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Well said Silcc. With the Tea Party what you get is grinning racists who are either too stupid or too complacent to recognise the enormous offence that their pronouncements cause not just in the US but all over the world.Quote:
Originally Posted by Silcc69
Bigoted pricks.
Good idea Dino. I'll set up a thread right now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dino Velvet
Do it. I'll hang out plenty in there. :cheers:Quote:
Originally Posted by robertlouis
Reading this book at the moment. Pic below -- :) It points out that the Tea Party wasn't a grassroots movement.Quote:
Originally Posted by robertlouis
It was largely funded by the billionaire Koch brothers. It's made up of Republicans. Mostly upper middle-class. And white. There was a definite racist strain, too.
I mean, it was strictly an offshoot of the Republican Party. But the goal was to move the Republican Party even further to the right. I mean, some say Reagan wouldn't even be welcomed in today's Republican Party. I mean, will the Party [if it even is a political party anymore] continue to shift further and further to the right? And how far right do they go? I mean, the Dems have shifted to the right.
President Obama is a moderate Republican. (And President Clinton moved the party to the right.) But do the Dems keep moving to the right, too???
If you look at public opinion polls in this country you'll see that BOTH so-called political parties are way to the right of the majority of Americans. Hence: the revolt on Wall Street -- :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by robertlouis
Exactly. Political scientists have already conclusively demonstrated the racist motivations of the Tea Baggers, as if their signs weren't evidence enough.
Some choice quotes on the white power Tea Party movement:
"Now an angry group of Americans wants to be freer still—free from government agencies that protect their health, wealth, and well-being; free from problems and policies too difficult to understand; free from parties and coalitions; free from experts who think they know better than they do; free from politicians who don’t talk or look like they do (and Barack Obama certainly doesn’t). They want to say what they have to say without fear of contradiction, and then hear someone on television tell them they’re right. They don’t want the rule of the people, though that’s what they say. They want to be people without rules." Mark Lilla
"She's [Palin] tuned in to the fact that her audiences literally can't get enough of having their lunatic self-images massaged ("I'm a violent, illiterate pig who eats with her mouth open just like all you outstanding Americans!") and aren't really interested in much else beyond that — issues are really secondary." Matt Taibbi
The right can't stand that an actual grass-roots movement has shown up against bailouts of the plutocracy thus putting that astroturf bullshit movement on blast. Finally, America is waking up.
Thanks Ben, that looks like an interesting read, although the Kochs' shadowy role in the development of the Tea Party is already widely recognised. Your hypothesis of rightward drift is an interesting one. We've seen the same phenomenon in the UK too, with Labour under Blair moving to the centre initially and then further towards the right, and the Lib Dems being dragged in a similar direction simply because they went into coalition with the Tories. However, that drift manifested itself more in areas such as economics and business policy while at the same time social policy moved well towards the liberal, a trend thankfully being maintained by the coalition. At the Tory conference the pm, David Cameron, spoke out strongly in favour of same sex marriage. Can't see that coming from either party in the US.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben
What sickens me about the Tea Party is not so much its members, although I utterly deplore their racism, but the fact that they are being duped by rich and powerful right-wing forces such as the Kochs to embrace causes and policies that actually work against their interests and instead serve only to preserve the privileged position of their sponsors.
A mad world, my masters.
I must try to get that book.... looks fascinating. Did any of you read the article I posted in a thread about the Koch brothers and iran?
Yes - for everyone's reference it's over on the Politics section.Quote:
Originally Posted by Prospero
I think perhaps that's where this thread should be too.....
i wasn't offendedQuote:
Originally Posted by Ben