A Mountain of Dumb, ctd.

 Wow.  Somehow she managed to raise (lower?) the bar with this one: 

"Gulf disaster needs divine intervention as man's efforts have been futile. Gulf lawmakers designate today Day of Prayer for solution/miracle" 
~Sarah Palin via Twitter

Sully on the Tea Party

In a fantastic two part post, Sully reiterates his confusion with the Tea Party ideology, or lack thereof.   Specifically his confusion with the movement's curious anti-government veil covering what amounts to a pro-government face. 

The Bush-Cheney presidency was, in some respects, the perfect pseudo-conservative administration. They waged war based on loathing of the experts (damned knowledgeable elites!); they slashed taxes and boosted spending for their constituencies, while pretending to be fiscally responsible; they tore up the most ancient taboos - against torture - with a bravado that will one day seem obscene; and they left the country in far worse shape than they found it.

Throughout all this, the Tea Partiers supported them. So how do they manage the cognitive dissonance that two failed wars, a financial collapse and a debt crisis have brought? How do they deal with the fact that their beloved president was manifestly the most incompetent and disastrous in modern times? They blame it on the next guy.

Yes, they are doing all they can to avoid facing the fact that they did all of this ... to themselves. And sometimes, the truly, deeply humiliated can only carry on through blind rage.

A Brief History of the Party of No

Arun Gupta's op ed on the Republican and Tea Party obstructionist strategy is informative, riveting and terrifying.   It points out the irrational nature and bigotry of the right and the poor strategy of the Obama Administration and Democratic leadership of pandering too heavily to the right and open the door for a hard swing come November.  There's a lot to be concerned about if you're even remotely moderate-minded a person.   

The entire lengthy piece is well worth the read.  Some highlights:

I use “the right” instead of “Republican” or even “conservative” to describe the movement and its ideas. Until recent years, there was a breed of socially liberal, fiscally conservative Republican that retained a foothold in the GOP. These Republicans provided critical support for civil rights and other progressive legislation. This segment, which tended to concentrate in the North, has largely shifted to the Democratic Party (with the result of pushing the Democrats further to the right). So while the right may now overlap significantly with the Republican Party, it wasn’t always so. More important, as shown by the Christian Right in years past and the Tea Party today, the right will try to purge those Republicans deemed not sufficiently orthodox, making the party more and more extreme.

 

The Tea Party is the latest chapter in the history of the Republicans as the “Party of No.” Its existence depends on continuous promotion from FOX News, organizing by Republican consultants, front groups such as Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works, and the GOP itself. Much of the Tea Party’s funding comes from right-wing foundations through the front groups, and its politics are anti-government, anti-labor, pro-corporate and often socially conservative, which is the same agenda the right has been pushing for more than 30 years.

(emphasis mine) and

Wallace pioneered the race-based appeals that still excite the populist right today. But he was also a deft cultural warrior who, writes Carter, “knew that a substantial percentage of the American electorate despised the civil rights agitators and antiwar demonstrators as symptoms of a fundamental decline in the traditional cultural compass of God, family, and country, a decline reflected in rising crime rates, the legalization of abortion, the rise in out-of-wedlock pregnancies, the increase in divorce rates, and the proliferation of ‘obscene’ literature and films.” Add gay marriage, Islamophobia and immigration, and you pretty much have the right’s culture war agenda of today.

and

There is one final step in how the right mobilizes grassroots support behind an obstructionist agenda. Few people mull over philosophical concepts when making political decisions. That’s why mobilizing group resentment and solidarity simultaneously is so effective. It gives people a way to see both enemies and allies in their daily lives. In the case of immigrants, the narrative is about “illegals” stealing jobs and social services from taxpayers. In the case of the Obama administration, the story is that taxes are being stolen from hard-working Americans to support parasites ranging from welfare recipients to Wall Street bankers.

 and finally

However irrational this position may be, the logical consequences are not: anything Obama and the Democrats do must be opposed because it is a life-and-death struggle. In opposing the health care plan, the right is not just trying to deny services to the undeserving, it is affirming and protecting free choice, family, the sanctity of life, the market, God, country, the Constitution – all arguments trotted out in the last year.

 

Like the Clinton years, no matter how much Obama tries to appease Republicans, he will remain under attack and be held responsible for bizarre crimes and conspiracies because the right has nothing to gain from compromise. In fact, Republican opposition has devolved from the philosophical to the tactical. The right-wing noise machine frames Obama and the Democrats as the source of all evil, making compromise virtually impossible. Republicans now assail Obama policies they used to champion from the market-friendly health care law and huge tax cuts in the stimulus bill to the bipartisan deficit commission and pay-as you-go budget rules.

 

At the same time, the Obama administration has stoked support for the Tea Party by providing aid and comfort to Wall Street rather than Main Street. The Republicans have exploited legitimate anxieties over high unemployment, a shrinking economy and onerous taxes by scapegoating the weak and marginal for policies that are structural and historical in nature.

 

The lesson for Obama and Democrats is not that they went too far to the “left,” it’s that they went too far to the right. Obama had the political capital and the leverage over the banking and auto industries to push for a “Green New Deal” that could have restructured the transportation and energy sectors and created millions of new jobs. Slashing the bloated military budget while fighting for some type of single-payer health care – instead of a plan that uses public money to subsidize the for-profit healthcare industry – budget deficits could have been constrained while reducing the financial burden of medical bills for most American households. Implementing such an agenda could have created a mass constituency that would fight for a progressive vision and against the right’s repressive politics.

 

The right has well-thought-out ideologies, a specific agenda, clearly defined enemies, and ruthlessly pursues power to achieve its goals. And it’s fighting a Democratic White House and Party that stand for nothing, which is why being the “Party of No” will continue to be a winning strategy for Republicans.

American Pride on Cinco De Mayo

A lot has been made of the five California High School students who wore American Flag T-shirts on Cinco De Mayo and were sent home by their principal when they refused to turn them inside-out or change.  The right has been aflutter with claims that this is another example of the PC Left's trashing of patriotism. 

I found the whole issue revolting on a few different levels.  As a result I've avoided discussing it on here, but after reading Roger Ebert's self-defense from Tea Party attackers over the issue and engaging in some healthy discussion with a friend over email I guess it's time to share my thoughts. 

 ______________________________________________

Kids need to learn how to express themselves properly...  

and learn the repercussions of those expressions.   

By curbing their expression, the faculty did nothing but make these 

kids less prepared for the real world.  

______________________________________________

See, I find fault not in the ignorant redneck kids who wore the shirts... or their ignorant redneck parents who sent them to school this way... or with the latinos who may or may not have been offended by the "expression of speech"... or with the school officials who sent the kids home.

Rather I find fault with the American school system at large for putting in place a dress code at all.  That's the precursor of the entire issue here.  School tells kids what they can and can't wear; suggests that people wear things in celebration of (the American-made) Cinco De Mayo; kids wear something in defiance of said observance; people get upset.

Don't put policies in place to dictate dress code in a public school and the whole problem never happens.

(continued after jump)

What does this tell you?

Sullivan posts a nugget from Weigel/WaPo about Favorability of the term Libertarian:

Overall, 38 percent of Americans view "libertarian" favorably to 37 who view it unfavorably. Democrats (39-37) and independents (44-32) view the term most favorably, while Republicans view it negatively by a 13-point (31-44) margin.

I'd say this makes pretty clear how someone like me - who enjoys the finer points of Libertarianism - can be turned off by the current GOP and Tea Party Movement.  These groups are not free thinking or small-government-minded at all if they perceive a movement like Libertarianism as a negative thing.   More negative than those evil pinko socialist liberals do, to boot.

Sully on Tea wth Miss McGill

Meant to post this yesterday - or at least thought I had.   Sully breaks down the Tea Party express and the article may as well have sucked from my mind as if we were hooked up to a Frankenstein machine. 

The whole thing is worth a read.  His wrap:

In my view, this confluence of feelings can work in shifting the public mood, as seems to have happened. When there is no internal pushback against crafted FNC propaganda, and when the Democrats seem unable to craft any coherent political message below the presidential level, you do indeed create a self-perpetuating fantasy that can indeed rally and roil people. But the abstract slogans against government, the childish reduction of necessary trade-offs as an apocalyptic battle between freedom and slavery, and the silly ranting at all things Washington: these are not a political movement. They are cultural vents, wrapped up with some ugly Dixie-like strands.

When they propose cuts in Medicare, means-testing Social Security, a raising of the retirement age and a cut in defense spending, I'll take them seriously and wish them well.

Until then, I'll treat them with the condescending contempt they have thus far deserved.

Sully does well to leave Palin out of the mix, but I wonder if that was simply to avoid cheapening his criticism and catching guff for Palin Derangement Syndrome.  Still, it shouldn't ignored that she's the de facto leader and iconic face of the movement.  A truth that speaks volumes of the group's validity. 

Brown > Palin

A lot has been made the last few days over Scott Brown's decision to forgo Sarah Palin's Tea Party rally on Boston Common on Wednesday.  While I try not to read too much into decisions like this - Brown's explanation was that he's busy, you know, doing Senator stuff - you have to admire the guy for leaving the loonies to themselves.  Of course, the Palin Teabag machine had to spin it as if they weren't pissed about it:

“It’s not about paying favors back,” said Mark Williams, chairman of the Tea Party Express, which organized the rally and invited Brown.   “I’d happily forgo (having him) if he’s truly doing the job of the people.  He has half a century of Kennedy damage to compensate for, after all.”

Of course, this isn't the first time Brown pulled the ol' 'I'm going this way; which way are you going?" routine. 

Barbara Klain, head of the Greater Lowell Tea Party, said Brown also turned down an invite to speak at their April 15 rally in downtown Lowell.    “He said he was going to be in Washington,” Klain said. “He needs to be doing his job.”

And of course we know that Brown somehow forgot that Caribou Barbie herself called to congratulate him after his special election win.  Pretty shrewd if you ask me. 

You've gotta commend this guy for keeping a safe distance from the loony brigade.  In a state where there are more liberals and independents than conservatives, palling up with the neo-cons and fringe fuckers would be like doing tequila shots with your alcoholic uncle at thanksgiving dinner.  

Keep up the good work, Scott. 

Is it really about Health Care?

Frank Rich's opinion piece in today's NYT is a wonderful collection of the GOP Hysteria over the Health Care bill and a frightening comparison to the similar freakouts after passage of the New Deal, Medicare and Civil Rights laws.

To be sure, this bill nothing even remotely close to the budget atrocity the Palins and Boehners want to make it out to be, costing roughly $94B per year for the first ten years, revenue generation and other savings excluded.  In the grand scheme of the $1.3T deficit Bush handed to Obama by the end of 2009, it's a drop in the bucket.  But this isn't really about "government takeover" or "power grabbing" the way the RNC/FNC puppets want you to believe it is, but rather a frantic collective clawing at the floor while being dragged out of power.

That a tsunami of anger is gathering today is illogical, given that what the right calls “Obamacare” is less provocative than either the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or Medicare, an epic entitlement that actually did precipitate a government takeover of a sizable chunk of American health care. But the explanation is plain: the health care bill is not the main source of this anger and never has been. It’s merely a handy excuse. The real source of the over-the-top rage of 2010 is the same kind of national existential reordering that roiled America in 1964.

In fact, the current surge of anger — and the accompanying rise in right-wing extremism — predates the entire health care debate. The first signs were the shrieks of “traitor” and “off with his head” at Palin rallies as Obama’s election became more likely in October 2008. Those passions have spiraled ever since — from Gov. Rick Perry’s kowtowing to secessionists at a Tea Party rally in Texas to the gratuitous brandishing of assault weapons at Obama health care rallies last summer to “You lie!” piercing the president’s address to Congress last fall like an ominous shot.

If Obama’s first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play. It’s not happenstance that Frank, Lewis and Cleaver — none of them major Democratic players in the health care push — received a major share of last weekend’s abuse. When you hear demonstrators chant the slogan “Take our country back!,” these are the people they want to take the country back from.

They can’t. Demographics are avatars of a change bigger than any bill contemplated by Obama or Congress. The week before the health care vote, The Times reported that births to Asian, black and Hispanic women accounted for 48 percent of all births in America in the 12 months ending in July 2008. By 2012, the next presidential election year, non-Hispanic white births will be in the minority. The Tea Party movement is virtually all white. The Republicans haven’t had a single African-American in the Senate or the House since 2003 and have had only three in total since 1935. Their anxieties about a rapidly changing America are well-grounded.

No, It's really just rhetoric...

Urging your movement to violently mobilize against our elected leaders, that is.   Sarah Palin seems to have no problem doing so.   John McCain seems to have trouble... with condemning such behavior.   Has this whole world gone crazy?!   Yes it has, says Ezra Klein: 

I don't want to exaggerate the importance of the death threats being made against congressmen who voted for health-care reform. Nuts are nuts. But there is a danger to the sort of rhetoric the GOP has used over the past few months. When Rep. Devin Nunes begs his colleagues to say "no to socialism, no to totalitarianism and no to this bill"; when Glenn Beck says the bill "is the end of America as you know it"; when Sarah Palin says the bill has "death panels" -- that stuff matters.

And the stuff on talk radio, of course, was worse. So take the universe of people who really respect right-wing politicians and listen to right-wing media. Most of them will hear this stuff and turn against the bill. Some will hear this stuff and really be afraid of the bill. And then a small group will hear this stuff and believe it and wonder whether they need to do something more significant to stop this bill from becoming law. And then a couple will actually follow through. And one will cut the gas lines leading to house of Rep. Tom Perriello's brother after seeing a tea partyer post the address online.

(via Sullivan)