Politics
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- designbot0
I have concluded that most the people who love to show off their guns and talk about them all the time are usually the most irresponsible gun owners. The same probably applies here....I hope not though.
- DrBombay0
These people who have AR-15's to "protect their homes" are fucking buffoons also.
Great idea to have a rifle that shoots through 3 walls of your house when discharged to kill the mythical home invader.
- ukit0
designbot, did you read what I wrote? The guns are not the main thing here.
The entire tea party movement is being funded and coordinated by groups like FreedomWorks.
Whose logo do you see at the top of the page?
FreedomWorks, run by a Republican Washington lobbyist that represents the insurance industry.
Now I'm sure many of the people who attend these rallies are sincere in their desire for low taxes, less government etc etc
But whose interests are you serving here when you go to one of these things? Is it really the grassroots vs. the powerful?
- how is this different than moveon? or even groups like the uaw or teachers union?johndiggity
- Because it is fraudulant to call it grassroots, maybe?DrBombay
- It's disingenuous for corporate interests to co-opt grassroots groups or masquerade as them.Mimio
- http://www.sourcewat…Mimio
- http://www.sourcewat…Mimio
- again, how is this different from any union or other political group?johndiggity
- Examples please where it was billed as "grassroots" and wasn't.DrBombay
- http://www.sourcewat…Mimio
- 85% of their money comes from corporations.Mimio
- their site simply says they have hundreds of thousands of "grassroots members".johndiggity
- again, how is freedom works different than moveon.org? they are basically the same idea.johndiggity
- Do corporations fund moveon.org? Which ones? What interests are served? What rallies were billed as grassroots and werent?DrBombay
- grassroots that werent?DrBombay
- http://www.opensecre…johndiggity
- you can see freedom works on there as well.johndiggity
- You seem to miss the point of the term "grassroots".Mimio
- IRNlun60
I agree the focus has been on a minority group of ignorant protesters, but does the right bear any responsibility in denouncing these people? Seems the conservatives who oppose them are just as much a minority as the radicals.
Not only are they drowning out the lefts goals but also drowning out any reasonable arguments from moderates conservatives.
- +1000TheBlueOne
- Is Sarah Palin a fringe crazy? she's all about the minsinformation.Mimio
- I don't think Mrs. Palin is crazy at all. Just very calculating and opportunistic. Ethics no longer seems to be a desired quality in our leaders.IRNlun6
- ... our leaders.IRNlun6
- her map does not match the territory it seems. though she does well selling fucked up mapsTheBlueOne
- designbot0
First off, I will have to look into your sources as I believe you have been misinformed.
Second, even if this were true, hows this any different than Obama and his heavy ties Acorn?
There's no question in my mind both sides are fighting dirty.
- @ ukitdesignbot
- Why is ACORN a bad organization?DrBombay
- I don't get the ACORN thing either. I knew someone who did media campaigns for ACORN..they are not the sharpest tacks in the boxTheBlueOne
- sharpest tacks in the box.TheBlueOne
- TheBlueOne0
@designbot hyperbolic first sentence: how can you NOT focus on the crazies in this case though? I agree with you about the angry american thing. Fuck, put me on that list. I'm pretty pissed at Obama's rolling over and playing fetch for the financial industry. Is he about to do the same for health insurance? I see a toady corporate centrist rolling over to big money, so to see people getting angry calling the guy a "Nazi Socialist"[sic] is just incredulous to me. I am very, very fucking angry. Was angry under Bush, even angrier now since the Democrats can't seem to actual do anything with the largest majority in government in decades, But like I said, painting this guy as the biggest leftist since Che Guevara and then protesting THAT is just insane to me. It's like protesting the color blue because it's too red or something, there is no correlation to anything I would map as reality in my world. And the fact they do so armed with AR-15's is more than a bit disconcerting.
I'm angry at the media - all of it, CNN, Fox, MSNBC - for not covering the story at all, but focusing on insane shit and reporting the "controversy" for ratings and money. The news media isn't "liberal" or "conservative" it's self serving to the money elite, serving up bread and circuses.
Look, I'd be happy to have a good conversation/debate about what is wrong with this Health bill, but we can't even GET there. Impossible. First, because the loudest and most well funded voices against it talk crazy and secondly because there is no room in the media to have that conversation anyway. No money in it.
I am very, very fucking angry.
- ukit0
Well I am angry but I think a reasonable discussion is possible...designbot is a smart guy.
But @designbot...to your point above...how? How have I been misinformed? The info is out there...it's readily available. No one is disputing the fact that Dick Armey, lobbyist and former House Leader, is the guy who set up FreedomWorks, which is the main group coordinating the tea parties.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=…
Here's a just a random sampling...
http://briefingroom.thehill.com/…
Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R) said Wednesday that the grassroots Tea Party movement is the new voice conservative America.
In an op-ed in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Armey said these Tea Parties are more the leader of the right than Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin or Rush Limbaugh.
"Frustrated Americans began taking their grievances to the streets and the tea party movement was born," Armey wrote. "Just as the original Boston Tea Party was a grass-roots rebellion against overbearing government, tea party participants are reacting to government that has grown too large."
Armey has been credited with at least partially fueling the movement, which he made reference to in the op-ed. Armey wrote that conservative Americans are tired of big spending and these Tea Parties are an indication of how widespread that feeling is.
"The tea partiers want to see the cash spigot turned off," he wrote.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/i…
"As anyone with a functioning memory should know, the Republicans under the leadership of Armey and his cronies Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay proceeded to rack up excesses in spending and boodling that made the old Democratic congressional leaders look quite stingy. When he was asked once why he and his GOP comrades were chomping so much more federal pork than the Democrats ever did, he replied bluntly: “To the victors go the spoils.”
Like so many self-styled populists of both parties in Washington, Armey packed his own golden parachute when he left Congress. At the same time that he took over the leadership of the “grass-roots” group that eventually became FreedomWorks, he also joined a major corporate lobbying firm. The Web site of DLA Piper, one of the capital’s biggest bipartisan law and lobbying outfits, boasts of Armey’s influence among his colleagues."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ja…
FreedomWorks is run by registered lobbyist Dick Armey, and if they're not "organizing" the Tea parties, it's news to him. From a letter he wrote on March 10:
FreedomWorks has been organizing many of these "tea parties" and we are listing the details on our website IamWithRick.com
If you visit the website, you can rsvp for an event near you, and you can download guidelines to organizing a tea party in your home town if there isn't one being planned already.
On the Freedomworks website, it says: "If you are not able to organize or attend a Taxpayer Tea Party, you can still help the cause by donating or buying a t-shirt.
So two points here - Armey was the guy who helped create the freakin' deficit! He didn't run a Congress that said no to spending, they said yes to everything.
Secondly, there's a reason for this strategy. Because after George Bush the image of the Republican party had sank so low they no longer were able to be effective advocates for the policies they wanted.
So what did the lobbying interests do? They went outside the Republican party and created this movement. Same thing Microsoft figured out with X Box, Bing and Zune. When your own brand is so tarnished by the shit you've pulled, you hire the same people and do the same thing, but give it a different name.
"I'm not a Republican, I'm a concerned citizen and a libertarian" is probably what a lot of these guys think. But what's the end result?
The end result is that you will end up reelecting the same special interests to Congress that ran up the debt, got us into the Iraq War, and basically sank this country into the shitter. The end result is that you are just another foot soldier in Dick's army (sry, couldn't resist).
- Yes..I like designbot.
*hands designbot a beerTheBlueOne - I like designbot too, but he gives the righty koolaid a bit more credit than other views.DrBombay
- *hands beers around...
Cheers guys :)designbot - In complete honesty if any of you all were in my town, I'd go out for a beer no question.designbot
- ditto. Oh...*hands ukit a well deserved beer as wellTheBlueOne
- ukit thanks for the post man....shit I am busy now...but I'll read this when I get home :)designbot
- yeah...all i'm saying is consider w/ an open mind. these republicans aren't the solution.ukit
- Yes..I like designbot.
- TheBlueOne0
And here's a difference. Look, people get angry for all sorts of political reasons. Lots of lefty people were angry under Bush.
Why were we angry? Invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11? Yes. Privitizing the military to Haliburton? Yes. Suspending Habeus Corpus? Yes. Making torture of prisoners an official state policy? Yes. Creating "Free Speech Zones" for public protest? Yes. Etc.
Very angry. But guess what..Bush DID these things.
And the lefties got loud about it, and dressed up as puppets, and wore pink shirts and disrupted some political events. Hell, a few million marched in Washington in protest but never got covered by the media. Nothing.
The rightwingers are upset about "socialism" where there is none. Death Panels where there are none. About whether Barack Obama is REALLY an American citizen or this is some sort of nefarious jew plot to get the secret muslim elected to install neo-nazism on America while putting christians in fema death camps.
And they do so by bringing loaded automatic rifles to a presidential event and wearing confederate flag shirts and holding signs that say "Down WIth Federal Government".
So, yeah. If you don't think there is a serious disconnect with how this nation and it's media parses Left and Right issues as worthy then you aren't looking.
- Not to imply that there might not be legit reasons for people to be mad with Obama from the Right...TheBlueOne
- PonyBoy0
out
shit
figure
yet?
guys
did
this
you- working
on
itTheBlueOne - and besides the minute it gets "figured out" you can bet you've arrived in a dictatorshipTheBlueOne
- I'll be living in my FEMA camp when that time comesPonyBoy
- haha!TheBlueOne
- *hands PonyBoy a bererTheBlueOne
- *and then hands PonyBoy a BEERTheBlueOne
- beer! :DPonyBoy
- Whatever. I'm calling the top bunk in my local FEMA camp...IRNlun6
- working
- DrBombay0
Yeah pony, we shouldn't talk about current events at all, ya dipstick.
- ukit0
Also - on ACORN - comparison isn't really relevant
ACORN is a non-profit group that registers people to vote. They are an organization like Americorps or something. A bunch of college students wandering around with clipboards bugging you on the street.
FreedomWorks is a multimillion dollar front for lobbyists and special interests.
- bliznutty0
FAIL - this whole left-right paradigm thing is going nowhere and has proven itself a failure. tis a human condition.
Repeat: Hey Guys! Did you figure this shit out yet?
...laughing my fucking ass off :D- You should post this on your MySpace page, anarchist!DrBombay
- *picks up bliznutty's ass. seems kinda lightweightTheBlueOne
- TheBlueOne0
@bliznutty
Agree it IS a total fail..trying to dictate 21st century political positions based on who sat where in the French Parliament at the ass end of the 18th century is ludicrous. They're meaningless terms. But unfortunately they are what the mainstream forces in the culture choose to use in their framing, so you have to use them somehow.
I mean the very fact that some conservatives are making an actual argument that "Nazism/Fascism = Socialism" (Yes, Jonah Goldberg you intellectual midget, I'm looking at you) should be a straight up indicator that "Left" and "Right" are meaningless terms.
- you're writing alot but not saying shitbliznutty
- You're attempting to read and failing.TheBlueOne
- i read that as "Agree i IS a total fail".. lmfaobliznutty
- johndiggity0
again, what's really sad is that everyone seems unable to separate politics and partisan rhetoric from the core of the issues. any debate on new channels is about how crazy the other side is, and not about what the issue is. it's a sideshow that's become the main attraction.
- I dasiagree..we can't get to the political debate bc the crazy rhetoric is fed & amplified by corporate moneyTheBlueOne
- You say this as though you are above it all. You get partisan as anyone on QBN.DrBombay
- ..for obvious, self-serving reasons.TheBlueOne
- The only crazy I am seeing is from the republican side, honestly.DrBombay
- And I have seen many crazy liberals in the past. THis time out it is conserva-crazy.DrBombay
- corporations pay taxes and employ individuals who pay taxes. why shouldn't they have a say in policy?johndiggity
- and i don't really identify with any major political party but am interested in the issues from time to time.johndiggity
- They should have a say...just not the first say or the only sayukit
- ukit0
Yea, the news is just a massive failure.
But look from a news guy's point of view your ratings were probably never higher than during the 2008 election, right?
So why not prolong that atmosphere as long as possible?
- TheBlueOne0
Just watch the video here. Really. Watch it 'til the end when you see the rightwing douchetard's final response:
- PonyBoy0
you're all Great Americans
- you're a great MexicanDrBombay
- siPonyBoy
- +1designbot
- I shall call you Juan.TheBlueOne
- lazerbass0
I'm pretty left as as they come but I wonder why none of the left in the USA seem to see Obama for what he is. I mean he's pussy footing around popular 'people' issues, blabbing on about 'transparency' and 'reform' while the rest of the government and corporate world are basking in Bush's unbelievable legacy of war and oil profits and layers upon layers of new bureaucracy. On top of it he STILL justifies another violent endless war in Afghanistan while paying lip service to anti-Iraq war people. The Obama Admin is a white wash! It has successfully neutered any real progressive political action. The only people who seem to be pissed off are the brainwashed militant minded rednecks... and they're even more deluded and contradicted then Obama hope filled masses.
- I agree, but think how much worse it would've been with McCain/PalinTheBlueOne
- ..of course, there'd be no one armed at politcal events...TheBlueOne