Analysis: The Tea Party

[Mangrove]

Submitted for approval/comment/mockery etc:


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_tea_party_revolution_in_the_states;_ylt=Air8ViTtADX8IKHaIUeHY6es0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTQ5bmwxNzluBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwNDA1L3VzX3RlYV9wYXJ0eV9yZXZvbHV0aW9uX2luX3RoZV9zdGF0ZXMEY2NvZGUDbW9zdHBvcHVsYXIEY3BvcwM0BHBvcwMxBHB0A2hvbWVfY29rZQRzZWMDeW5faGVhZGxpbmVfbGlzdARzbGsDNXRoaW5nc3Rva25v

[Doktor Howl]

4. TEA PARTY SUPPORTERS HAVE NO DEFINING ISSUE

Except that Black people all come from Kenya.

[Cain]

This seems like padding.  All it is says is "the Tea Party is a gigantic jumble of groups and issues and we can't be bothered to explain it to you".  That's not really an analysis.  In fact, it's kinda the opposite.

[Mangrove]

This seems like padding.  All it is says is "the Tea Party is a gigantic jumble of groups and issues and we can't be bothered to explain it to you".  That's not really an analysis.  In fact, it's kinda the opposite.

The impression I got was "they're not a real party and thus, they won't gain any lasting political traction". The tone of the article seemed 'don't worry about it, they're just wingnuts passing in the night'.

[Cramulus]

so the tea party is a decentralized movement

which means that it's hard to stop it, hard to predict where it's going, and prone to fracture.



if a tea party camp succeeds in making them into a political party, we'll see a bunch of them jump ship onto something else. And I wonder what that would be.

Decentralized also means that, shit, WE could be tea partiers, because nobody gets to say who's in the party or not.

[Mangrove]

Tea Party - a joke disguised as politics or politics disguised as a joke?

[Telarus]

 

[johnnybrainwash]

so the tea party is a decentralized movement

which means that it's hard to stop it, hard to predict where it's going, and prone to fracture.



if a tea party camp succeeds in making them into a political party, we'll see a bunch of them jump ship onto something else. And I wonder what that would be.

Decentralized also means that, shit, WE could be tea partiers, because nobody gets to say who's in the party or not.

Having spent years in movements that prided themselves on being decentralized and leaderless, I think you've just summed up their basic weaknesses, especially the last line. Isn't there a Tea Party on the ballot in Nevada that all the teabaggers are decrying as not one of theirs?

These folks are more of a threat than most decentralized movements, mostly because of their backing in parts of the media and political establishments (not to mention their worship of the phallus, er, rifle), but the basic weaknesses remain.

[Jenne]

In their weakness, though, is their strength.  The many-headed hydra is hard to defeat--when you lop off one, here springs up another.  And they can conform to many different molds, something the ossified Democrats and Republicans find hard to do without causing major commotion among their ranks.  If you have a REAL closely-defined targeted action in the area of CHANGE for either party, the very foundation is broken, because like as not that change won't be seen as organic enough and therefore weakens the movement as a whole.

Whereas the Teabaggers are crying out for CHANGE, ANY CHANGE, as long as it's not the status quo.  What they are told and what they accept is that they NEED change and have to HAVE it NOW, otherwise they'll DIE, their very existence is in  jeopardy. 

It's a harnessing not of direction but of emotion.

That's one thing all these Teabagging factions have in common:  the out-of-control wangsty whining that easily turns into mob action.

It's a powerful tool that in the wrong hands will wreak havoc on any sort of peace of mind you could have legislatively/grassrootswise.

But hell, maybe we need Teabaggin' fools.  They can become the detritus, separate the wheat from chaff, politically.  I mean, shit, any movement that makes Sarah Palin their mouthpiece ain't moving toward anything but teh real dumb...where they'll be forever parodied and cause constant lulz and lail for entertainment, if nothing else.

[Cain]

http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=565866 is a far better analysis than anything you will see in the news:

"You know when I was a little boy, there was an old negro farmer that lived down the road from us, named Monroe. He was ... (subtle laugh), I guess he was just a little more luckier than my daddy was. He bought himself a mule.

It was a big deal in round that town. Now my daddy hated that mule. Cause, his friends were always kidding him about, "They saw Monroe out plowing with his new mule and Monroe is going to rent another field now he had a mule."

One morning that mule showed up dead. They poisoned the water. After that, there wasn't any mention about that mule around my daddy. It just never came up. One time we were driving down that road and we passed Monroe's place and we saw it was empty. He just packed up and left, I guess, he must of went up north or something.

I looked over at my daddy's face, I knew he done it. He saw that I knew. He was ashamed. I guess he was ashamed. He looked at me and said, "If you ain't better than a nigger son, who are you better than?"" – Agent Anderson, Mississippi Burning

And welcome to the Tea-hadist mindset. With Barack Obama in charge...who are you going to be better than?

And don't think some of us recognize the symptom because we are a pack of condescending know-it-all asshats. We are...but that has fuck-all to do with the observation.

It's just that we have seen this before. Up North...in our so-called "enlightened" neck of the woods.

Want to know the difference between North and South? Well, a man once told me that up North, it is OK to have a Black as your boss, but you will be damned if you will have one for a neighbor. Down South, it is OK to have a Black neighbor...but you will damned if you will have one as a boss.

So we went through all this Tea Party nonsense up North, about 20-30 years ago. And the reaction was just as vehement, inarticulate, and dumb as what is being spewed now. If you want to see hate and spittle, you should have seen how South Boston reacted to school integration.

But you would not have seen it 24/7 as you do today. It happened...but not in a perpetual echo chamber. And thank Christ for that.

And if you think the enlightened liberal North embraced integrated housing with open hearts, think again, It was called "white flight" and it damn near emptied some cities. "Sure, we support integration...now excuse us while we move to the suburbs where those Zulus won't be able to spear us with their assegais."

But white flight was a safety valve. It kept the pressure at reasonable levels. It also prolonged it and led to new levels of stupidity, but you could, after all, vote with your feet. Many did. Many still do.

OK, the job front was a bit stickier. Northern Industry has always been (at least since the 1950's) largely integrated. Steel Mill owners don't give a fuck what your skin color is. Besides, you could only tell on the way into work, on the way out everybody pretty much looked the same.

But you always knew what hand you were playing, because the cards were mostly dealt face up. Your boss was still white. Your union steward was still white. Your mayor and your chief of police were still white. And, as much as it pains me to tell you this, Michael Steele did not run the GOP. And even if he did, at least up north, you went home at the end of the day to your own private Idaho in the suburbs, and played golf on the weekends at a club where Michael Steele was never going to get in. Well, not the front door

The workforce may have been integrated, but you still knew who you were better than. Nobody dared yell "You Lie!!" at a white boss.

And it continues, so click and read.

[Mangrove]

Thanks for the link Cain, I'll check that out on my break.

The quote you posted reminded me of a Malcolm X statement. Someone asked him about the South & the North and he replied something to the effect of - 'anywhere below Canada is THE SOUTH!'

[Jenne]

I'd agree "race relations" as they like to euphemize it are the largest part of the angstyness against Obama...but there's also a huge amount of disenfranchisement that the Red States KNOW they should be feeling when their good ol' boy George screwed them but good.  They just don't want to REALIZE that screwing was by HIM.  They're scapegoating the fuck out of history. 

[Mangrove]

Has anyone read 'What's the matter with Kansas'?

I was in a bookstore 2 weeks ago and the owner had the radio on. There was an interview about the guy who turned 'What's the matter with Kansas' into a movie. It was pretty interesting, so when I happened to snag a copy of the book for 50%, I was pretty pleased.

I've not got round to reading it yet, but the essential premise is that many people who support the GOP (especially in Kansas) are seemingly unaware that all the policies they support work directly against them.

[Kai]

And the thread (in the link) is immediately piled on by people who just don't get it. 

[Jenne]

Has anyone read 'What's the matter with Kansas'?

I was in a bookstore 2 weeks ago and the owner had the radio on. There was an interview about the guy who turned 'What's the matter with Kansas' into a movie. It was pretty interesting, so when I happened to snag a copy of the book for 50%, I was pretty pleased.

I've not got round to reading it yet, but the essential premise is that many people who support the GOP (especially in Kansas) are seemingly unaware that all the policies they support work directly against them.

And they wouldn't believe you if you told them, either.  That's the insidious nature of the type of people the GOP breeds into their midst.  They have a mind block against "Reality" as the rest of the mudball sees it.  It's quite frightening, and impossible, most times, to fight against.