This post deserves re-posting. My Canadian counterpart has accurately nailed why the tea bagger movement bears a better resemblance to French Revolution than to the American one. Reprinted in its entirety because its worth reading:
The Tea Party movement considers itself the spiritual heir of the Boston Tea Party that precipitated the American Revolution. Nothing illustrates their profound and almost desperate ignorance of their own national history quite like that.
As you likely know, the rallying cry of the Boston Tea Party was “No taxation without representation.” If like having your intelligence insulted, you’ve likely watched some of the modern Tea Party rallies on the TV machine. Something that is immediately apparent is the abundance of representation that these people actually have.
These rallies are – particularly the ones held in Washington, D.C – are actually infested with members of Congress. I can’t tell you how amusing it is to hear someone stand in front of a microphone and declare that “The American people are fed up with taxation without representation! Here to give voice to our anger are Representative Michelle Bachmann, Senator Tom Coburn and Governor Rick Perry.”
Moreover, I’m deeply suspicious of any movement that only discovered fiscal discipline on January 20, 2009. I can give you any number of statistics about the long-term spending of the U.S government and the debt it incurred long before President Obama came to office, but I doubt that anyone cares a whole lot about it. But here’s one fact that tells you what the Tea Party movement is really about: The United States rang up an impressive level of debt between the 1776 Revolution and the end of the Clinton administration. President George W. Bush doubled it in less than eight years.
Actually, the Bush debt might be considerably higher than that, since no one knows the extent of the loans and guarantees extended by the Federal Reserve in the fall of 2008, although it is thought to be in the trillions of dollars. Then there’s what’s happening to the U.S dollar itself, which lost approximately half of it’s value during the Bush years. That tends to hurt a country that no longer makes anything and imports all of it’s goodies.
Then there’s the cost of the War on Terror. For the first time in American history, the United States entered into a military conflict without end or serious prospect of victory. Since terrorism is a tactic and not a nation or even a group of people, a surrender ceremony on the deck of the U.S.S Missouri is impossible. Yet the Long War, as it is currently being fought, will involve interventions in dozens of countries and cost limitless amounts of money. However, the Bush administration and the Republican Congress cut the taxes expected to pay for such adventurism by nearly $3 trillion over ten years, which is so crazy that even Nazi Germany wouldn’t have considered it.
There were, as I remember it, no marches on the Mall or hysterical displays of teeth-gnashing during the Bush years. The fiscal insanity of the United States actually began during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, but it tore off the straight jacket once and for all in 2001. Yet the protests only began last February. Funny how that works, ain’t it? Had the outrage begun in, say, 2003, I’d be able to take it far more seriously than I do.
The Tea Parties have been described as a “populist explosion,” but by no historical definition has populism involved the financial backing and organizational skill of so many big-time think tanks and moneyed lobbying interests. One can hardly be presumed to be a “political outsider” when one finds his labors endorsed by Dick Armey, Esquire, of Texas and his FreedomWorks. When your money floweth from the teat of the insurance industry, you are perhaps little more than a tool of corporate interests, either wittingly, or worse, not.
I don’t question the sincerity of the vast majority of the protesters. Indeed, I’m usually rather pleased to see anyone protesting anything, these days. But I do question how thoroughly those people understand the issues and the history thereof.
The United States has been a debt-based economy since at least the early 1970s, not just at the governmental level, but at the personal level, which is far more dangerous. If the credit of the people is maxed out, you can’t really raise the tax revenue to pay for the services they demand, now can you? And that’s a key point the Tea Party movement misses, all of the spending and debt they decry is the result of representative government rather than the absence of it. Both parties have participated in the economic orgy equally, yet I don’t see the Libertarian Party picking up votes anywhere.
Which leads to another point that isn’t addressed nearly enough. The Tea Partiers are tools of the GOP. They might think that they’ll reshape the party, but that’s not what history indicates. The Tea Party movement isn’t wildly different from the John Birch Society of yore. And in the 60s, the Republicans co-opted the Birchers until their usefulness was exhausted, and then discredited them themselves. Does anyone really believe that Dick Armey, Tom Coburn and Michelle Bachmann are going intentionally destroy the GOP?
The Bircher comparison is more than apt when one considers the imagery and invective the Tea Partiers use. Does anyone think that painting a Hitler mustache on Barack Obama is any more intellectually serious than claiming that Dwight Eisenhower was a communist that wanted to indoctrinate everyone by fluoridating the water? The impact of that on the broader electorate is going to be the same as it was when Barry Goldwater thought he could “manage” the Birchers after William F. Buckley warned him of the folly of trying. No thinking adult equates President Obama with Adolf Hitler, regardless of what they think of his policies.
By the way, the Tea Partiers should note that Ike was the last Republican president to balance a budget. In fact, he did three times as he built the Interstate Highway System. Google it.
The Tea Parties are make for adorable television, and may yet give people like Sarah Palin their sixteenth minute of fame, but in the long run, they’ll amount to little else. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that hating the president is fun! I’m in my seventeenth year of doing it myself. Rallies, as the hippies of a bygone era taught us, are a neat way of meeting like-minded people and possibly getting laid, although the idea of “rugged individualists” feeling the need to form giant groups amuses me to no end.
But if painting Hitler mustaches and swastikas on stuff was going solve America’s intractable problems, I’m pretty sure that someone would have figured that out already. Just sayin’.
You and your “counterpart” forgot to bash “the gipper” in this diatribe?
Published by Skippy-san at 6:55 am under Uncategorized
This post deserves re-posting. My Canadian counterpart has accurately nailed why the tea bagger movement bears a better resemblance to French Revolution than to the American one.
I don’t recall seeing a single solitary rioting mob at any Tea Party. As I recall, most of them always showed the little children until SIEU thugs started showing up and beating up black men confined to wheel chairs and then using highly coordinated thug tactics to keep the real constituents from getting into the meeting places when the democrat politicians finally became so terrified they were compelled to call town hall meeting and discuss the horror bills in progress (cap and trade, socialized take over of the best and most efficient health care system in the north Americas, Central America and South America. We didn’t have one single group of rioting tea par-tiers blown to pieces in the street by frog artillery officers.
The Tea Party movement considers itself the spiritual heir of the Boston Tea Party.
So what, liberals think they’re the only holders of truth and take every opportunity to disagree using violence and direct physical attacks on republican and conservative speakers. I have never heard of or seen an instance where a conservative group physically attacked Noam Chomsky or any of the party shibboleths.
totally meaningless paragraph deleted.
These rallies are – EXACTLY! THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO PEACEABLY ASSEMBLE. Oops, I wrote all the stuff in caps.
Writing about debt is kind of meaningless isn’t it? What debt?
Ah, you mean the off budget stuff like the totally empty social security account with its pigeons surely coming home to roost just after a democrat majority loaded us down with another $1.7 trillion in debt in his first year on just the stimulus crapfest where only their districts got any money and I guess that includes any number of totally imaginary congressional districts posted on the official white house website. What’s the debt up to now? $12.7 trillion. What’s always been the liberal number of an acceptable ratio between debt and GDP?
Then there’s the cost of the War on Terror. For the first time in American history, the United States entered into a military conflict without end or serious prospect of victory. WITH THE COMPLETE BACKING OF CONGRESS.
$3 trillion over ten years, which is so crazy that even Nazi Germany wouldn’t have considered it.
Have you got the budget revenue numbers over those 10 years? Did more money actually flow to congress even after $3 trillion was cut in order to STIMULATE the economy and grow it?
I’m afraid the record shows that democrats rake in more campaign $ from literally every organized group.
The United States has been a debt-based economy since at least the early 1970s, not just at the governmental level, but at the personal level.
YEP it was the Congress mostly democrats that went about undermining the credits market and banks with Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac and then year after year forcing them to lower the limits until people who didn’t have jobs could borrow $250,000 to buy a house and every single person knew that he could never make the mortgage but it was guaranteed by the federal government (as events turned out). The banks knew too. What was it, $2 trillion in capital wiped out almost overnight when the housing market collapsed, the home owners defaulted and the bankers went to their very good friends to get bailed out Look at where those shits are working now.
Which leads to another point that isn’t addressed nearly enough. The Tea Partiers are tools of the GOP. They might think that they’ll reshape the party, but that’s not what history indicates. The Tea Party movement isn’t wildly different from the John Birch Society of yore. And in the 60s, the Republicans co-opted the Birchers until their usefulness was exhausted, and then discredited them themselves. Does anyone really believe that Dick Armey, Tom Coburn and Michelle Bachmann are going intentionally destroy the GOP?
I left that bit of loony in untouched because every word of it is nonsense. You never heard of William F. Buckley?
You brought Hitler up, you lose.
You did it again!
Sort of a knights of Nee thing.
After you quoted Fallows I actually, albeit belatedly, read the entire article and UNLIKE the way YOU portrayed it, he was more optimistic than you alluded in your comment.
Which is the way MSNBC likes to portray the tea party and the town hall meetings, using images and half truths to make a particular political point. That these are folks that marry their sisters, chew or chaw tobacciii, have half a brain etc etc. It AIN’T necessarily true.
Yes, just like Glenn and Rush on the other side.
And oddly enough, I find myself agreeing more and more with Ariania Huffington, at least with regards to government.
She has a good handle on the situation and is worth a listen to IMHO>
What we want Ok, what I WANT is fiscal restraint. More attention to encouraging job growth, a more reasoned foreign policy and an early exit from Afghanistan. Not because the fight isn’t just but because its a losing proposition. Too much blood and treasure wasted.
“no marches on the mall or hysterical’….
..
just google “anti bush rallies’ and there are a plethora of vile signs etc etc. Deja vu all over again.
http://www.politifact.com on Obama promises made and kept etc.
So many issues-so little space:
– No violence at tea party rallies. Um no. The record is pretty clear there was violence from both sides at certain locations, egged on by the over hyped rhetoric of people ( with their children in tow) behaving like children carrying stupid Hitler and joker signs. Just because the anti-war guys did it, that makes it alright to lower your supposedly superior bodies to their level? What a fine example for their children these supposedly family values voters set.
-Bush tax cuts. Did not stimulate the economy. The record is pretty clear on that. Laying blame on Fannie May and Freddie Mac ignores the complicity of over a million Real Estate agents trying to line their own pockets by over selling houses people could not afford. Or of builders who and markets that sold houses for obscene prices. Curtis you live in CA-there is no way the average house there is worth 600K. Especially when I can buy three times as big a house here in Dullsville for 1/3 that. An unbalanced budget fueled by tax cuts in a time of war started the dominoes falling. Its not about cutting spending its about matching revenue to expenditures.
-Fallows. I did not misrepresent what he had to say. The key thing was that public infrastructure has to be invested in or we all go down the tubes. That is what Tea Baggers just don’t get. ( While a lot of them collect government checks and Medicare).
..”matching revenue to expenditures.”
So this is done by another tax being proposed by BHO today. It’s never restraining spending.
We do get it!
BTW, some dems are asking for the Bush tax cuts to be extended.
Because it comes down to this-there is very little room to go in terms of reducing spending, despite all the bullshit stories you tell yourself.
Basically there are three choices when it comes to reducing spending:
1) Cut defense. That’s actually needed ( stopping spending on a stupid war in Iraq is a good way to start-might even save a few lives to boot)-however politically, its untenable. Eisenhower was right.
2) Cut entitlements. Good thing you have all those guns-because you will need them when the rest of the population riots in the streets. Thing the teabaggers were mad now? Wait till you cut their medicare, Social Security and retirement checks. STFB!
3) Other discretionary spending. No problem. No more services of any kind! No air traffic control, no border patrol, no meat inspectors. No more national parks-fuck the kiddies!-they don’t need to see the sights. No more educational grants to help people get through school and no more guaranteed student loans. Hey why not? Less educated people means more folks who susceptible to the lies of demagouges on both sides of the aisle. No more earmarks? Rethuglicans love them just as much as Democrats you know-unless you think Mitch McConnel really did not vote against 75 million for KY before he voted for it.
I’ll say it again-there are things that governmet is uniquely equipped to do-and if we would concentrate on those things ( one of which is providing decent transportation infrastructure) we would be a lot better off. Plus the whole ” I am over taxed” thing rings hollow after a while-especially when you consider that most people have a pretty low tax rate all things considered-and if teabags are to be believed a lot of people pay no tax at all.
Spending has been cut-half my day is spent on dealing with the effects of budget cuts and devising alternatives. The roads where I live suck. Cut the stimulus-fine, knock yourself out, but don’t be suprised when your 401K loses even more money. ( Another fine result of the last 20 years watching Americans believe economic health is guaged by the stock market.)
Until you effect a major fundamental change in the system-e.g a CPF fund a la Singapore-you are stuck with these realities. Good luck killing Social Security and Medicare-even GWB couldn’t do that.
Pathetic.
I don’t know why I even came over here now. A long time ago, I found your blog somewhat amusing. I quit coming here when you became depressing. Why I came back after months, I don’t know.
It’s clear now that you are a bitter (reason unknown), talking-points spoon-fed, NPR listening, MSNBC watching, coolaid drinker.
I’d pick your talking points apart, but Curtis has already done well with that.
I had never heard the term “teabagger” until I surfed onto CNN and heard Anderson Cooper talking about the rallies using the term.
You never have complained about leftie radicals and their flag-burning, effigy-hanging hate-fests. Why is it you begrudge conservatives their right to asseble?
Why is it you hate Sarah Palin so much? Because she is a strong, conservative, christian woman? You have a problem with women in authority.
Your rants echo the blithering, psychotic ramblings of another guy who likes to use the term “teabagger, and also has a problem with Sarah Palin, namely Andrew Sullivan.
Why so bitter? Maybe you, Andrew Sullivan and Anderson Cooper have more in common than we knew.
Maybe being a teabagee leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.
Don’t worry, I won’t be back.
Pathetic.
It’s January 6, 2021 and the ultimate culmination of this stupidity came home to roost in the Capitol building. I told you so in 2009 and I am telling you now. Teabaggers were and are worthless scum. Turns out they were seditious traitors too.
Q.E.D.
So let me ask you a question back-why do you think I became so depressed?
Its simple really. I came back here after almost nine years to find that my countrymen where literally going mad. And the state of politics in this country was and is disgusting. I feel compelled to write about it-and I believe in the positions I take. I support health care reform, I think the country needs financial regulatory reform and it needs to get out of Iraq. What is so wrong with beleiving those as truly heartfelt positions?
When I was in Japan I was happier it is true-because life over there is better. I was insulated from the madness I see over here everyday. There was decent transportation, girls that were fun and pretty, lots to do, and excitement.
I dislike Palin for one reason-she is a liar and a fraud. That’s the same reason Sullivan writes about it. I don’t have a problem with women in authority-I do have a problem with women who are selfish and incompetent.
I never disparaged their right to assemble-I have issues with what they do when do assemble. And if you check my archives you will find I have been pretty consistent on this issue.
Thanks for calling me a homo by the way-while at the same time arguing that my discussion is uncivilized? Tell me again how that makes any sense?
I do listen to NPR though-but I never watch MSNBC-or Fox News.
Skippy,
You asked me if the houses here were worth $600k. The answer largely is yes, because people are willing to pay $600k for houses that are actually worth that much but what we had out here were a lot of people that just assumed that the house was worth the asking price.
I’m happy. I sold my house in Encinitas just before the market started to slide but there’s the other considerations. I was just a couple of miles away from the Pacific coast beaches, an hour from the mountains, an hour from the desert, an hour from Tijuana should I ever go mad and decide to head there again. There’ no bugs here. No mosquitos, no swarms of gnats and no-seeumms. Haven’t seen a snake of any kind outside the zoo in over 20 years. Beautiful weather year round. Almost never any humidity (haven’t owned an air conditioner in a very long time.) I used to live there at the end of Drake Road in Dullsville. None of the above ever really bothered me at that age (high school) and I haven’t waterskiid since we moved away from the Tennessee River and Lake Guntersville.
What killed the market out here I think was the swarms of people willing to pay $350k for a $70k 40 year old shack and the banks and appraisers colluding to say that yes that shack was worth that much.
Also, in a response to a later comment you called SS an entitlement. I don’t see it that way. People “invested” in that SSA and have a right to what they paid for and coming along after the fact as the redistributionists always will and changing the rules and declaring that now SS must be means tested is chillingly dishonest and creepy.
600,000 here would by you a 5000 square foot house with a gazebo and a pool. And still leave you money for your own wood shop built away from the house.
As for SS, ok-but we need to find a way to fund it. Now I think that eventually we need to shift to an invest as you go program where companies match it-as many countries in Asia do. I would trade SS for guaranteed access to health care.
The X agreed with you. She really wanted the 5000 square feet of house with enormous yard that could be had cheap in Texas. When I wouldn’t go along with it she left. Alimony runs out this month. Cost of living drives salaries as she learned only after she left. So she’s enjoying the bug swarms, fire ants, heat and humidity and dullsville.