Re: Down with the government

On 10/17/2010 05:44 PM, Dan Minette wrote:
> I've argued with the other person a lot, and found we agree on a number of
> topics, including the need for social justice.  He just believes that
> government is just the good 'ol boy system run amuck, and that government
> programs are mostly a waste.  We differ, sometimes strongly, but I usually
> don't have contempt for someone just because I differ with them.  In fact,
> if you look at the demographics of tea party members, you will see that they
> are usually fairly well educated, above average in income, and have been
> modestly involved in the political process for years.  It's a right wing
> anti-elite movement.  Again, I have profound differences with them, but I
> try to understand and respect folks I differ with, as well as see if there
> is any common ground.

I think this is where I have many of my most head explosion-causing 
difficulties with the Tea Party "movement": it seems obviously to me, as 
a Daily Show viewer if nothing else, that the "Tea Party" is a whole lot 
of astroturfing. The "grass roots" are plastic and artificial. The Tea 
Party, to me at least, seems like a very cynical media play on the part 
of people well and deeply tied into the classic "good ol' boy system" 
pretending that don't have ulterior motives and aren't (knowingly) 
playing a possibly dangerous/explosive game of dirt, destruction, 
implicit racism, and explicit class warfare...

Perhaps it is just me, but how is the Tea Party's "anti-elite movement" 
truly any different from the anti-intellectual/anti-elite class-baiting 
garbage the existing Republican party has spewed the last few election 
cycles?

How is the Tea Party's confused stance on libertarianism that much 
different from the classic Republican/Right Wing confusion of/with 
libertarianism?

Why are there such weird blind spots in the Tea Party's "elite radar"? 
Why does the "anti-elitism" streak fail to strongly and deeply question 
its leadership, its money, or its media mouthpieces?

The Tea Party looks, smells, and sounds a lot like a designed and 
constructed media/marketing strategy to me. I can see where some of the 
individual candidates/supporters may actually be speaking what they 
believe, but I have a hard time seeing the "movement" as a whole as 
self-consistent or even at times adequately self-aware (except in 
worrying instances of possibly deeply self-conscious artifice).

Honestly, I can't help but worry that the Tea Party is nothing more than 
a constructed entity designed to virally produce some of the same grass 
roots voting patterns such as the work done by once-obscure actual grass 
roots groups like Move On on the left, except without any of the 
intended altruism nor the real substance of an actual, ground-based 
grass roots movement... Instead they've managed to inherit plenty of the 
existing right wing stockpiles of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. How are 
they any different from politics as usual or the classic "good ole boy 
system"? Just because they've given it a new name doesn't mean it is 
some new thing...

But then, maybe I just don't understand the Tea Party as a "movement" at 
all. Maybe I'm too "elite" to get it, I suppose.

-- 
--Max Battcher--
http://worldmaker.net