[lbo-talk] Analysis of Tea Party

[c b]

[WS:] An interesting piece, indeed. It outlines the social changes
that made left narrative unpopular. The only thing that I would add is
that the change was not mainly cultural (shift toward individualistic
culture) as the article suggest, but material. The phenomenal
productivity of the capitalist system made it possible to satisfy more
and more individual and idiosyncratic demands from housing and
transportation to personal digital devices. Since being determines
consciousness, cultural changes toward individualism that the article
outlines followed.

^^^^
CB:  The individualist-libertarianist political trend described in the
article has been a major component of Reaganite coalition, and so part
of the dominating political trend in the US for thirty years.  The
current outcry may represent a crisis for them.

This article's suggestion that these people are sort of righteously
"tired" of intrusions into their individual lives reminds of the
notoriously "angry white male" upsurge in the 90's.