Taking Tea with the Lizards

[random3434]

A spot on commentary of America's New Third Party:

The Tea Party is the latest neoconservative end run around the possibility of a real third party emerging to threaten the status quo. To be honest, it's a brilliant political move, absorbing any energies that might have propelled a real third party. And, in true neocon fashion, it capitalizes on the working class' inchoate anger at the ongoing screwjob they've been getting from both parties for thirty years. The one escalated by Clinton's NAFTA, institutionalized as corporate theft by G.W. Bush, and polished to a high sheen by Obama's bailouts, as he brings home the bacon for those Wall Street syndicates running the economy.

Mobilizing the masses into a movement was never easy, and never harder than in America where moving the ever-expanding national ass toward anything other than the refrigerator is a job for a fork lift. Another way to do it is to adapt the national consciousness through installation of some new hot button by the state media. At the same time, installing a hot button in a significant portion of the national brain is mostly about simple repetition.

Joe Bageant: Taking Tea with the Lizards

 

[rightwinger]

Teabaggers will never start a third party

They would have to conform with election laws then. Not going to happen

 

[VaYank5150]

Not only that....but they would have to have intelligence and class. Never happen.

 

[Toro]

I disagree with the article. Whatever you might say about them, I don't think they're "neocons."

 

[Barb]

A spot on commentary of America's New Third Party:

The Tea Party is the latest neoconservative end run around the possibility of a real third party emerging to threaten the status quo. To be honest, it's a brilliant political move, absorbing any energies that might have propelled a real third party. And, in true neocon fashion, it capitalizes on the working class' inchoate anger at the ongoing screwjob they've been getting from both parties for thirty years. The one escalated by Clinton's NAFTA, institutionalized as corporate theft by G.W. Bush, and polished to a high sheen by Obama's bailouts, as he brings home the bacon for those Wall Street syndicates running the economy.

Mobilizing the masses into a movement was never easy, and never harder than in America where moving the ever-expanding national ass toward anything other than the refrigerator is a job for a fork lift. Another way to do it is to adapt the national consciousness through installation of some new hot button by the state media. At the same time, installing a hot button in a significant portion of the national brain is mostly about simple repetition.

Joe Bageant: Taking Tea with the Lizards

The sad truth is that the pent up emotion has little to do with feelings about health care, or taxes (when the hell has any working American not been against any kind of taxes?) but a helluva lot to do with all the shitty breaks, insult and degradation that come with being an underclass citizen of the empire. We are conditioned in much the same way a dog is trained to bite on command. It doesn't matter who gets bitten, just that the dog gets the satisfaction of biting somebody for a change, and that his master looks pleased when he does.


And this too:

But I cannot help but wish that the left end of the Democratic Party, the party that is alleged to represent the political left in this country, had half as much savvy as the neocon puppet masters who are manipulating ole Dale. The ones pulling the strings on Boucher, despite that Boucher comes packaged as a Democrat. Or chameleons like Joe Lieberman.

They say that if you put a chameleon on plaid it goes nuts. I dunno. But imagine what could happen if the Democrats were not sharing the same corporate industrial sheets with the Republicans.

Yup, that too. Sigh.

 

[Xenophon]

Using the phrase 'neocon' invalidates anything about the movement.

The fact remains that the left can't define the tea party movement because they don't understand it and sense its a threat to them, thus they fall back on what they do understand, ridicule and insults.

 

[SlateRockwell]

We all know the funding that the Democrats and Republican have. Anybody trying to start-up a new party doesn't stand a chance.

 

[xsited1]

A spot on commentary of America's New Third Party:
...
Joe Bageant: Taking Tea with the Lizards

You think it's 'spot on' or was that mentioned somewhere in the commentary that I missed?

He couldn't be more wrong. The Tea Party movement has attracted people who are angry with not only the Democrats, but the Neoconservative arm of the Republican Party. It's like the poor guy wrote it while drunk. And he's living in Mexico?

Too funny.

 

[ABikerSailor]

Please.........explain again why Bachman and her friend are withdrawing from the Tea Party Convention?

Oh yeah........greed and piss poor planning.

 

[Foxfyre]

I started a thread some time back based on a Rush Limbaugh monologue that made me stop and think. And I have seen since, including the piece starting this thread, that Rush isn't alone in his observations. Rush 100% supports the Tea Partiers, but he does not want them to split the conservative vote by organizing a third party. In his opinion, they would pull conservatives from the GOP, Independents, and Democrats sufficient to ensure radical leftwing Democrat control practically forever. Certainly long enough to finish the job of restructuring the country in a way that none of us are going to like.

I gently disagree with some of my friends here. I believe the Tea Partiers are going to be a force to reckon with and one that our leaders will ignore at their peril. I think they will be able to raise large sums of money and, if they can get their act together into a solid organization, would take a sizable percentage of the vote. But I agree with Rush and several others who have commented on this. They would split the conservative vote to ensure that liberals will be elected. Far better to reform and straighten up the GOP and convince it that it better clean up its act or we'll lose it all.

The lesson here is to approach with due caution and common sense.

 

[Xenophon]

The commentary is infantile and a rehash of the non sense that the town halls and tea party movement are astro turf.

Its no wonder we can't get along in this country anymore, some people can't even recognize genuine protest, they reduce everythiung to the insipid nonsense they think the other guy thinks, such as teaparty is 'neocon' and protests were unreal.

The commenatry is actually vile in its implications and ludicrous in its false conclusions.

It appears so many of us wasted our time all year explaining this, as we still see these rediculous threads posted with an obligitory 'spot on' for some thing that has no resemblance to the movement and what it means.

 

[L.K.Eder]

The commentary is infantile and a rehash of the non sense that the town halls and tea party movement are astro turf.

Its no wonder we can't get along in this country anymore, some people can't even recognize genuine protest, they reduce everythiung to the insipid nonsense they think the other guy thinks, such as teaparty is 'neocon' and protests were unreal.

The commenatry is actually vile in its implications and ludicrous in its false conclusions.

It appears so many of us wasted our time all year explaining this, as we still see these rediculous threads posted with an obligitory 'spot on' for some thing that has no resemblance to the movement and what it means.

this coming from someone who posts "rediculous" threads about how many times "barry" uses "i" in a speech, and a thread citing the "vile and ludicrous" commentary by heritage foundation hacks, equating it with evidence for "barry" fucking up america's image in the world.

what a pee-stained clown you are.

 

[Ravi]

I listened to the Diane Rehm show yesterday...one of the guests used the word teabagger. Later in the show a quavery voiced man called in to demand an apology because teabagger was a pejorative.

I thought the whole thing was pretty funny. Sensitive guy...and very pc.

 

[code1211]

The commentary is infantile and a rehash of the non sense that the town halls and tea party movement are astro turf.

Its no wonder we can't get along in this country anymore, some people can't even recognize genuine protest, they reduce everythiung to the insipid nonsense they think the other guy thinks, such as teaparty is 'neocon' and protests were unreal.

The commenatry is actually vile in its implications and ludicrous in its false conclusions.

It appears so many of us wasted our time all year explaining this, as we still see these rediculous threads posted with an obligitory 'spot on' for some thing that has no resemblance to the movement and what it means.

The TEA Party is a Rorschach Test for most of us. There is a deep and powerful discontent in this country and the TEA party has tapped into it.

EVERYBODY is aware that they are getting screwed and they are also aware that they don't really understand how to avoid it or to fight back. Come the TEA Party. Suddenly here's an outlet. TEA, Taxed Enough Already, to me, seems to be against higher taxes.

To just about anyone else, it seems to be against whatever is currently annoying that individual.

Politicians should watch this group if for no other reason to see what motivates a person to travel miles to hold up a sign. Passion sells.

 

[code1211]

I listened to the Diane Rehm show yesterday...one of the guests used the word teabagger. Later in the show a quavery voiced man called in to demand an apology because teabagger was a pejorative.

I thought the whole thing was pretty funny. Sensitive guy...and very pc.

Diane is an interesting lady. She is a dyed in the wool Liberal with a capital L goes into attack dog mode whenever a Libral idea is not strongly supported.

I thought she was about 1000 years old from her voice, but this is a medical condition and she fights through it to continue her on-air dialogues. Not to say that she's young, but she looks to be healthy and robust albeit a tad venerable.

The word "teabagger" is a perjorative, is intended by those who use it as a perjorative and is both disrespectful and a word that represents an act that most would find obscene.

If the guest had used the word "cocksucker", would an apology request also have been cause for curious amusement?

 

[Xenophon]

this coming from someone who posts "rediculous" threads about how many times "barry" uses "i" in a speech, and a thread citing the "vile and ludicrous" commentary by heritage foundation hacks, equating it with evidence for "barry" fucking up america's image in the world.

what a pee-stained clown you are.

Negged for stupidity, no further comment needed for such drivel.

 

[Xenophon]

The TEA Party is a Rorschach Test for most of us.

Its a test that many fail, as this thread illustrates.

There continues to be a strong portion of people who WANT AND NEED to believe that the movement is all about far right racists.

Both sides behave so similar to protests, during the many anti-war events I attended the people there were called unamerican, traitors, pinkos and commies.

We as a people have lost our abilty to to understand the feelings of those with different opinions then ourselves, thus we see this nonsense about calling them names and trying to label them.

 

[goldcatt]

If anybody fails to see the usual neocon suspects' hands behind the mainstreaming of the tea parties and some of the groups directing them and the people in them, you need your head examined.

That said, many individual tea partiers are of course not neocons and never were. Similar protests have been going on for decades, usually held by Libertarian and like minded groups. I have a lot of respect for those foilks, even though I don't agree with them. I have no respect for the usurpers who are co-opting a legitimate nonpartisan movement for partisan political gain - or stop loss, in this case.

Call me whatever names you like, but there is an obvious division in the movement between the core supporters and many of the organizers, as well as between the on-message protesters and those who are using the platform for their own agendas. I'm not sure the commentary in the OP is nuanced enough, but in many ways it is spot-on.

 

[L.K.Eder]

this coming from someone who posts "rediculous" threads about how many times "barry" uses "i" in a speech, and a thread citing the "vile and ludicrous" commentary by heritage foundation hacks, equating it with evidence for "barry" fucking up america's image in the world.

what a pee-stained clown you are.

Negged for stupidity, no further comment needed for such drivel.

how surprising.

you know, i just like to point out the vain self-righteous frauds with zero capability for introspection.

 

[ba1614]

The commentary is infantile and a rehash of the non sense that the town halls and tea party movement are astro turf.

Its no wonder we can't get along in this country anymore, some people can't even recognize genuine protest, they reduce everythiung to the insipid nonsense they think the other guy thinks, such as teaparty is 'neocon' and protests were unreal.

The commenatry is actually vile in its implications and ludicrous in its false conclusions.

It appears so many of us wasted our time all year explaining this, as we still see these rediculous threads posted with an obligitory 'spot on' for some thing that has no resemblance to the movement and what it means.

That's exactly it. We need to get people out of, (or better yet keep them out to begin with), politics who don't have the ability to accept it that not everyone is always going to agree with them.
Too much arrogance in Washington, and too many dummies in the rest of the country who'll follow along like the mice they are, with little regard to how fuckin' pathetic they look to most, while spewing the party line bullshit.