What do you think about Tea Party victories in the primaries?

I think it bodes very well for the Democrats. Christine O’Connel is a complete nut job.

It is good for Democrats, bad for America. Are you primarily a Democrat or an American?

Frightening. Truly frightening.

Why, are they causing a stir?

They have made an important step forward towards getting our Government to shift it’s focus from the current trend of protect their jobs and the party at all costs towards being held accountable to actually doing their job they were elected to do. The Good Ol Boy club politics of old is finally put on notice that we the people… Dems, Repubs and Independents are tired of the same old politics as usual and are demanding some action out of our Government.

I think it’s a huge uphill battle for the true Tea Party candidates to win their general elections but it is almost irrelevant if they do or don’t as they have already accomplished their mission in these primaries with all of their stunning upset victories over incumbent candidates.

I assume it is the first wave of push back against the people (politicians, high stakes financiers, the lazy and willfully non productive etc.) who have gotten comfortable, and even rich, by bleeding the taxpayers dry.

@boots I’m with ya.

The Tea Party victories with Sharon Angle in Nevada and Christine O’Connell in Delaware probably mean that any chance Republicans had of regaining control of the Senate is now gone. Both candidates are simply too loony and dangerous to be elected. Even as widely disliked as Harry Reid is, he isn’t bat-shit crazy and his opponent, with her desire to dismantle Social Security, Medicare, the Education Department and her threats to use guns if her ideology can’t win at the ballot box—that just goes over the line.

What is scary is that the Republican Party is lurching so far to the extreme right-wing that it is now at risk of adopting a pure Fascist political philosophy. The inmates have taken over the asylum. People with zero knowledge of how our political process really works and no understanding of economics are certain that their “common sense” is far better than an Ivy League education and years of hands-on experience. “Constitutionalists” who want to ignore just about all of the Constitution except the 2nd Amendment and the bit about state’s rights are setting the Republican agenda and writing its talking points.

I think what’s happening is that the public is awakening to the fact that things have gone terribly wrong in US government since 1980. Not enough have yet figured out that it is a shift toward corporatocracy that’s to blame for America’s woes. Instead, the angry ones have been lead into a partisan hate-fest by the Vast Right-Wing Noise Machine and its constant stream of Toxic Talk that is, in fact, nothing more than a tool of the corporatists.

Finally, I think Abraham Lincoln was exactly right when he said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” The sleeping giant is waking up. And when they find out how they have been robbed, the ones that can’t be fooled anymore are going to be “Mad as Hell” and they ain’t going to take it anymore. The Wizard of Oz is about to be exposed as nothing more than a wizened and greedy man behind a curtain.

@ETpro I hope you’re scared by the Tea Party folk because they are likely to give even more power to the corporatocracy if they were to have their way. The only group that wants to try to get a handle on corporations are left wing groups, who have as little chance of getting elected as Tea Party folk, do.

I think this presents an interesting challenge for the Republicans. It seems to be coming clear that they may be unable to bridge the gap between their radical and more moderate wings. I think they may eventually be forced to choose to be a party of the far right or to be a party of the center. Of course, being in the center is where long term success lies.

The radical wings of the parties know they probably won’t pick up more than a few seats here and there. Their purpose is to pull their party more in the radical direction. They hope to gain enough power that the moderate part of the party will throw them some bones in order to buy continued support. But they are usually too radical, in my opinion, to be able to maintain a long term alliance with the moderates.

I’m sure there are many options, but to make things simple (as they are not), I’m going to say that the Republicans have two options. They can go to the right, in which case they will marginalize themselves, or they can drop the radical right and more more towards the center, trying to steal away as many moderates as possible from the Dems.

If I were them (and I’m not), I would drop the radicals and move to the center. Right now, there is a lot of disaffection with the Dems, and I believe a moderate Republican party would have a great chance of gaining a plurality, if they manage to isolate the rad right in their own little patch of deluded reality.

What I think will happen is the Republicans will try to hold on to the Teas together with the center, and they will continue to look fractious. Many will vote for them as a protest vote, but perhaps not as many as they had expected. This will enable the Dems to maintain at least one of the houses of Congress.

See what I did? Put myself down smack dab in the middle of the views of the punditocracy. How amusing!

What a proud moment for America.

For one example, the totally non-racist teabaggers/Republicans of New York picked a real new-media wizard in Carl Paladino, the author of emails like this :

A December 2008 email showing a video of African tribesmen performing a traditional dance. The video is entitled “Obama Inauguration Rehearsal.”

An October 2009 email with a photograph showing President Obama and the First Lady dressed in 70s-era blaxploitation pimp and prostitute costumes while attending a formal event at the White House.

A July 2009 email showing a photograph of an airplane landing directly behind a group of black men. The caption reads: “Holy Sh*t. run ni**ers, run!”

Given the angry, fractious political environment, I don’t think any candidate is too inexperienced or nutty to be elected—whatever his or her political affiliation. How about that Afro-American guy who I think won a Congressional seat recently because his name was top of the list of candiates on the ballot? That’s what scares me the most.

The demise of the Republican party has been predicted since the election of Obama in 2008. I suspect the rumors of their demise are vastly over exaggerated. The advice from the left is to nominate candidates that look more like Democrats. Candidates that will vote for Cap N Trade, Health Care, more spending. Candidates that will caucus with the Democrats. In other words candidates that they call moderates.

Not surprisingly, theses same people call Obama a moderate. They think that nationalizing health Care, is a moderate position. They think that expanding discretionary spending by 84% in his first year, is a moderate position. They think that nationalizing auto companies, insurance companies, and banks is a moderate position. And that smaller government, reduced spending, and a return to the constitution are far right, extreme positions. If you want lower taxes, you’re a right wing nut. If you want social security to remain viable, you’re a right wing loon. If you want government to live within it means, you’re too radical for them.

The change Obama promised is coming. It’s just not coming the way he wanted. We’ve tried his way, the Chicago way. We don’t like it. We’ve tried telling everyone they’re stupid and they should trust the more intelligent and elite Washington crown to tell us what’s in our best interest. It hasn’t worked and the public is sick of it. It’s time to tell the far left that they are NOT moderate, they are NOT mainstream, and that they are NOT going to continue ramming these far left policies down our throats.

We’re tired of being told to who to hate, who are the good guys and who are the bad. We tired of being told the guy that gives us a paycheck is the bad guy and the guy that takes it away is the good guy. We’re tired of being told that when regulations don’t work or are not enforced, we need more of them. We’re tired of being told that the people that bankrupt entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, should be the ones to administer even more entitlement programs.

The Tea Parties are very simple. They stand for less government, less spending, more freedom. Those are NOT radical concepts despite what the Democrats claim. It’s time for government to get out of the way and let the country recover from this recession. Getting the Democrats out of office is the only way to make that happen. Getting people that believe in the Tea Party principles is a plus. We’ll find out soon enough if the basic principles this country was founded on, will win or lose. Frankly, I’m glad to have a choice.

We’re tired of being told to who to hate, who are the good guys and who are the bad.

“If you’re not with us, you’re against us.” – Donald Rumsfeld

“This is an evil man that we’re dealing with. And I wouldn’t put it past him to develop evil weapons to try to harm civilization as we know it._ – George W. Bush

@Dr_Dredd
Without even addressing the comparison, I am intrigued by the premise of your response. If I read it right, you seem to imply that if Bush did it it, must be the right thing to do. Maybe addressing the issues rather than deflecting to the old blame Bush line would create better results.

@Dr_Dredd, Hillary Clinton said the first statement, too. After the 9/11 attack people from both sides were competing in making the most insane statements and passing insane laws because people were emotional.

It’s time proud, calm and mature americans find their voice. Let’s hope they can stop the obama regime from destroying this country…

@Jaxk That “wild spending” crew in office right now—that bunch of tax-and-spend extreme liberals—trimmed the 2008 deficit Bush ran by 8% in 2009 even while spending to pull the economy out of the ditch Republican policies ran it into. And they are fighting tooth-and-nail with obstructionists Republicans about tax cuts. WHy? Because they want to give 100% of Americans a tax cut while Republicans are willing to give nobody one unless the wealthiest 2% get a huge one, on average $100,000 extra for each of those tax payers.

Big Lies will only get a party so far. The massive enthusiasm among Republicans showed up in a lower than average turnout for a midterm election—even among registered Republicans. The ten-percenters that are the Tea Party turned out en masse. Will Democrats realize what’s at stake if we get a Republican Senate and a Speaker Boehner or even a Speaker Michelle Bachmann? I don’t know. I think they will care when the consequences of that choice are made clear.

lol, calm, mature teabag-Americans. Good one.

The 25% of the population who thought GW Bush was doing a good job can’t grasp the fact that they helped ruin the economy, they are getting tax cuts and they think they are being robbed and they think a right-of-Nixon American-born born Christian President is a Muslim terrorist..

That’s funny.

@jaytkay They also think that if they can only slash taxes massively and lay off all federal employees, the National Debt will pay itself. Somalia has zero taxes and spends virtually zero on government. It’s national per-capita income is $600 a year. Now just imagine Somalia with $13 trillion in debt, and you have a picture of their fantasy paradise. They are the something-for-nothing conservatives. Sorry, but being a gimmie pig isn’t a true conservative value. Dollar for dollar, more tax cuts cost add to the national debt far faster than more spending.

@ETpro
I can’ even guess where you get your numbers. Bush’s last budget was $2.9 trillion. Obama’s first budget was $3.8 trillion. I’m hard pressed to see a reduction between those two, especially since Obama’s budget remains at that level throughout his term. The debt has increased by over $3 Trillion since he took office. I’m guessing that math is not your strong suit.

As for the tax cuts, you need to look at what we are hoping to accomplish. Get the class warfare out of your mind and look at the economy. The only way out of this debt problem is to grow the economy. Not surprising but that also creates jobs. Obama stated himself that raising taxes during a recession is a bad idea. Not exactly an epiphany but still correct. Now for some reason it’s changed where he thinks raising taxes on some but not others is a good idea. The reasoning seems to be that some can afford it. It doesn’t matter whether anyone can afford it or not nor does it matter whether some deserve it or not, it only matters what will grow the economy. Raising taxes will not grow the economy. That is why democrats are beginning to jump ship and support the extension of tax cuts. And as a matter of fact growing the economy is how you pay for tax cuts.

The only time we raised taxes during a recession was in 1937. FDR’s brainstorm which threw us back into depression. Doing the same thing again will not have better results.

@Jaxk The 2009 budget was handed to Obama by Bush. It was passed and signed into operation in 2008. Here’s source. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/13/politics/washingtonpost/main6391441.shtml

We started the non class warfare of making our tax system more regressive back in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan. We have been trying that now for 30 years, waiting for trickle down to kick in. Well, were are the jobs? The top 1% have gotten fabulously wealthy already. They own over one third of everything in America. The top 10% own two thirds of everything. The bottom 90% now have to divvy up what littel is left. How rich to the wealthy have to get before this starts to work? Where are the jobs? Where are the jobs? Where are the jobs?

You probably know that what caused the recession within the depression was not a tax increase. FDR cut back on spending because of all the howls from Republicans, and unemployment spiked. He quickly renewed the spending and the economy began to recover. The GDP was back to where it should have been by 1941, before Pearl Harbor.

The CBO has scored all the things we can do to stimulate the economy. Giving the wealthiest 2% a big tax cut (on average, each taxpayer in that bracket would get an extra $100,000) does the least to stimulate the economy, while adding $700 billion to the National Debt. Republicans claim that letting Bush’s welfare for the rich expire will hurt small businesses. That’s another big lie. Only 3% of the US small businesses will see any effect from extending Bush’s tax cut for the rich.

And cut the class warfare Big Lie. If the lower bracket tax cuts are extended, which is what President Obama and Speaker Pelosi are proposing to do, every taxpayer in America, even the richest, will get a tax cut. The wealthiest 2%, who already are fabulously rich, just won’t get a cut on income over $250,000 per year. On that portion of their income, they will pay the same rate they did under CLinton.

We created 22 million jobs under clinton and 3 million under Bush with his welfare for the rich. WHERE ARE THE JOBS?

By the way, I edited that question to doccument all those statistics, but the edit timer caught me before I was done. I have the edits with links saved if you don’t believe the above and want proof posted.

I think teabagger victories are great. The effect will be extremely distructive and finally bring things to a head in this country. Of course when they screw up, they will blame it all on “the Liberals.” If enough of these idiots like Sharon Angle and Christine O’Connel get elected, things will get so bad that America will finally wake up to the real problem—a country where the corporation is allowed to run roughshod over the people’s rights, their laws, their elections and their government while in the process bankrupting the treasury. I can’t wait for the day of reckoning. People will either launch their fat, lazy asses out of their recliners and use what’s left of the democracy to reclaim their rights by insisting the government stop pandering to the will of the corporation, or we will devolve into violent civil war with the cacaphony of such fine American patriots as Beck, Limbaugh, Levin, Malkin, et al cheering them on to the bitter end. If enough crazy ass teabaggers get in, it more likely will be the latter. It couldn’t happen to a nicer, kinder, more worldly, more tolerant, more generous, more intelligent bunch of people than today’s Americans. Bring it on.

@ETpro

Let’s try and bring a little reality to this discussion. You are comparing the 2009 expenditures to 2010 and assuming that since Bush created the original 2009 budget that all the spending is his. The bush budget was $2.9 Trillion the excess spending was Obama. I am amazed that you would try to blame Bush for the Stimulus, Omnibus, Cash for clunkers, Mortgage adjustments, and the never ending unemployment extensions. Good or bad, those are Obama’s. Obama took Bush’s budget a blew it beyond any reasonable chance of recovery.

You also want to stick Bush with TARP. First let’s try to understand what TARP was, it was a loan. If I loan you $10 and you pay back $11, how much did I spend? Tarp was designed to have no long term debt affect. Bush used half of these funds and Obama used the other half. Obama also used the almost $200 billion that was repaid to make his deficit look smaller. You can play fast and loose with the numbers but only the most hard core liberals will buy it.

You want to know ” Where are the jobs”? Me to. Obama has spent $Trillions on his spending spree to create jobs with no success. He told us that “this is the worst recession since the Great Depression”. Then when his stimulus didn’t work, his excuse was, It’s worse than we thought. How could that be. Does that mean it’s worse than the Great Recession? Only the blind would believe his rhetoric. Now after all his efforts have failed he expects us to believe there’s just nothing that can be done, we need to lower our expectations. Now that’s an encouraging thought. Or of course his other favorite excuse, “it would have been much worse”.

Now he has a new plan, more stimulus spending. Only this time we’ll do infrastructure, roads and bridges, a new smart grid, stuff like that. That sounds ominously suspicious. Isn’t that what he said the first time around. Infrastructure, roads and bridges, smart grid? If it didn’t work the first time, let’s do it again. Or maybe his speech writer got confused and recycled an old speech (just changed the numbers a little).

As for the tax cuts on small business, you need to understand how business works, how jobs are created. Jobs are created when businesses are started or expanded, when a shop opens a new location or puts on a second shift. Businesses that are hanging on by their finger nails don’t do these things. Businesses that are generating cash do them. In order to expand you need cash. If you get it through a loan you still need to prove you are generating cash. The businesses we hope to incentivize to expand are the ones you want to penalize with higher taxes and more regulation. It doesn’t work and that’s why those businesses are hoarding their cash. They simply don’t know what the government will do to them in the coming months and they need the cash to insure their survival.

The difference in strategies is quite stark.The Democrats want to compensate those that are hurting from the recession. Extend unemployment, help them buy a car or adjust their mortgage. Send them a check (all noble causes). And of course pay for it by taxing those they feel don’t deserve it. The Republicans would rather focus on getting the economy moving. Encouraging business to expand and create jobs. It’s the old ‘give a man food or teach him to fish’ argument. We’ve tried give away programs and government hiring schemes, they don’t work. The further we drive this spending policy the worse trouble we create. It’s time to change course. Undoing the problems we’ve created won’t be easy but the further we fall into this abyss, the worse it will be. Current projection show that interest on the national debt will grow to $800 billion by 2020. That will be the largest budget item, dwarfing things like defense, medicare, etc. We need to grow this economy and we need it quick. Growing deficit by 150% while growing the economy by 1% won’t do it.

@Espiritus_Corvus
I would agree that the Tea Party victories are great. It time to shake up Washington a little. I think you miss the point when you say things will get so bad. They are already so bad. That is why the Tea Parties emerged. People are waking up and getting off their couches and saying ‘enough is enough’.

I am amazed however in your theory that less spending will bankrupt the Treasury, while more spending will somehow reverse that event. It must be the New Math.

@Jaxk What theory? Where in all that did I say anything about spending? I think you are suffering some sort of delerium or have me confused with somebody else.

The fact is the treasury is bankrupt. The looting has already taken place through deregulation, wars, no bid contracts, bailouts, etc. What you have is the promise of future taxation to pay the interest on an enormous national debt—a significant portion of which is being held by a country with an opposing ideology—the payments of which will be made with money that in an of itself are promisary notes in which we pay interest on. I have no remedy for this, no theory. Its done. The horse has left the barn. American citizens, duly warned by their founding fathers, were not vigilant and protective of their democracy from the enemies within.

Americans were watching sitcoms or worrying themselves to a frenzy over some asshole burning a flag while the Fed and their scumfuck Wall Street doppelgangers walked off with the country’s wealth. You and others busy yourselves in some futile, artificial Left vs Right crap, non-existent Mexican Invasions, Mosques in NYC, ad infinitum while the wars and the robbery continues. The Fed continues to exist and refuses to be audited and your elected representatives have a habit of immedieately sign off on bills concerning war (Afghanistan, Iraq), your rights (Patriot Act), and giving billions to banks (Bailouts) without reading these laws—actions that benefit only corporations. But if there is a spending bill that just might benefit the average citizen you can be that they will drag the process out for years until it has been morphed into a package that will only benefit the corporation (Health Care Bill).

You’ve been duped, the teabaggers are dupes, the whole multiparty system—the democracy itself is a sham, and as long as Americans buy into the bullshit that all our problems are due to either evil fascist Republicans or a communist in the White House, the duping will continue and get worse. You are being divided and conquered. The thieves are safe. The disease will remain misdiagnosed and therefore it will thrive no matter the efforts that are exerted to stop it.

First of all you may not realize what you’ve said. A common liberal problem where you try to respond before listening to the argument or reading the bill. Second, your cute little name calling aggravates the first problem. By using terms like teabaggers you try to insult and cut off debate. when you cut off the debate you never know what the other people are saying.

The Tea Parties are quite simple and obvious, Smaller government, less spending, lower taxes, and a return to the constitution. Tea Party candidates hold to those principles. Smaller government and less spending will relieve the pressure on the treasury. It will reduce the deficit. Lower taxes are designed to spur the economy and result in more revenue to the treasury. So yes, your contention that the Tea Parties will bankrupt the country is misguided.

The rest of the rant sounds more like the ‘Sky is Falling’ rhetoric than anything constructive. And I don’t see any clue in your rant as to where you’d like to see it go. Obviously you don’t like the two party system or a multiparty system and you apparently don’t like democracy. You seem to be against everything and Americans specifically. It is difficult to find someone to support with those ideals.

Well, you certainly have a gift for making assumptions about what I am for or against, from which side of the political spectrum I come from and the quaility of my American patriotism. Keep guessing. I find it amusing.

History shows that, no matter which of the two parties are in power, the successive party most often continues the policies of the former regime, even though the rhetoric doesn’t reflect that. This leads one to surmise that there is, in effect, only one political party in the US and it’s purpose is to concentrate power into the hands of a few. But democracy prevents the concentration of political power into the hands of an oligarchy, right? So this can’t happen in America. That is, unless American democracy has been hijacked by the aforementioned few.

Our democracy has been gradually taken from the hands of the citizens through a lobbying system that is weighted thoroughy on the side of corporate interests over individual citizens, Supreme Court decisions giving individual rights to corporations since the 1870s, the erosion of the middle class through real salary reduction and civil rights in the last 30 years, a mainstream news media owned by eight to ten international corporations with a homogenous political view that does not represent or serve the interest of American citizens and has supplanted their responsibility as our Fourth Estate to inform with a policy to indoctrinate, the control of the money supply in the hands of a cartel of private banks (the Federal Reserve System) which is more than 60% foreign owned that also do not serve the interest of American citizens, a two party political system that history shows supports the policies of each successive regime no matter which is elected, thus ensuring no real change in the march toward undemocratic corporatocracy; a congressional and presidential election campaign process that guarantees candidates will be compliant political whores of the corporatocracy by the time they reach Washington: an inefficient school system that produces a somnolent, ignorant, politically apathetic constituency devoid of the ability to detect fact from fallacy and obsessed by entertainment and celebrity—enabling all the above to occur with very little notice. leaving us with an illusion of democracy.

Now, unless there is a political movement that will seriously address the problems as described above, no change can ever take place. The corporatocracy will march on.

@Espiritus_Corvus

Your hatred of corporations is clear. I’m not sure if it’s all corporations or merely the largest of them. I doubt I can influence you one way or the other but you may want to consider a few facts that point in another direction.

If corporation have so much influence here, why would they be leaving for operations overseas. I they have the kind of power you describe in the USA, why would they look to China where the government is less flexible.

The history you say shows that nothing changes, is not a function of corporatocracy but rather a concentration of power in Washington. The President steals power from Congress and Congress steals power from the States. Centralized power has been increasing since the inception of the country. The more power we transfer to Washington, the more power they want. Corporations definitely try to influence Washington but it is a self preservation act. The lawyers in Washington have little or no knowledge of the industries they are regulating. Nor do they have any knowledge or concern for the problems they cause. Which is why we get so much ill conceived and poorly written legislation.

When the country was conceived, the power was focused in the States. Washington had little of it and what they had was limited. Since that time, Washington has driven to expand their power. And typically in a detrimental fashion. Case in point, the Department of Education was created in 1979 and began operating in 1980 (Carters brainstorm). Since that time, Washington has continuously expanded thier control of the education system. Currently Washington spends about $100 billion annually on education. If you look at it honestly, can you say there has been a dramatic improvement in our education since that time? Hell, can you say there has been ANY improvement in our education system in that time?

Basically I would submit that it is not corporations that cause the problems you relate but rather Washington politicians. I predict that next year BP will show enormous profit while paying little or no tax. This will reinforce your view that corporations are the problem. But when that happens look back at why it happened. Obama forced BP to put up $20 billion in a reserve fund. That will be written off in the year it was created. Obama also forced BP to skip the dividend payments allowing them to retain more cash. This year the BP fund will pay out about a third of that money. But write off the entire amount. Their taxes will be minimal. Meanwhile the pensioners and retirement accounts, that would have gotten those dividends, will be shorted and we will lose that tax revenue as well. The fund is administered by Obama’s guy so blaming BP for the low payouts should be difficult but I’m sure BP will be blamed anyway. Basically Washington got involved and created a windfall for BP. And liberals cheered them for it.

The idea that the public is stupid doesn’t really address the problem. It’s a cop out. The public is paying more attention now than ever before. The public has stayed engaged over the past two years. I don’t recall a period in my life where politics remained front and center between elections. I don’t mean just griping about it but rather staying involved. The Tea Parties are a piece of that. I would think, given your low view of the public, that this involvement, this attention to the issues, would be seen as a good thing. Even if you don’t agree with everyone. I see it as addressing the main issue but even if you don’t it certainly isn’t apethetic or somnolent.

“Your hatred of corporations…” There you go again. Where did I say that I would destroy or kill? That is hatred. I am in disagreement and for you to characterize it as anything more than that is simply baiting.

Your interpretation of the recent BP disaster has no connection with reality. Weren’t you even watching as this went down? Or were you just listening to the people who are paid to interpret the news for you and the other weak minded? Obama did nothing. Forced nothing. If the government’s handling of the spill showed anything at all, it showed how impotent this government is to standing up to corporations. BP simply shoveled over a promise of 20 billion and capped it at that. They dictated the terms. Obama merely accepted them showing what a corporate whore he is.

Since when, during an on-going disaster, is the damage award unilaterally decided upon and capped by the offender before these damages have even been assessed? 20 billion won’t even cover the replacement value of the 17 miles of luxury highrise beach hotels, tourism, fishing industry and related income/jobs on the string of Gulf Coast Islands on which I live—to say nothing of the damage to the miles of pristine estuaries and related wildlife that surround us. 20 billion is bullshit here.

This oil has seriously affected the coastline and related industries of three Gulf States, and has invaded many of the beaches and estuaries of the other two. How is 20 billion supposed to cover that if it can’t even cover my beach? And by the way, according to the people most affected, very little of it has been paid out and that which has been paid out has been late thereby rendering the money ineffective in saving small businesses and family homes.

Your belief that Americans are more politically active than ever before in your lifetime either illustrates how young you are, or how stupid, forgetful and intellectually pliable you are. Willfully stupid maybe? What you have in the teabagger movement was initially a core group of Libertarians who were high jacked early on by Republican operatives and their corporate backers and populated with the most vocal right wing dissidents that could be scraped off the politcal sewers of America in reaction to the Health Care Bill and the election of a black man as president. These are people who had no problem disrupting town hall style community informational sessions by bringing in assault rifles, yelling nonsensical obscenities, shouting down the speakers and audience, then calling it free speech. “Keep the Government out of my Medicare.” Yeah right. The fact that you support such inanity says more about your character and intelligence none of it complimentary than I care to describe here on Fluther.

These are dupes of the most tragicomic sort. The teabaggers are a very small group of extremely motivated, vocal, bitter geriatrics that appear larger and more influential than they actually are and because of their sheer audacious absurdity, they get press.

If I didn’t know better, I would surmise that this movement was an ingenious reverse-astroturf invention of their political opponents for the damage they bring to the Republican doorstep, but the Democrats are too stupid and disorganized for anything like that. Their tent is way too big and diverse for such things. Nope. I’m afraid they are here for one purpose only and that is to keep America politically divided.

But the teabaggers in no way represent the significant percentage of voters required to take back our democracy. Like the Moral Majority before them, they are an extremely vocal minority astroturf organization created to neutralize a trend that is scaring the shit out of the Wall Street/Washington complex which seeded them through various political orgs.

No, this is a product of years of talk radio and 24 hour “news” commentary—thoughtless fanatical political agitation for no other purpose but to keep Americans divided by an illusion of on-going Left or Right wing government takeovers and distracted by trivial sideshows and thereby rendering them impotent to do anything about the influence the corporation has over our government, our laws and our elected officials.

After reading your posts and recognizing your tired old accusative rhetoric and your talk radio style baiting for what it is, it is plain that you obviously have come to Fluther with an agenda to either argue for argument’s sake or to promote a political opinion totally disconnected from reality—neither of which I am interested in assisting you with. Good luck to you.

@Espiritus_Corvus

That must be quite a burden you carry. Being the only one that sees the problem, being the only one that’s not stupid or evil. You’ve definitely convinced me that you really do hate everyone. I’m guessing here but I suspect you believe in the grassy knoll theory, maybe a 9/11 truther as well. Conspiracy theories, your stock and trade. Too bad but I agree that this is going nowhere. Good luck with your bitterness.