Over and over again, I've warned that the Tea Party represents a serious threat to our democracy:
July 20, 2010: “The Tea Party is Coming!
The Democratic Party’s frantic appeals for help are like closing the barn door after the horse got away: It’s not more money they need, it’s the courage to form a Social Democratic Party that will stand up to the Republicans and deal with terrorism with a cool head.
Before the Tea Party takes over.”
August 2, 2010: “An Open Letter to Vice-President Joe Biden
The Tea Party talks about taking back ‘our’ government. But when the right goes out for rifle practice, it’s getting ready to take back ‘its’ government.
It’s not gonna be people power. They’re gonna stop paying taxes because taxes benefit welfare moms. They’re gonna do away with social security because folks who’ve been clever with their money shouldn’t need a common pot.
They might actually ‘bring the boys home’ from wherever they’re fighting when the Tea Party comes to power, because they’re gonna need them on the frontier – I mean the border. They’re gonna need them to round up all the immigrants and ship them back to wherever they came from (Hitler shipped ‘inferior’ peoples to concentration camps and gas chambers, but our Tea Partiers are just gonna ship them back to wherever they came from, even if there’s nothing to eat there.)
So Joe – and Barack and Nancy, and John and Howard – quit holding your hands out. It’s unseemly. Money can’t buy spine. And if you don’t get it, hopefully ‘the people’ – who thought you had it – are gonna realize they don’t need more voices in the wilderness, but a top-down organization like a Tea Party – or a Politburo. Before the glaciers melt, the sea rises, the oil and gas wells and electric lines come tumbling down, leaving us without even a fridge to keep a people’s dinner in.”
September 25, 2010: “The Worst Inequality
As we head toward the mid-term elections, progressives will wring their hands in vain until some of its fat cats put their money where their inner beliefs are, breaking the spell of Seditions Acts, HUAC, (think McCarthy), and un-Americanism.
As the Tea Party gobbles up what’s left of the Republican Party, Goebbels would be proud. At first it seemed that the Palin-inspired movement would declare itself a Third Party, with good chances of winning elections as an emanation of one of the two established parties. Either because they didn’t believe a third party could win, or because they feared it just might this time, the leaders of the Grand Old Party, caved and joined the rebels.”
October 4th, 2010: “The Incredible Docility of the American Left
The opprobrium of ‘mob rule’ that attached to the bloody French Revolution has prevented Americans from taking literally their own Declaration of Independence which states: “Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of (the pursuit of life liberty and happiness), it is the citizens’ right, it is their duty, to throw off such a government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
Instead, American progressives can only murmur disapproval when Tea Party candidates threaten to resort to ‘Second Amendment rights’, which owes its existence to the need for a militia with which to defend against the British, but which they claim allows every citizen to carry a gun with which potentially to eliminate leaders they resent.”
April 9, 2011: “A Salami Republic
Coming on the heels of the Wisconsin governor’s fight to eliminate the collective bargaining rights of government workers, the barely avoided federal government shutdown over the Tea Party’s determination to eliminate as much social spending as possible should cause Americans to revisit the rise of Hitler.
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Conflicting ideals and concepts do not make it easy for Americans to see the implications of what is going on in their own country. The Tea Party would be a passing phenomenon were it not the child of a thirty-year long incubation by right-wing libertarians determined to limit democracy in the most powerful country. The budget crisis that has just come to an end, heralded by the attack on labor in Wisconsin and other states, utilized the same methods by which Hitler turned the Weimar Republic into a totalitarian state.
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Taken individually, each cut may seem justified by our dire financial situation and basic good housekeeping. But seen side by side with the policies the President has consistently bid the country adopt, they are ominous; and more will come. The longer-term agreement will cut spending in the current 2011 fiscal year by about $38 billion, including $17.8 billion from benefit programs, known as ‘entitlements’. The Tea Party doesn’t think citizens are ‘entitled’ to anything but security protection from the government.”
Do a Google search on "Tea Party Rally", then on the left of the screen choose to see images only. Take note of the composition of the Tea Party at these rallies. Most liberal commentators take note of their being virtually no African American representation. I, however, note what these "white" people look like. They look like Anytown, USA residents at a Memorial Day parade.
ReplyDeleteWhat does that mean? Well they don't look like the Koch brothers, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, or any of the 1%. I think the vast majority of those belonging to one of the Tea Parties is being duped. Being used. See how lovingly they feel about the Tea Party if they have an accident and can't work anymore. How about the seniors at these Tea Party rallies? Do they receive Social Security? Medicare? Do they want to give that up?
For the mid to low income members of the Tea Party, they really need to ask these questions, research exactly what the Tea Party believes and is up to, and decide if they truly belong in such an organization.