The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    10 Questions for The Tea Party

    By cmaukonen on Sat, 10/23/2010 - 10:57pm |

    Ralph Nader posses ten questions to the Tea Party people. I wonder just how many of them can truthfully answer them. Assuming of course they can read.

    1. Can you be against Big Government and not press for reductions in the vast military budgets, fraught with bureaucratic and large contractors’ waste, fraud and abuse? Military spending now takes up half of the federal government’s operating budgets. The libertarian Cato Institute believes that to cut deficits, we have to also cut the defense budget.

    2. Can you believe in the free market and not condemn hundreds of billions of dollars of corporate welfare-bailouts, subsidies, handouts, and giveaways?

    3. Can you want to preserve the legitimate sovereignty of our country and not reject the trade agreements known as NAFTA and GATT (The World Trade Organization in Geneva, Switzerland) that scholars have described as the greatest surrender of local, state and national sovereignty in our history?

    4. Can you be for law and order and not support a bigger and faster crackdown on the corporate crime wave, that needs more prosecutors and larger enforcement budgets to stop the stealing of taxpayers and consumer dollars so widely reported in the Wall Street Journal and Business Week? Law enforcement officials estimate that for every dollar for prosecution, seventeen to twenty dollars are returned.

    5. Can you be against invasions of privacy by government and business without rejecting the provisions of the Patriot Act that leave you defenseless to constant unlawful snooping, appropriation of personal information and even search of your home without notification until 72 hours later?

    6. Can you be against regulation of serious medical malpractice (over 100,000 lives lost a year, according to a study by Harvard physicians), unsafe drugs that have serious side effects or cause the very injury/illness they were sold to prevent, motor vehicles with defective brakes, tires and throttles, contaminated food from China, Mexico and domestic processors?

    7. Can you keep calling for Freedom and yet tolerate control of your credit and other economic rights by hidden and arbitrary credit ratings and credit scores? What Freedom do you have when you have to sign industry-wide fine print one-sided “contracts” with your banks, insurance companies, car dealers, and credit card companies? Many of these contracts even block your Constitutional access to the courthouse.

    8. Can you be for a new, clean system of politics and elections and still accept the Republican and Democratic Two Party dictatorship that is propped up by complex state laws, frivolous litigation and harassment to exclude from the ballot third parties and independent candidates who want reform, accountability, and stronger voices for the voters?

    9. If you want a return to our Constitution—its principles of limited and separation of power and its emphasis on “We the People” in its preamble—can you still support Washington’s wars that have not been declared by Congress (Article I Section 8) or giving corporations equal rights with humans plus special privileges and immunities. The word “corporation” or “company” never appears in the Constitution. How can you support eminent domain powers given by governments to corporations over homeowners, or massive week-end bailouts by the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department of businesses, even reckless foreign banks, without receiving the authority and the appropriations from the Congress, as the Constitution requires?

    10. You want less taxation and lower deficits. How can you succeed unless you stop big corporations from escaping their fair share of taxes by manipulating foreign jurisdictions against our tax laws, for example, or by letting trillions of dollars of speculation on Wall Street go without any sales tax, while you pay six, seven or eight percent sales tax on the necessities you buy in stores?

    I would love to hear their answers myself unless of course they just come up with the usual Fox News, Glen Beck, Limbaugh gobble-dee-gook and double speak. But I would be surprised if they did. All they can state is the usual Pork Barrel Politics of the right. They hate the government when it's actions and policies benefit to those they despise and not them personally.

    Comments

    Good list.   The people that vote for them probably would find you questions over their heads.


    by trkingmomoe on Sun, 10/24/2010 - 1:44am

    Great list but, since we're now in the era of candidates not having to ever speak to reporters, the questions will never even get to be asked, much less answered. 

    Totally running away from the press, or restraining reporters so they're never allowed to ask tough, legitimate questions, is, for me, an automatic disqualifier for public office.


    by MrSmith1 on Sun, 10/24/2010 - 2:21am

    Well, this goes right back to my belief that nobody on the liberal side of the divide has a clue what they are talking about regarding the "Tea Party" movement beyond the popular narrative sold on TV subsequent to the planted "Santeli Rant".

    A true Tea Partier, with the exception of #6 and #10 (see below), has fought for every one of the things on the list. Ron Paul is *THE* figurehead and arch-type for the original Tea Party movement. He has consistently been against all the things you list from Wars of Choice to NAFTA to Bank Bailouts to his vote against every version of the Patriot act to come down the pike ... all of it.

    The original "Tea Partiers" view themselves as libertarian and believe that both parties are fully corrupt extensions of multi-national corporations. They started an insurgent campaign to try and capitalize on GOP weakness through the Ron Paul candidacy in the hopes of impacting the 2008 party platform in the furtherance of the goals you list ... which is where the Tea Party originally came from. I know this is a fact, because I have many friends who were active in the Ron Paul campaign and they were pretty clear about their objectives. I felt (correctly) that they would not be successful and threw my lot in with the Democrats and Obama (Gee, that was effective). In retrospect, we all would have been better off buying a big-ole sack of weed, a couple of six-packs and spending our time fishing instead.

    Research the groups that have self-identified as "Tea Party" since 2007 when the movement was truly grassroots and see what they say about the neocons taking over. Every thing you list, they also list in pointing out these interlopers are full of crap and not truly dedicated to the ideals of the movement. On specific policy I have more than a few disagreements with Paulite orthodoxy. But in terms of hypocrisy, your average Democratic loyalist has your average Ron Paul supporting original teapartier beat hands down. I could make a list of positions Democrats claimed to hold during the Bush years that now they justify the exact opposite of, but it wouldn't really do anyone any good so I'll refrain.

    As for #10, they see that as a natural reaction to an inherently flawed taxation system and do indeed support an overhaul that would have everyone paying an equal share. Their range of solutions are generally ridiculed by most establishmentarians, but however one feels about the merits of their proposed policy, they also want to see a system that more accurately spreads the burden across all of society.

    #6 appears to be a straw man. It generally seems geared to challenge the proponents of Tort reform. But to the extent it has to do with Tea Party philosophy, this is the mantra of faux-libertarian neocons like William Kristol who are ideological republicans but like the misinterpretation of libertarian philosophy that allows them to justify giving nothing back to society vis-a-vis Randian fundamentalism. Such people have NEVER supported any political cause that was not fully approved by the establishment GOP. They just love the idea of a philosophy that tells them they aren't blood-sucking greed whores ... when in fact, they are simply blood-sucking greed whores.

    The '09 teabaggers are just the same neocons you guys have been playing the "No YOU are more like Hitler" game with since at least the 90's. They just have slightly different branding now. I think it is totally unfair to tar the people who created the original philosophy and still hold true to it's policy points with these asshats ... and really, how can we criticize them for not being able to dig out from under the avalanche of money and resources dumped on them by Fox news, Dick Armey and the Koch brothers?

     


    by kgb999 on Sun, 10/24/2010 - 4:21am

    Oh good lord. I used his name in a post and now *#$&! Bill Kristol is popping up on the side-bar ad.

    If I have shared this curse ... click through ... cost him and baby-dick a few pennies and earn a bit of money for our Dagblog hosts!

     


    by kgb999 on Sun, 10/24/2010 - 4:50am

    Um, which of these ten policies getting slammed here does the current Dem leadership NOT support...?!


    by Obey on Sun, 10/24/2010 - 9:41am

    Bingo! Great comment! You make a very interesting point, obey! It's almost scary to consider, ain't it?

    Maybe the wholesale abandonment of principles and the ever-closer rule of one party (corporate) rule of government is "Change You Can Believe In." They never said you gotta' like it, just believe in it, eh?


    by SleepinJeezus on Sun, 10/24/2010 - 9:49am

    Good to see you, Sleepin. I know us grumblers are supposed to keep our traps shut up until the election and all, but ferchrissakes, this list is unbelievable. This list is a righteous take-down of Dem policy over the last two years, and somehow, people are seeing this as an argument against... the Tea Party. Are you fucking shitting me?!

    I'm all for being constructive in the runup to the election, but this kind of talking point is beyond moronic.


    by Obey on Sun, 10/24/2010 - 10:01am

    Ya communist; yer only s'posed to listen to the Dem's rhetoric....


    by we are stardust on Sun, 10/24/2010 - 10:51am

    Amen.

    From now on, I think that's all I'm gonna do for comments on this site - just follow people around and say yup, ditto, bingo and amen. "Amen" signifying my strongest agreement.


    by quinn esq on Sun, 10/24/2010 - 5:57pm

    And ocassionally post jiggly cartoons?  Amen.  Bygones.  Okay.


    by we are stardust on Sun, 10/24/2010 - 6:08pm

    Aren't you forgetting yassuh, yas'm and right boss?


    by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 10/24/2010 - 8:13pm

    It might have something to do with the fact that the TPs are the ones running around claiming they want a return to "limited constitutional government" and that bailouts are the roots of all governmental evil, all while planning to re-elect the party that doesn't even make a pretense of being anything other than a wholly-owned subsidiary of Big Business.

     


    by brewmn on Sun, 10/24/2010 - 11:59pm

    Both parties are wholly-owned subsidiaries of Big Business. And therefore, it probably makes little difference to which "lunatic" fringe one belongs or, conversely, which fringe one decries. It's all beginning to seem way too Shakespearean; we are "full of sound and fury" but our tales/rants/opinions end up "signifying nothing" .... other than to let off steam.

    Good list, C. To whichever party it applies.

     

     


    by wws on Mon, 10/25/2010 - 8:35am

    "Both parties are wholly-owned subsidiaries of Big Business."

    This is, of course, the type of oversimplification and overstatement that has rendered the "progressive" left completely irrelevant to the current political debate.  Just two quick examples off the top of my head:  under Bill Clinton, real incomes showed some slight gains, and most measures of income inequality lessened, for the first time in over a quarter century; more recently, in spite of all of the criticism of Obama's health care and financial services reforms from the left, it was damaging enough to those benefitting from the current system to compel them to spend records sums of money to try and roll them back and defeat the members of congress who voted for them.

    Just because there aren't enough difference between the parties to make you happy doesn't mean there's no differences at all.  And you don't do the contituencies I assume you feel are most neglected by the current system (the working poor, for example) any favors by making false equivalencies between Democrats and Republicans.      


    by brewmn on Mon, 10/25/2010 - 9:01am

    Brew: Allow me to amend my comment:

    "In my opinion, in general (with minor exceptions) .....  both parties are wholly-owned subsidiaries of Big Business."

    Better?


    by wws on Mon, 10/25/2010 - 1:59pm

    Only if you consider Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, civil rights and universal public education (for starters) "minor exceptions." 


    by brewmn on Mon, 10/25/2010 - 2:56pm

    Here is some reality on this note.

    It is not unrealistic to believe that a country as wealthy as the US should be able to provide healthcare for all, a dignified life for its elderly, an infant mortality rate better than Cuba's, a life expectancy higher than Bosnia's, a foreign policy that does not hinge on military aggression, and an economy where fewer than one in seven live in poverty. What is unrealistic is to believe that any of those things can be achieved, or even seriously tackled, with just a single vote.

    Their mistake was to believe that transformational change was something you could impart to a higher power – the president – and then witness on CNN. The problem was not that many set their hopes too high but that rather than claim those hopes as their own they invested them in a single person – Obama – and in an utterly corrupted political culture. For the narrow ideological and organisational confines within which American electoral politics operates do not leave much room for real change.

    A winner-takes-all voting system where both main parties are sustained by corporate financing, the congressional districts are openly gerrymandered and 40% of the upper chamber can block anything, is never going to be a benign vehicle for radical reform. Virtually every enduring progressive development in US politics since the war has been sparked either by massive mobilisations outside of electoral politics that have forced politicians to respond, or through the courts.

    Despite these limitations, Obama has achieved more in just two years than any Democratic president in a full term since Lyndon Johnson. The trouble is that these achievements have been inadequate and cannot compensate for an enduring economic slump.

    Just for what it's worth.


    by cmaukonen on Mon, 10/25/2010 - 9:48am

    Virtually every enduring progressive development in US politics since the war has been sparked either by massive mobilisations outside of electoral politics that have forced politicians to respond
    For all its perversions, the Tea Party phenomenon is precisely the kind of "massive mobilization outside of electoral politics" that should have forced a response from the DLC Corporately-owned Dems. At its core, the TP is founded upon a mistrust of our "government" in Washington. They treat with contempt the politics-as-usual crowd, sensing that Washington is a cesspool that is incapable of addressing the needs of the people.
    I look at HCR, which gave us all the reform that the Insurance Industry will allow and nothing more, and I know they are right.
    I look at Wall Street "reform" - which was written by the Wall Street lobbyists themselves and does virtually nothing to prevent the abuses that led to this present crisis - and I know they are right.
    I look at a jobless recovery wherein we are told we simply must suck it up and understand that we must accept lower wages and inadequate employment so we can "remain competitive in a global economy" and I know they are right.
    Despite these limitations, Obama has achieved more in just two years than any Democratic president in a full term since Lyndon Johnson
    These "achievements" are in fact dubious for the fact that they are so severely compromised by their inability to embrace anything that isn't "pre-approved" by the corporate owners. They still represent "politics-as-usual" for Washington, and therefore invite the same contempt from the people who are supposedly represented by our elected pols who in turn serve first their corporate owners.
    I agree that Obama is only one man. And I agree that is expecting alot of one man to stand tall against the wholesale corruption of our political system by refusing to accede to pay-to-play government. But it is precisely that which I thought we were getting when I voted for "Change You Can Believe In"; when I voted for someone who promised to "Change the way we do business in Washington." Indeed, it is precisely what this country longs for and will support.
    Imagine, for example, if - on the eve of the Health Care Debate - we had a President with the balls to say "You know? I don't think we should give the Insurance Industry a pass on this one. At the very least, single-payer healthcare has proven itself to be a reasonable alternative to private insurance in other circumstances. I think it is incumbent upon us to at least open it up for an honest discussion on how we might best accomplish universal health care for ALL Americans."
    This would have been followed up with "You know, Mr. Baucus? The American people really don't give a shit how many millions you can attract from the Health Insurance Industry by slow-walking this in your committee. I suggest you get a proposal to the floor of the Senate, or I'll work with the American people to make certain we get someone in that seat who will."
    And ditto to Lieberman and Conrad and the rest of the obstructionists-for-hire who impede any legitimate effort to realize reform, whether in health care, or Wall Street, or any other arena in this Class War that has been launched against us.
    At its core, I gotta' believe that the TP members feel the same anxiety I do about the inability of Washington to actually work for my interests. For so long as Obama chooses to abide the pay-to-play rules; for so long as he limits the reach of his policies and his reforms to only so far as his corporate owners will allow; he invites nothing but the contempt of those who see Washington as the problem and not the solution in confronting the Class War visited upon us.
    "Massive mobilisations outside of electoral politics" is fancy talk for populist revolts. The TP is born of populism that has been twisted and perverted and steered into cynical directions by the very forces that actually oppress the membership. Yet, it remains a force that Obama (and the rest of the Dems) would do well to recognize and react with initiatives that show a new day has arrived in Washington in which the people's needs come first and foremost - and if that requires sticking it in the neck of a few corporate lobbyists, so be it.
    I'd greatly welcome such a fight on behalf of the people's side in this Class War as a refreshing turn of events. And I'll bet Ma & Pa Tea Partier would do likewise.

    by SleepinJeezus on Mon, 10/25/2010 - 1:08pm

    With apologies, I was not able to format spacing between paragraphs or tabs at the beginning of paragraphs in the above comment.


    by SleepinJeezus on Mon, 10/25/2010 - 1:09pm

    "At its core, the TP is founded upon a mistrust of our "government" in Washington."

    No, it's founded on mistrust of Democrats in Washington.  And it is a "populist" movement wholly dedicated to the protection of corporations and the wealthy from government regulation and taxation.  They are mobilised exclusively because of what they view as the overreaching of the quasi-socialist Obama administration.

    I will never understand why so many here on the left keep crediting the Teabaggers with a political sophistication and commitment to coherent principles that they don't possess.  These people are not liberals' friends; and all that would make them turn against any policy they currently support is for a Democrat to come out in favor of it.  and it doesn't say much about your skill at political analysis if you give them credit for anything other than reflexive opposition to any policy or person perceived as liberal.

     


    by brewmn on Mon, 10/25/2010 - 2:53pm

    And it takes absolutely NO political sophistication to confuse Dick Armey, Beckerhead, Limbaugh, Hannity, and the cynics who drive the TP bus with those disaffected voters who are attracted to the "Storm the walls and take no prisoners" message directed against Washington and the guvmint. It's very much a populist message that feeds - quite cynically, in this case - upon the same anxiety I feel that Washington is incapable of addressing the needs of the middle class to stand tall and fight the Class War.

    And Obama and the Dems have done very little to assuage these fears. In fact, every time they sell us out in favor of their corporate owners, they make the case for the TP message that "Hey, you're on your own, kid. Don't call for help. No one will hear you."

    You claim the TP is founded upon "mistrust of Dems in Washington." You get very little argument from me on this point. But, please, take  a step back and look at the corporate ownership of Baucus and Conrad and Lieberman and Dodd and so many other Dems. Then, take a look at the way the corporate ownership of these key Dem players has absolutely stymied efforts of Dems to achieve anything like REAL reform or REAL relief for the middle class. Then, witness the way the rest of the Dem pols fail to stand up to these asshats and call them out for their whorish ways and their corruption. And THEN, finally, tell me that the Palooka-Dem DLC corporate whores deserve anything BUT contempt from the voters.

    "Don't call for help, no one will hear you!" is hardly a winning message akin to "Change You Can Believe In." And this last Congress has offered little else to those who suffer under corporate ownership of this government.

    If Washington ain't working, the political landscape is left wide open for whoever promotes an alternative, regardless of how cynical and ill-considered it might be. Enter Armey and his minions and their monies to paint a faux-populist picture that resonates with the disaffected voters. They've been allowed free reign to prey upon those who fear our government for what they see as the way in which it works at cross-purposes to the people. And Armey, et. al., are effective in this ONLY because our Dems can't quite pull themselves away from the corporate teat and get out of the pigsty long enough to actually LEAD the populist revolt against the porcine oppressors in this Class War.


    by SleepinJeezus on Mon, 10/25/2010 - 5:30pm

    Agree with just about everything you've written here.  I just question whether the working and middle classes (or, eat least the members of those classes that can trouble themselves to get out and vote) will actually follow if the Dems did decide to lead.  It stretches common sense to the breaking point to think that Democrats simply prefer a center-right country, and would continue to support a corporatist platform even if they could win elections running on a populist one.  


    by brewmn on Mon, 10/25/2010 - 11:43pm

    It really doesn't stretch common sense at all.

    The whole DLC playbook is built upon the strategy that the best place to be on the ideological spectrum is somewhere just to the left of the Republicans. There's an inescapable logic to it if your only objective is to win elections without consideration of principles or ideals. It also leaves lots of room to appease the monied owners without losing the left altogether. "Where you gonna' go?" they ask us when we cry "foul." "The Republicans are worse than we are! And so, you gotta' vote Dem or suffer the consequences."

    As I say: The message is nothing more than "Don't call for help! No one will hear you!"


    by SleepinJeezus on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 8:10am

    And we had a resurgence of Democratic electoral success using the DLC playbook.  You can't effect even the moderate changes to governmental policy we've seen if you can't first get elected; and no one on the left has made a concinving case (to me, at least) that we could win a national election if we ran on a platform much further left than the Clinton/Obama/DLC one.

    As I have stated before, I never voted for Bill Clinton in a primary.  He was unacceptably "Republican-lite" to me.  But, if you can't see light years of difference between the Clinton presidency and the one that followed, or between Bush II and the current one, I really have to question your political judgment, if not your grasp on reality. 


    by brewmn on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 9:15am

    Look here to see how it works to move the political system to the place we are at today, and then tell me just how successful the DLC have been in championing the cause of the middle class in the political arena. Or take a look at where the redistribution of income has occurred in the last thirty years and at the relative power balance between the working class and the corporations/wealthy and tell me how successful the DLC has been.

    There's more to leadership than simply devising cynically strategic responses to poll numbers with a singular goal of "winning elections." And if you take a step back to get the long-term perspective, you really don't have to look very hard to see it is true. We are losing the Class War, mainly because it hasn't been in the strategic interest of the poll-watching opportunists in the Dem Party to actually get into the fight.


    by SleepinJeezus on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 3:33pm