dagblog - Comments for "When the "Tea Party" took over the GOP the first time"

I do have grandchildern and

trkingmomoe — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 19:19:03 +0000

In reply to I used to have some regrets

I do have grandchildern and by no means are they hostage. I see a good future in them. They seem to understand we are in this together and need to look out for each other. Something their grandparents don't understand because they have had it so good.

Very good post, Barth. A

William K. Wolfrum — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 13:01:09 +0000

In reply to When the "Tea Party" took over the GOP the first time

Very good post, Barth. A really good look at how we got here.

This reminds me of a Spanish

David Seaton — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 08:22:01 +0000

In reply to I'm with David on the

This reminds me of a Spanish friend's definition of Canadians:

"Americans without all the horseshit"

I'm with David on the

acanuck — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 07:56:54 +0000

In reply to Note: Lenny Bruce had a

I'm with David on the collapse of Weimar, Genghis. As the economy tanked, it wasn't just the Nazis and right-wing extremists who gained strength; the Communists also pulled support away from from the liberal and centrist parties. Not to excuse the industrial elite who threw in their lot with Hitler, but they had real fears that what had happened in Russia a decade earlier could happen imminently in Germany.

Both those revolutionary situations have parallels in today's America: it's not just the economic collapse, it's economic collapse coupled with humiliating military defeat that undermines people's sense of nationhood. Like the U.S. today, both Germany and Russia had experienced (or are experiencing) the sudden loss of imperial power. Somebody has to bear the blame for that, someone has to pay for that -- the kulaks, the Jews, the blacks, the illegal immigrants, the homos, whoever's handy. There's a pattern here.

We are seeing that the

David Seaton — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 07:29:32 +0000

In reply to I don't know that the Weimar

We are seeing that the democratic institutions are being hollowed out. Campaign and political action finance are officially out of control. Prisoners are held for years without trial. Surveillance of private communication etc.

Anything that America does will always have a uniquely American flavor. We are very original. When and if America becomes a fascist state, somehow it will all be done within the Constitution and will be totally legal and "democratic".

I used to have some regrets

David Seaton — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 07:22:14 +0000

In reply to I was blind sided by the tea

I used to have some regrets that I never had had any children and thus have no adorable little grandchildren... not anymore... I leave no hostages.

I was blind sided by the tea

Richard Day — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 00:05:43 +0000

In reply to When the "Tea Party" took over the GOP the first time

I was blind sided by the tea partiers. Just fascists dressed in new costumes. The good news: most of them look my age or older.

The bad news: they sneak into primaries and vote for the most ignorant savages I have ever listened to. I used to laugh at 6000 year old galaxies; constitutional renderings that come from comic books;speeches about welfare queens; freedom defined as total corporate control of our citizenry; world government conspiracies; secret death camps in this country; the end of Social Security; a federal sales tax to replace the progressive income tax....

I aint laughin so much these days.

I don't agree with your Glenn

Barth — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 23:13:15 +0000

In reply to I remember those days very

I don't agree with your Glenn Beck comment, by the way. Father Coughlin and Gerald L K Smith had huge followings, as, later did cranks such as Fulton Lewis. Don't kid youself. Crazy has always had fans. Many of them.

The Roosevelt approach to Coughlin, to just pretend he didn't exist was probably the best idea, but it just gave rise to other whispers. You can't win.

I don't know that the Weimar

Barth — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 23:10:00 +0000

In reply to What is beyond any doubt is

I don't know that the Weimar example applies here (though it could.) Germany had absolutely no history of what the post World War I government was trying to create and it was doing so during a period of a Europewide economic slump that was worse that what we are facing right now. The implicit faith in democratic institutions, which we still have here, barely existed.

Still, the idea that there are few "wise men" (or women) left to soberly approach our situation and do what has to be done, politics be damned, is obvious. And, as Krugman and Herbert have written, the ridiculous stunt by the new GOP savior, Gov Christie, is proof enough of low low we have sunk.

The downward spiral, a failed political system, and no hint of anything pointing in the other direction does have a Weimar ring to it, I will concede. You know the old parlor game about what if there was no Roosevelt, like the what if Germany had succesfully invaded England or Philip Roth's what if Col Lindbergh ran against and beat Pres Roosevelt in 1940? We may get our answers.

Note: Lenny Bruce had a

David Seaton — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 21:42:34 +0000

In reply to What is beyond any doubt is

Note: Lenny Bruce had a wondeful routine about a comedian whose act is going flat: as they say in the business his jokes were dying, so he shouts out, "Fuck the Irish!" and some people in the crowd start shouting "Fuck the Irish!" too and then fights break out... a distraction from failure.