Maani,

Thanks, I think.  I actually can understand people voting for Conservatives, true Conservatives.  But they are mostly gone.

I can actually understand people voting for Goldwater or Rockefeller Republicans, but they are pretty much gone.

I can even actually understand people voting for Lisa Murkowski, up in Alaska.

I do NOT understand people voting for a lying, cheating, clearly dishonest Miller in Alaska, a lying, ignorant, phony like O’Donnell in Delaware, or a fucked-up, lying misogynist like Rand Paul in Kentucky EVEN THOUGH they sent Jim Bunning to the Senate 3 times.

And I do not understand how any with any gray matter at all, can have ANY respect for Sarah Palin at all.

Fear. Fear and panic make idiots of us all.

ITW:

“Americans are now just about the dumbest, laziest and most ignorant voters on the planet.”

One of the truest and saddest comments ever.

kt2kelly:

Brava!

Peace.

chicken-and-egg question:  Are the French people in the streets because their government works for them, and are we not in the streets because our government does not work for us?  Doubtful.  More like:  Because we are not in the strets, our government does not work for us. Although there is something to be said for the French “know-how” versus our fear of repressive surveillance, obcessive “individualism”, and tendency to form conficting factions that have difficulty joining hands and acting together for the common good.

Previously I’ve posted a couple times asking for responses from people who have ideas or experience in dealing successfully with the Tea Party psychology. I’ll admit I’m stumped, and have had no replies to my question, yet it seems to me of paramount importance.
  In Sunday’s Counterpunch Ralph Nader has a series of questions to ask Tea Partiers to consider, but to my way of thinking such questions are far too rational. My feeling is that most Tea Partiers are not “into” reasoning (If you think this….... then what about that ..” pointing out inconsistencies).
  It occurs to me that one possibility would be to concentrate on taking away or minimizing their fear, on this issue or that, because they seem to be universaly propelled by fear.
Incidentally, that’s one of my problems on line here—trying to counteract the tremendous amount of fear (of decline and inevitable fall, etc.) which seems to me to be just another version of Armageddon with all its ability to knock the wind out of one’s sails so far as produdctive counteraction is concerned.

kerryrose:

“It was a paraphrase!”

And a grossly inaccurate and unfair one at that.

It’s become patently clear that the results of a study
done a few years ago on how we process matters of
politics or religion, more precisely where we process
them, were right on the mark.

In matters of politics and religion, all processing is
done on the right side of our brains - in a nut shell,
fantasy oriented (the left side being reality-based.)
Teabaggers exemplify the findings.

kt2kelly’s critique of the so-called T-Party anger does not illuminate the situation. If Feingold gets pushed out it will not be petty, racist, free market fascism to blame. It will be for the reason BarbieQue points out: Obama’s bait and switch. He has done nothing to reform the health care system except to give the failed for-profit ghouls a new lease on life. And then there is election fraud that will obscure the real intentions of the electorate, the influence of corporate money that magnifies this “T-Party” anger, and the disillusionment of progressives who won’t vote.

rico

It was a paraphrase!

Sad to see Feingold could be tossed out. A loss to all Americans.. But whose fault is it? Sirota blames the Rethugs masquerading as Tea Party libertarians..

Lots of interesting and informative views have been added, some dealing with the question.. Who will be to blame if the Democrats lose big in November?.. This comment hits the target:

“If Barack H. Obama had done even a quarter of what he campaigned on (Remember Real Change) people would be walking across broken glass to vote (D). But he didn’t, and now his party will reap what was sown”.

Kudos for that.

kt2kelly:

I must admit it- that was very good.

kerryrose:

Was that a quote from Santelli?

You got it, B-Que. It’s a systemic crisis. The gov has been hijacked by corporate fascists. Money talks and the rest of us have the sinking feeling of disenfranchisement. Bait and switch.

Amazing to see such generalizations. It’s kind of like racism. All “tea partiers” do not think alike. Plenty of real conservatives were disgusted with the way Dumbya turned into yet another big government lackey. And he could not have done what he did without some (or, in some cases, most) lemming (D)‘s going along with it. (see: Iraq War)

Most people are rightly disgusted when someone says “All French people are cowards”. But in politics, it seems to be a super way to attack.

“...When a black man was elected President and decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick…”

Now that is hilarious. Talk about twisting the rhetoric. What the (D)‘s did is fake a pass to a public option while making back door deals with insurance lobbyists to mandate the purchase of health insurance from for profit companies. When Barack H. Obama was campaigning, one of the few differences b/w him and Chllery was the fact that Zero even ran TV ads against her claiming he was steadfastly against mandatory insurance. Who could blame most for not remembering that, many Americans have the memory retention of a gnat. (See how much fun it is to generalize?)

Something never done before: Turning the commerce clause from the original intent into a rational for forced commerce. Unbelievable. And unconstitutional.

Don’t you cheerleaders realize that if this power is unchecked the (R)‘s will use it to mandate the purchase of other things? You won’t have a problem with mandated shotgun purchases because a house with a shotgun is safer than one without?

If Barack H. Obama had done even a quarter of what he campaigned on (Remember Real Change) people would be walking across broken glass to vote (D). But he didn’t, and now his party will reap what was sown.

It really is that simple.

kt2kelly:well done!

Message for the Teabaggers!!

You didn’t get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President. 

You didn’t get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate Energy policy and push us to invade Iraq . 

You didn’t get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.

You didn’t get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.   

You didn’t get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.  You didn’t get mad when we spent over 800 billion (and counting) on said illegal war.   

You didn’t get mad when Bush borrowed more money from foreign sources than the previous 42 Presidents combined.     

You didn’t get mad when over 10 billion dollars in cash just disappeared in Iraq .     

You didn’t get mad when you found out we were torturing people.     

You didn’t get mad when Bush embraced trade and outsourcing policies that shipped 6 million American jobs out of the country.

You didn’t get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.     

You didn’t get mad when we didn’t catch Bin Laden.

You didn’t get mad when Bush rang up 10 trillion dollars in combined budget and current account deficits.     

You didn’t get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.   

You didn’t get mad when we let a major US city, New Orleans drown.   

You didn’t get mad when we gave people who had more money than they could spend, the filthy rich, over a trillion dollars in taxbreaks. You didn’t get mad with the worst 8 years of job creations in several decades.   

You didn’t get mad when over 200,000 US Citizens lost their lives because they had no health insurance.   

You didn’t get mad when lack of oversight and regulations from the Bush Administration caused US Citizens to lose 12 trillion dollars in investments, retirement, and home values.   

No…..You finally got mad

When a black man was elected President and decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick.

Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, job losses by the millions, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, and the worst economic disaster since 1929 are all okay with you, but helping fellow Americans who are sick…Oh, Hell No!!

What is the tea party?

It is the chrystal meth of the far right.

rico

It was a rant against the poor.

You know, ‘I hate those lousy desperate people gobbling up the delicacies offered to them at the end of the stick. Why can’t they just be happy in their crummy low rent housing like good little nothings, and not be tempted by lies and promises for a better life.’

By Fat Freddy, October 23 at 2:58 am Link to this comment

provide for the general welfare.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Promote the general welfare.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewwv7RyMxAk

Get a clue

I would point out that section 8 of article 1 of the constitution says:

“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and PROVIDE FOR THE COMMON DEFENSE AND GENERAL WELFARE OF THE UNITED STATES”

Let’s get down to basics:

The Tea Party is a lumpen proletariat group of underedicated mostly white once-middle-class self-styled “patriots” who are very fearful—maybe hysterical—and looking for a leader.

They have little or no idea of what to do except to destroy their opposition. That they refer back to colonial days means they are reactive, not proactive.

Fear, prejudice, ignorance and reaction are a combination dangerous to democratic government.
As we don’t have democratic government right now, we need not fear that they will destroy it.  It is destroying itself.  What we need to beware of is that they will form a less democratic government, a more exclusionary, fearful, reactive, authoritarian government, more oppressive government than we have now.  Which is saying something!

Vote.  Participate. Visit local offices of Congress persons.  Write letters to local editors.  Join with people who are doing something about ending wars and dirty energy.  Love your kids—and theirs—and mine. Do no harm.

” Many have tried to answer that question ever since CNBC’s Rick Santelli first launched the backlash with his trading-floor rant against the poor.”

Gee… Dave… I’m not sure it was a rant against the poor… Dave.

It was a rant against people who got in over their heads with bad mortgages, for whatever reason- greedy banks or Barney Frank’s false promises- and expected taxpayers to bail them out. Poor people can’t afford to buy houses. That’s a definition of “poor”.

So… Dave… for you to start your article with that red herring demonstrates your total misunderstanding of the Tea Party.

The Tea Party professes to support issues which are in direct conflict with the representatives they support.

Again, it depends on which Tea Party you are talking about. What the Tea Parties claim to be an advantage of the movement, no centralized platform or leadership, is actually a liability. It is exactly this lack of leadership that has led to so many inconsistencies within the movement.

Personally, I have been trying to influence the real Ron Paul libertarians in the C4L to rejoin the Libertarian Party. The LP has a solid platform of limited government based on real principles. In fact, the LP’s lack of popularity and accomplishment is partially the result of an unwillingness to sacrifice its principles for temporary political gains. however, the LP is growing in popularity. The LP holds 180 elected positions, and has over 800 on the ballot this year. Sure, most of them are very low, local positions, but that’s how you build a real political movement, and party; from the ground, up.

What the Tea Parties is doing is very similar to what Ronald Reagan did. In the late 70s, the LP was gaining ground, and had a few members in Congress. When Reagan hit the scene, he used a lot of libertarian rhetoric to advance his cause, but did not adhere to libertarian principles. He was a Republican, after all. Reagan, like the Tea Parties, have distorted libertarian principles by picking and choosing which ones they want to adhere to. Real libertarians belong in the Libertarian Party, not the statist, Republican Party.

FF:

The Ron Paul faction of the TP is now irrelevant.  Pity, that, because it least it had a defensible position and probably, actually believed what it said.  Even Paul’s kid, Rand is not part of Dad’s wing of the TP.  Ron Paul is not the voice of the Tea Party when Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, John Boehner, Michelle Bachmann, Carl Palladino and Christine O’Donnell are.

The argument made in the article is that Feingold is far closer to the check-list of the TeaParty agenda than his opponent except: He’s Democratic and (clearly) not Christian.

Thus the Ron Paul Tea Partiers are like true Conservatives—you gotta search far and wide to find the few that remain.

Fat Freddy

So what? 

The Cato Institute makes no bones about its ideological position.  The Tea Party professes to support issues which are in direct conflict with the representatives they support.

kerryrose

Cato and Reason are also funded by David Koch. So what? Besides, real libertarians split from the “Rand Cult” in the early 70s, when Rand excommunicated Murray Rothbard for not divorcing his Protestant wife.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard23.html

How many left wing organizations are funded by corrupt labor unions?
See: George Norcross III (“King George III”) and Steve Sweeney.

Sirota is so clever to tie Tea Party rethoric to reality.  It couldn’t be clearer.  Either the Tea Party’s platform is a cover, or they are completely ignorant of the direction the corporate leaders of their group are taking them.

The dominant Tea Party is currently, not the Rand supporters, but FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity which are funded by the Koch brothers.

Inherit The Wind

It depends which Tea Party you are talking about. There are a large number of Ron Paul supporters in the Tea Party that feel that they can transform the Republican Party. They (RP supporters) are mostly, anti-war, pro-gay marriage and pro-gay adoption, pro-immigration, “tolerant” (for lack of a better word) of Muslims, against all government subsidies and foreign aid, and pro-marijuana legalization.

Yes, Feingold voted against the Patriot Act. He was only one of two Senators who actually got a chance to read the Bill before it was voted on. Paul Wellstone was the other, and he abstained (NV).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNRSs6LsGeI
(edited)

Where is the ever-ready-to-defend-the-Tea-Party-as-non-partisan-GRYM?  I hear the crickets chirping?

If the TeaParty really were what they claimed to be they wouldn’t support Feingold.  Hell, they wouldn’t support Palladino, who rented to Gay nightclubs, including one run by his son. They wouldn’t support their darling, Michelle Bachmann, because she took over a quarter million in farm subsidies.

It’s all a big phony. They are primarily Republicans, Fundamentalist Christians, and racists, with a few g-strings of the odd non-White, non-Christian to keep the obvious from being completely naked.

And they’ll win anyway, because Americans are now just about the dumbest, laziest and most ignorant voters on the planet.

Sorry, that was the sort version.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev6uKDfe7mw&feature=fvw

provide for the general welfare.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Promote the general welfare.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewwv7RyMxAk

Get a clue

The US Government is a bloated behemoth running out of control, threatening the rights of individuals. Most Tea Partiers would agree with this. So would many progressives. But the right does not understand the value and purpose of government as something more than a necessary evil. They cherish notions of individual freedom they believe they hold in common with the 18th Century founders, and they resent any government intrusion in the “private sector” as an abridgment of their unalienable rights. These people imagine themselves to be reincarnations of Jefferson’s ideal of the yeoman farmer. A rapacious individual like Johnson is seen as a role model of the swashbuckling individual exercising his right to get rich.

The stupidity of this outlook is self-evident, yet one cannot educate a mass of people about the differences between the 18th Century and the 21st, or the irrelevance of a cultural ideal like yeoman farmer in a political campaign. To argue for the “public interest” and the role of government in defending and supporting community is useless when dealing with rabid individualists who have never paid much attention to the Preamble of the Constitution and the mandate to provide for the general welfare.

They will throw out the baby with he bath water in their angry rejection of this bloated behemoth, that we can all agree is out of control. The people on the right feel deeply disillusioned about their government to he point they don’t believe it is their government, and the same is true for many on the left, who vote, write their representatives, all to no avail.

The government represents itself and the special interests who can afford to put it to work for them. It no longer functions in the public interest. People who want something from Feingold, all those fine policies he represents, don’t get it, and it isn’t his fault. He can’t be bought or intimidated, but most of his colleagues can.

If Feingold fails to get reelected, it is an indication of broad disillusionment with government itself. And this is not his fault. Call it systemic failure. In France, the people are in the streets because they still believe in government, that it can be THEIR government. They have political faith in France. It’s a different story here. Government does not work here in the public interest. Feingold represents an idea of the public interest, but he can’t deliver. So, the right in its Reaganite daydream will take us on down the dark road to corporate fascism and that can only mean misery for the greatest part of the people.