[lbo-talk] Tea Party: less than meets the eye

[Alan Rudy]

Also, Chip, given your position my sense is that the folks you need to worry
about are the Democrats, not the Tea Party.  This American Life's second
segment last Saturday was about an angry/flummoxed Democrat who went to DC
to find out if there was some stealth program behind the Dem's incompetence
at even promoting their own moderate/neoliberal program because HE saw
opportunity after opportunity to defeat Repug and Tea Party screaming with
easy, clear and powerful (in context) talking points and alternative
framings.  What he found out is that Democrats are afraid, afraid, afraid -
they don't even have the courage of their middle right convictions despite
the fact that they could win easily on health care, on taxes, on Wall
Street, on the environment, on the family, you choose.

The alternative interpretation, repeatedly put forth here, is that Dems are
tools of at least one wing of the corporate right to start with - though I
don't think most members of the House are consciously so in any
sophisticated kind of way - and that their "fear" is rooted in something
other than misinterpreting electoral possibilities and public reactions to
strong responses to right wing BS.

A

On Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 11:18 PM, Chuck Grimes <c123grimes at att.net> wrote:


> It is not about the election... It is about pulling the Republican Party to
> the Right. The Democrats moving to the right to appear  centrist. And the
> mobilization and `education' of about 20 million people through fear to
> scapegoat Blacks, Muslims, Mexicans, Immigrants, and gay people for the real
> problems faced by our society.
>
> The grassroots wing of the Tea Parties is a social movement. Trying to
> analyze it as a political campaign organization is asinine.
>
> -Chip Berlet
>
> ---------
>
> Pretty harsh, and what for? I agree with the scapegoat part, but there is
> more.
>
> Why is getting out the HATE vote a social movement and not a political one?
> Would you like to explain the distinction?
>
> And who is responsible? Just read the NPR article on Arizona's immigration
> bill. Short form, corporate USA.
>
> This should be easy to understand. If the US government is stalled into
> gridlock, the public is fighting itself over populisms of this and that,
> there is no oversight of corporate operations at any level, eo ipso. That's
> the point.
>
> CG
>
>
>
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>

-- 
*********************************************************
Alan P. Rudy
Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work
Central Michigan University
124 Anspach Hall
Mt Pleasant, MI 48858
517-881-6319