Politics
Out of context: Reply #6651
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- TheBlueOne0
First, let me caveat this - I totally agree with anyone's Constitutional right to assemble and protest their government, no matter what the issue is. Secondly I even concur with some of the aims of the "Tea Baggers", specifically against the government using taxpayer money to prop up failed speculative risk capital finance institutions, which to me is a pretty non-partisan issue and has more to do with the sheer corruption the financial industry has engendered in our political system than anythign else.
mg33 is correct in that it does seem to me though that the CENTRAL point of this thing is a bit fuzzy for me. Could be my lack of understanding of it, although I have tried, I mean the TARP bailout, the stimulus package, higher taxes (point of note: any of Obama's tax policies don't go into effect until 2010), etc. all seem to me somewhat different issues, although they ARE all tied to government expenditures.
So I guess if you're protesting too much government expenditures overall, well, that's your central point then I suppose. Why this wasn't an issue the right rallied behind with incredible media coverage under the previous administration I don't know. But hey, this IS politics, and that's all part of the game.
Tommy says the principle is "people are fucking fed up with Gov power." True true. Now I'm more lefty than right for the most part, and I was very fed up with "Gov power" taking our country to war unneccsarily, suspending habeus corpus, using MY tax dollars to fund said war and torture programs, to fund electronic eavesdropping, etc. of people...and we protested about it. Same issue, but it's portrayed differently in the media. Heck 250,000 people marched in Washington at one point and it didn't elicit more than an offhand blurb across ALL the news networks. This Tea Bag party is getting 24/7 coverage from Fox and other right-wing media outlets. And despite whatever they say, they're
Typical rightwing douchebaggery - do stuff for their own interests while gettign the rube to do the heavy lifting. Hey, rightwing types - how did having a Republican President and a Republican Congress for eight years get you closer to issues you usually protest? Abortion, smaller government, etc? Didn't get ANY of it, did you? But here they come again promising you the same EXACT shit.
What gets me I guess is not people protesting about being fucking fed up with Gov power. ALL protests are in one way or another about that. I mean who the fuck protests about being happy with government? It's just the how this is sold, that only CERTAIN types of government protests are you know, really "American" and somehow inline with some distinct historical narrative (See it's just like the Tea Party of 1773! Real Americans!). But anti-war protests and other "lefty" issues are never said in the same breath on Fox (or CNN or MSNBC for that matter) couched in such language? They're called "radicals" or just plain "anti-war protesters" or "peaceniks". Not "Americans protesting their government".
If you watch Fox at all, you see talking head after talking head discussing about "how will the MSM cover this?" Hello, get a cluestick FOX - you ARE the mainstream media. You are one of what? Three big media conglomerates that dominate our news dissemination (CNN, Fox, MSNBC)? And you are spending what looks like a few million in devoting airtime and resources hyping this thing. You are not "covering the news" you are "manufacturing the news".
And THAT'S my issue tommy. I'm glad people are protesting, especially even if it relates to an issue I care about, but even you have to admit that some are co-opting this and not making it a real "grass roots thing".
And thirdly, the original Tea Party was in essence about Taxation without Representation. Look, we just had this huge national referendum called AN election last November. The winners of that election in the executive and legislative branch just voted for whatever plans they just did. The people were represented, and yeah, they just got taxed. That's the system. There is nothing in the Constitution that says once elected a legislative representative has to make a tally of everyone in his district on every vote that they have to cast. No, they vote their conscious. Now in a couple of years, we have another election, if enough people don't like what that guy did, you vote him out. That's the system. That's Representation AND taxation. And if you want to invoke the Founders, the one thing they were terribly afraid of was Mob Rule, and if you're citing the Founders in one breath and then saying "Well, all the people clamored to them to NOT support the TARP..." well, all well and good and true, but the Congress critters ignoring that is, to the Founders, a feature and not a bug of the system.
Now is that Representation perhaps corrupted by big money and corporate contributions? Yes. Of course. Is the elctoral system a giant clusterfuck in need of reform? Yes indeed. (ask me about why we don't have more Representatives in the House like we should according to the Constitution...)..