Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Tea Party Convention

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If you are not watching C-Span right now, I urge you to do so and see the Tea Party convention live and unfiltered. This is what we are up against in the next few elections, and it behooves us to take note of what they are saying and what their strategies and tactics are and will be.  

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  2. good point Jarstar that we need to know who these people are and what they are fighting for.  

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    p>I was watching while Kimberly Fletcher of Homemakers of America was speaking.  Some of her points reflect what all of us want: government officials who have a sufficient moral compass to avoid scandals and crime, as well as electeds who work for their constituents and not their own self interests and political future.

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    p>But then she went on to say she does not want health care reform.  She lost me there, and I think she will lose many who are watching who are for health care reform.

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    p>She also said that this effort to change government needs to begin at the local level of government, speaking specifically of school committees and town government officials.  She spoke of the Abigail Adams project…which will be an information site geared at getting out the vote at the local level, she says because most presidents begin their political journey at the bottom, not at the top.

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    p>Seems this group wants change too.  I just hope they realize that not everyone wants the same kind of change.

    • I also watched Fletcher and she echoed another speaker’s point about running candidates at the local level. It’s not a new tactic but it is one I think we on the left do less well than our adversaries. Local school boards have been a fertile breeding ground for non-progressives in many places, and many of us can’t be bothered to pay attention until we find out that some book has been tossed in the fire. I don’t know if the pejorative SIDVILE is still in use (Sorry, I don’t vote in local elections), but for those among us who consider themselves in that category of voters, take a look at the Scott Brown map and keep an eye on the towns he won that weren’t red before he ran. Will local Tea Party candidates show up in local elections in those towns? Well, as tonight’s Tea Party keynote speaker might say, you betcha.

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      p>I did check out the Homemakers of America website. shudder

      • for Homemakers of America, Yikes!  Talk about the government being oppressive; can you imagine if this group were in control.  Anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, quoting the bible all the way.  So depressing, and controlling.  Exactly the type of thing they say they are fighting against.  Nope, don’t want those people on my school committee, or in the Selectmans office.  We need to keep an eye on that.

    • Really it is not that people don’t want something but there is a long history here of government passing things with lofty good sounding titles.

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      p>When the ramifications do come out however to provisions of such legislation came out of Satan’s most evil minions think tanks.

  3. Can America’s Kristallnacht be far behind under the Tea Party Banner.

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    p>America Uber Alis !

      • My wife is Austrian, and has been in the US since the mid-90s. She is a scientist, and is known for her low-key and unemotional demeanor. I hope you are willing to hear that Germans and Austrians have a different perspective on Kristallnacht from Americans. They lived through it and its aftermath; we did not. She has the same concern, and in fact this is our joint criteria for when it’s time to leave the US.

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        p>I understand that you may not feel that the threat is as immediate as Atticus, but I fear you reach too far when you ridicule his concern.

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        p>The US Government has shredded its respect for the rule of law. US citizens have been secretly imprisoned and tortured, with essentially no admission of wrongdoing by government authorities. There is clear and well-documented evidence of formal policies of kidnapping, abuse and torture originating in the White House and no action is being taken.

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        p>The essence of Kristallnacht was that government authorities encouraged and then ignored the targeting of chosen minorities by desperately fearful and insecure mobs of “good citizens.” Numerous German Jews voluntarily boarded trains to death camps because the couldn’t believe that the rumored atrocities could actually happen in Germany, a “civilized” nation. Are you familiar with what’s been happening to Muslims and immigrants in the US since 2001?

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        p>The “Tea Party” movement is dangerously similar. It relies on and stokes the same fears, and uses the same tactics to manipulate its followers. The institutions that we rely on to protect us from such violent madness — a government of laws, a vigorous and independent free press, and a citizenry that abhors such acts — are all under siege and in various states of disarray.

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        p>In my opinion, this is no time to be ridiculing concerns about an American Kristallnacht.

        • The Germans, 1933-35

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          p>by Milton Mayer

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          p>

          “You see,” my colleague went on, “one doesn’t see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even talk, alone; you don’t want to ‘go out of your way to make trouble.’ Why not?-Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.

          “Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general community, ‘everyone’ is happy. One hears no protest, and certainly sees none. You know, in France or Italy there would be slogans against the government painted on walls and fences; in Germany, outside the great cities, perhaps, there is not even this. In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, ‘It’s not so bad’ or ‘You’re seeing things’ or ‘You’re an alarmist.’

        • Atticus tends to over-react and use hyberbole to get his points across.

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          p>I majored in History with a concentration in German History. Believe me, these people scare the crap out of me, and I certainly see similarities between Weimar Germany of the late ’20s/early ’30s and the current economic and societal issues that we’re dealing with. Thirty years of hate radio and media concentration, along with the Republican agenda of defunding the public schools, has created a population where critical thinking is not valued. Watching these lemmings get used by the corporate media and RW-funded organizations to protest against their best interests is sad, but also extremely dangerous. These organizations are whipping up hatred and xenophobia and soon they won’t be able to control it. We’ve already seen evidence of this during the 2008 campaign (violence and racism on the part of McCain/Palin supporters) and during Brown’s campaign here.

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          p>So I’m not disagreeing with the sentiment, just the way it’s expressed.

      • Godwin’s Law says nothing about the validity of references to Nazi Germany in discussions, nor does it say anything about what effect such a reference has or should have on a discussion.

        It states: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”

        It is a prediction. Discussion is not mooted by the Law’s prediction being fulfilled nor by the Law itself being invoked.

      • Generally Godwin’s Law is cited as a way of dismissing the discussion.

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        p>Let me ask a different question. What does the phrase “Never Again” mean to you, and how seriously do you take it?

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        p>Folks in 12-step programs tell me they differentiate between “top line” and “bottom line” behavior. Bottom line behavior is getting falling-down drunk in a bar. Top line behavior is joining the group of office friends who decide to stop off at the bar after work.

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        p>If another Holocaust is the bottom line behavior that every civilized democracy wants to avoid, what is the top line learning from the civilized democracy that brought Hitler to power?

    • Produce “THE TEABAGGERS” with a chorus line of Springtime for Sarah and Wasilla.Maybe her former almost son-in-law, Levi Johnston, can be in the gay male chorus line goose stepping into the footlights.

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