conservatives have a long record of urging government spending whenever and wherever it benefits their ethnic, demographic and corporate constituencies directly enough, they still must be taken at their word on the question of rule of law. To the extent that the core conservative position is that of challenging the legitimacy of rule of law in the marketplace (they prefer the “magic hand”), we have no reason to believe they are capable of creating or maintaining the conditions under which the benefits of free market capitalism can be maximized.
I’m a free-market pragmatist AND a liberal. I find no contradiction whatsoever in that because both in theory and in practice, liberals create and maintain the conditions under which the benefits of market pricing can be realized and, even, maximized.
February 8th, 2010 at 8:44 pm
Reg and Kyle misread my two posts:
In the first I quoted Marc who was “quoting” teabaggers that Obama and the Congress are socialists.
The obvious refutation of that claim rests in the Democrat’s decision to triangulate; that being to pay lip service to substantive change on a range of issues (domestic spying, war, torture, healthcare). Handing the base rhetoric and tacking right on substance.
It backfired because because the trailer park swallowed the rhetoric and wants another Bunker Hill while the base wanted ‘substantive change’ and not rhetoric. (subtantive in that there was an interest to control costs to the middle class instead of universal coverage and a split on middle east militarism out of concern for the State of Isreal)
If the teabaggers were correct and a Socialist gov’t did indeed assume governence with Obama then the substantive issues would have been addressed in a manner that the liberals here at least claim to favour.
(In other words, Reg, a Socialist government would not have tacked right; healthcare would be protected under the 14 Admendement instead of financial institutions)
Reg then takes the debate to Chile while Kyle slinks into talk of iambic self gratfication.
To restate me earlier posts:
In IL POSTINO a subplot told the story of a seesaw between the italian right and center-right all promising for decades to bring running water to the island with no avail; each party pointing a finger at the other for the lack of water.
Here the liberals really do not threaten to withold support to a party who will not deliver on key issues. In this thread we see the banter of term limits whereby the two ruling instutions are in connivance to make virtually every seat a safe one.
At least the teabaggers have been able to leverage their agenda in a manner disproportionate to their numbers (as Marc points out).
So I have concluded that the liberals in general (and the liberals here in particular) are not interested in substantive change because they are as vested in the status -quo as their friends in the party of torture. Since liberals have shunned populist demands as acts of orgasmic release they themselves are instrumental for enabling the government to move ever closer to corporate oligharchy.
February 8th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
Woody Says:
February 6th, 2010 at 7:42 pm
Today would be Ronald Reagan’s 99th birthday. Maybe, on this day, we’ll see a revival to return to the America that he envisioned.
—————————————-
Are you hosting a pilgrimage to Predappio in his honour?
Death squads were part of the vision.
Torture.
Where were the libs when the Vincennes shot down a civilian plane killing hundreds and Reagan was pinning medals in person on the chests of the entire crew?
The man was a monster.
Our blow-dry lib types still castigate him for busting the Air traffic Controllers but that is about it.
Come to think of their their great-grandfathers wanted to run General Custer.
February 8th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
You’ve set up a false dichotomy, Pablo.
The choice voters face isn’t between substantive change and status quo. It’s between Republicans and Democrats, for the most part.
Democracy doesn’t deliver change so much as it is a mechanism for preventing disastrous changes.
February 8th, 2010 at 11:00 pm
“Democracy doesn’t deliver change so much as it is a mechanism for preventing disastrous changes.”
Damn BB. You ‘are’ on your game tonight. So the Senate Super Majority rule ‘is’ a good thing…right?
February 9th, 2010 at 4:21 am
No, Jim R. The Senate “super majority” rule is anti-democratic.
It means less democracy, not more, and the less democracy you have, the less chance you have of preventing disastrous changes and, also, of realizing the rare opportunity to effect positive change.
That should be obvious to anyone who can confirm that 100 divided by two is 50, not 60. But no one here will be surprised that even that basic level of math and reasoning is beyond you. You’re a feeler, not a thinker.
February 9th, 2010 at 9:12 am
Do I have to draw you a picture? — America Under Socialism!
February 9th, 2010 at 9:14 am
Jeeze BB. No sure why your getting all personal and insulting. It was a compliment.
“the less democracy you have, the less chance you have of preventing disastrous changes and, also, of realizing the rare opportunity to effect positive change.”
Yes, but in a ‘Republic’ wise men understood the majority’s ‘positive change’ may be disastrous for the Republic, hence the reason for a Senate and a Judicial.
But keep thinking, just not short term.
February 9th, 2010 at 9:22 am
Shut the fuck up Woody….and and the Palin you road in on.
February 9th, 2010 at 9:24 am
…that’s ‘rode’. Road is like in “hit the road”.
February 9th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
“Do I have to draw you a picture?”
Yes, Woody, you do, given the “special” limitations in your ability to communicate with words. And you’ll be limited to the small box of crayons. Last time we let you scribble with the big set, you ate the “burnt umber” and wrote you name on the carpet with “peach.”
And my apologies, Jim R, I may have confused you with someone else. I definitely mistook the sarcasm in your comment about the senate.
February 9th, 2010 at 3:05 pm
You do know, don’t you, that a Republican will win John Murtha’s seat?
Michelle Obama is concerned about childhood obesity and would close KFC, Church’s, Mrs. Winners, and Popeyes.
February 9th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
That’s a little better, Woody. I think your mentality is far more suited to regurgitating banal observations from the daily newspaper, garnished with race-baiting non-sequitors.
Try to stay away from attempting to discuss economics and politics. Second-hand name-calling really is the best you can do.
February 9th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
February 9th, 2010 at 8:27 pm
Congratulations, Marc, for a good piece. I was waiting for someone to finally say all this mass media hype about tea party was really blowing a minor event up as if it were a Big Deal and is a wate of time. The tea party people seem, as Marc says, a very little deal.
Also, Marc, you’re 100% that liberals should be asking themselves why haven’t they organized a mass movement for change. That’s the important question that Marc is 100% right about being ignored. Oh, the other issue that is ignored is that populists scored the 1st victory in the recent Massachusettes vote. The majority of the country was against the health care “reform” and finally got heard by the Obama people after the Massachusettes vote.
February 9th, 2010 at 9:39 pm
Massachusetts already HAS the health care reform…you’re incoherent, as is Scott Brown. Lauding him as a “populist victory” is total bullshit.
February 10th, 2010 at 9:15 am
And you use ad hominem attacks when you disagree with somebody. You also illustrate exactly what I mean that people–like you–refuse to see what the Massachusettes vote means.
Poll after poll shows the majority of people were against Obama’s health care bills, but both the Obama admiisitraiton and you don’t seem to care what the majority thinks. Poll after poll–as well as the 1st Congressional vote–show the majority of the country was against the Wall Street bail out but both parties pushed it through.
We’ll get somewhere when progressives/liberals/whatever you call them start listening to what the majority of this country wants. Then, as Marc says, people can organize a “powerful constituency” for reform as was shown in the vote for Obama for president and many other votes.
February 12th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Tea Party. Texas. What do these two have in common? Racists and secessionists. In other words: We are sick and tired of minorities running this country of ours founded by white men for white people. Personally, I would like to see the southern part of Texas secede from the state and become the new state of “South Texas.” This mainly Hispanic region is just plain sick of crazies like Gov. Rick Perry, a devote secessionist wishing Texas would become an independent country once again! As an Hispanic who served his country in the military I am proud to be an American and I don’t need crazy white people running my life!
February 14th, 2010 at 7:36 pm
“the individual must be free to FAIL.”
An honest libertarian has to be even more opposed to Republicans than they are to Democrats.
While Republicans give lip service to economic freedom, they have a long track record of delivering pork to their constituencies, be it the military, drug companies, polluters, big agribusiness and mega-hospital chains. And as a Big Brother kicker, the GOP also wants the government to get and stay involved in people’s sex lives, telling them who they can and can’t marry and promoting one brand of religion over another.
One reason the Republicans have become so unpopular (the Tea Party is nothing if not a measure of public distaste for Republicans, a party that they should embrace, but won’t because it’s brand is so toxic) is that the public has at long last come to realize just how bogus the Ayn Rand for Dummies rhetoric really is.
March 4th, 2011 at 11:21 am
With a moderate reformist president (yes Obama could have done better, but lets face it, you’re not going to get a politician more liberal and more tactical in the White House), Wall Street sending our economy over the cliff, two unpopular wars and people actually in favor of the big ideas Obama was pushing (healthcare, green jobs, education reform, financial reform) – the Left and the Dems should be on a roll.
But, because of a serious of missteps, insider baseball bickering and general lack of cohesion, the nation just handed over the purse strings of the Fed and the States to the most ignorant mouth-breathers this side of Bizarro World.
We can blame Obama. We can blame Pelosi. But in the end, we have ourselves to blame. We’re like the Miami Heat blowing the lead to the Orlando Magic last night – all that fire power (their Big Three) with the lead, and a mid-level team or relative scrubs come along and smacks you sideways.
So no, we shouldn’t chase Tea Party nutters, because they don’t give a crap about us anyway. We need to figure out why most people didn’t vote and make sure that they do in 2012.
WI is a start – people are (very) slowly waking up to the GOP gameplan, turn us into China – super rich elites and relatively well educated serfs who live on pittance. Its up to the ‘Left’ to capitalize.