This awesome rant howls about the cluelessness of liberals moaning about health care while wars rage and elites plunder the economy. This also, I must add, includes the maddeningly comatose behavior of the radical left who during this massive crisis of capitalism has been doing precisely nothing.
(I’m not sure who the author is, it doesn’t matter, just go with the howl. It’s rude, profane, and quite on target. Here’s most of it.)
The pants-pissing liberal hysteria about evil militia maniacs being mean to poor little helpless members of Congress
Of course millions and millions and millions of people increasingly hate and fear the government. And loathe and despise the politicians in Congress.
They are right to do so.
They are highly intelligent and perceive correctly who the enemy is, robbing them blind by the trillions of dollars and sending their kids off to stupid wars.
More than anything, this is what the teabaggers are about. They are increasingly angry about getting screwed over. DJ, who blogs here and lives in rural Utah, tells me the teabaggers he knows are not racists and most are Democrats. Urban liberals need to get their heads out of their posteriors and realize this.
Some teabaggers could be potential friends and allies. But they certainly won’t if liberals continue to portray them as ignorant rural yokels who live in doublewides as some liberal blogs are doing now. Instead they might want to listen to the quite real grievances about jobs, the economy, etc. Plus,, it’s a cheap shot. Find the looniest of the protesters, then portray them as being the norm. This happened all the time when I was helping organize antiwar protests.
Of course more and more want to tear the house down.
That is also a sign of intelligence.
If the radical left doesn’t organize them against the government and the status quo, the radical right will.
Populist uprisings can go left or right. Or even stay in the middle. But left radicals are doing approximately zilch now while liberals apparently have made the public option their political do-or-die issue. They may get their wish. Meanwhile, they ignore other, much bigger issues and alienate possible allies.
(Of course, tearing the house down with no clue what to do next generally isn’t a real effective plan. Unless of course you enjoy gibbering chaos.)
The posturing “progressives” of the world whining on the internet about the growth of the radical right and how mean they were to Congressman Thieving V. Fatfuck at the town hall meeting will not organize anything.
And the danger isn’t that these stupid, incompetent, deluded maniac assholes from some militia or other will march on Chicago or New York or Los Angeles.
Fortunately, there are literally millions of weapons in private hands in urban America. The Chicken Crotch Militia would last about 20 minutes showing up in Brooklyn.
The danger is from some General who decides he has to take over to save America from chaos.
If you’re worried about how things are going, go make friends with some troops.
Face to face.
The life you save may be your own.
Apocalyptic? Yes. A rant? Absolutely. But there’s considerable truth here. Liberals are overly busy defending Obama and are thus ignoring the wars and cratering economy, while the hard left is unaccountably AWOL. This needs to change. Now.
Here’s what I don’t get: it’s clear to me that more than a few Tea Party rallies were the target of co-optation by racists and fascists and LaRouchies and who knows what, but the “lefty” anti-war rallies experienced much the same thing from their own lunatic fringe (the “Free Mumia” folks, etc.). You’d think that the progressives would figure that out, but it seems increasingly like our/my side is playing the same game the conservatives did with W: dismiss the opposition by focusing on presence of the loons (not to mention the percieved socio-economic status of the tea baggers in general) and defending the party and the current admin no matter what because they’re “our guys” instead of standing for principles.
No idea where this is going to end up, but I keep leaning towards a Huey Long/Mussolini situation with the “left” wondering what the heck hit them.
In the case of the anti-war rallies, the Free Mumia people were the organizers, as they backed all those far left causes. Their primary motive was to recruit people into their hard left socialist party or group. The problem was, their recruiting goal generally overrode the alleged exterior motive of wanting to stop the war. Moderates weren’t allowed into the controlling groups or to have much say in what happened. So the group stayed on the fringes, aliented the centrists. never got mass support, and eventually faded away. This isn’t speculation. ANSWER was controlled by Workers World, now by PSL. UFJP is run by old time CP members who split and started the Committees of Correspondence.
So, the same process is probably happening on the right too with the teabaggers. Extreme right wingers are trying to manipulate a mostly grass root movement. I doubt they’ll get far, just like what happened to the extreme left and the antiwar movement.
Funny, isn’t it, how the extreme left and extreme right both think the middle is secretly for them while also having contempt for that same middle for being sheeple. Meanwhile, the middle doesn’t want much to do with either extreme and is, I think, far smarter than they are given credit for being.
Agreed – at the very least, the middle is rarely blinded by ideology.
It’s not just the extremists, guys. There’s a cultural division right down the middle of this country (demographically speaking), and both sides start with preconceived notions of what the other has to say. This knee-jerk opposition isn’t limited to a few fringe loonies. The true “middle” is actually pretty damned small.
Bob, you’re right: the left leaners are missing an incredible opportunity. But there are a few humps they just can’t seem to get over, even if they were to exert the effort (which they haven’t). The great rural “middle” (which is half the country) doesn’t want to hear words like “tuning up the gun laws” and “government health panels.” They hear those as code words for a left-wing takeover, just as the great urban “middle” doesn’t want to hear about warrantless wiretaps, school prayer, and limits on abortion which THEY see as codewords for theocracy.
You can say they’re wrong, but do you want to win their support or not? If so, you’ll have to learn how to quit stepping on the (clearly marked) landmines. And if not, we’ll likely continue to drift toward an eventual (1) breakup of the union or (2) dictatorship by one side or the other.
As for myself, I think it could go either way. I’m still buying equities AND grain reserves, real estate AND ammo. And if it all goes to hell and you find yourself headed out our way, for God’s sake please call first!
What’s going on now is a speed bump compared to the late 60’s, with its multiple assassinations and burning cities. I suspect we’ll get through this too.
Gotta call BS.
How did you turn this: “They are highly intelligent and perceive correctly who the enemy is, robbing them blind by the trillions of dollars and sending their kids off to stupid wars.”
Into this: “More than anything, this is what the teabaggers are about. They are increasingly angry about getting screwed over.”
Because that’s not what it says. Please link me to the Teabaggers who perceive the enemy as corporate policy profiteers who are also complaining about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, because I’m pretty sure you just made them up. I see lots of complaining about “National Socialism” and killing old people, but Afghanistan? Really? I call BS.
The teabaggers aren’t angry at the banksters / government? Yeah, I think they are. And at lots of other things too.
But like with antiwar protests where the looniest of the loony get the press, I think that’s what’s happening here too. Just like with the “Bush is a fascist” protest signs during the antiwar protests that the media focused on.
I didn’t say they weren’t angry at the government. YOU said “more than anything” the Teabaggers are angry about “sending their kids off to stupid wars.” I’m assuming you’re referring to Iraq and Afghanistan, and not some mystery war I haven’t heard of.
So, where are the anti-Afghanistan war and anti-Iraq war teabaggers? Not even anti-ALL War, just those TWO wars. Where are they?
No one denies the teabaggers are angry at SOMETHING. What I’m denying is that they’re angry about the Wars. You’re twisting their opposition to crazy fantasies like “National Socialism” and “Death Panels” into opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I’m asking for evidence.
> “They are highly intelligent and perceive correctly who the enemy is, robbing them blind by the trillions of dollars and sending their kids off to stupid wars.”
That’s the original quote I was referring to. It refers to them being angry about stupid wars. So how is that twisting anything?
Because you, in the very next line, said “More than anything, this is what the teabaggers are about.” You twisted “stupid wars” into the Teabaggers. I’m asking for evidence.
I haven’t heard peep one from them on Iraq or Afghanistan, but you claim Teabaggers are about this “more than anything.” Granted, you’re saying it about the entirety of the excerpted quote above, but that quote still includes the remark about “stupid wars.”
Where are the anti-Iraq and anti-Afghanistan war Teabaggers? I’m asking because not even the most republican of polling agencies has picked up on this mass movement of conservatives who want to kick out Big Pharma/Oil/Whatever lobbyists and end the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Yes, Teabaggers and Anti-War leftists are indeed both protesters maligned by the media, but that doesn’t mean they’re protesting THE SAME THING. Make sense?
Fair enough. Maybe I was a bit unclear. My main point was, there’s common ground between the growing hordes of left and right dissenters and we need to be aware of that and use it. Not just attack their fringes.
Out here, even the hardcore GOP (of which there’s plenty) feels betrayed by the Bush administration’s pandering to the corporations. They don’t like to say it, but it’s true: he was just one more big-spending liberal. And what they complain most about Obama is that he’s giving our money away to corporations– a Bush policy that Obama continued.
Only rarely does a political discussion here turn to health care. Yeah, they call it socialism, but from what I’m seeing, people aren’t nearly as upset about the roposed structure of Obama’s plan as they are about the proposed cost. Our local Rep, a Blue Dog Dem, supports reform. I’m not saying health care is a non-issue, but it has to be seen in the context of a pair of presidents that have bankrupted the country to bail out the elite.