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Must-Read Profile of Tea Partiers and Friends
If you read one article today, spend 15 minutes with this report from the NYT re: the so-called “Tea Party” and (loosely) associated groups.
Though fueled by the rhetoric of Glenn Beck and others, many members of this movement do not articulate their gripes within a Democrat v. Republican matrix. The article contends that the most radical elements within the movement express not only ire for our current President but strong suspicions of the immediately prior President. In some quarters, they’re as upset with the Patriot Act as they are with efforts to reform health care …
In New Mexico, Mary Johnson, recording secretary of the Las Cruces Tea Party steering committee, described why she fears the government. She pointed out how much easier it is since Sept. 11 for the government to tap telephones and scour e-mail, bank accounts and library records. “Twenty years ago that would have been a paranoid statement,” Ms. Johnson said. “It’s not anymore.”
Maybe the article is an over-reaction. Maybe I’m over-reacting to an over-reaction. Regardless, it seems you’d have to be more-than-slightly medicated to not find lines like these, from the article’s conclusion, chilling …
Mrs. Stout said she has begun to contemplate the possibility of “another civil war.” It is her deepest fear, she said. Yet she believes the stakes are that high. Basic freedoms are threatened, she said. Economic collapse, food shortages and civil unrest all seem imminent.
“I don’t see us being the ones to start it, but I would give up my life for my country,” Mrs. Stout said.
She paused, considering her next words.
“Peaceful means,” she continued, “are the best way of going about it. But sometimes you are not given a choice.”
60 Responses to “Must-Read Profile of Tea Partiers and Friends”
I'm not sure if I should respond, because you seem to be arguing with a straw man more than me. Where did you see me call the MSM liberal, or non-conservative, or even monolithic? Others did, of course, but you should respond to them, not me. I called it “baby food which is fit only for spoon feeding, McNews, a bit of substance buried in fluff.”, which I thought obviously meant simple-minded.
Apparently, many social conservatives liked Bush, or at least still gave him favorable marks, because his poll ratings didn't go to 0. But he was the most unpopular president we've had in my lifetime, and caused some real damage to the Republican label, unless you'd like to argue otherwise.
“Clinton was not bad because he turned right, he was bad because he turned corporatist like Bush the elder before him.”
Among the farther left critics of Obama, Thom Hartmann seems to me the best to have expressed such a view and has noticed it about Obama, especially after “progress” failed with health care (and with an expectation that Obama would nudge or force things in the direction of “reform” and more federal intervention, as well as that public-option partial replacement of private insurers). What you're saying is similar to the sentiment about, and about, the description of the Dems' lesson learned after 1994 and its attempt to present itself as more “safe and sane” to the mainstream — what Hartmann repeats about Obama and other Dems today (currently), “Third Way” (as well as “corporatist”) Democrats.
“We as a nation I fear will not come back to cold hard reality until things get so bad that people finally realise that the media is selling them myth's and that is also in the news.”
In addition to the leftist bias, there is a problem with too much fluff and even decadence or degeneracy in the media. I have avoided television for about thirty years because of all the garbage routinely on the air. There was a period last year when I got to watch it (primarily CNN) and I found the lightweight coverage (when not worse material) appalling.
What's it going to be like when Social Security starts running deficits (it's already beyond dispute that Medicare and health care overall are presenting cost problems) and much more taxes or borrowing begin to be needed to pay benefits in full (that is, redeem the “trust fund” bonds, which are only IOUs, not of any value themselves)? This will be happening while the Baby Boomers begin retiring in large numbers, selling assets to finance the retirements and creating a large bear market for years, decades. Meanwhile, the disparity of retirement living situations and the inequality there will probably dwarf what we have now (made more complicated still by overly-generous government retirement benefits and pensions), arousing more resentment accompanying the hardship of those not doing so well. (There will be a continuous need and cry for relief by taxpayers to reduce Social Security benefits, but many retirees will have discovered that Social
Security doesn't provide the easy, generous retirement “security” they ignorantly had believed; they will be clamoring in more earnest for “dignity” than anyone in the 1950s-1970s did for increasing the benefits.) There will be widespread hardship and resentment. Media euphemism and fluff won't sell then!
Prof, here: “What you and your clones are really saying is that the mainstream media wasn't trashing him very well. Conservatives don't have much say in those.”
I think I might have figured out the other half of the puzzle – representation vs influence.
Take health care, for instance. You see, according to the MSM when the debate started over health care, 200 million people knew that they wanted single-payer (that's only single-payer), including men, women, children, and the comatose. Meanwhile another 200 million people knew that they wanted tort reform, including men, women, children, and the comatose. Yes, that adds up to more than the country's population, but both groups knew they were in the majority. Of course, on the internet, I read about many groups with different ideas, different approaches to figuring out solutions, and a variety of people with their own theories about what went wrong in the first place. I sincerely believe that there were a lot more views out there and that both the (only) single payer and the tort reform crowd were really minorities who happened to have political backing. So, yes, there are conservative and liberally influence media. But no, those media do not represent or control conservatives or liberals.
Independent thought: it's a good thing.
hi there again Jchem: I received this response from Tyrone: [commenter] “must go to disqus.com and report it there (since they host our comments). Now if re disqus … like the entire comment box disappeared (which has happened), then it's our problem.”
in the meantime, I will try to post your last comment for you here, ok?
thanks,
dr.e
HI THERE COMMENTERS, Dr. E here. Earlier today, Jchem was having trouble posting this comment you see below. In it, Jchem is responding to ProfElwood. Hope this works for you Jchem now.
Third times a charm; apologies if anyone sees my comment three times. So, what I said was in reply to ProfElwood, and went something like this:
This “I didn't see anyone complaining during the Bush years” line was senseless when it started and broadcasting it repeated hasn't added any substance to it.
Not only that, but its a simplistic way of saying two wrongs make a right. The logical conclusion: lots of folks went ballistic when Bush was spending and most of them were from the left. So…where are they now? All of a sudden its OK to toss a trillion here and a trillion there because Bush did it and now its the Dem party's turn at the trough? Remember those wars and all the protests? When was the last time we had a good war protest? The Iraq war turns another year older in less than a month…do we expect everyone to “march on Washington”? Renditions, secret detention centers, Guantanamo, spying?
The tea party folks have plenty of issues, that much is obvious; any group of people do. However, their concerns are very much valid. Congress has an approval rating lower than Dick Cheney, only 34% of people think the country is on the right track, only 37% approve of what Obama is doing regarding his signature issue, and China is getting irritated with our economic stability. That alone should be enough to get us all a bit upset with Washington, however we would describe ourselves on the left-right pendulum.
Hi there, Dr E; thanks for looking into it. I just wonder if it had something to do with all the embedded links I posted within my first comment. Not too sure, I've never had a problem before. I sent a brief message to disqus about it, so if I hear from them, I'll pass it on to you just in case others have similar issues. It looks like this thread may have burned out anyway, but I appreciate you taking the time on my behalf.
If that foreign and even-farther-left viewpoint is the norm (as it is with a liberal friend of mine), then obviously by comparison even MSNBC can be argued (incorrectly) to be “conservative” as well as “corporate.”
That is my point, DLS. Among people who self-identify as liberals (at least 20% of this country), that perspective is THE norm. There are more people who agree somewhat with that perspective. What ALL the studies of media bias have shown is that the MSM is CENTER-left. All the conservatives and conservative leaning people I know, completely ignore the center part of that because they have such a skewed perpective of where the center actually is.
hi there jchem. You're welcome and “if I hear from them, I'll pass it on to you just in case others have similar issues.” Deal. Disqus is really good most of the time, but hiccups every now and then.
Thanks
dr.e
DLS: If that foreign and even-farther-left viewpoint is the norm…
Zx5: Among people who self-identify as liberals (at least 20% of this country), that perspective is THE norm.
Actually, it's probably at most 20%, only a possibly larger fraction self-identifying as liberals, but having that view as the norm? It's not the American norm.
Does it exist? Without a doubt; that's why I said as much. In fact, I've said as much about health care reform — these Unabashed Liberals are those who not only want the “public option” but are those who stated they were “strongly” in favor of it, when asked about this. The Dems acted to please these people, as well as simply get too ambitious and greedy or even ravenous this past year, and these people remain unsatisfied, or are actually upset that not as much was done, while in doing so they have angered or alarmed or disappointed or disgusted the rest of us (more than we typically felt about the GOP we delivered two consecutive large no-confidence votes). Dem leadership has a real problem on its hands.
“the MSM is CENTER-left”
They're notably left of the public as a whole, the true mainstream average or center position.