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Why the tea parties don't matter
The "Tea Party" movement is a symbolic failure.
The original tea partiers engaged in criminal acts and risked arrest and imprisonment to destroy product from a company being propped up by unfair reduced taxes by the government, at the expense of what, at the time, amounted to "small business:" the domestic importers of tea who competed with the East India Company.
The current teabaggers are buying tea and throwing it around. That's it. When the DC teabag crew showed up with a truckload of tea bags (yes, I'm serious) to dump in Lafayette Square (because dumping in the Potomac is illegal, can't do that, after all) they were informed that they didn't have the correct permits to dump their load.
So they took it away. They're a bunch of pussies. "Civil disobedience" and "protest" are just words to them. They'll always cave in to authority rather than take a risk for their alleged principles. Samuel Adams would have dumped the tea right then and there.
If they wanted a real symbolic connection with the original Boston Tea Party they would be stealing Chrysler and GM cars and trucks from distribution centers and dumping them in the drink.
But they're not.
Pussies.
The original tea partiers engaged in criminal acts and risked arrest and imprisonment to destroy product from a company being propped up by unfair reduced taxes by the government, at the expense of what, at the time, amounted to "small business:" the domestic importers of tea who competed with the East India Company.
The current teabaggers are buying tea and throwing it around. That's it. When the DC teabag crew showed up with a truckload of tea bags (yes, I'm serious) to dump in Lafayette Square (because dumping in the Potomac is illegal, can't do that, after all) they were informed that they didn't have the correct permits to dump their load.
So they took it away. They're a bunch of pussies. "Civil disobedience" and "protest" are just words to them. They'll always cave in to authority rather than take a risk for their alleged principles. Samuel Adams would have dumped the tea right then and there.
If they wanted a real symbolic connection with the original Boston Tea Party they would be stealing Chrysler and GM cars and trucks from distribution centers and dumping them in the drink.
But they're not.
Pussies.
no subject
And, honestly, that's how most such movements start. It's how moveon came to be. It's (lets be honest here) where the bulk of the anti-war crowd came from - people who were pissed off that Al Gore lost the 2000 election. It is, ultimately, why the Dems won Congress in 2006.
If you're looking for a full-blown political party with manifesto to spring fully formed for the brows of millions of pissed off centrists, it ain't gonna happen. Movements like this evolve. They start out rejectionist, and gravitate from there into a concrete set of representatives and policies and plans.
no subject
MoveOn? Yeah, it was all about putting the Clinton sex scandal in the past. On the other hand, they started out presenting a solution: censure the President and move on instead of impeaching him. It's one of the reasons they've become such a big player; they were able to successfully morph into a policy-advocacy group. I'm not their biggest fan; they play fast and loose with the facts sometimes. They've been slapped down by FactCheck and have refused to take their lumps.
I'm not sure I agree that the anti-war crowd was born out of anger at Gore's loss. I think a lot of people were angered by the war; the Gore hold-outs were just more angered. Anti-war movements can actually sustain themselves as a purely negative protest movement; they don't care about providing solutions.
The Democratic landslides in Congress in the last two elections? Definitely driven by anger and dissatisfaction with the Bush administration and the "permanent majority." From what I saw, though, Democratic politicians were campaigning as much on their agenda as they were taking advantage of being not-Bush. In the 2008 election, both parties were campaigning on being not-Bush, which, for the Republicans, tied their hands and ramped up their losses.
Landslides? Say what?
"The Democratic landslides in Congress in the last two elections?"
Huh? Say what? "Landslides?" Um, no. Not hardly. Not even close, actually.
A landslide would've meant a "fillibuster proof" majority in the Senate and not the 56/41 split it is now. You're closer to right in the House but even there it's no "landslide."
As to the 2008 election, it would've been a minor miracle for the Republicans to have kept the White House. The American voting public rarely hands over the Oval Office to the same political party three times in a row. Bush Sr. was the last get to get such a luxurious a treatment.
Combine the Iraq war, the nose-diving economy, the inarticulateness of both Bush _and_ McCain, along with that American tradition of "throw the bums out" (no matter which bums happen to have been in) and it's no surprise that Obama won. Here as well though, it was not a landslide.
True, it was a decisive victory but I see that as much more a rejection of Bush and a desire for fresh blood in the White House. And yeah, McCain was anything but fresh blood.
Madoc
Re: Landslides? Say what?
Funny how the "throw the bums out" tradition hit the Republicans unequally two cycles in a row. Even funnier considering the approval rating for Congress was crap when this happened last November.
Re: Landslides? Say what?
Yup, the GOP got hit by the "perfect storm" this last go 'round. Historically, mid-term elections never favor the party of the sitting President. This, especially in the midst of that President's _second_ term.
The Republicans in Congress had also gotten quite fat, dumb, and happy. They'd become just like the Democrats they used to gain so much political traction campaigning against. So, no surprise that the American public voted them out.
What's also no surprise is that the "most ethical Congress in history!" that Nancy and Harry promised has turned out to be anything but. The Democrats have only made things worse. That's why Congress' approval ratings were _below_ Bush's from '06 onward. That, my friend, takes work! Real, hard, work! And that work was the Democrat's singular achievement.
So, come '08 and it was time to change parties in the White House. The Democrats played it smart and simply kept pointing to Bush while soft pedaling the hoppy doppy "change" message coming from Obama. Smart move for them as they'd nothing else to go on. No accomplishments, no reforms, no honoring their campaign promises. Just blatant hypocrisy and willful inconsistency. Bog standard stuff for today's Democratic Party.
Madoc
Re: Landslides? Say what?
The Republicans in Congress had also gotten quite fat, dumb, and happy. They'd become just like the Democrats they used to gain so much political traction campaigning against. So, no surprise that the American public voted them out.
They believed their own "permanent majority" press. Unfortunately for them, nobody else did.
What's also no surprise is that the "most ethical Congress in history!" that Nancy and Harry promised has turned out to be anything but. The Democrats have only made things worse. That's why Congress' approval ratings were _below_ Bush's from '06 onward. That, my friend, takes work! Real, hard, work! And that work was the Democrat's singular achievement.
Baby steps. It's government. Molasses moves faster. "Earmark reform" falls short in some aspects, but it's not chopped liver. Easy access to earmark ("funding request," which is a meaningful name and not jargon) disclosures has made it possible for several non-partisan websites to build indexes to these disclosures (including the stealthily hidden ones). I expect, once they've got the clerical staff to do so, they will move on to building searchable databases of requests. Then, I'm sure, we'll get easily-assembled partisan catalogs of what's "pork" and what isn't.
I could wonder why Pelosi's office didn't do this last session, but I could also wonder why the Republican leadership didn't do it while they were in charge. I will choose to be happy that some transparency is being achieved.
I also wonder what's going to happen to the representatives who forgo earmarks (and there are a few). It's a great PR to fight against secret, carefully hidden and strongly symbolic "bridge to nowhere" spending, but when other districts are getting roads and sewers and districts that forgo earmarks are seeing aging infrastructure failures, there may be some surprised martyrs to principle.
You should be happy that the Congress isn't working smoothly with the administration to breeze through a progressive populist agenda (not that I honestly believe that we actually have a progressive populist majority in Congress, or an actual progressive populist President). It doesn't look like the internal party rebellion and gridlock of the early Clinton and Carter administrations, or the start of G.W. Bush's first completely Republican-controlled term, though. Some lessons may have been learned...
no subject
Note that their next step was the "we will remember" campaign - a classic of rejectionist action. It was only after that that they morphed into a policy-advocacy group.
And yes, they play fast and loose with the facts. That's been their hallmark since day one.
The initial anti-war protests were, quite bluntly, mostly anti-Bush folks. They picked up momentum, esp. as things ramped up WRT Iraq. But the core? Domestically, it was anti-Bush. Overseas, much more anti-American-exceptionalism.
And yes, I found it amusing that everyone on both sides was running on a "not-Bush" campaign basis. But 2006, I didn't see Dem's campaigning _for_ an agenda, so much as _against_ the Bush/Republican agenda. And I'll note, further, that what agenda they _did_ run on, they didn't bother to stick to. Nancy Pelosi's pledge to clean up Congress always makes me laugh, esp. WRT the shenanigans of her annointed golden boy, John Murtha.