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Posted on 07/26/2011 8:14:19 AM PDT by markomalley
South Africa and apartheid, Custer’s Last Stand — those are not exactly great moments in world history. But Chris Matthews says that today’s Tea Party-influenced Republican Party fits in the same category.
On his Monday MSNBC program, Matthews asked the Huffington Post’s Howard Fineman why he thought the GOP was taking a tough stand on the debt ceiling negotiations.
“What’s going on here as I see it is a kind of slow-motion secession,” Fineman said. “This is an ending of the social compact. This is two, three generations worth of agreement about Social Security, about Medicare, about the role of the federal government.”
“The Tea Party people are saying, ‘We want to secede from that society. And the way to do it is to draw the line on spending and taxes, to starve the federal government so that it loses power, so that we aren’t part of the social compact anymore.’ And that’s the real argument that’s going on, and the Congress as an institution is incapable of dealing with that kind of fundamental argument, which given the entitlement age and welfare state age, which is why you have the super committees and super-duper committees and the smaller and smaller ring of people attempting to decide something,” Fineman said.
That evokes images of South Africa during apartheid, Matthews said.
“This sounds like — I spent two years in southern Africa — [it] sounds like what the whites talked about doing,” Matthews said. “Eventually going into some circle, like Custer’s Last Stand against the United States.”
Fineman didn’t go along with the apartheid analogy, but he did say the pushback has materialized because some of the current plans on the table in Congress don’t go far enough in the Tea Party’s view.
“I wouldn’t put a racial tone on it, but I would say that the Congress is not dealing with the fundamental question here,” Fineman said. “They refuse to do it. And they’re not dealing with it now, because both bills, both plans — both the Boehner plan and the Reid plan don’t deal with either entitlements or taxes.”
obama's "increase taxes on the rich" stand is like apartheid-era South Africa
Na ya goofy bitch, it's more like the Russian stand at Stalingrad.
The Race Card is now a punchline.
So now, “that’s racist” to oppose raising the debt ceiling.
Whoa! How’d we get there?
I want to see a GOP counter attack. A relentless counter attack. Sick of this bs
We are on track to say spend 40T + over the next 10 years and run deficits of over 12T.
These are staggering numbers and the libs are freaking out over cutting a lousy 4T of that, <10%. They are all insane.
Doublethink?
I would modify that to say that there has to be a reasonable limit to the "social compact". Helping elderly and orphans is one thing. Full blown socialism is another.
There, fixed it for ya Chris.
I’m beginning to think Matthews is not only crazy but dumb as well. What the hell kind of mixed metaphor is Custer’s Last Stand and South African apartheid?! Geez, what a fool.
Chris et al are Mugabe’s Zimbabwe west. Racist socialist failure comes from those like him who live in New England..
Perhaps some serious thought should be given to purging those states from the union.
While the legal structure of apartheid is gone, that country is in bad shape. A growing number of productive (mostly white) citizens are emigrating. Crime is rampant. The economy of the counry is arguably worse off than when South Africa faced international sanctions due to apartheid.
South Africa has NOT evolved into a peaceful, multi-racial capitalist country as a result of the end of apartheid.
SA is following the path of Zimbabwe and Obama would see the US doing the same.
“What’s going on here as I see it is a kind of slow-motion secession,”
Be still quivering heart!
Chris who?
If the Tea Party is South African Aparthied, who is playing the role of Robert Mugabe?
Well duh.. they elected a socialist community organizer (Nelson Mandela) as president.
Com’on, Chrissie! It’s a lot more like Dutch Elm disease.
You know it, and I know it.
And that’s a fact, Jack!
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