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Title: Tea Party Terminators
Source:
Al Jazeera
URL Source: http://english.aljazeera.net/indept ... 2011/08/20118109928579537.html
Published: Aug 11, 2011
Author: Cliff Schecter
Post Date: 2011-08-11 14:45:45 by Brian S
Keywords: None
Views: 3054
Comments: 6
Towards the beginning of the original Terminator film, Kyle Reese, who has come back to the past to save Sarah Connor - whose spawn will save mankind - lets her know what she's facing in her new cybernetic stalker. "Listen, and understand. That terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead." Substitute "Tea Party" for "Terminator" and "U.S. Government" for "you," and with the exception of "fear" (which I'd argue is what drives them), this pretty much sums up the story of the 60-odd birdbrain Birchers who have rebranded themselves Tea Partiers and brought more crazy than Kanye West to the House of Representatives. The recent war over the federal budget and debt ceiling were simply the latest in a long line of skirmishes where Democrats - the self-described practitioners of "good faith" and seekers of compromise - found themselves in a pitched policy battle with recalcitrant Republicans. Right wingers so high on radical, Randian, Tea-Party-brewed, Kool Aid, that anything short of dismantling the Federal Government and requiring universal tattooing of Milton Friedman where-the-sun-don't-shine was treason. Humble beginnings After its humble beginnings as an astroturf, Koch-Brothers-funded revival aimed at mobilising ill-informed, reactionary, mostly older white Americans against health care reform and other psychologically-constructed monsters under the bed, the Tea Party has become an malignant force that now holds the Republican Congressional Caucus - and with it the country - hostage. While the Stockholm Syndrome may not have quite set in yet among all Republicans, the tri-corner-hat crowd seems to behave much like the giant Brain Bug in the movie Starship Troopers, jamming a claw into the heads of their fellow GOPers and slowly sucking out cerebral tissue until only the brainless body remains. Most problematic, most of the Tea Partiers, private citizens and elected officials alike, seem to possess just slightly less understanding of the Federal budget or tax code of than say, Mater from Cars. Yet, these are the people in the driver's seat as the country heads for what might be Act II of the Great Recession, unless progressives, centrists, and others edified with high school civics adopt a new strategy to counter them. And counter them we must, for they and their ilk are nothing new, but representative of a recurring and quite dangerous political strain that has always been with us since the dawn of civilization. Their undermining of the traditions, culture, and give-and-take necessary for any democracy to function has had destructive results on free societies in the past, and taken down a Republic or two. Compromise is evil This is what President Obama seems constitutionally unable to grasp. That even if they are a sometimes useful foil, and (sadly) sometimes equally useful in getting him the policy results he wishes, by definition the Tea Party brigade sees any compromise as evil, because everyone to the left of Pat Buchanan is viewed as a mortal threat to their imagined perfect society, which looks a lot like Utah. You know, with fewer minorities. And a lot more Jesus. None other than former Secretary of State and one-time Republican wunderkind Henry Kissinger understood this to be true. In his first book on the Napoleonic wars, Kissinger offered an almost perfect description - on the international stage - of what can happen when an entity with no interest in compromise and no problem destroying the current order gains control of major political party or country: "It is a mistake to assume that diplomacy can always settle international disputes if there is 'good faith' and 'willingness to come to an agreement'"; in a revolutionary situation "each power will seem to its opponent to lack precisely these qualities. In such circumstances many will see the early demands of a revolutionary power as 'merely tactical' and will delude themselves that the revolutionary power would actually accept the status quo with a few modifications." Kissinger concluded that, "Coalitions against revolutions have usually come about only at the end of a long series of betrayals ... for the powers which represent legitimacy ... cannot 'know' that their antagonist is not amenable to 'reason' until he has demonstrated [that he is not]." Sound familiar? Fight fire with fire From its inception, the Tea Party is the very definition of the type of revolutionary movement. Until Democrats, and their leader in the White House, realise they need to stop calling people like Paul Ryan "courageous" and "serious", and start fighting fire with fire, Michelle Bachmann and her creepy pinwheel eyes are going to continue to get their way at the expense of American values and the middle-class that once made this country great. The late, great historian Richard Hofstadter added further insight into just the type of "movement" we're dealing with, in his 1964 award-winning tome, "The Paranoid Style of American Politics". In it, he outlines the psychological origins of the type of crazed, Tea-bagger style of all-or-nothing dedication to an absolute end, when he wrote of their forebears: "He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated - if not from the world, at least from the theatre of operations to which the paranoid directs his attention." In other words, any compromise, no matter how small, is seen as an act tantamount to treason, which is precisely why we need to stop engaging these tottering tea lovers, because they simply do not believe in the workings of democracy. Like the Terminator, or The South before the Civil War (the region which spawned much of this movement, not surprisingly) the Bachmannites simply must be defeated - beaten in the world of combat, political combat in this particular case (lest anyone think I am advocating war - which I am not). The Republican Party is no longer the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, or even Reagan - the GOP in its current form is nothing more than the party of Ted Nugent - hopefully with somewhat better hair. Speaking of Lincoln, he proffered to Congress in 1861 that, "The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise - with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthral ourselves, and then we shall save our country." What he said.
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#1. To: Brian S (#0)
I enjoy reading this guy's writing style.
The modern GOP has become the party of the racist/segregationists that were invited in by Nixon's Southern Strategy and fanatical Evangelical types with lip service paid to people who claim to be libertarians but who just want to cut programs for blacks and minorities. Libertarians who have talk shows and thus need an audience like Ted Nugent, because their base is dominated by the Evangelical kooks rather than the tiny libertarians (who probably would not listen to talk radio) start to sound like the kook base more and more and compromise their libertarian beliefs in many ways (like being against gays in the military which most libertarians don't care about).
With the economy still in the dumper -- maybe permanently? -- and full-time jobs becoming as scarce as rain during a drought, huge percentages of Americans have had their (misplaced) faith in the American dream shaken, the upper-middle-class consumerist lifestyle is exposed as a mirage for anybody who plays by the rules. Capitalism and the America that embraced it as a way of life is now and forever more a failure. It does me good to know that the generation that voted in Reagan and his ideology will see their America die from that ideology before their very own eyes and knowing they had a hand in its destruction.
beginnings as an astroturf, Koch-Brothers-funded revival Fiction from aljazeera. Wrong. The Tea Party was grass roots Ron Paul, started in 2007. There have been various attempts to hijack it, but it's still mostly independent. The rest of the article is mostly NWO communist propaganda too.
Obama's watch stopped on 24 May 2008, but he's been too busy smoking crack to notice.
How come all the Repubicans always lift their campaign music from leftists when they've got a great patriot like Ted to steal from?
Obama's watch stopped on 24 May 2008, but he's been too busy smoking crack to notice.
You know, with fewer minorities. And a lot more Jesus. eat your peas party If you ... don't use exclamation points --- you should't be typeing ! Commas - semicolons are for girlie boys !
Until Democrats, and their leader in the White House, realise they need to stop calling people like Paul Ryan "courageous" and "serious", and start fighting fire with fire, Michelle Bachmann and her creepy pinwheel eyes are going to continue to get their way at the expense of American values and the middle-class that once made this country great.
#2. To: Fred Mertz (#1)
The Republican Party is no longer the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, or even Reagan - the GOP in its current form is nothing more than the party of Ted Nugent - hopefully with somewhat better hair.
#3. To: Brian S, *Yukon neo-Progressive Vermin* (#0)
Democrats - the self-described
"We (government) need to do a lot less, a lot sooner" ~Ron Paul
#4. To: Godwinson (#2)
The Republican Party is no longer the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, or even Reagan - the GOP in its current form is nothing more than the party of Ted Nugent - hopefully with somewhat better hair
#5. To: Skip Intro, *Ron Paul for President* (#4)
a great patriot like Ted
"We (government) need to do a lot less, a lot sooner" ~Ron Paul
#6. To: Brian S (#0)
their imagined perfect society, which looks a lot like Utah.
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