Posted on 04/11/2009 3:21:50 AM PDT by Zakeet
I spent the better part of an hour earlier today scanning the various sites and blogs to try and understand what specifically the Fox-Pajamas tea parties are about. Having absorbed about as much of the literature as I can, I have to say I'm still befuddled.
Option 1: It's a protest of the bank bailouts orchestrated by Bush and now Obama. But surely these tea-partiers understand what would happen if we didn't bail the banks out. Are they advocating letting major banks fail? Or are they advocating a Krugman-style government take-over? No idea.
Option 2: It's a protest against tax hikes. But there have barely been any!
[Snip]
Option 3: It's a protest against illegal immigration. Ok, so why the tea? Weren't all the original tea-partiers illegal immigrants?
Option 4: It's a protest against government debt. Yay! I will leave aside the somewhat awkward fact that Fox News and Pajamas Media barely covered the massive debt racked up by the Republicans during a period of economic growth.
[Snip]
What it looks like to me is some kind of amorphous, generalized rage on the part of those who were used to running the country and now don't feel part of the culture at all. But the only word for that is: tantrum.
These are not tea-parties. They are tea-tantrums. And the adolescent, unserious hysteria is a function not of a movement regrouping and refinding itself. It's a function of a movement's intellectual collapse and a party's fast-accelerating nervous breakdown.
(Excerpt) Read more at andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com ...
If you need a tea party to do that it’s no wonder we’re where we’re at...
And we are all waiting with bated breath, for you much better plan.
The world already has enough "wet blankets" and those who only sit in judgment of others' efforts.
I have a feeling (ESP if you will) that entire parties have been called off because they found out you were in town.
Stupid Brit needs to brush up on history. Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded in 1630; Tea Party was in 1773. I think the people living in Massachusetts in 1773 were certainly native-born, not illegal immigrants.
Besides..."But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism" perfectly describes what we are living under today. And we all know it's not just Obama, but the growth of the federal government leviathan ever since FDR. This is most definitely a "long train of abuses and usurpations."
My observation about the tea parties from the start is their message was fuzzy and all over the place. I went to the website and it has a page of 10-15 items. I’ve been reading about them for months and I’m still not sure what exactly it is they are protesting.
If you can’t simplify the message down so it will fit on a protest sign it will not resonate and the effort will be lost.
I hope the parties have some positive effect, but I’m concerned it has been a situation of ready, fire, aim.
I don’t take political advice from pillow-biting bottom boys ...
What possible justification could you have for such a petulant speculation. And there's any wonder about the term "tantrum?"
You wait, like the Monday morning quarterback to place your bets after the game.
No. I don't "bet" on things that determine how fast I can drive, how much pay I keep, and what my kid learns.
If you "bet" you don't know enough about the game to play.
Oh barf!
Didn't people say the same about the Stonewall boys? Andrew Sullivan should understand real grass roots movements - and their power.
Sometimes major movements aren't stated in ACORN offices with paid "activist". Real movements are born of a deep feeling of outrage - feelings that "enough is enough" ... The Universe might not be fair, but no longer an excuse for people to not being fair to us.
Righteous indignation.
Tea parties will gel into what they are to become. It was tinder waiting for a spark.
A woman doesn't give up her seat on a bus - and the "movement" to come isn't a twinkle in an eye... yet it's real.
This is the same.
Do you think people haven't read their Constitution for lack of access?
Didn't people say the same about the Stonewall boys? Andrew Sullivan should understand real grass roots movements - and their power.
Sometimes major movements aren't stated in ACORN offices with paid "activist". Real movements are born of a deep feeling of outrage - feelings that "enough is enough" ... The Universe might not be fair, but no longer an excuse for people to not being fair to us.
Righteous indignation.
Tea parties will gel into what they are to become. It was tinder waiting for a spark.
A woman doesn't give up her seat on a bus - and the "movement" to come isn't a twinkle in an eye... yet it's real.
This is the same.
Then you haven't understood what you've read: there or here.
I hope you’re right. But it would have a much better start if the message was clearer.
There you go again, demonstrating the article's description is a close fit. You may find a loophole or so in it because it's in you nature to find fault, but that's the whole point.
I'm too stupid to get it, but you with your superior intelligence, pointed out that I am wrong.
You fit that description much better than you want to believe.
Check out the photo of Sullivan and his spouse (?) in #11...
I agree with everything you've said, including above, but that's not what I'm denying. I'm denying the efficacy of "being heard."
No, but according to your commenter profile (dismisser) you believe they're all too stupid, mainly because they're not you.
Unless success is guaranteed, you don't want any part of it.
We have athletes who give their very best in every game even if the naysayers, such as yourself, keep saying they don't stand a chance of winning. I admire that. We would still be under British rule if a handful our ancestors hadn't risen above your attitude and took on the most powerful military force in the world at the time..
What’s funny about this is even though Sullivan’s rant is hilarious, he offers the movement some advice...their message isn’t clear.
But rather than look deeper into his screed for whatever insight can be gleaned, insight that might help make the effort more effective now and in the future, all many can do is make gay/dick jokes.
And that is what is alarming. As you’ve pointed out this effort seems to be one more of lashing out rather than offering a cogent message with a gameplan for the future. In that case, and again as you’ve pointed out, 95% of the participants will go home thinking they’ve done their duty and then complain when nothing changes.
I hope I’m wrong.
BTW - As we have seen with the lefty media effort against this so far, that is is EXACTLY the position they are going to take to try to deligitimize it.
But to be honest, the organizers have no one to blame but themselves. As I said, I’ve been reading about them for months and I’m confused. And I’m a hardened conservative who spent 8 long years in th trenches of conservative activism.
Jesse Jackson tried to ride a natural movement after it's time had past. NOW did the same with the women's movement. The Obama so-called Alinsky radicals have done the same. And they wonder why there aren't large crowds behind them.
It's easy - the real movement - the one that touched people - moved on... and those who wanted to cling to the power of the movement, stayed. They became a corruption.
The tea party movement appears real. We'll have to see where it goes.
And was that "activism" a group in search of people to follow them? Do you see the difference?
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