Discussion for article #224667
Keep dumping that money into the hole Teasquat funders.
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I really feel that humanity has become insane. We have, as a species, murdered hundreds of millions of people in the 20th century in the name of religion and political ideology. Now we murder innocent people in the name of Oil. In the U.S.A. people are open carrying guns into malls and bars and schools (mainly in southern cracker states). Our planet is heading for ecological disaster and we refuse to do anything to stop the slide into the Climate Chaos. We are insane. What else can it be?
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“Republicans Are Deferring To Tea Party Funders And Activists” because those spearcarriers will get for the Republicans the goals they’ve been working for more than 75 years to achieve: an authoritarian supremacist plutocracy, much like the Golden Age of the early 1900s. Obviously some Tea Partiers want to be a part of that. Others have been duped into thinking their leaders really want a less complicated federal government and a lighthanded touch from their state and local government. Nope. Getting a government job, particularly the best paying ones high up in the federal government, gives access to opportunities for building fortunes and acquiring power and prestige. That’s what they want.
And hey, Democrats aren’t immune. They just aren’t quite as duplicitous about it as the Republican Tea Partiers are.
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“…gridlock suits the most active interests in and around the contemporary Republican Party just fine…”
Actually, it doesn’t.
What serves the interests of the big money elite behind the party is making voters think nothing is happening and inaction is good. In fact, the elite are steadily acting, changing America in ways the rank and file opposes were they to realize that nothing is not happening.
There’s a lot changing for the worse.
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“…any discussion of which Republicans are “Tea Party” and which are not is a purely semantic game.”
It’s nice to see at least one journalist recognize reality. One of the most fraudulent notions around today is the ridiculous fiction that the “Tea Party” is somehow distinct from the Republican Party. The original “Tea Party” that FoxNews promoted 24/7 for months prior to its official launching was an entirely astroturfed creation of Dick Armey and his various Republican pals. That a wide variety of teabagger orgs have been created across the country doesn’t change the fact that ALL of these people have always been and always will be Republicans when it comes time to vote.
Republican = Tea Party
Tea Party = Republican
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The Republicans’ swerve to the far right is a recipe for local victories but national defeats. Eventually, this version of the Republican Party will discover it cannot attract majorities in national or many state-wide general elections. But much harm can happen in the meantime.
I sincerely hate reprehensible, bigoted, cheating, amoral Rethuglican liars for the damage they create in their wake–everything cons touch is poisoned, defiled and ruined. Outside of their self-created bubble, the sane among us should be plotting their demise. Conservatism must die.
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That’s exactly what’s been happening, and not a good thing. There are hardly any conservatives. Radical reactionaries have taken over.
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Spot on. I know this goes against the grain for Democrats and liberals, but I believe that much good can come from true conservatism. Protecting the environment is true conservatism. Protecting the interests of working Americans and their families is true conservatism. Reducing the deficit with sound tax, fiscal, and regulatory policies—like those of the Clinton Administration—is true conservatism. Putting adequate resources into real public education—not private Christianist charter schools—is true conservatism, because it’s the only way to advance and maintain the civic ideals behind the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
As you correctly note, the Republican/Tea Party today is not conservative; it’s radically reactionary in its fundamental vision and mindset.
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Republicans by any other name.
“…The conservative base is especially likely to maintain its fervor if Democrats manage to win the White House again…”
That’s speculative baloney and unnecessarily fatalistic, in my opinion.
It suggests a relationship between the advancement of liberalism and the opposition of conservatism. If that exists at all, it’s indirect and not anything liberals can control. What, conservatism is dead if liberals perennially lose?
The “conservative movement” and all it’s corollary assets is a steroidal, turbo-charged, contemporary version of Colonel Tom Parker hawking Elvis, except with a political spin. It has nothing to do with liberalism or conservatism, and little to do with government. It just finds conservatism an easier sell.
Who cares whether Elvis is art when his entourage is assured of never having to earn an honest living?
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Can we stop referring to the Tea Party? The money and forces Ms. Williams (and others discuss) are conservative fat cats and the organizations they created and funded. This is part of a long campaign and most of these creatures preceded the rise of the tea party.
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Yeah well, no one defers to the dead broke. Of course the desperate for funds and the incredibly well funded find each other. It’s a symbiosis of necessity. What good are radicals and extreme ideologues if they are screaming in their basements and at back yard barbeques and likewise, what can the ultra wealthy with matching ideologies get done without the dupes?
Of course they could work for the greater good, which never seems to have occurred to them, but apparently there is some sick attraction to screwing things up and world domination. I really thought that that was just in the movies.
I’m officially renaming this movement the Lex Luthor Party and casting the first stone.
Republicowards kowtow to neofascists.
Such a surprise, this is. Buck-buck buck-KAW!
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How ironic is it, that the flaming left of Revolution days has had its name stolen and reputation sullied by the near-lunatic fringe of the Republican Party … I own a Don’t Tread on Me flag which I used to fly on July 4th and other major holidays from out history, but it’s use has been stolen by the Right of the Right.
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The Teabaggers have arrived wrapped in the flag and carrying a bible as predicted
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I was about to say very much the same thing: Ronald Reagan, who was a member of the John Birch Society, shoveled so much money at right wingers who wanted both money and the power to reshape our nation (I’m talking about you, Koch Brothers) and yet is still regarded as “Saint Ronnie.” He was doing real evil.
The only serious error that Obama has made was appointing too many democratic governors to his cabinet, e.g. allowing the fanatics on the right to move in.
I seriously doubt that the MAJORITY of Americans subscribes to the gospel according to the Kochs, yet because they aimed to takeover our government from the start they have managed to do so. (Getting SCOTUS on their side was their biggest coup.)
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“…I believe that much good can come from true conservatism…”
Actually, I think thriving conservatism is as essential to a functioning society as is thriving liberalism, but heck even Socrates knew that. I think what we have now is something else that’s damaging both.
Larry Lessig is taking a shot TODAY to reduce the power of money in Washington. Happy 4th! https://mayday.us/
I do not think that a policy shift is in the cards for the GOP. This is not about policy but about ideology. I think that the Republican Party has had their dance with the town crazy and now are realizing that it does reflect on them well. The problem is getting him to leave after you have invited him into your home.
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