Whose Cup of Tea is this really?

Got tired of scattering all the news about our newest US third party movement, the Tea Party, around several different threads, and decided they warrant their own. So since this is their big day, April 15th, the last day to file one's federal income tax, and they'll be demonstrating en masse no doubt with various amounts of drama, here with no further ado is your thread for all things Tea.

Thought I'd kick things off with this excellent, not-too-long bipartisan attempt at understanding these folks from one of the best (and most) progressive sites around, The Nation:
How to Talk to a Tea Party Activist
Here's a snip:

Like all social movements, the tea party wave is not monolithic. There are hard-core libertarians, white supremacists and partisan Republicans that are not interested in dialogue. But in my conversations with rank-and-file tea party activists, there are important points of common ground.

Many participants have seen their personal economic security devastated by the economic meltdown. They are worried about their tax bills, national debt and the economy their children will inherit. They feel isolated and the tea party is a community....

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The article goes on to list areas of agreement and disagreement, and some possible solutions to the problems that have caused the party to form, and that both sides need to address. Worth a read, as it's short and to the point, if you have an interest.

I think they're a bunch of idiots. That's my bias.

What would help me is knowing what they actually stand for. Less taxes? Everyone in the world wants to pay less taxes. Smaller government? What does it mean? I don't want ideology, I mean what exactly are they planning on cutting out of the government? Programs to feed hungry children? Subsidies for ecologically helpful equipment upgrades? Education? Are they actually interested in rolling back that fucking Medicaid Part D that so may of them and their parents are surely benefiting from? Which part of government do they want to shrink, besides any subsidies to non-white people? Cutting those out alone won't fix our deficit.

The reason it's so easy to label them as idiots is that the issues where they come together are just simplistic slogans and shouting no and talking about keeping their guns and their religion. So what does the Tea Party really want to do, besides get rid of all those fat cats in Washington and purify the soul of our country?

Seriously, what's their plan?

Deleted because it was an oversimplification.

Let's hear it for oversimplification!

As you well know, there's far more to the federal budget than defense, social security, interest on the debt, and medicare. You add all the other crap up and you've still got around a third of the total spending, hardly roundoff error. So PJ's leading question simply doesn't hold water. Not to mention that there are certainly cuts in entitlement programs that can be made without eliminating them. If you look at the more libertarian side of the equation, they want to make cuts in defense as well by shutting down foreign bases--ending the long tradition of allowing Europe to skimp on their own defense spending by borrowing ours.

Not quite so simple, is it?

dteowner said:

Let's hear it for oversimplification!

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Retracted. I don't want to get into this discussion anyway.

magerette said:

The article goes on to list areas of agreement and disagreement, and some possible solutions to the problems that have caused the party to form, and that both sides need to address. Worth a read, as it's short and to the point, if you have an interest.

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Not a bad take, although the "evil corporations" paradigm starts to show thru pretty badly at the end.

Am I the only one that finds all the leftie "evil corporation" nonsense tremendously hypocritical? Who put out this article? Employees of a corporation. Think they're ready to give up those jobs since "evil corporations" shouldn't get our support? Yeah, I didn't think so. Think they'll celebrate if their corporation closes its doors, cheering the death of another tyrant? No so much, eh?

Let's hear it for strawmen.

Hey, dte: I've got a proposal for you. I'm ready to talk politics with you, on any topic of your choice. However, only if we do it according to the following format:

1. You state your position.

2. I restate your position, in my own words, to demonstrate that I understand it.

3. If, in your opinion, I have correctly understood your position, we proceed to step 4. Else you correct my misunderstanding, and we go back to step 2, and repeat this process until you're satisfied that I fully understand your position. During this phase, I'm not allowed to criticize your position, compare it to my position, nor defend my position.

4. We repeat steps 1-3, but with the roles reversed.

5. Only once both of us are satisfied that the other has fully understood the other's position, *and not before,* we will proceed to debate them — you're free to attack my position and defend yours, and vice versa.

You game?

(BTW, this is the traditional debate format among Tibetan Buddhist scholars, in case you're curious where I got it.)

Good article, Mags. I really wonder if it accurately summarizes the views and intent of most tea partiers or is it a simplification or idealization? It seems to ignore a lot of the crap Palin talks about when addressing their conventions and is cheered on by. I don't know if they are really as cohesive as this article states...

dteowner said:

Not a bad take, although the "evil corporations" paradigm starts to show thru pretty badly at the end.

Am I the only one that finds all the leftie "evil corporation" nonsense tremendously hypocritical? Who put out this article? Employees of a corporation. Think they're ready to give up those jobs since "evil corporations" shouldn't get our support? Yeah, I didn't think so. Think they'll celebrate if their corporation closes its doors, cheering the death of another tyrant? No so much, eh?

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Actually, the Nation isn't much of a corporation. It's funded by subscribers and is non-profit:

The Nation is a weekly nonprofit United States periodical devoted to politics and culture, self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, at the start of Reconstruction as a supporter of the victorious North in the American Civil War, it is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the US….The Nation has lost money in all but three or four years of operation and is sustained in part by a group of more than 30,000 donors called The Nation Associates who donate funds to the periodical above and beyond their annual subscription fees.

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(wikipedia)
Sorry to spoil a good rant, though.

Do you think the evil corporation meme could have something to do with the fact that a lot of corporations actually *are* rather evil? That they spend billions swaying legislation and regulation their way, dodge their taxes, make obscene profits while their employees' wages remain static and their benefits decrease, and buy Senators and Congresspeople by the gross(no pun intended)? Let me refer you to Massey and Enron, Lehman Bros and so forth just for starters.

I've worked for a few good companies, but they were all small mom and pop businesses, and believe me, mom and pop wanted you to work like they were your own personal mom and pop. But they also did appreciate your work. The big guys—you're like a fist in a bucket of water; once you take it out, the bucket is just the same, and the harder you work, the more you need to work harder.

That's my take anyway, and I have the paystubs to prove it.

Thrasher said:

Good article, Mags. I really wonder if it accurately summarizes the views and intent of most tea partiers or is it a simplification or idealization? It seems to ignore a lot of the crap Palin talks about when addressing their conventions and is cheered on by. I don't know if they are really as cohesive as this article states…

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Nah, I think it sugar coats the movement, myself. But I think there probably are some people in it drawn to the stop spending message who do deserve not to be labeled by the kook-end company they keep, and who are looking for a way to change things for the better. My personal bias, and where I pretty much agree with Yeesh's post above, is that the vast majority of the people involved are cluelessly angry, they're born followers, and Fox is the leader.

Yeah, that's my impression too. Can't categorize them all the same.

The way I read all this (which is probably not correct, but close at least), I think it started with people being pissed off by the economy, their situations, and the bailouts, and then the GOP strategists and corporatists and Fox and other parasites got involved and it became a mess, and started really attracting the wack jobs.

Prime Junta said:

(BTW, this is the traditional debate format among Tibetan Buddhist scholars, in case you're curious where I got it.)

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Fwiw, it's also a favorite sequence in marriage counseling, for couples who have a hard time listening to and understanding each other.

The alternative being to use a piece of 2x4 to bring them to their senses!! I've obviously done too much counselling in my time!!!!

take a look at this on teaparty goers, may wake up a few brain cells. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4hM4aFYOEQ

Nate Silver @ 538.com takes a look at the recent NYT/CBS poll of the 18% of those who identify with the TP. (This is the one that found them better off financially and educationally than had been expected.) The original piece in the NYT is all text and rather dense, so here's the graph that Nate's worked up instead:



Nate makes the point in his analysis that it doesn't seem to be about the usual social issues(abortion, etc) so much as a general feeling of being disenfranchised:

…The tea-partiers skew older and college-educated: that's basically the cable news demographic.

Their viewpoints, too, reflect the general tenor of FOX News, whose hosts frequently assert that Obama is socialist or extremely liberal, but are often circumspect in providing evidence for those claims. The tea-partiers, likewise, are deeply distrustful and in fact quite angry at government — but have more trouble at putting their finger on exactly why. They aren't especially likely to want Roe versus Wade overturned, for instance, or to favor restricted rights for gays, or to be preoccupied with illegal immigration, or to think their taxes are unfair, or to want Medicare and Social Security undone. It's mostly, rather, in the way that all these events fit into their meta-narrative about American society, a society which they see as leaving them increasingly victimized and disempowered.

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magerette said:

Nate makes the point in his analysis that it doesn't seem to be about the usual social issues(abortion, etc) so much as a general feeling of being disenfranchised:

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...which is always, ALWAYS the ground from which populist reactionary movements grow.

Come to think of it, the Tea Partiers are uncannily like our right-wing populist movements, from the French Front National to our very own Perussuomalaiset. Now you know what it's like here...

Hmm. Maybe there's hope for you pinkos after all.

Had another chance to listen to Tea Party candidate and libertarian Rand Paul tonight (being interviewed on the excessively lefty Rachel Maddow Show, where strangely enough, he first announced his intentions of running for Congress awhile back—politics, strange bedfellows and all that— )anyway, I've slightly revised my original take on him after listening to him adroitly avoid being pinned down by Rachel, who is a very persistent and sometimes abrasively aggressive interviewer. He's much smarter and more politically adroit than my first impressions indicated, and comparing him to Palin was way off base. But I think I see a snag.

The man is sincere. He even appears to be painfully unwilling to lie about his positions, though he has the rudimentary avoidance survival skills necessary to any kind of politician. I agreed with almost nothing he said, substantively, but came away really respecting him as someone with principles and firm beliefs however, imo, misguided and simplistic. He has a great deal of force of character, and motivation, and even a smallish bit of charisma, but here's the snag. He really truly is an outsider ethically, meaning it looks like he has some. I don't think he's been bent. (Could be wrong of course. I kind of thought that about Obama and I was definitely off base there.)

Which leaves us with two potential outcomes. Either he transforms at least to some extent the political Augean stables he's diving into with his libertarian pitchfork in hand, or it transforms him into just another producer of the all-enveloping muck. Really, I wish him well. Maybe he can eke out a spot for himself (always assuming he beats the generic dem in November) similar to his father, or on my side, Bernie Sanders, the Lone Socialist.

I don't see much chance of his core philosophy getting much traction, or too many more like him in the Tea-hadist ranks, but it's nice to have *anyone* in office these days who's able to think of something beyond shilling for big interests and lining his or her own pockets.


Link to interview
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show#37244354

@mags: if your choice nowadays is between pathological liars and sincere fanatics, you have a problem.

Prime Junta said:

@mags: if your choice nowadays is between pathological liars and sincere fanatics, you have a problem.

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Oh, we definitely have a problem, but after months of listening to sheer non-thought and knee-jerk opposition with absolutely no ideas or coherent philosophy behind it, sincere and focused fanaticism is a nice change in an opponent. Also I found his flat repudiations of racism refreshing after other Tea Party nonsense like this:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsme..._leader_islam_is_a_7th_century_death_cult.php

Plus, he's already jumped on the biggest third rail in American politics(opposing the Civil Rights Act,) and the net result is going to be that the real underlying denouncement of the automatic evils of central government as an entire political ideology may finally get the scrutiny it needs to discredit it, which would be well worth a little Tea in the soup.