A few weeks ago, I went on WGBH to go tete-a-tete with John O'Hara, author of The New American Tea Party. O'Hara disputed the notion that Tea Partiers are remotely extremist.
Hmmm … well, let's take a look at the schedule of events at their convention, shall we?
Here's Judge Roy Moore speaking this pm … he of the gigantic Ten Commandments Rock. And this:
Moore was also a notable opponent of a proposed amendment to the Alabama constitution in 2004. Known as Amendment 2, the proposed legislation would have removed wording from the state constitution that referred to poll taxes and required separate schools for “white and colored children,” a practice already outlawed due to civil rights-era legislation.
Hmm. Sounds pretty mainstream!
And then there's the topic, “Correlations between the current Administration and Marxist Dictators of Latin America”, tomorrow am! Awesome. Let the chalk dust fly!
And then there's Joseph Farah, editor of WorldNetDaily, a notorious birther. Birtherism, of course, is indeed mainstream among Republicans. So maybe I should concede that Farah is mainstream … kind of.
Something that's important and interesting from the schedule is that the Tea Party folks are taking neighbor-to-neighbor, ward-and-precinct organizing seriously. This is how Obama won; this is how Deval Patrick won; this is how the Dems usually dominate Masssachusetts; this is how one wins elections. No matter how daffy the ideas, people will generally believe what their trusted friends and neighbors tell them.
Their ideas invite, and require, mockery. But as a political force, the Tea Party is indeed to be taken very, very seriously.
Photos of extremists doesn’t really do the trick any more. As someone pointed out in an earlier thread this week, there are plenty of loony left photos too. This isn’t to suggest a one-sided disarmament, but rather that the “middle 50%” rolls their eyes at both sides, particularly the so-called crazies of both sides.
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p>The question I wonder is: how do we discredit the ideas? Is it as simple as saying “the Bush administration did the same thing?” Obviously not, despite the reality that the Tea Parties are in a tizzy over things that aren’t substantially different from GOP policy in the 2000s, the 1990s, or even the 80s and 70s, depending on the issue.
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p>So… now what?
Dale Robertson of teaparty.org, for example.
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p>What exactly ARE the core ideas? I see a lot of this:
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It’s one thing to take an extreme anti-tax position no matter how much I may disagree. That is an opinion, but when they clearly don’t know what socialism is, confuse it with fascism, think it’s the philosophy of the Russian Czars, and say things like, “Don’t let government touch my Medicare!”, not to mention it seems a disproportionate amount of racism and bad spelling, they are difficult to take seriously. I’m also pretty sure there are no Democratic equivalents in Congress to Michelle Bachmann who plays fast and loose with the truth and indulges conspiracy theories. I know you mean well with this comment, but lets leave the equivalency to JohnD:)
socialist == democrat
facist == person I disagree with
nazi == person I disagree with, possibly gay
hypocrite == person I disagree with
liberal == person who disagrees with me
zealot == person who disagrees with me
democrat == liberal nazi facist
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p>Make sense? I thought not.
taxes == the root of all evil
tax cuts == the solution to all problems
wacko == person who dares question me
…of what Jon Stewart said in response to Barney Frank’s asking on what planet the person calling Frank and Obama Nazis spent most of her time:
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p>”Apparently it’s a planet where a mixed-race President and a gay Jew can qualify as Nazis!”
of discrediting themselves.
…I wonder how many of the attendees would pass!:)
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p>It came out horribly the way Tancredo said it, but sometimes I do think even native born citizens ought to pass the citizenship test we already require for naturalization in order to be allowed to vote.
American democracy does presume a literate and educated electorate. There is widespread and growing evidence that this presumption is false. This is no accident; the rightwing has been gutting America’s public education system for decades.
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p>The rub with literacy tests is not just the way they were used to systematically discriminate during the Jim Crow era. It is, instead, that they reinforce power imbalances rather than correct them. An increasingly white and scared electorate is not likely to increase educational opportunities for minorities. Teaching African Americans to read was a hanging offense (formally or informally) in much of the South for generations.
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p>In my view, the way to address the problem of voter ignorance is to educate the voter, not take away their vote.
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p>If nothing else, the Tea Party movement is eloquent testimony to exactly how much education we must do.
Voting was originally limited to white land owning men. It’s part of why Americans value home ownership so highly.
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p>It’s ironic that “we the people” really meant white, educated, land-owning, MEN.
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p>The tea-partiers appear to have only gotten the white part right.
…to remind people of my hands-down favorite section of the Massachusetts Constitution:
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p>PART THE SECOND, CHAPTER V, SECTION II
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p>I don’t know if every state does this, but I like that the Secretary of the Commonwealth sends out a booklet to every voter explaining the various referenda and including arguments from both sides. Civics education is absolutely essential. We could even make it as a senior year requirement, with a final exam that serves both as a grade for the class and automatic voter registration for students who pass.
Voting is a right of citizenship, you can be dumb as a bag of hammers and you should still be allowed to vote!
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p>Understanding history or being able to interpret the constitution should have nothing to do with the right to vote. It’s the poor and disenfranchised who all too often don’t have access to quality schools or the luxury of being able to ponder obtuse political questions. You don’t have to know how to read to know that the politician who works hard to improve your life is the better candidate and the one who’s busy handing out gifts to the same boss who screws you over day in and day out doesn’t have your best interest in mind.
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p>Civics education is essential and a robust, well funded public education system is critical, but if we can’t keep the likes of Sarah Palin from taking over the country without resorting to trampling on the rights of the disenfranchised, we get what we deserve.
You wrote:
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p>US history is filled with demagogues who demonstrate the fallacy of this mistaken meme. Such sentiment might well fire up activists to man a picket line or sustain a revolution, and in that context it’s effective and compelling. It’s still incorrect, though.
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p>In fact, you do need to know how to read in order to know whether the legislation your candidate is putting forward actually says what he or she says it says. You do have know how to rationally analyze a sequence of if-then predicates to know whether or not a particular policy recommendation actually does follow from its claimed justification.
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p>I agree with you that we should not disenfranchise anyone, and have written so. The reason why the likes of Sarah Palin threaten to take over the country is that too many people think that Sarah Palin and her ilk are “working hard to improve [their lives].”
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p>The cynic in me suggests that all electable politicians are going to be handing out gifts to your boss, and all politicians are working hard to improve your life. Your criteria, therefore, doesn’t help separate the good guys from the bad guys.
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p>I think there is simply no escaping the reality that in order to accomplish that separation, most voters must “know how to read.” That insight is what caused America to lead the world in public education and literacy.
The content of such a civics test would forever be a distraction of epic proportions. Is it federal? State? Does question #8 of Section C disenfranchise Native Americans from New Mexico? THIS ELECTION CAN’T BE LEGIT BECAUSE WE DISENFRANCHISED NATIVE AMERICANS FROM NEW MEXICO.
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p>To anyone who supports a civics exam to vote, all I can say is please, PLEAAAAASE SPARE ME. I can’t even deal with political news as it is.
I was responding to Christopher’s awful suggestion…
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p>The implication being that if you don’t pass, you’ll have to learn to register yourself. I call for expanded civics and strong education exactly for the reasons you do, but I’m not going to advocate that those who don’t have access to education or who choose to ignore it should have their right to vote taken away or face some penalty for their ‘ignorance’.
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p>As to this,
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p>Since 1952, (and I’d suspect, much earlier) the richer you are the more likely you are to vote Republican. The poorer you are, the more likely you are to vote Democrat. Look at Andrew Gelman’s book Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do. Or check out his blog which shows how Obama would have won 45 out of 48 states (sorry AK and HI) if only people who made under $20,000 were allowed to vote. Too many poor white people don’t vote their economic interests, so on that your right, but those people tend to be more religious so maybe if we could just get God to leave unto Caeser, what is Caeser’s, we’d solve that problem.
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p>As to this,
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p>It’s easy to separate the two, the politician who’s handing out gifts to your boss, they’re not working hard to improve your life, they’re working hard to improve your bosses life. If the Democrats were ‘good guys’ we’d have used the super majority to actually pass a progressive agenda without checking if it was okay from the bosses on Wall St. and the Pentagon.
If this were to actually come up I’d think long and hard before actually supporting it based on specifics. I didn’t necessarily mean passing civics should be the ONLY way one can get registered, but if it is required then the problem takes care of itself. If we require certain knowledge of our system for immigrants to become citizens it doesn’t strike me as THAT unreasonable for those of us who have lived here all along to know at least as much. I’m not looking for a policy analysis or constitutional interpretation test, just basic stuff like the three branches of government. I’ve looked at citizenship tests; they are not at all difficult. Most questions could reasonably appear on “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader”. We’d have to phase this in if we were to do it. I wouldn’t support kicking people off the rolls, but we could say anybody who seeks registration after a certain date would have to pass the test. I’m sure there would be plenty of opportunities to prepare for such a test.
You wrote:
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p>We already have such a process and it includes a similar requirement. It’s called “public education” and a “high school diploma.”
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p>The fact that so many voters who hold this certification are, in fact, abysmally ignorant is not going to be solved by any voter registration requirement.
…but there seems too much evidence that it doesn’t quite work that way, plus some people don’t get a diploma. I should stop here because otherwise it’s too tempting to lurch into a tangent about testing requirements for graduation. It’s a whole other topic and one I know I’m in the minority here.
They will have to deal with everything that comes along with it.
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p>The larger and more organized they get, the more unified their approach and message will need to be. If they can survive coming to a consensus on the issues, they will lose the “anti-government” mystique they have been riding and their unfavorables will spike as voters learn more and more.
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p>If they survive that, will the remaining supporters decide that the niche they fill can best be found in the GOP or that their niche is too extreme? I’m not suggesting either, but it’s the plight of every third party. What are they doing differently that I can’t find in an established party with a chance to win?
Birthers are as mainstream among Republicans as Truthers are among Democrats. And both are not usually members of the traditional prties, but of the Constution, Green, et al.
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p>Stating a Kos poll as established fact is – well – bullshit.
I look forward to the list you will no doubt provide of times when sitting Democratic members of Congress have suggested publicly that 9/11 was an inside job.
It means she knows she’s in the wrong.
I think I fall in line with being a “conservative Republican” and others may say a “right-wing nut”. I am not a birther nor do I even know any birthers. It is simply a looney group on the right (just as PP said exists on the left as “truthers”).
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p>But you may continue to try to paint us into that corner. You and others here tried to diminish the Tea Party people as wackos and tried to say the impact from them was “insignificant”. You remember their Washington Rally where BMGers tried to say how small the crowd really was. And now it sounds like you guys, led by Charley, are still trying to blow them away. Don’t you understand the impact theses people have had on races in VA, NJ, MA… and how they have effected the votes of liberal and moderate Democrats?
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p>Ignore them at your peril… which is fine with me.
Several Republican members of Congress, both Representatives and Senators, have either implied or outright stated that they don’t believe, doubt, or think “there are legitimate questions” about whether, Barack Obama is a United States citizen who was born in Hawaii. (By Salon’s count last year, it was seventeen including two Senators.)
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p>I’m not painting anyone anywhere.
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p>I am (as birthers and truthers both love to say) just asking the question: how many Democratic members of Congress have publicly stated or implied that they think 9/11 was or might have been an inside job? I don’t know of any, and it’s not for lack of looking, so if Peter’s got some sources, I’d love to see them. But, let’s see, 17 out of (as of 9/2009) 218 total member of Congress is a touch under 8%; if we split it out by house, it’s about 8.5% in the House and 5% in the Senate. Those aren’t huge numbers, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to call them “fringe” either. And – until Peter provides that list, anyway – they’re a lot bigger than the, count ’em, zero percent of Democratic members of Congress who believe 9/11 was an inside job.
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p>Sitting members of the Republican party have given the birthers legitimacy. Have the “truthers” had this advantage?
The dynamics between our parties are very different. It’s pretty obvious. We are a more rowdy spirited group than the Dems. How many times do I read on BMG about the “conservative” talk radio and cable channels (Beck, Hannity…) vs the silences from the left because other than the basement rated shows like Olbermann’s and Maddow’s, there is no “voice” for liberals. So we are different. I also think there is a linkage between the rowdy conservative movement, the talk-show crowd (Rush included) and the genuine Republican party. Maybe our “big tent” strategy allows sone underneath who are a little wacky (like birthers) and we don’t throw them out.
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p>That said, I will stand here and repeat the same stance that the poll concerning Republicans (and the other polls mentioned) do not reflect how mainstream Republicans feel. My only retort is my own feelings and anecdotal evidence so I am “legless” from a statistical standpoint. But as many in MA leaned on Jan 19th, polls can be wrong.
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p>Siting members of the Republican party very well may have relationships with individuals who are birthers. I would say it is not a BFD! We vote for politicians every election whom we have disagreements with, sometimes very strong disagreements, but we vote for hem to get done what we need to get done. The last votes on the Healthcare Reform bill and the current considerations are examples of politicians being asked to vote for a bill which they may have “huge” ideological problems with, but the ends just justifies the means. Maybe some Republicans feel similarly about some wacko righties.
The whole point of this exchange, in case you can’t be bothered to scroll up a few comments and check it, is that Peter claimed
And Alex and I both cited evidence that contradicts that claim. After earlier attacking me for pointing that out, you seem now to be agreeing that birtherism is, after all, more mainstream among Republicans than trutherism is among Democrats, with some sort of odd dodge about “rowdiness” (and a hilarious attempt to suggest that the Democratic party enforces ideological rigidity more avidly than the Republican party does, about which I think no further comment is necessary).
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p>You’re also disingenuously conflating political disagreements with flat rejection of the entire administration’s legal legitimacy.
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p>No you didn’t!
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p>No I didn’t. I would categorize both extreme views as similarly “NON-mainstream” in both parties.
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p>I don’t even know what you are talking about here. Speak English!
Well, that much is obvious.
You’re a doodyhead!
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p>Ooops. I got carried away with spirit of Mr D’s argument.
Dialogue is the only way to solve issues. Neither one of us may change the other person’s mind on this or any other issue, but the discussions are well worth it and enjoyable.
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p>You definitely have a “chip” in your dialogue but on occasion my words are peppered with whimsical, piercing and hard (low) hitting elucidation.
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p>Don’t be swayed by the by other partisan stagnaters of progress. They attempt (and FAIL) to silence the words they’d rather not hear. They are becoming increasingly irrelevant and the immaturity of their banter is well below their stature… or their former stature. Every legend dies… now that’s “change I can believe in”!
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p>Party on dude…
JohnD: how many congressmen are truthers? How many are birthers? That’s not a subtle distinction. If multiple congressmen believe something, it’s far more mainstream than if no congressmen believe something.
The conversation has (once again) become people presenting concrete evidence and JohnD responding with “did not” and “did too” followed by a personal attack or two and some bragging on how funny he is.
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p>It’s not a matter of “changing the other person’s mind” — one person in the discussion is repeatedly ignoring facts.
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p>That multiple Republican Congressmen are birthers is irrefutable.
So… how many Republican Congressmen? Democrat… truthers?
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p>I have tried to get an unbiased list but haven’t so far. And I’m talking about a Republican US Congressman who say…
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p>I don’t want to hear about a Congressmen who said “I don’t know where he was born?” or “no comment” or “let the facts speak for themselves”… I want you to show proof of a Congressmen publicly admitting…
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p>Now before you do this, I have to warn you. If you come up with a few and I can’t find any Democratic Congressmen who are admitted “truthers”, you really haven’t proven a “mainstream” movement by this simple fact. Certainly you might point to it as a nascent phase of a developing movement, but please don’t start calling all Democrats atrocious Red Sox fans because of the actions of Martha Coakley. Opposition to the President’s Healthcare reform is a “mainstream” movement within the Republican party. That’s “mainstream”!
So those that say “They don’t know” are playing a game. When this comes up as an answer it’s usually to the question “Do you believe he was born in the US.” Claiming to not know is is playing a game to keep from offending the birthers. The fact that they do this conscientiously indicates that they themselves consider the birthers enough of a voting base to worry about, and belies you birthers=truthers position. Same with “let the facts speak for themselves”. Given an opportunity to come clean and call a spade a spade, they chicken out because they know the price they’ll pay offending such an allegedly “non-mainstream” group.
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p>Ask any nationally elected Democrat a question on the truthers and you’ll get no such equivocation.
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p>The equivocation of such answers is telling.
They are not answering to maintain support form a variety of groups… but even doing this I do not think you can maintain that this thrusts these people into the “believe Obama is not born here” crowd.
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p>I’m happy for the Democrats who can do this and survive.
… it isn’t conclusive about what they believe about the truth. What it does say that either one of two things are happening: they believe the bs, or they don’t. If they don’t and they are equivocating, it says that as far as they are concerned, the true believers aren’t just a fringe, and certainly not as much of a fringe as truthers. Its an indicator of how much sway (these politicians think that) those groups have within the electoral makup of the GOP.
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p>By comparison, no Democrat is concerned about losing support from truthers. That pretty much tips the scales to the conclusion that either these GOP politicians misunderstand their own constituents and the electoral strategy within the right, or the birthers really are much more of an influence on the GOP as a whole than the truthers are on the Democrats (or anyone probably).
I have never said the both parties have the same amount of fringe. Maybe 5% of the Republican party and 2% of the Democratic party are fringe. Maybe that 5% is the difference between victory and defeat.
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p>Maybe if a Democrat were 1% ahead/behind then he/she would take a similar “present” (yes, that’s a slight snark to our President) stance on truthers.
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p>I also don’t think this can be stated strongly enough in this small debate. To support a birther is to believe it is possible Obama may not have been born here or some other story which due to the actual natire of his parents lives is not as kooky as believing in UFOs.
That’s according to Fox News-or it WAS according to Fox News during the Bush years. Birthers are questioning the legitimacy of the President based upon a fairy tale and supposed documents that prove he’s not legitimate is a very dangerous precedent. 9/11 Truthers, like those who believe in UFOs, can easily be dismissed, just like those who support conspiracy theories about Kennedy’s assassination. 9/11 Truthers tend to be fringe left and not Democrats, whereas birthers are affiliated with the Republican Party.
, are needed to make the point, however helpful it would be in quantifying it.
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p>The point here is that real GOP elected officials with real power fear the power of the GOP fringe where this is not true for the Democrats. Throwing around hypothetical numbers like 5% and 2% is living in denial of the very real influence that is evident. The point here is that the birthers are categorically different than other left fringe group because they have enough influence to actually change the behavior of elected officials.
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p>Equivocating about the numbers we don’t have is just dancing around the edges of what we do know. The things we do know should be disturbing enough to not reflexively minimize the real effects here with pleas of ‘yeah but there are others on the left’ equivalency (denies the difference in kind of the magnitude of influence), ‘yeah but both they and the fringe on the left are really small’ marginalization (denies the actual influence), or ‘yeah but at least the idea isn’t as crazy as really crazy ideas’ (straw man).
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p>Enough ‘yeah buts’. The birthers are a real problem. Period. Reflexively bringing up truthers is a non-response.
I know, JohnD, you think that you alone are heroically standing up for conservative principles against a sea of partisan ideologues and zealots. It’s all very beautiful. Perhaps worthy of a canvas by Jacques-Louis David.
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p>Only, this is all happening in your doll’s house. As I point out below in my comment “Question though”, there is a challenging line of questioning a thoughtful conservative really could pursue on this poll. Note: you didn’t pursue that.
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p>For you this poll just represents a form of taunting so you can answer it by counter-taunting. It’s time for a Taunt-a-thon! BMG as primary school playground!
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p>In fact, you’re not being heroic here. Rather than David’s oils your efforts might be better rendered with Crayola crayons.
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p>Might you think more, post less, actually represent the conservative side of the argument with distinction rather than with childishness?
You might not find arguing with JohnD to a fruitful use of your time.
This was one of the things that croaked her for reelection.
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p>She resurfaced as a Green Party Presidential candidate in 2008…
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p>What’s happening out there (and in Massachusetts) is unfocused populism that, in a sane and accountable political environment would accrue to a Tip O’Neill Democrat. In the absence of sanity the Right fills the vacuum, as it’s done periodically for the past forty years.
Now that was the answer I was looking for.
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p>Thanks.
I made a mistake in accepting Peter’s framing that birthers and truthers are in some sense equivalent, opposite groups, and arguing about how much influence they have, respectively, on the Republicans and the Democrats.
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p>In fact, while birtherism is a strictly right-wing phenomenon, trutherism is not a left-wing phenomenon. There are truthers on the left, but also on the right – Alex Jones, a leading light, if you want to call it that, of trutherism, is a rightwing conspiracy theory crank, UN black helicopters and the whole bit. There are almost certainly birthers who are also truthers, and you can probably find truthers hanging around at tea party rallies. Trutherism actually is a good old-fashioned non-partisan American crank paranoid phenomenon. Birtherism and ‘Baggerism are creatures of the right-wing media.
Trutherism is not a left-wing phenomenon.
Depending on how one choose to define mainstream.
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p>This Research 2000 poll says:
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p>So that’s 36% firm and a loose 58%.
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p>On September 23 of last year, PPP released their results of the same question. From those calling themselves conservative:
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p>So that’s a firm 35% and a lose 66%
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p>And on July 31 of last year, Research 2000 released some results for “Republicans”:
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p>This has a firm 28% and a loose 58%
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p>A matter of mainstream comes down to how you’d like to define it. But to say Charley’s definition of mainstream is only based on one Research 2000 poll is just factually incorrect. I have not been able to find other national polls regarding this question, but there have been some state polls, and those don’t help. You don’t have to believe the polls for a variety of legitimate reasons, but it wasn’t just a one time occurrence.
Sorry Peter, but it just ain’t so. Kos commissioned a poll from a reputable firm. Go ahead, commission your own, from whomever you like. I’ve also seen the PPP poll AlexSWill refers to … and I seem to remember others as well.
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p>I’m pleased that you (and O’Reilly et al) find these beliefs so nutty. But they’re damned prevalent in the GOP.
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p>It’s not Kos dictating to R2000 to get a particular result. (We sure as hell didn’t do that when we commissioned the Senate poll from them.) It’s just true.
Lost in all the scoffing noise from the Republicans here is the very legitimate question as to whether the poll was designed to get a certain answer or prove a certain point. Was it leading in any way? What were the questions like? How were they constructed?
would be what kind of ignorant, strange, uninformed or patently offensive opinions would we get if we polled self-described democrats?
We might expect to find large portions of the public believing crazy things. (Think young earth creationism.) Potentially, these poll results show that Republicans as a demographic have a typical level of belief in the weird.
Th whole point of tea-partying is being extremist. For the record, I wouldn’t say being an extremist is always bad. But, in the case of these hard-core reactionaries it definitely is.
To quote Dr. King
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p>More concisely, Barry Goldwater:
any comparison between the Teaparty movement and the Civil Rights movement is morally offensive.
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p>And to suggest that the Teapartiers are practicing “Extremism in the defense of liberty” is to willfully ignore their actual objectives, even if the Teapartiers themselves don’t have a perfect consensus on what those objective are.
I also don’t think Barry Goldwater’s agenda was “in defense of liberty” either and it certainly wasn’t “in pursuit of justice”. I still agree with the quote though. My point is just that sometimes it is necessary to be extreme and calling someone an extremist shouldn’t be automatically pejorative.
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p>I agree that the tea party doesn’t really have a platform, or even a clear constituency. It’s just a hodgepodge of folks who are unhappy with Obama or his policies for any number of reasons. As a result, it’s attracting all of the self promoters and gadflies of the right who are trying to claim its mantle for themselves. The same thing happened to the anti-war movement, by the way, except that it had a clear focus originally. But every left group with any agenda regardless of how remotely tangential tried to glom on, causing the movement to fizzle.
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p>This lack of definition is what makes it possible for Bob to find examples of extremist elements, while allowing O’Hara simultaneously to define them as mainstream. Again to use the analogy of the anti-war folks. Opposing the invasion of Iraq was certainly not an extreme idea. If anything calling for the invasion in the first place was extremist. However, if you went to an antiwar rally, you would hear all sorts of extremists talk about unrelated topics. My guess is that the average tea parties wants lower taxes and is opposed to some policy positions of Obama and probably believes at least a couple of the right wing lies about either Obama or health care reform. He probably doesn’t think that global warming, if he even thinks there is any warming, is caused by human activity. Whether these views are extreme is a matter of judgment. But extremists definitely will try to appeal to such a person and claim he represents their views as well.
I dunno. I think their ‘clear constituency’ is whoever they can get riled up. I think a large part of the overlap between this group and the GOP is because this is also the GOP electoral campaign strategy in a nutshell.
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p>I think a more accurate way to put it is that the tea party’s constituent base lacks any kind of platform coherence.
Tea Party means in reference to the 911 truth movement throwing the official 911 commission report into Boston Harbor.
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p>Enter Glenn Beck, gatekeeper of the right wing disinformation hijack a movement.
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p>Now as to Obama and the preponderance of evidence there is a mix here of the worst of the Bush administration when it comes to shredding the Constitution military and surveillance wise plus that heavy Bilderber/CFR neo-liberal side fully endorsing globalized corporate fascism. Not technically Marxism but most definitely the futuristic New Songdo City you are a mere thing assigned to an internet of things.
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p>I honestly do see Obama and the direction of the far more “intelligent” left taking America apart by using social engineering. No efforts were made to investigate 911 for real, end these bogus wars or even discuss economic policy as it relates to reality.
What industry do we still have
Hollywood and Bernie Madoff’s Wall Street?
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p>I am unemployed, relieved to have not gone to the swine flu FEMA quarrantine camps and happy that Jan 15 was not the prescribed Illuminati global bank holiday but now getting back to normal land there is the credibility gap with government.
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p>Solution? Survivalist remote compound or if you got money there are organizations helping people with their outside CONUS relocation plans.
Your posts are batsh!t crazy, and I’d gladly buy you food to hear you go on for an hour.
Ain’t doing much of anything else.
that you can be in Boston Metro. And, in the spirit of blog (and to prove that it really happened) you’ve got to let me record the audio. No video, just audio. And no liveblogging either — Ryepower12 will not be sitting at the table behind us confusing the purpose of the black helicopters with the purpose of the blue UN helmets.
🙂
Interviews aren’t spectator events. You’re very welcome to listen to the interview afterward though, so long as Lasthorseman agrees.
I don’t think I could sit in a room with teh crazy for more than 2 minutes.
Plus I’m sure stomv will take him to a restaurant without a Childrens Menu.
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p>You do say some patently ridiculous things, but you rarely spew anything close to paranoid conspiracy theories.
From a guy less angry and currently more coherent than I am.
http://www.infowars.com/subver…
– see a small group of fatcats doing very well
– don’t like people telling you what to do; especially not people in government
– feel the country has become strange to you – not like when you were a kid; there’s all these non-white and foreign people everywhere and some of them are in positions of power
– get frustrated because every time you go to the store you have to try to make yourself understood to someone who doesn’t even speak good English
– feel taxes taking a bigger and bigger bite out of your check
– see politicians on TV just talk and talk and get nothing done
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p>and you’re mad enough to do something about it – hey – the Teaparty movement might be what’s happening!
“- see your pay and job prospects shrinking”
not in the land of opportunity, self improve.
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p>”- see a small group of fatcats doing very well”
good for them – i don’t mind if someone else succeeds.
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p>”- don’t like people telling you what to do; especially not people in government”
does anyone like that?
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p>”- feel the country has become strange to you – not like when you were a kid; there’s all these non-white and foreign people everywhere and some of them are in positions of power”
good for them – i don’t mind if someone else succeeds, no matter where they are from or what they look like.
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p>”- get frustrated because every time you go to the store you have to try to make yourself understood to someone who doesn’t even speak good English”
i think you mean “who doesn’t speak English well”.
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p>”- feel taxes taking a bigger and bigger bite out of your check”
does anyone like that?
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p>”- see politicians on TV just talk and talk and get nothing done ”
does anyone like that?
Yes. The “drown it in a bathtub” crowd likes that. Since they seem to be dominant in the Republican Party, elected Republicans all act as though they like it, even though some may not.
That movement is primarily Republicans and Independents (or un-enrolled as we call them in MA). Mixed in the the TEa PArty movement are protestors extremist views… for sure. Are the mainstream? I don’t think so. I have tried to say that I have no data to indicate this other than my anecdotal data. I ‘m not trying to deceive anyone with data tot he contrary.
And you were telling me to quit with all them fancified words and just speak plain English?