Thursday, April 29, 2010

A Meditation On The Tea Party Movement

An essay worth your time from Charles Hugh Smith.

My primary question: what happens when enough tea partiers (the true grassroots kind) accept that the Dems and the Repubs are both faces of the same Beast and hence are incapable of reform?

6 comments:

  1. Mythbusters showed that you can polish a turd. If only we were so lucky in our representation in so many elected offices.

    (apologies to honest turds everywhere.)

    Eric
    III

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  2. More importantly, what happens when they lose faith in the political process in general?

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  3. I am a registered Republican and did not vote for McCain in the last election because I am tired of the GOP thinking my vote was for them and an endorsement of their policies instead of a block against the Dems. Voting for the less of the two evils I can not do anymore. I voted Libertarian and I am able to look myself in the mirror without contempt. None of my fellow Republicans i work with voted for McCain either, they were all over the place including one for Obama (and he is really mad not getting the change he thought would come). The tea party is interesting but how do i vote come November? How to avoid the third party spoiler? Lots of questions and looking for answers.

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  4. After reading Bovard's recent essay on the TEA party and the scathing comments he received in response to his criticism, I am getting the sense that for the most part the TEA party folks are ok with big government as long it is Republicans running the show.

    They seem to be ok with U.S. Military escapades, with police using SWAT teams, with water-boarding and other forms of torture, all of this as long as it is done to other people (presumably those who "deserve" it).

    High taxes are ok too as long as they get to keep their goodies from the fed-gov.

    They also seem to be ill informed on a lot of related issues and hence ignorant of how far into the muck we have fallen.

    Do they really think we can vote our way out of this mess? Back to the lesser of 2 evils game?

    Combined with the Oath Keepers wanting to avoid being seen as too radical and remaining an "educational" (seems ridiculous at this late stage to be focused on educating people who swore an oath do uphold an document they neither read nor understand)organization, I am really losing hope of any real change for the better.

    Am I wrong?

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  5. "what happens when enough tea partiers (the true grassroots kind) accept that the Dems and the Repubs are both faces of the same Beast and hence are incapable of reform?"--
    Then we fight.

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  6. "My primary question: what happens when enough tea partiers (the true grassroots kind) accept that the Dems and the Repubs are both faces of the same Beast and hence are incapable of reform?"

    They go find somebody who sounds like Ronald Reagan, write a "Contract [preposition] America", and meet the new boss, same as the old boss. The only way out of being Sisyphus pushing the political policy rock is to become a libertarian bent on complete abolition of all politics whatsoever. And if they're doing that, then they're not doing politics. Most likely they're creating value in the most subversive way that won't get them arrested.

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