If bigots gave out awards to fellow bigots like the entertainment industry gives out awards to bad or good actors and singers,... I suspect with some degree of conviction emulating a bit of Pope certainty,...  GRIM would be standing at the podium every year giving his bigot award acceptance speech.

Even though he has little or no knowledge of the meaning bigot, which emulates just about everything else he has little knowledge or meaning of!

Show me GRYM what you are capable of, even expand this to something of much greater heights than usual, above and beyond the call of GRYM,...mayge maybe even explaining WTF you are talking about in your last post,... after all, even for GRYM, there should always be a first time?

Leefeller,

You drag out an age-old and well worn narrative.  A narrative which argues that those in Washington and in State Houses across the country you happen to most identify with are the better, smarter, more humane, less criminal human beings.

It’s commonly referred to as bigotry.

One of the most annoying analogies is one which I have even used in the past;... Good cop bad cop! The differences tween the Democrats at least the majority of Democrats and the whole enchilada of Republicans may come from lobbyist influences.

The simple fact the people on the street need to hire their own lobbyists to counter and get their so called Representatives to hear their own peoples ideas, their constituents concerns seems insane to me. So lobbyists go into Washington and lobby for the corporations, then the people and unions do the same? There is something so very wrong with this picture.

We have the media which apparently represents special interests for the most part guiding the less enlightened to even vote against their own best interests.

So the people only get to choose between tepid and lukewarm,... Democrat or Republicans. Far as I can tell both parties may be on the dole and the whole thing is choreographed to seem like great differences in directions, when in fact they are not.

As I see the Republicans shoving their clearly fascist agendas down the throats of this nation especially at the state levels,  focusing and actually making laws to destroy womens rights, workers rights and peoples rights the democrats seem to be feigning outrage, (apparently not very loud) though some may really be outraged, but it seems to me when the Democrats had a majority in Congress absolutely nothing was done.

Why does it seem when the Republicans say something is not on the table it is not on the table, and when Polosi said impeachment was not on the table it was not on the table and we still see Chaney and Bush making noise?

Since I am liberal, I cannot accept Ron Paul any more than I can accept Palin. I have my table and what I put on my table never seems close to anything the two parties put on the table, in fact both parities seem to be playing a sick game with what they put on the table. (Medicare)?

So we see this never ending constant offensive defensive posturing, this pushing and shoving match. In the whole scheme of things this really seems choreographed to keep real concerns and issues away from the table. The people seem to be on a constant defensive stance from their own government,... which is a classic fascist trait.  Corporations the wealthy or plutocracy those good old special interests who seem to be in charge of both parties and happen to pay less taxes than me makes the two parties appear to have designed differences for appearances sake only.

After all this;  one only need look at the constant bickering here on TD to see in the normal scheme of things there little difference here at the alleged street peoples level and the National level.  In the end nothing seems to change for the peoples betterment and hope is not really on the table.

The Republicans are still in power and are doing exactly what they want to do. This is
Bush"s third term. The Plutocracy still runs things.

“Still a third party, full of dissatisfied voters, could deny Obama a second term, and
perhaps, send a message to that two headed monster in Washington.”

And put the Republicans back in government, where they will proceed to do everything they did last time - only worse.

since there is not much difference between the Republican party or the Democratic
party, at this point, a third party would provide voters with a choice for once.

Of course the party faithful will say a third party candidate, is unelectable. But many
people were saying the same thing about Obama not too long ago.

Still a third party, full of dissatisfied voters, could deny Obama a second term, and
perhaps, send a message to that two headed monster in Washington.

“are the voices of no more than 20 percent to 25 percent of the electorate who constitute the die-hard conservative core?:

Too true. But Ronald Reagan was elected on 31% of the vote. Why do you think Rico wants progressives to find other things to do on voting day? All that needs to happen for evil to triumph is for good voters to stay home on voting day and do nothing or worse, to throw their vote away on an unelectable third party. Either will make Rico purr with joy.

prisnersdilema, May 28 at 1:06 pm

quite right. Most of the regulations which the Left support on principle, are
instantly massaged to favor corporate interests. But the Left does not bother it’s
beautiful mind to follow up on reality, and so maintains and defends non
applicable principles, as thou they bore some positive relation to reality. They
don’t, in fact they have neutered themselves by depending on the alphabet
soup of acronyms to protect them…
But consider, lucidly Ron Paul, who does have a committed constituency, who is
running, and who will be heard in the debates:

Since the, now unitary, President has no power to legislate anything, not much
would change on his capitalist libertarian front - that’s your Congress screwing
you. But he could, single handedly, destroy the neocons wet dream agenda of
world domination and Empire by force.

And since I can prioritize. the sort of prioritizing as proposed by a new Third
Party, for example: The National Progressive Alliance (born at FDL) is right off
the bat, morally bankrupt navel gazing.:

FULL Employment!
Medicare for ALL!
CIVIL Rights! HUMAN Rights! Civil LIBERTIES!
FAIR Trade!
End the Wars NOW!

For if you move #5 to #1, then you’ll have $500 billion to apply to NPA’s first
two priorities… So very smart and committed people on the ‘progressive’ left
have it all ass backward, and do not understand one fucking thing:

We Have A Unitary Presidency!!! A Unitary President can do but one thing
without deferring to the wisdom of Congress:  Start and End Wars!

http://mosquitocloud.net/

Once again, Mr. Dionne ofers us an either or analogy..Its the Tea Party, or if that fails the Democratic party..

Still, Obama’s corporate agenda, is the same as the Republican one, only some of the details seem different, yet each offers up a broken political system, that has destroyed this country economically, as the answer.

Lets get this straight, both the Republican Party and the Democratic party, along with corporate America, have gutted this country, and are continuing in the process of dispossessing the people of all they own.

The political system and the corporate system, has presided over the largest transfer of wealth in the history of the world from a once free people to less than one percent of the population.

Lets take a quick look at medicare. we are told that we must make cuts or go bankrupt. why are so many people sick here?

why, because the corporate farm industry, and the FDA, USDA, along with big pharma, are responsible. 

Children, are fed high doses of sugar, high fructose corn syrup, then fed tons of junk food full of GMO’s and Herbicides, that promote obesity. 

Then we wonder why we have an obesity epidemic.

Then when these same chidren, get sick, they are   are treated with psychotropic meds, that cause the very symmptoms they are supposed to be treating.
Then when these children, we wonder why we have an epidemic of presctiption drug addiction. No killing more people each year than streat drugs.

These agencies, the FDA, the USDA, Know full well what they are doing, and they are enabled by our politicians.

These same agencies have done their best to outlaw, any non pharmecuetical, treatments of vitamins and supplements, or herbal remendies protecting the profits of the poisoners.

Congress also enabled Giant agri buisness by lowering organic food standards to allow Agri buisness to profit from selling faux oranic food that wouldn’t have qualified under the old standard.

If people were fed healthy foods, not poisoned with GMO’s, HFC, Aspartame, it would save billions in medicare costs.

But the pharmeceutical industry doesn’t want that, because they make billions on drugging people who corporate America and our politicians have made ill.

It is not the cost of Medicare bankrupting this country, it is the pharmeceutical companies, and the health insurance companies, that are doing it. And it’s the Democractic party and the Republican party that make it possible.

Hundreds of thousands of American’s have been murdered by drugs approved by the FDA, which is basically a subsidiary of the pharmaceutical compamnies, and nothing happens.

But let one farmer claim his cherrys, or raw milk are good for you, he’ll be surrounded by a swat team in 10 minutes, and a gun will be put to his head.

Of course, the Republicans, don’t like Ron Paul, neither does the Fed, nor does the Media, they won’t give him any coverage.

But there are millions of independent voters in this country looking for a voice and when they find it will be on.

It’s time to stop using the disrespectful term “Tea Baggers”
and start using the more descriptive term: “Tea Puppets”.

Lafayette comment to leefeller;

“How do you get there from the Left and not pass through the Center? Your research is incomplete.”

As is my life!

Opinions of exactitude seem no different then religious dogmas,... why is it not possible to have a Fascist on the left? Is it possible the left does not have fanatics or bullies either?

Yes my research may seem incomplete, because I seldom find dogmas complete.

One persons opinion can very easily be called noise in the mind of another, but more so in disagreement.

Thanks for quaint lesson in connotative and denotative thought, I consoler this an amusing illustration of…. CACOPHONY!

One thing the tea party advocates which I am in favor of and was a part of Ron Pauls platform in 2008 (pre-tea) is that the U.S. must disengage our post WWII overseas empire and substantially cut the military and military related spending.

The Foreign aid need to be cut off as well.

CACOPHONY

Lf: ... for instance I have done some research on fascism and have a fair idea of what fascism is and I suspect we are heading in that direction from the left or the right,

Fascism: an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government.

How do you get there from the Left and not pass through the Center? Your research is incomplete.

Some use the phrase “fascism of the Left” to describe Communism because its hold on Central Power was by means of the dictatorship of the national Communist Party - as did the Nazis who employed the swastika, a fascist symbol. But that was just journalistic license.

Words are not elastic. They have precise meanings and when the meanings become elastic, they lose their sense. The become connotative rather than denotative.

Connotation: an idea or feeling which a word invokes in addition to its primary meaning

Denotation: the explicit or direct meaning or set of meanings of a word or expression, as distinguished from the ideas or meanings associated with it

MY POINT: Imho

We employ words with great laxity in America and, I suggest, it provokes cacophony as regards the expression and exchange of opinion.

Which is what happens when one makes a habit of employing the English usage of TV commercials ...

By Leefeller, May 27 at 8:05

“As for libertarianism, I do not know any working examples so please enlighten
me to why it is a good thing? Libertarians seem to go by the assumption it will
be better than what has been,... because someone said so?”

Are you going on the assumption that there can be nothing better than the shit
we’re in? That there can not be another, new way of organizing societies and
economies. That we have indeed reached the end of history?

Are you a proponent of Fukuyama’s thesis, which already has crashed and
burned, and he himself admits it?

Are you a conservative with a stick up yours forevah, or till the Almighty parts
you from this wonderful existence?

No imagination, no curiosity, no self reflection, little or no sense of place and
time, and no doubt.

There are two schools of libertarianism, one is espoused by such as Chomsky,
another by such as Ron Paul, the middle is occupied by left-libertarians.

If it was for the likes of you we’d still be using stone and flint.

http://mosquitocloud.net/

Mc, I have attempted on occasion to grasp and define and even do a little homework on different things,... for instance I have done some research on fascism and have a fair idea of what fascism is and I suspect we are heading in that direction from the left or the right, but I guess mostly the right.

As for libertarianism, I do not know any working examples so please enlighten me to why it is a good thing? Libertarians seem to go by the assumption it will be better than what has been,... because someone said so?  Almost sounds like religion to me or maybe the Christin stereotype of their heaven? Maybe libertarians need to create their own examples to show how it works, but I do not want to be part of the experiment or example.

When I do not know something as fact I will admit it, and I know very few things in politics to be facts. So Mc. you find my assumptions, opinions and speculations BS…. guess this may be an actual fact?

Tobygirl, I will say with a degree of uninformed speculative certainty, never in the existence of human kind has there been a libertarian which has been a hypocrite.

Leefeller, May 27 at 1:33 pm

“Now I do not know much about Paul, but I suspect he may be a sexist against
womens rights, ...call it a hang nail if you want, but something I find important
may not be what you find important.  I would suspect Paul has other issues I
would find as troubling.”

Don’t suspect, don’t assume, get informed.

Get informed on Soialist Libertarianism, and Capitalist Libertarianism. Get
informed on the differences, and grasp one thing;

Aggressive, preventive, preemptive Wars embody withen them the geratest evil,
bar none. All human rights are destroyed and negated by wars. You can petition
the government for all kinds of rights, but will get none as long as the surge of
war is maintained.

Wars and Financial Liberalization are one of a kind by other means. Fighting
skirmishes while loosing battles will in the end rob you of all the benefits your
skirmishes may have gained. Repression and division is a tactic. The unity of a
collective consciousness and awareness is all we have to counter the assault
with.

Not knowing shit for shit, yet opining, is the essence of bullshit

Prioritize, get informed and focus—that’s all I’m suggesting, pleading for, and
asking.

Leefeller, you know I love you (aw shucks), but there is a difference between us crazy anarchists and libertarians. Crazy anarchists have a crazy idea that people should be self-regulating and self-governing. As a crazy anarchist, I realize this is an impossible dream, just like Christianity or democracy are impossible dreams.

I would guess that there are certainly libertarians who believe they need to be morally and ethically responsible, but there are also plenty of libertarians who think that law and order is good for you and me while not being so good for themselves.

It comes down to Zinn once again, another crazy anarchist. Big government is here to stay, the only question is whose big government.

And I love astroturfed mirage for the tea party. I’d like to astroturf the teabagger I have to live next door to! How I wish he was a mirage!

Mc, checked out your link, even after the weak insults, why should anyone trust politicians the expert promoters of believe it or not,  I ask why is Ron Paul any different from Obama or Bush in what they say as to what they would do as president?

Though I agree with Pauls comments on the Patriot act and his hitting of the nail on the head, I suspect he is ignoring some of the nails I find important.  Also his premise of smaller government seems a bit to Tea Baggy for me.

Again Libertarianism is not for me.

Mc you offer little but insults and seem to have little regard of differing opinion, I ask what are you offering?... Ron Paul?

I agree with Paul on the war issues, one thing which you and I may agree on regarding the womens rights issue is it should never have been an issue and really seems just another typical political smoke and mirror job, like the gays and aliens,  to keep peoples eyes off real hidden issues. But I find them important.  Now I do not know much about Paul, but I suspect he may be a sexist against womens rights, ...call it a hang nail if you want, but something I find important may not be what you find important.  I would suspect Paul has other issues I would find as troubling.

You like Paul, that is find,... I don’t dislike him, and feel uncomfortable as making him my next president.

As for offering Bull Shit, your posts seem to have their own propensity of piling on the manure.

By Leefeller, May 27 at 10:19 am Link to this comment

“Ron Paul does not make it for me mostly on his being against womens rights
plus, he has the additional bagpipes of his son.”

What ‘women’s rights?”

We are in three and one half wars, gunning for Iran, in debt up over our heads,
and the fascist truncheon just got jammed up your anus with the Patriot Act
extension, and you are just moaning and regurgitating fascist propaganda,
concerned about ingrown toenails while cancer is feasting on the wretched
remains of democracy?

And then you plaster a whole load of bullshit, understanding neither principles,
logic nor the condition of our predicament?

If you are calling for mass mobilization in the Streets, a revolution and starting
from scratch — great!

If not, what the fuck are you offering?

Listen to what we’re up against, and judge the content of the message:

http://mosquitocloud.net/ron-paul-sanity-speaks-out-in-congress-against-
totalitarianism/

Ron Paul does not make it for me mostly on his being against womens rights plus, he has the additional bagpipes of his son.

Nor am I a libertarian, which I have trouble understanding the difference between a liberation and those crazy anarchists?

The corporations through lobbies like ALEC and Koch have successfully bought and sold politicians at the state level which is most obvious from the anal rash Red State governors and what is to say cannot caucus and buy Democrats?

I find the apparent Republican induced hypochondria of large government a political two faced, read my libs kiss of the Blarney Stone.  The Red State governors seem Fascist bullies as as the Republicans at the Federal Level. Ryan with the idea of gutting Medicare on the table, Republicans have been busy attacking planned Partent at the State Level creating new laws to make it almost impossible for people to vote and making abortion illegal and back to placing doctors who preform abortion in jail from 10 to life?

Ryan said he is a leader among men, so he is leading with his man thing idea of change, he does not believe in poles and because he knows his plan is three bears just right for everyone, as a leader among men in his own mind,  he will shove it down the peoples throats like the king his delusions portray him to be.

Alleged entitlements; something I have paid into since I was in high school, ...Republicans make Medicare and Social Security sound like welfare? ... (I wonder how much Ryan and the Republicans expect in kickbacks from the insurance companies for their finders fee for gutting Medicare then Wall Street for gutting Social Security)? Opportunism has reached a new level even for the Republicans. 

I am not so sold on the compromising Democrats either Obama seems to be in so many compromising positions he could make his own illustrated book of Karmasuave! ... Obama needs to grow a few, but he won’t because it is not in the program. Though Obama does seem to be trying with his cabinet pick like Elizabeth Warren, with the no go Republicans to make sure it does not happen? 

Tea Bags have done to the Republicans what Nader did to Gore!... Okay Nader folks step up and take your lumps!

This manipulation and constant obfuscation process, is done with ever present smoke and mirrors so all we see are contiguous deceptions. Deluded Tea Bags for some the good old boy Republicans for others and Democrats for the rest with 30 third parties out their.

Yeah! Vote Nader 2012, “so another fine mess you got us into Ollie”!

madisolation, May 27 at 8:50

“But Ron Paul is for free market capitalism!” Well, gee, guess what? Obama is for
Corporatism and he’s positioning for a complete corporate takeover of our
country before everything is said and done.

That’s about the short and long of it, and those who refuse to make that simple
calculation should, frankly, just STFU — or at least get informed, and learned
the distinction, between capitalism and predatory capitalism which is nothing
more than government sanctioned financial terrorism.

There are two ways to enslave and colonize nations; through war, or financial
extortion. We are being threated to this new ‘financial warfare innovation”, and
unless we get a grip on reality, we will be eated.

http://mosquitocloud.net/global-banking-oligarchs-financial-terrorists-
extortionists-and-colonizers/

Twenty to twenty-five percent is too high.  Phil Gramm,
Dick Armey, the Koch brothers are about it but that’s
an extremely important ‘it’ to seated politicians -
they, after all, pay those politicians’ bills.

“at least intellectually ‘look’ at Ron Paul….he is the only candidate that would
radically try and change the above facts..the biggest joke on the republicans is
that RP is in their party..they cant stand him..because he cannot be bought”

It’s a good strategic move, too, to support Ron Paul in the primaries. We definitely know we’re going to get Obama running against someone: better Ron Paul—whose first priority is getting us out of these wars—than Romney or whoever. I hear people say: “But Ron Paul is for free market capitalism!” Well, gee, guess what? Obama is for Corporatism and he’s positioning for a complete corporate takeover of our country before everything is said and done. Stop him and his out-of-control narcissistic imperial designs before it’s too late, so we can at have at least chance of survival, and play their game wisely: vote for Ron Paul in the primaries to counter Obama. It’s the only option we have at this point.

The Tea bags offer nothing for the best interests of the unwashed masses, except a place to rant and fume. Far as I could tell tea bags are a consolidation of frustration and ignorance sponsored by Fox News and Fox’s attempt to have their own sponsored president, hence Sara Palin?

Seemingly the Federal government may be to big in the Tea Bag opinion and I suspect they do not like anything Obama has to offer because of his being black, not being born in the USA, and his being a Muslim, while ignoring the white half of Obama as the Republicans have been doing. 

Making Tea Bags appear bigger than life, plus suggesting Tea Bags speak for a large segment of the upset majority, suggests handing the tea bags much more credibility then they deserve. The constant hype goes on about Sara Palin and Bochman making politics appear to be made for the media more than societal reality.

What I do not understand is why the Tea Bags who seem to be disrupting the Republican parties misanthropic chances in the same degree Nader did to the Democrats, having heard the Koch Brothers are libertarians, so they sponsored the Tea bags, but why not support a libertarian?

THE ELITE CLASS

EJD: Let’s see: Voters don’t seem to like cuts to Medicare, cuts to education, or tax cuts for the rich. So what are “the people” trying to say?

I read neither “people” nor “tea leaves”.

But it would seem that some long-term trends are obviously changing. The Replicant Party had its eyes on reducing the tax burden of its Elite Class long before Reckless Ronnie arrived at the Oval office. But as soon as he was ensconced, he started bringing down precipitously Marginal Income and Capital Gains taxes.

A HISTORY OF TAXATION

Look at the history of marginal income taxation in America here. From the end of WW2 up until the mid-1960s marginal rates were around 90%. So, historically, high tax rates are nothing new. They first came down to 70% then, at a time when the US could have afforded the loss in tax revenues.

Upon the arrival of Reckless Ronnie in 1980, however, Marginal Income Tax rates took a nosedive first down to 50% and then to 30%. In 1978, Congress reduced capital gains tax rates by eliminating the minimum tax on excluded gains and increasing the exclusion to 60 percent, thereby reducing the maximum rate to 28 percent. The 1981 tax rate reductions further reduced capital gains rates to a maximum of 20 percent.

By 1980, however, Federal expenditures had reached a plateau. Until, that is, very recently, when they have exploded. (See here.)

PREMISE

Let’s also remember, that of all the wealth our Economic Pie generates, only a small amount (less than 6%) is obtained by 80% of the people. The Elite Class, about 20% of the population, obtain the remaining 94%. This breakdown goes back very far, but favoring the Elite Class has never been better since Ronnie’s time in the Oval Office.

MY POINT

But, should it remain that way? And if it should remain, why should Ordinary Americans have to bear the burden of budget cuts here and budget cuts there, whilst the Elite Class (who vote almost certainly Republican) look on pleasantly because they undergo no sacrifice whatsoever. They could care less about Medicare / Medicaid. They could care less about putting a child through university.

It is time to raise taxes. It is time for Americans to realize that raising taxes must pay, yes, an excessive debt hangover. But it is not Jack ‘n Jill America who should be bearing the lion’s share of the burden.

It’s the Elite Class that should be doing the hefting as well.

@ mc.murphy

By the time of the 2010 election the Tea Party as a national movement was funded and organized largely by corporate front-groups like Americans For Prosperity (loved that bus!) and FreedomWorks (a Dick Armey joint).

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tea_Party#Financial_support

I’m sure individual members had real grievances and were genuinely angry but, as you have admitted yourself:

“The T’party became splintered astroturfed, and in part fell back into the arms of the Republican Party.”

However it started, by the time Tea Party came to national prominence in 2009 it had been co-opted by conservative corporate interests which used voter frustration and anger, both real and manufactured, to advance their own self-serving agenda as witnessed by the focus of new Republican majorities on union busting, voter suppression laws, abortion, and killing Medicare - not exactly the stated goals of the Tea Party.

Also, the Wall Street bailout happened back in September/October 2008 (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/business/21qanda.html). You might be thinking of Rick Santelli’s meltdown on CNBC on 19 February 2009 over mortgage refinancing (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/02/01/100201fa_fact_mcgrath?currentPage=all).

Cheers from my arse!

Wildeye, May 26 at 9:38

No it was not, and it started before the Citizens United decision. It was
instigated by Karl Denninger of Market Ticker calling for A Tea Party as a
reaction to the bail out of Wall Street in January/February of ‘09.

The motives were dead on and the left should have joined the Party and kept it
focused on the kleptocrats. The T’party became splintered astroturfed, and in
part fell back into the arms of the Republican Party.

One of it’s currently fiercest critics today, is Karl Denninger. Karl Denninger
marches to his own drum, he’s a mixed bag of sense and sociopathology.
Here’s an excerpt:

“Medicare is one of the worst examples of forced cost-shifting at the point of a
gun.  It creates monstrous distortions in the delivery of health care and, when
coupled with a legal environment that permits behavior illegal in other fields
(anti-trust exemptions, demands to provide service to those who cannot pay,
including those who can’t pay by choice and explicit legal support for price-
fixing across international boundaries) we have created a “free money spigot”
that has cranked up the cost of health care at multiples of the general inflation
rate while failing to materially improve the quality of care.

But compound functions like this cannot go on forever.  The solution is not
“vouchers”, which simply shift the cost yet again, this time onto the back of
seniors instead of the population generally.  Nor can we realistically exempt
anyone 55 and older - the bulk of the boomers are in the bracket from 55-65,
and they will enter the system over the next ten years.

We must fix the structure of health care in the United States.

But neither the left or right is interested in doing this.  Fixing the structure of
health care means telling the medical industry to stick it.  It means repealing
EMTALA and forcing level pricing and billing for everyone, forbidding medical
providers from forcing you to pay for Juanita’s illegal entry to the United States
which she did for the explicit purpose of obtaining “free” medical care when she
gave birth.  It means telling the pharmaceutical and device firms that if they are
going to sell drugs in other first-world nations like Canada for $2/pill they
cannot price-fix here, and that if someone buys those drugs in another nation
and re-imports them, that’s perfectly legal.  It means having the conversation
with the American public we needed to have two decades ago, explaining that
Grandma cannot have two new hips and Grandpa a quadruple-bypass - we
simply don’t have the money to provide one hundred million of those over a
space of 20 years, and that’s what the current system is demanding we
provide.”

You decide….but stop talking out of your arse.

http://mosquitocloud.net/

Indeed. The Tea Party was always a front for the corporate money unleashed by the Citizens United decision and whose image was inflated by a media eager for controversy. The 2010 election was the result of voter frustration over the economy in general and progressives frustrated at President Obama’s administration’s serial pre-negotiation capitulation to Republican hostage-taking in particular. You have to have been drinking the kool aid for a long time to think it was some kind of wholesale endorsement of the far right’s agenda.

Just like Reps and Dems oligarchs should be, History.

The so-called Tea Party republicans should really be referred to as the Brownshirt Enforcers.

The Brownshirts in Nazi Germany were thugs, criminals and die hard Nazi’s that performed the role of enforcing the Nazi doctrine by intimidating, beating, and killing the German citizen to keep them in line.

That happens when you stand for nothing. Now they can join a real revolution instead of astro turf. We need to fundamentally change the way our government works. We need a smart revolution. The Tea Part wasn’t smart at all.

Wake up America. It’s time…

“THE REVOLUTION HAS STARTED”
Read “Common Sense 3.1” at ( http://www.revolution2.osixs.org )

FIGHT THE CAUSE - NOT THE SYMPTOM
“Spread the News”

And what percentage would you guess constitute the “die-hard” progressive core- the Kucinich/Nader wing of the party?

Both fringes use each other as bogeymen and scapegoats.

I just hope that, as Dionne noted about the 2010 election, progressives find “other things to do” on election day 2012.

If the author is right and that the Tea Party has topped out and burned out in about one election cycle.. what does that mean for US politics and policy.. Something ostensibly so powerful and influential come and gone in a relative blink of an eye? Is real cohesive and long-term policy even possible?

The ‘information age’ is defined by a temporary or transient nature .. and has yet to yield things as tangible as say the ‘iron’ age or the ‘nuclear’ age.. But I don’t believe the Tea Party is gone.. nor was it ever as big and powerful as many like to think..

Mr. Freeze has it right.. the Tea Party was and is the fruit of long term investments of money and ideology, not a short term phenomenon akin to ‘lady gaga’ or whatever.

In light of that I don’t expect the people and power behind the Tea bags to give up or go away if they are thwarted in a few news cycles.

Adios!

If Hochul’s victory-winning statement was:  “The budget would overwhelmingly benefit the rich. Kathy Hochul says cut the deficit but do it the right way: Protect Medicare and no more tax breaks for multimillionaires,” and it’s a sign the Tea Party is
yesterday,  then Dah! Isn’t it our chance to help turn national sentiments toward decreasing the deficit by (for example) ending the wars? 
  And wouldn’t that be relatively easy to do because that idea already has considerable support even in right wing circles who are also losing kids to PTSD and the morgue? And isn’t there a whale of a lot of evidence of waste—billions monthly—cruel deaths and destruction on all sides, lack of “success,” damage to “American image abroad”, available better alternatives, traditional American moral values etc. etc. And on top of that, the percentage of profits going into weapons makers and sellers?  Lots of “political ammunition”, and Congress on the defensive about permitting foreign engagements without their say-so?
  Looks like a golden opportunity to organize locally and help replace some of the craziness with common sense.

The fascinating thing about this article is that Mr. Dionne once wrote that the Tea Party would never amount to anything.  That was roughly 18 months before the Tea Party effected the 2010 elections in every state from coast to coast.

The “Wizards of Right Wing Propaganda” have spent 20+ years and probably $1 trillion creating, nurturing and embedding some truly heinous propaganda into the minds of the American public. As a result, when the Media and politicians want the public to believe “tax cuts = job creation,” viola!!!!! It must be true. And when the Media and politicians tell the public that unions, school teachers and the elderly are the cause of all our fical problems…well then, viola!!! It must be true. And when the media and politicians (?) say “the government is the enemy,” well then, it must be true…....etc., etc., etc..

But isn’t it interesting that when the “Ryanesque-Grim-Reaper” comes a-knocking at your door, axe in hand, all the propaganda, lies and bullshit evaporate and those evil “entitlements” suddenly become a matter of life and death (literally)? All of a sudden, people awaken from their head-up-the-ass slumber and start paying attention.

What so annoys me about my fellow Americans is that they vote the same fucking snakes (such as the Bushes, Ryan, Gingrich, Boehner, etc) into office knowing full well that these men simply do not care about the interests of their constituents. They do not questions the intellectual filth manufactured by the Media. They do not defend their neighbors’ rights to collectively bargain for better lives. Americans are suffering from an intellectual depravity I find hard to understand, an intense stupidity that has rendered our society incapable of handling the very real (and dangerous) problems that face us today.

The “Tea Party” was an Astroturfed mirage from nanosecond one. Dick Armey certainly did a good job rounding up and bussing in elderly white middle-class racists to D.C. And the media did its part by pretending they were a real movement. The result is a Republican party even further to the right than it was before.

It can’t elect a President.

Hell it can’t even NOMINATE a Candidate!

Stick a fork in it.

I agree that Democrats versus Republicans is not the struggle that will lead to a better society. But pointing out that the Tea Party is just the same dead-ender 20% that supported Bush and think Limbaugh and Hannity and Beck are brilliant intellectual leaders is an important point.

Also, the idea that a Ron Paul presidency would improve our society is nuts. Yes, he is good on getting out of foreign wars, but as an “economic libertarian” he is also all about the freedom of the people with the most money to dominate society. That more than anything is what has gotten the USA into its terrible state.

The path to a better society is radical, true democracy, not the capitalist pseudo-democracy of the plutocrats.

louiss123: Ron Paul has a lot of good points,especially when it comes to the true reasons why other countries hate us and that we need to leave them alone. I wish more politicians would follow that advice and to stop interfering with the running and wars of other countries.

However, I wonder where his son got his radical ideas of making corporations totally tax exempt, giving the rich more tax cuts and other perks only for the ultra rich and cutting the things working people pay into and support,like the public school systems and safety nets for society, yet Rand is all for cutting what the working people have built and is for the privatization of everything you can think of. Seriously, some things government can do efficiently and if everything is privatized as most of the GOP want, most people will not be able to pay for everything they need separately, especially with the jobs leaving this country. He certainly didn’t inherit his father’s intelligence when it comes to running things.

@ Louiss123, re Ron Paul:

HEAR, HEAR!!!

And Dionne ought to remember that “yesterday’s news” often has ways of making unexpected comebacks; think of Bill Clinton. He was the “Comeback Kid”, wasn’t he?

jeez..you still think this is a demo vs repub thing? True evolution will occur
when people on the left realize that under obama,,
body bags are still coming home from kids in the military
we still blow up innocents in a country we are not legally at war with
in our arrogance we still tell other people how they should live their lives
we bail out wall street and screw main street

at least intellectually ‘look’ at Ron Paul….he is the only candidate that would
radically try and change the above facts..the biggest joke on the republicans is
that RP is in their party..they cant stand him..because he cannot be bought

I gave obama a chance..not I see him as slimy as Bush…

people stop labeling yourselves..and vote for your principles