demagogue on 21/10/2010 at 15:02
Quote Posted by Kuuso
I think the tea party is a healthy thing for US politics. You twats (sorry) have voted for two parties (or abstained from voting) for ages. They don't differ from each other really. For some reason US citizen seem to think you HAVE to vote for either one of them or your vote is invalid. That's why your politics seem weird to us Europeans (or us nordic people more precisely) sometimes, because we can choose from multiple parties that can get into the goverment instead of just chilling at parliament with one seat. That's why your green policies are behind times as well.
This doesn't have anything to do with people's opinion. It's a structural feature of having an entire district being awarded to the person with the plurality of the vote (so with 3 candidates, a 35% vote wins 100% of the district), rather than apportioning it by % of vote as in Europe (where 35% vote only wins 35% seats). A clever guy named Duverger worked out that a plurality system will (almost) always work out to a 2 Party system and a proportional system will always work out to a Multi-Party system, just by the simple math, logistics, & sociology of it, and called it Duverger's law. Except for a few rare times in history, it's worked like that (last successful 3rd Party in the US was the Republican Party during the Civil War, which became a major party thereafter).
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Anyways, if tea party keeps on growing, it might force the larger parties to put a stop to it. Hopefully that means actually good policies. Then again, the tea party leadership is prolly even more corrupted than the two parties so dunno.
Contrary to its title, the Tea Party isn't a political party at all. It's just a label for a widespread political sentiment. (Tea Party refers to a historical event; they could have called it the 2nd Whiskey Rebellion just as well.) There's no leadership (that isn't opportunistic, and even they can't actually speak for it), and no organization except they tend to drift towards some candidates over others. It's just the term to describe masses of people spontaneously getting together to yell about things, or yell at people around them in Renz's case.
What's probably going to happen (is happening) is the sentiments just get absorbed into the mainstream Republican Party, it gets watered down (after this election), the whole party moves right, Dems move to the center to fill the hole (& people like me who were raised centrist Republicans make the jump, though not 100% committed; actually ends up making them true independents, alienated from both parties), then you see some far left groups wanting to push their weight around and fight for ownership of the Dems (actually a perennial problem Dems have; all these myopic activist groups spatting for ownership).
Queue on 21/10/2010 at 15:02
40% of the American public honestly believe that Jesus will return within the next forty-years, because, according to those spouting off doom-and-gloom-end-days-bullshit, the "signs are there." If anyone wants to place a bet now, I'm giving out 60 to 1 odds. But this shows what kind of a country we live in. Too many of us are willingly to believe what they are told -- what they should believe -- and even more feed off of media sensationalism instead of thinking about an issue and reasoning things through. We've become a country where it is easier to let someone else do the thinking, and will get behind those whose rhetoric clicks with some basic deep-seated desire inside each of us to make a stand for or against something--whether true, logical, reasonable, sensible, for the greater good, etc., or not. And we will do so to the point of deep divisions, thus prompting an unwillingness to work together for the country as a whole among our elected officials; who are supposedly "acting in our interests" so they can maintain their job, yet remain wholly ineffectual.
But, the irony is that our elected officials are ineffectual by our ultimate apathy toward government. There is this general thought that the government is against us and we should rise up against them, until it comes time to go to the polls--when the attitude shifts to, "I have better things to do than go out and vote" or "My vote doesn't matter." In general, only about 55% of registered voters actually vote. So that means 45% are willing to just go along with the prevailing "voices at the moment", and will merrily bitch about it later. It's this attitude that fosters lunacy, and gives rise to movements like the Tea Party.
The Tea Party rhetoric taps into an overall desire to view government as evil, and keeps people busy hating both liberal and conservative (because it's just not conservative enough) ideologies instead of wondering why we shouldn't hate them as well -- they want to be a part of government, and government is evil, shouldn't that make them evil? But, the pass on this for the Tea Party is (as with religion) that "we are right."
But don't each camp view themselves as right, with the attitude of "You're either with us or against us."? And doesn't this, in turn, make our political parties and political lines more deeply entrenched, thus making an effective government more impossible? Which, of course, stokes the fires of division even further, and gives credence to more and more misplaced anger.
The problerm is, Americans want to be part of a popular voice more than having an effective government.
It's like when Obama took office. We were more than happy to elect the man on the notion of change. But, when any sort of change was attempted, the prevailing popular voice (i.e. those who scream foul the loudest) brought about feelings of contempt and hatred. Within the first 100 days, Conservative talking-heads were screaming, "WE HAVE TO TAKE THE COUNTRY BACK!" and suddenly all the ills brought upon the world were caused by Obama. But, weren't you the guys in power for the previous eight years, as opposed to 100 days? It's like the continuing war in Afghanistan -- it's now "Obama's War." Let's see, what day did we go to war in Afghanistan, hmmm? That'd be October 7, 2001 for those not keeping track. Yet, those screaming loud enough have convinced enough people to believe that Obama went to war. Then again, these are probably the same people who honestly believe that Iraqis flew the planes on 9/11, not the Saudis Al-Qaeda. Do they also know that Jesus is coming back in 2046?
We have become a country where our beliefs are quickly becoming our biggest downfall. It's not that beliefs are a bad thing, by far, but, it's a problem in that our beliefs are increasingly becoming wholly formulated by those willing to speak the loudest, and a consensus of those unwilling to think for themselves and who lack any sort of recollective abilities. We have been trained by media and pop culture to have short attention spans, encouraged to shun intelligence in our elected officials (remember, many Americans elected Bush II because he seemed like someone they could sit down with and have a beer. You know...one of us!), and by our own notion of "historical rebellion" to side with those who seem the angriest. We have been trained to pick sides.
Why?
It's this fraternal sense of belonging to a group that is driving our country into the gutter. It's these notions that my group and I are right (and I know we are because of everyone else in my group says so) that quell rational thinking. It's the same sort of thinking that led to McCarthyism here, to the Nazi party in Germany, to the Rwandan Genocide, to poor bastards at Jonestown drinking the Kool-Aid.
This dangerous desire to be part of the "right crowd" should raise warning flags recalling such dark days in history as these. The only problem with this that there are plenty of people who would once again go along with the likes of McCarthy, think Hitler missed a few Jews too many, that the Tutsis simply weren't dark enough, and that God would rather you poison the children than denounce his voice on Earth.
In the end, I hope Jesus comes back. I imagine he'll be pissed off for taking one on the cross for a bunch of lunatics.
Thirith on 21/10/2010 at 15:06
Queue, I wish I didn't agree with you more or less 100%.
To be honest, I'd rather have many of these people pull a Jonestown and drink the Koolaid than letting their need for a sense of belonging destroy other people's lives...
Queue on 21/10/2010 at 15:26
Quote Posted by Thirith
Queue, I wish I didn't agree with you more or less 100%.
It worries me, too.
Gingerbread Man on 21/10/2010 at 16:17
Good Lord, Queue. 10 points. :thumb:
Cokehead on 21/10/2010 at 17:25
Quote Posted by Fafhrd
And do you know why you absolutely
shouldn't vote for a Tea Partier? Because two years of these dipshits attempting to repeal health care and Wall Street regulatory reform, privatizing social security, switching us to the gold standard, and whatever the fuck else is two years too long. Yes, the President can and likely will veto any of that shit that gets through, but I'd rather he spent that time actually attempting to do something constructive, instead of creating the campaign ads for his opponent in 2012 ('Tea Party Senator X tried to lower
your taxes so that you could fill up the tank of your SUV and buy your family a deep-fried moose for dinner. President Obama said "NO." Senator X tried to take
back the money that President Obama gave to the fatcats on Wall Street. President Obama said "NO." Senator X tried to shut down the death panels. President Obama said "NO." Vote for Senator X. We need a president who says "YES," to America.')
I can sort of see that, but I think the more likely outcome is that the teabaggers wouldn't be able to get a consensus on anything at all. The variety of conspiracy theory-type beliefs in this group of individuals is amazingly broad. There are at least three different sets of New World Order-type belief that I've seen posted around the innertubes.
American voters have amazingly short memories, but I think having seen the tea party flaunt their stupid inside the halls of congress might be just enough to make them remember to vote a little more liberal next time. It might even make them hide the badge of ignorance that everyone seems to think is in vogue these days.
I think your argument about getting things done is a bit flawed, though. You assume that if either party got a majority that laws would get passed, rather than being endless debate. Think Progress pointed out a little bit ago that it would take ~2 years for congress to confirm all the various people that Obama's submitted to fill the vacancies within his administration because the Republican party demands full debate on every candidate.
Regardless of who wins, nothing's going to come out of Congress for the next two years. That's the way American politics is at the moment :/. So, given the chance, I'd vote for teabaggers - because at least Jon Stewart would have a wealth of material to work with, rather than the essential nothing that would be there otherwise.
Pardoner on 21/10/2010 at 18:27
Quote Posted by Cokehead
Jon Stewart would have a wealth of material to work with, rather than the essential nothing that would be there otherwise.
America has already provided him with more than he could possibly use.
CCCToad on 21/10/2010 at 22:51
To some extent though, what I see here is simply the same repeating of media mantras that everyone is criticizing.
Keep in mind that a lot of the disdain directed at the Tea Party isn't because they are saying something crazy, its because of WHO is saying the crazy things. Over the past decade, there's been quite a few nutty beliefs voiced on both sides. Quite a bit came out of the Bush administration, notably the idea that God supports invading Iraq and the idea that any government intrusion on civil liberties is acceptable as long as its to fight terrorism (much like Nazi Germany only used its powers when necessary to fight subversives and jews), and some on the left have made equally nutty statements (like the one advisor who believes animals should be able to sue humans).
The difference isn't the level of nuttiness, but WHO is exhibiting the nuttiness. Washington is quite tolerant of nuttiness, as long as the people saying it are part of the establishment. The outrage switch is only turned on when the nuttiness is coming from someone who lacks the wealth, ivy league credentials and/or political prestige to give them beltway acceptance.
Greenwald, who (as you all know) I am a major fan of, came to the same conclusion:
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My point isn't that Ron Paul is not crazy; it's that those who self-righteously apply that label to him and to others invariably embrace positions and support politicians at least as "crazy." Indeed, those who support countless insane policies and/or who support politicians in their own party who do -- from the Iraq War to the Drug War, from warrantless eavesdropping and denial of habeas corpus to presidential assassinations and endless war in the Muslim world -- love to spit the "crazy" label at anyone who falls outside of the two-party establishment.
Rug Burn Junky on 22/10/2010 at 00:36
Quote Posted by CCCToad
, and some on the left have made equally nutty statements (like the one advisor who believes animals should be able to sue humans).
Except for the fact that, you know, his stance is considerably more complex than that and not nutty when actually parsed. It's not even CLOSE to on the same level as the batshit insane ideas of W & co.
This is why you entirely miss the point of Greenwald's take on the subject matter.
He's basically said, "Yeah, these guys are fucking wingnuts, but the rest of the Republican party are just as wingnutty." ...and they have been for quite some time.
The thing with the Tea Party isn't that they are ideologically any less coherent than the GOP of the past 20 years, but that they don't know how to
appear sane, nor do they recognize the difference between outright hyperbole and actual policy. They've digested the hardcore conservative rhetoric cynically used to score political points in the media game, and believe that that extreme rhetoric is the basis for sound government.
As such, the Tea Party lays bare all of the fundamental flaws of the modern conservative movement - the contradictions and the hypocrisy that make them unfit for effective modern government.
