Original Link: http://www.lewrockwell.com/mcmaken/mcmaken129.html
By Ryan McMaken
As I wandered through the crowd at the Denver Tea Party protest last week, I was struck by just how paper-thin is the movement’s opposition to government power.
The Tea Party movement is clearly a "Conservative" movement in its membership and core philosophy, and therefore it is not surprising that many of the very same people who now loudly claim to oppose government spending and taxation, were the very same people who, for the last eight years, had been cheerleaders for one of the most profligate administrations in American history.
And yet, here they were at the Tea Party, pretending to be principled opponents of government power.
Indeed, the existence of the Tea Party events only raises the question of why such events hadn’t ever been organized at some point during the Bush years. After all, for the last eight years, the government has spent record sums of money and all the time, the national debt barreled toward 10 trillion dollars.
Unfortunately for this column, I was too polite to ask any of the protestors questions like "How exactly is it that you just suddenly realized that tax rates are high and that government spending is out of control?"
Or perhaps: "I like your little sign that says ‘Stop the Spending!’ How ’bout we save hundreds of billions immediately by bringing all the troops home?"
For a Conservative, of course, the answer to that last question is always "no." Spending taxpayer money is always fine as long as it’s spent on killing foreigners.
The real reason that Conservatives have suddenly discovered a distrust of government, of course, is that they’re out of power. It’s not as if the deficit wasn’t outrageously large last year, and it’s not as if the Bush administration wasn’t out-spending even the LBJ administration on all its pork projects, endless wars, and prescription drug programs for eight long years.
The GOP, the Party extolled by Conservatives every two years as mankind’s last great hope for civilization, racked up deficits and spent sums of money far greater than that ever suggested by Clinton or Carter, and yet now, all of a sudden, Conservatives turn out and would have us believe that they’re opposed to big government.
For those of us who remember the Clinton years, the faux libertarianism proffered by the Conservative movement these days is a depressing re-enactment of the anti-government populism that was common during the nineties.
Back then, prominent Conservatives actually used phrases like "jack-booted thugs" to describe federal agents, and Clinton’s wars were commonly condemned by Conservatives as unconstitutional, illegal and immoral. The militia movement was increasingly popular, and the Clinton administration’s anti-terrorism act of 1996 was criticized by Conservatives for the broad police powers it afforded to federal agents.
Clinton’s "humanitarian" wars in Haiti and Serbia were condemned as adventurism, and Clinton’s budgets, fantastically restrained by today’s standards, were condemned as being much too large and irresponsible.
During the nineties, portraying the government as a malevolent force became a national pastime. Shows like The X-Files were popular and movies like Enemy of the State made millions at the box office. Conservative publications and writers noted with approval such skeptical visions of government power, and the Waco massacre and Ruby Ridge became symbols of victimization at the hands of government agents.
Yet, after the Republicans took control of the White House, Conservatives dutifully performed an about-face on all of these issues.
After 9/11, any war, anywhere on earth, was acceptable to the Conservatives. Even "humanitarian" wars became acceptable after it became apparent that the Al-Qaeda connection and the Weapons of Mass Destruction wouldn’t hold up as rationales for the Iraq invasion. Saddam was removed as a great humanitarian act, and that was enough for the Conservatives.
The massive expansion of police powers for federal agents increased at a gallop under Bush, but the conservatives who had condemned Waco and Clinton’s anti-terrorism power-grabs defended far more drastic expansions of government police power under Bush.
And then there was the runaway government spending under Bush. The crushing cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars were ignored by Conservatives as they all rushed to find another endless military conflict to replace their precious Cold War.
The massive burden of Bush’s prescription drug benefit, and even Bush’s 800 billion dollar bailout were not enough to precipitate anything like the Tea Parties of the Obama era.
And Obama is indeed the reason that Conservatives have suddenly realized that they’re supposed to be opposed to big government.
Lacking any type of consistent intellectual framework, the Conservative movement instead fixates on personalities rather than policies.
The Tea Parties are really anti-Obama protests masquerading as protests against the size and scope of government. As the last eight years have made crystal clear, calls for cuts in taxes and government are just a Conservative ploy, and what really drives Conservatives are issues like nationalism, immigration, abortion, and sticking it to the undeserving poor.
Given the Conservative movement's performance during the last eight years, the Conservatives can't possibly be opposed to Obama's taxing and spending policies on principle. No, Conservatives start from a personal and emotional disdain for Obama, and then search for policies to oppose. If John McCain were president, and the government were bailing out its friends at the same rate that it is now (which it almost certainly would be), would the Conservatives be protesting with nearly as much vigor? Only the most naïve among us could claim such a thing with a straight face.
No, Conservatives oppose Obama because they despise him on a cultural level. Obama represents the culture of the urban coastal leftists who promote social policies the Conservatives loathe, and since he’s a Democrat and not their man, they’ve taken to the streets. On matters of war and fiscal policy, Bush and Obama differ only to the slightest degree, but culturally, the two are worlds apart.
Egged on by Conservative talk show hosts, the Conservatives, who believe that the country is being taken over by Muslims and illegal aliens, have done what they’ve always done. They’ve made the centerpiece of their campaign the ever-popular and libertarian issue of tax-cuts and small government.
Conservatives have been doing this since the fifties. In order to enhance the popularity of their cause, they pretend to be the ideology of low-taxes and decreased spending, espousing the many benefits of austere government.
Then, as soon as they are in power, they quickly forget all about the ideals of small government and focus on what really matters to them: nationalism, war, and doling out the spoils of political victory to their friends.
So yes, the Tea Party protestors are right that Obama is spending recklessly, and they’re right that deficits are out of control, and they’re right that taxes are outrageously high.
But their inconsistency on these issues is embarrassingly obvious. And for those of us who can remember the last time the Conservatives pretended to oppose big government, we’ll just unhappily wait for the next time a Republican is in office and all the Conservatives suddenly realize that big government is fine as long as their guy is in charge.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
A tortured debate over the 'torture memos'
Original Link: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/04/22/a_tortured_debate_over_the_torture_memos/
By Jeff Jacoby
ON THIS PAGE a few years ago I wrote several columns arguing that torture was never acceptable - not even "as a last and desperate option" in the war against jihadist terrorism, a war I strongly support. At a time when not only conservative hawks but even some notable liberals were making the case for using torture to thwart Al Qaeda, I contended that the cruel abuse of terrorist detainees was something we could never countenance - not just because torture is illegal, unreliable, and a threat to the innocent, but because it is one of those practices that a civilized society cannot engage in without undermining its right to call itself civilized.
Rereading those columns amid the tumult over the Justice Department "torture memos" released last week, I see little that I would change. I am still convinced, as I wrote in 2005, that interrogation techniques amounting to torture "cross the line that separates us from the enemy we are trying to defeat."
Yet the Bush-era memos strike me as much more thoughtful than most of the moral preening and tendentious grandstanding they set off. Congressman Jerrold Nadler, a senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, apoplectically declares that the memos not only authorized torture "without a shadow of a doubt," they "gave explicit instruction on how to carry it out." The New York Times pronounces them "a journey into depravity." A petition at Democrats.com urges the appointment of a special prosecutor for "torture . . . and other heinous crimes of the Bush Administration."
What's missing from all this sanctimony and censure is any acknowledgement of the circumstances under which the CIA interrogations took place, let alone the successes with which they have been credited. That may be a good way to score easy political points. It doesn't add much to the public discourse.
Context matters. Actions that are indisputably beyond the pale under normal conditions - waterboarding a prisoner, for example - can take on a very different aspect when conditions are abnormal, as they surely were in the terrifying wake of 9/11.
"We did not have a clear understanding of the enemy we were dealing with," recalled Dennis Blair, the Obama administration's director of national intelligence, in his statement accompanying the declassified memos last week. "Our every effort was focused on preventing further attacks that would kill more Americans." Knowing little about Al Qaeda's capabilities, desperately seeking to head off another slaughter, fearing the worst, the government's highest priority was to extract critical intelligence from Al Qaeda detainees.
That was the state of affairs when the CIA sought legal approval to use harsher interrogation methods. "Those methods, read on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009, appear graphic and disturbing," Blair's statement said. But there was nothing sunny or safe about the post-9/11 emergency in which they were used. Any honest discussion of the memos authorizing them ought to say so.
Particularly when those memos indicate that the "enhanced interrogation techniques" saved lives. According to Deputy Assistant Attorney General Steven Bradbury's memo dated May 30, 2005, "intelligence acquired from these interrogations has been a key reason why Al Qaeda has failed to launch a spectacular attack in the West" since 9/11. Senior terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed at first "resisted giving any answers" when asked about future attacks, but waterboarding led him to divulge "specific, actionable intelligence." One result was the foiling of Al Qaeda's planned "Second Wave" - a 9/11-like plot to crash a hijacked airliner into a Los Angeles skyscraper.
But what if it hadn't been foiled? Suppose the CIA had been denied permission to use brutal interrogation tactics, and Al Qaeda had consequently gone on to murder thousands of additional victims in California. What kind of conversation would we be having once it became known that the refusal to subject KSM to waterboarding had come at so steep a price? How many of those now blasting the Bush administration for allowing torture would be blasting it instead for not preventing a second bloodbath?
None of this is meant as a defense of torture, which I oppose as adamantly as ever. But even those of us who were against the Bush interrogation policy should be able to acknowledge the good faith of those who disagreed and the exigency in which they found themselves. To say nothing of the lives their decisions may have saved.
By Jeff Jacoby
ON THIS PAGE a few years ago I wrote several columns arguing that torture was never acceptable - not even "as a last and desperate option" in the war against jihadist terrorism, a war I strongly support. At a time when not only conservative hawks but even some notable liberals were making the case for using torture to thwart Al Qaeda, I contended that the cruel abuse of terrorist detainees was something we could never countenance - not just because torture is illegal, unreliable, and a threat to the innocent, but because it is one of those practices that a civilized society cannot engage in without undermining its right to call itself civilized.
Rereading those columns amid the tumult over the Justice Department "torture memos" released last week, I see little that I would change. I am still convinced, as I wrote in 2005, that interrogation techniques amounting to torture "cross the line that separates us from the enemy we are trying to defeat."
Yet the Bush-era memos strike me as much more thoughtful than most of the moral preening and tendentious grandstanding they set off. Congressman Jerrold Nadler, a senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, apoplectically declares that the memos not only authorized torture "without a shadow of a doubt," they "gave explicit instruction on how to carry it out." The New York Times pronounces them "a journey into depravity." A petition at Democrats.com urges the appointment of a special prosecutor for "torture . . . and other heinous crimes of the Bush Administration."
What's missing from all this sanctimony and censure is any acknowledgement of the circumstances under which the CIA interrogations took place, let alone the successes with which they have been credited. That may be a good way to score easy political points. It doesn't add much to the public discourse.
Context matters. Actions that are indisputably beyond the pale under normal conditions - waterboarding a prisoner, for example - can take on a very different aspect when conditions are abnormal, as they surely were in the terrifying wake of 9/11.
"We did not have a clear understanding of the enemy we were dealing with," recalled Dennis Blair, the Obama administration's director of national intelligence, in his statement accompanying the declassified memos last week. "Our every effort was focused on preventing further attacks that would kill more Americans." Knowing little about Al Qaeda's capabilities, desperately seeking to head off another slaughter, fearing the worst, the government's highest priority was to extract critical intelligence from Al Qaeda detainees.
That was the state of affairs when the CIA sought legal approval to use harsher interrogation methods. "Those methods, read on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009, appear graphic and disturbing," Blair's statement said. But there was nothing sunny or safe about the post-9/11 emergency in which they were used. Any honest discussion of the memos authorizing them ought to say so.
Particularly when those memos indicate that the "enhanced interrogation techniques" saved lives. According to Deputy Assistant Attorney General Steven Bradbury's memo dated May 30, 2005, "intelligence acquired from these interrogations has been a key reason why Al Qaeda has failed to launch a spectacular attack in the West" since 9/11. Senior terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed at first "resisted giving any answers" when asked about future attacks, but waterboarding led him to divulge "specific, actionable intelligence." One result was the foiling of Al Qaeda's planned "Second Wave" - a 9/11-like plot to crash a hijacked airliner into a Los Angeles skyscraper.
But what if it hadn't been foiled? Suppose the CIA had been denied permission to use brutal interrogation tactics, and Al Qaeda had consequently gone on to murder thousands of additional victims in California. What kind of conversation would we be having once it became known that the refusal to subject KSM to waterboarding had come at so steep a price? How many of those now blasting the Bush administration for allowing torture would be blasting it instead for not preventing a second bloodbath?
None of this is meant as a defense of torture, which I oppose as adamantly as ever. But even those of us who were against the Bush interrogation policy should be able to acknowledge the good faith of those who disagreed and the exigency in which they found themselves. To say nothing of the lives their decisions may have saved.
The conservative cries of fascism
Original Link: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/04/22/the_conservative_cries_of_fascism/
By Scot Lehigh
I'M NOT ONE who thinks the right is dead in this country. If conservatism can learn from its losses, adapt, and modernize, the movement should continue to play an important role in American politics.
And yet, analytic introspection is hardly what we've seen since November. Instead, any number of conservative commentators have come down with the vapors.
That hysteria is regularly in evidence on "fair and balanced" Fox News. Witness, for example, Cody Willard, who reported for Fox from the anti-tax "tea party" on Boston Common last week. Inveighing against "the $800 billion Republican-Democrat fascist stimulus package," Willard posed this question: "Guys, when are we gonna wake up and start fighting the fascism that seems to be permeating this country?"
Willard managed to give his charge a veneer of nonpartisanship by including Republicans as among the sinners. Make no mistake, however: Cries of fascism are fast emerging as the favored conservative criticism of the Obama administration. You can see why: Given its inextricable link to Mussolini and Hitler, fascism carries no end of unsavory connotations. And, of course, charges of socialism haven't stuck to Obama.
But wait. Where is the extreme militaristic nationalism that the Encyclopedia Britannica tells us is fundamental to fascism? The contempt for electoral democracy and cultural liberalism? The effort to subordinate the individual to an authoritarian state?
Those are matters an intelligent commentator would want to consider before invoking the term. Not that that would deter Willard, who obviously won't be winning a MacArthur Foundation genius grant anytime soon. Fascism, he explained, is "big business and government gettin' in bed together." Still, it's puzzling that conservatives, who have waxed wroth about CNN's Susan Roesgen's hostile, unprofessional reporting from the Chicago tea party, have hardly uttered a peep about Willard's ludicrous performance.
He's not the only Fox personality who sees fascism around every corner, mind you.
"Like it or not, fascism is on the rise," Fox host Glenn Beck told his viewers this month. Sly Foxie that he is, Beck quickly added this qualifier: "That doesn't mean the Adolf Hitler kind of fascism."
Now, I'm confused. If it doesn't mean that, then why did Beck feature Nazi footage on the screen behind him as he launched into his rant? And why is he so prone to drawing analogies between contemporary America and Nazi Germany?
Here's one measure of how wacky he's become: His repeated assertions that Obama is moving the country toward fascism has provoked deep skepticism from fellow Fox host Bill O'Reilly, who, let's remember, is no stranger to simple-minded conservative bombast. Noting that his phones aren't tapped and that the government wasn't harassing him, O'Reilly recently told Beck that "I have just as much freedom now as I've ever had."
Ah, but the government is merely gathering its power, explained Beck, who issued this ominous warning: "You're about to not have freedom."
Proceed a few steps further toward tinfoil hat territory, and there you find Sean Hannity, who takes a back seat to no one - well, perhaps Michael Savage - in the cause of advancing idiocy on the nation's airwaves. Hannity, you'll recall, is the one who last fall gave kooky character assassin Andy Martin a platform to claim that Obama's time as a Chicago community organizer was actually "training for a radical overthrow of the government."
"The administration is on a mission to hijack capitalism in favor of collectivism," Hannity recently proclaimed. "The Bolsheviks have already arrived."
Nor are the squawking heads the only conservatives trafficking in the preposterous. Newt Gingrich recently asserted that Democrats are trying to move the country "towards a political dictatorship." Texas Governor Rick Perry last week suggested that his state might someday secede from the union.
No, this lunacy doesn't represent the totality of the right or even of its commentators. Yet it's prominent enough that starboard-side writer David Horowitz has expressed concern over the movement's "over-the-top hysteria" about Obama.
It's a problem that thinking conservatives should care about. After all, political rebuilding won't be easy if conservatism's loudest voices are those who sound as though they've just escaped from the asylum.
By Scot Lehigh
I'M NOT ONE who thinks the right is dead in this country. If conservatism can learn from its losses, adapt, and modernize, the movement should continue to play an important role in American politics.
And yet, analytic introspection is hardly what we've seen since November. Instead, any number of conservative commentators have come down with the vapors.
That hysteria is regularly in evidence on "fair and balanced" Fox News. Witness, for example, Cody Willard, who reported for Fox from the anti-tax "tea party" on Boston Common last week. Inveighing against "the $800 billion Republican-Democrat fascist stimulus package," Willard posed this question: "Guys, when are we gonna wake up and start fighting the fascism that seems to be permeating this country?"
Willard managed to give his charge a veneer of nonpartisanship by including Republicans as among the sinners. Make no mistake, however: Cries of fascism are fast emerging as the favored conservative criticism of the Obama administration. You can see why: Given its inextricable link to Mussolini and Hitler, fascism carries no end of unsavory connotations. And, of course, charges of socialism haven't stuck to Obama.
But wait. Where is the extreme militaristic nationalism that the Encyclopedia Britannica tells us is fundamental to fascism? The contempt for electoral democracy and cultural liberalism? The effort to subordinate the individual to an authoritarian state?
Those are matters an intelligent commentator would want to consider before invoking the term. Not that that would deter Willard, who obviously won't be winning a MacArthur Foundation genius grant anytime soon. Fascism, he explained, is "big business and government gettin' in bed together." Still, it's puzzling that conservatives, who have waxed wroth about CNN's Susan Roesgen's hostile, unprofessional reporting from the Chicago tea party, have hardly uttered a peep about Willard's ludicrous performance.
He's not the only Fox personality who sees fascism around every corner, mind you.
"Like it or not, fascism is on the rise," Fox host Glenn Beck told his viewers this month. Sly Foxie that he is, Beck quickly added this qualifier: "That doesn't mean the Adolf Hitler kind of fascism."
Now, I'm confused. If it doesn't mean that, then why did Beck feature Nazi footage on the screen behind him as he launched into his rant? And why is he so prone to drawing analogies between contemporary America and Nazi Germany?
Here's one measure of how wacky he's become: His repeated assertions that Obama is moving the country toward fascism has provoked deep skepticism from fellow Fox host Bill O'Reilly, who, let's remember, is no stranger to simple-minded conservative bombast. Noting that his phones aren't tapped and that the government wasn't harassing him, O'Reilly recently told Beck that "I have just as much freedom now as I've ever had."
Ah, but the government is merely gathering its power, explained Beck, who issued this ominous warning: "You're about to not have freedom."
Proceed a few steps further toward tinfoil hat territory, and there you find Sean Hannity, who takes a back seat to no one - well, perhaps Michael Savage - in the cause of advancing idiocy on the nation's airwaves. Hannity, you'll recall, is the one who last fall gave kooky character assassin Andy Martin a platform to claim that Obama's time as a Chicago community organizer was actually "training for a radical overthrow of the government."
"The administration is on a mission to hijack capitalism in favor of collectivism," Hannity recently proclaimed. "The Bolsheviks have already arrived."
Nor are the squawking heads the only conservatives trafficking in the preposterous. Newt Gingrich recently asserted that Democrats are trying to move the country "towards a political dictatorship." Texas Governor Rick Perry last week suggested that his state might someday secede from the union.
No, this lunacy doesn't represent the totality of the right or even of its commentators. Yet it's prominent enough that starboard-side writer David Horowitz has expressed concern over the movement's "over-the-top hysteria" about Obama.
It's a problem that thinking conservatives should care about. After all, political rebuilding won't be easy if conservatism's loudest voices are those who sound as though they've just escaped from the asylum.
Tea Parties expose intellectual inconsistencies
Original Link: http://media.www.thetraveleronline.com/media/storage/paper688/news/2009/04/22/Opinion/Tea-Parties.Expose.Intellectual.Inconsistencies-3719995.shtml
By: Abel Tomlinson
Immediately, I must declare that this is a nonpartisan critique because I see intense corruption in both parties.
However, America just witnessed politically important nationwide Tea (Taxed Enough Already) Parties centrally organized by partisan Republican lobbyists and the FOX "News" corporation. Most importantly, this "movement" exposed numerous intellectual inconsistencies within Republican politics.
The spearhead for Tea Parties was former Republican Congressman Dick Armey and FreedomWorks, his corporate lobbying firm. Interestingly, the Tea Parties were a plastic grassroots - or AstroTurf - movement that was falsely advertised as truly grassroots. Typical grassroots movements originate with average citizens and are funded by average citizens from the bottom up, but in the case of FreedomWorks, the "movement" was organized by corporate lobbyists and funded by millionaires with a top-down approach.
In addition to the efforts of FreedomWorks, Tea Parties were incalculably aided by millions of dollars worth of free promotional propaganda and coverage through FOX News.
This Tea Party rallying cry exposes the blatant, mind-numbing intellectual inconsistency inherent within Reagan-forward Republican politics.
Since Ronald Reagan declared "government is the problem," Republicans have preached about deficit hawkishness, small government, corporate deregulation and anti-taxism. But it is factually incoherent to simultaneously oppose taxes for the wealthy and debt while vastly increasing military spending.
Trickledown economics and deregulation have proved an abysmal failure. Massive tax cuts led to massive deficits and catastrophic economic inequality. Massive military spending also led to massive debt and vastly bigger government.
Moreover, banking deregulation proved to be a central cause of our economic collapse, which, according to Bloomberg News, is currently costing nearly $13 trillion when secret Federal Reserve bailouts are included.
Critically, Tea Party participants were instructed by corporate sponsors to protest against taxes, but the economic elite cunningly and intentionally failed to define which taxes the masses were supposed to oppose. Should we loath sales tax, property tax, excise tax, tariffs, capital gains tax, corporate tax, income tax or inheritance tax? Or should we oppose all taxes and abolish government?
Obviously, the elite organizers are principally concerned with taxes that affect their superrich bedfellows, so naturally the issue is corporate tax and income tax. This is directly logical considering Obama already cut taxes for the middle class but is contemplating repealing Bush's elite tax cuts and closing corporate tax loopholes.
Another inconsistency relates to the original Boston Tea Party itself, which was antithetical to our current Tea Parties because the original was a protest against corporate tax cuts for the world's largest multinational corporation, the monopolistic British East India Company. Our Republican Tea Party was the inverse because it was a protest organized by corporate interests to protect elite tax cuts, which have harmed the poorer supermajority.
Despite dark realities of Tea Parties, there is light within. The original source of the Tea Party idea was libertarian-minded Republican Ron Paul, but this idea was co-opted by the greater GOP. However, accidental beauty occurred because after FOX and FreedomWorks co-opted and promoted the protests, their events were counter-co-opted by thinking libertarians and progressives.
FreedomWorks instructed organizers on message management, but libertarians and progressives undermined this conformity. At many events, individuals brought messages criticizing the Federal Reserve and other non-elite messages.
My favorite message distortion is provided in an online Tea Party video of Republican Congressman Gresham Barrett, a supporter of the Wall Street bailouts, being booed off stage.
The far right also distorted the message by promoting Texas secession and anti-Obamaism, which entertainers like Rush Limbaugh and FOX News have stimulated because Obama may be unpatriotic, foreign, socialist, fascist, etc.
Overall, the Tea Parties proved pricelessly educational in exposing the mentality of the shrinking Republican base and the political inconsistencies that helped destroy America.
By: Abel Tomlinson
Immediately, I must declare that this is a nonpartisan critique because I see intense corruption in both parties.
However, America just witnessed politically important nationwide Tea (Taxed Enough Already) Parties centrally organized by partisan Republican lobbyists and the FOX "News" corporation. Most importantly, this "movement" exposed numerous intellectual inconsistencies within Republican politics.
The spearhead for Tea Parties was former Republican Congressman Dick Armey and FreedomWorks, his corporate lobbying firm. Interestingly, the Tea Parties were a plastic grassroots - or AstroTurf - movement that was falsely advertised as truly grassroots. Typical grassroots movements originate with average citizens and are funded by average citizens from the bottom up, but in the case of FreedomWorks, the "movement" was organized by corporate lobbyists and funded by millionaires with a top-down approach.
In addition to the efforts of FreedomWorks, Tea Parties were incalculably aided by millions of dollars worth of free promotional propaganda and coverage through FOX News.
This Tea Party rallying cry exposes the blatant, mind-numbing intellectual inconsistency inherent within Reagan-forward Republican politics.
Since Ronald Reagan declared "government is the problem," Republicans have preached about deficit hawkishness, small government, corporate deregulation and anti-taxism. But it is factually incoherent to simultaneously oppose taxes for the wealthy and debt while vastly increasing military spending.
Trickledown economics and deregulation have proved an abysmal failure. Massive tax cuts led to massive deficits and catastrophic economic inequality. Massive military spending also led to massive debt and vastly bigger government.
Moreover, banking deregulation proved to be a central cause of our economic collapse, which, according to Bloomberg News, is currently costing nearly $13 trillion when secret Federal Reserve bailouts are included.
Critically, Tea Party participants were instructed by corporate sponsors to protest against taxes, but the economic elite cunningly and intentionally failed to define which taxes the masses were supposed to oppose. Should we loath sales tax, property tax, excise tax, tariffs, capital gains tax, corporate tax, income tax or inheritance tax? Or should we oppose all taxes and abolish government?
Obviously, the elite organizers are principally concerned with taxes that affect their superrich bedfellows, so naturally the issue is corporate tax and income tax. This is directly logical considering Obama already cut taxes for the middle class but is contemplating repealing Bush's elite tax cuts and closing corporate tax loopholes.
Another inconsistency relates to the original Boston Tea Party itself, which was antithetical to our current Tea Parties because the original was a protest against corporate tax cuts for the world's largest multinational corporation, the monopolistic British East India Company. Our Republican Tea Party was the inverse because it was a protest organized by corporate interests to protect elite tax cuts, which have harmed the poorer supermajority.
Despite dark realities of Tea Parties, there is light within. The original source of the Tea Party idea was libertarian-minded Republican Ron Paul, but this idea was co-opted by the greater GOP. However, accidental beauty occurred because after FOX and FreedomWorks co-opted and promoted the protests, their events were counter-co-opted by thinking libertarians and progressives.
FreedomWorks instructed organizers on message management, but libertarians and progressives undermined this conformity. At many events, individuals brought messages criticizing the Federal Reserve and other non-elite messages.
My favorite message distortion is provided in an online Tea Party video of Republican Congressman Gresham Barrett, a supporter of the Wall Street bailouts, being booed off stage.
The far right also distorted the message by promoting Texas secession and anti-Obamaism, which entertainers like Rush Limbaugh and FOX News have stimulated because Obama may be unpatriotic, foreign, socialist, fascist, etc.
Overall, the Tea Parties proved pricelessly educational in exposing the mentality of the shrinking Republican base and the political inconsistencies that helped destroy America.
FreedomWorks, That Grass-Stained Organization
Original Link: http://agonyin8fits.blogspot.com/2009/03/freedomworks-that-grass-stained.html
You've all read that Megan McArdle is supporting her boyfriend's former organization, FreedomWorks, an ostensibly grass-roots organization.
Some background on FreedomWorks, from Right Wing Watch:
In 2004, Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE) and Empower America
merged to form FreedomWorks.
CSE
was founded by prominent right-wing funder David Koch in 1984. In the 1990s the group
"won plaudits from both the business community and GOP leaders" for its role in
mobilizing grassroots opposition against Clinton administration proposals on an
energy tax and health care, according to National Journal, which noted that
"Even some business lobbyists acknowledged that CSE has at times served as a fig leaf for corporate
lobbying efforts." CSE spent $1 million on a 1993 campaign against the
proposed energy tax, including advertising and bringing grassroots pressure on
Congress; most of the money came from corporations and trade groups such as the
American Petroleum Institute and the National Association of Manufacturers. CSE spent $5 million
against Clinton's health care proposal, dogging the White House's nationwide bus
tour with its own bus and rallies. For a 1997 campaign, CSE spent hundreds of
thousands of dollars per week running radio ads in 20 markets against proposed
new EPA air standards.
An internal CSE document obtained by The Washington Post in 2000 outlined the close correlation
between corporate donations and issue advocacy.
Empower America was founded in 1993, after Bill Clinton's election to
the presidency, as a kind of "shadow government" of policy advocacy, in the
words of co-founder Jack Kemp, a former congressman and Housing secretary and
future vice-presidential candidate. Gathering Kemp, Bush "drug czar" William
Bennett, former UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, and former Minnesota
congressman Vin Weber, The Wall Street Journal said the group "illustrates how
such tax-exempt nonprofits have become safe harbors for elite figures in the
conservative movement." Leading up to Kemp's 1996 bid, the group provided a
"base" for him "to make $1 million to $2 million a year" giving speeches, and it
played a key role in the Dole-Kemp campaign.
Its early activities included operating "candidate schools" for
Republicans in the 1994 elections, running attack ads against Clinton's health
plan, and opposing from the right an early Republican plan for welfare
reform.
Its agenda:
Its "freedom agenda" is headed by privatizing Social Security, implementing a flat tax and abolishing the estate tax, limiting tort liability, and expanding school vouchers. Other issues FreedomWorks is involved in include judicial nominations (it favors eliminating the filibuster), industrial and environmental regulation, immigration, and welfare.
FreedomWorks is supported at least in part by Bob Perry, who also funded the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Its chairman is Dick Armey and its vice chairman is Steve Forbes, both famously anti-tax for the rich. This grassroots organization is run by and funded by the richest people in America, for the richest people in America. They are implementing Step 2 of the plan to take all your money.
Step 1: Steal all the money you invested.
Step 2: Stop paying any taxes at all.
Step 3: Steal Social Security and Medicare.
Step4: Force you to work for third world wages.
This is not an evil scheme of world domination. This is corporations taking their interests to the next level, never stopping, never satisfied. Never stopped. And Megan's boyfriend was part of it, and probably will be again in the future. As she is now, working for the Atlantic.
Tool of the ruling elite, and proud of it.
You've all read that Megan McArdle is supporting her boyfriend's former organization, FreedomWorks, an ostensibly grass-roots organization.
Some background on FreedomWorks, from Right Wing Watch:
In 2004, Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE) and Empower America
merged to form FreedomWorks.
CSE
was founded by prominent right-wing funder David Koch in 1984. In the 1990s the group
"won plaudits from both the business community and GOP leaders" for its role in
mobilizing grassroots opposition against Clinton administration proposals on an
energy tax and health care, according to National Journal, which noted that
"Even some business lobbyists acknowledged that CSE has at times served as a fig leaf for corporate
lobbying efforts." CSE spent $1 million on a 1993 campaign against the
proposed energy tax, including advertising and bringing grassroots pressure on
Congress; most of the money came from corporations and trade groups such as the
American Petroleum Institute and the National Association of Manufacturers. CSE spent $5 million
against Clinton's health care proposal, dogging the White House's nationwide bus
tour with its own bus and rallies. For a 1997 campaign, CSE spent hundreds of
thousands of dollars per week running radio ads in 20 markets against proposed
new EPA air standards.
An internal CSE document obtained by The Washington Post in 2000 outlined the close correlation
between corporate donations and issue advocacy.
Empower America was founded in 1993, after Bill Clinton's election to
the presidency, as a kind of "shadow government" of policy advocacy, in the
words of co-founder Jack Kemp, a former congressman and Housing secretary and
future vice-presidential candidate. Gathering Kemp, Bush "drug czar" William
Bennett, former UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, and former Minnesota
congressman Vin Weber, The Wall Street Journal said the group "illustrates how
such tax-exempt nonprofits have become safe harbors for elite figures in the
conservative movement." Leading up to Kemp's 1996 bid, the group provided a
"base" for him "to make $1 million to $2 million a year" giving speeches, and it
played a key role in the Dole-Kemp campaign.
Its early activities included operating "candidate schools" for
Republicans in the 1994 elections, running attack ads against Clinton's health
plan, and opposing from the right an early Republican plan for welfare
reform.
Its agenda:
Its "freedom agenda" is headed by privatizing Social Security, implementing a flat tax and abolishing the estate tax, limiting tort liability, and expanding school vouchers. Other issues FreedomWorks is involved in include judicial nominations (it favors eliminating the filibuster), industrial and environmental regulation, immigration, and welfare.
FreedomWorks is supported at least in part by Bob Perry, who also funded the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Its chairman is Dick Armey and its vice chairman is Steve Forbes, both famously anti-tax for the rich. This grassroots organization is run by and funded by the richest people in America, for the richest people in America. They are implementing Step 2 of the plan to take all your money.
Step 1: Steal all the money you invested.
Step 2: Stop paying any taxes at all.
Step 3: Steal Social Security and Medicare.
Step4: Force you to work for third world wages.
This is not an evil scheme of world domination. This is corporations taking their interests to the next level, never stopping, never satisfied. Never stopped. And Megan's boyfriend was part of it, and probably will be again in the future. As she is now, working for the Atlantic.
Tool of the ruling elite, and proud of it.
The Tea Party Movement: Who's In Charge?
Original Link: http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/04/the_tea_party_movement_whos_in_charge.php
by Chris Good
Here is the organizational landscape of the April 15 tea party movement, in a nutshell: three national-level conservative groups, all with slightly different agendas, are guiding it. All are quick to tell you that the movement is a bottom-up affair and that its grassroots cred is real.
They are: FreedomWorks, the conservative action group led by Dick Armey; dontGO, a tech savvy free-market action group that sprung out of last August's oil-drilling debate in the House of Representatives; and Americans for Prosperity, an issue advocacy/activist group based on free market principles. Conservative bloggers, talk show hosts, and other media figures have attached themselves to the movement in peripheral capacities. Armey will appear at a major rally in Atlanta, FreedomWorks said.
All three groups vehemently deny that the movement is a product of AstroTurfing--fake grassroots activism organized from the top down--as some on the left have claimed. They will tell you that citizens-turned-activists, upset with President Obama's economic agenda and the financial bailout, have been calling them, asking for help and how they can organize protests on Wednesday. The movement, they say, is entirely organic: they are mostly providing help and resources to this new class of outraged conservative free-market populists, some of whom are their own members and some of whom are outsiders to politics with whom they've never communicated before--not even on an e-mail list.
FreedomWorks and dontGO seem to have taken ownership of the bulk of this coordination. The homepage of FreedomWorks' website now offers visitors a Google map of protests taking place across the country. They say they know of 600 Tax Day protests for which they are providing resources. The group has used its e-mail list to augment the work of dontGO, which created the website www.taxdayteaparty.com in February. dontGO, which was formed as an online rapid response team during the House of Representatives oil drilling debate last year, says it is "tracking" 700 events under its aegis. Americans for Prosperity says it has 24 state chapters that are organizing events. Overlap between all those numbers is quite likely: FreedomWorks told me a lot of its activity has been clueing its members to other protests in the area, so protesters can cooperate and conglomerate their events.
The movement is not tied to the Republican Party, group spokesmen said, despite a report that at least 10 House Republicans will be speaking at events across the country. Eric Odom, founder of dontGO, has infamously turned down a request from Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele to speak at the group's Chicago event.
Spokesmen for all three groups said they are not aware of any contact (other than the Steele incident) between their groups and federal-level Republican politicians, at the national level at least; Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), however, will speak at an Americans for Prosperity-organized event in Wisconsin, a spokesman for that group said. His appearance was organized by the group's Wisconsin chapter, Policy Director Phil Kerpen told me.
The three groups each want something different out of the protests.
FreedomWorks spokesman Adam Brandon sees them as an opportunity for the right to catch up to the left in terms of grassroots activity, incorporating the activist-network model used most effectively by MoveOn.org.
"Activists in general have learned a lot from the last election," Brandon told me. "You'd see 50 MoveOn.org people standing outside a gas station. We feel just as strong about our issues."
Progressive groups have employed that strategy in support of the same economic agenda the tea party protests seek to overturn: groups like ACORN and Americans United for Change have utilized their e-mail lists of supporters to organize field events across the country in support of the stimulus.
And in copying the left's model, Brandon says, FreedomWorks is no more guilty of AstroTurfing than MoveOn is.
"If you look at MoveOn's model...if you consider that AstroTurfing, I'd probably have to say that we're AstroTurfing," Brandon told me. But if critics assume the organization is top-down, he said, "they're gonna underestimate us."
FreedomWorks will place volunteers at some of the events to collect e-mail addresses and try to grow the group's network of activists. In the same way the Iraq war helped liberals recruit new activists, Brandon hopes Obama's economic agenda will fill conservative e-mail lists and coffers with new support.
dontGO founder Odom, on the other hand, does not see a parallel between his group and liberal ones like MoveOn. His vision for the movement is much more libertarian and revolutionary
"Their agenda was to get these individuals elected. Our agenda is to declare war on incumbency and long term power," Odom told me.
Hence the rejection of Steele's request. The goal is "not to promote Republicans at all," Odom said. "I voted for Bob Barr."
"I think April 15th is going to provide an environment in which a completely new movement comes out of that [conservative response to Obama's economic agenda]...new networks, new groups...the birth of a completely new base," Odom said.
As far as Fox News's promotion of the tea parties, promising coverage on Tax Day (and Glenn Beck's encouragement of viewers to attend), Odom said: "I love it. I think it's a very wise business plan. It's about ratings, that's what's going on now. Many people are looking for coverage."
(Indeed, the tea party protests have generated an epistemological problem for observers: most of the coverage has happened on conservative blogs, and it's always hard to tell whether the accounts are accurate, given that the bloggers back the protests, and there's a seed of doubt, sometimes, as to the authenticity of photos. Of course, now the same is true of Fox News, but at least they will have video cameras spread out across the country.)
Americans for Prosperity says it mostly wants to call attention to Obama's economic policies; ostensibly, at least, it does not have broader designs for the conservative movement or the size of its own e-mail list.
"We just think it's a great opportunity for average Americans to show up and make our voices heard," spokesman Erik Telford told me.
All three groups acknowledge that the reported energy behind the tea party movement doesn't have a particularly narrow focus. They're protesting the stimulus, the budget, the financial bailout (signed by President Bush), and more, they say. They also acknowledge that some will show up not out of economic rage, but out of pure opposition to Obama.
When Fox News's cameras start rolling on Wednesday, we will finally find out what the movement consists of. The only problem is the Heisenberg effect of Fox's cameras.
by Chris Good
Here is the organizational landscape of the April 15 tea party movement, in a nutshell: three national-level conservative groups, all with slightly different agendas, are guiding it. All are quick to tell you that the movement is a bottom-up affair and that its grassroots cred is real.
They are: FreedomWorks, the conservative action group led by Dick Armey; dontGO, a tech savvy free-market action group that sprung out of last August's oil-drilling debate in the House of Representatives; and Americans for Prosperity, an issue advocacy/activist group based on free market principles. Conservative bloggers, talk show hosts, and other media figures have attached themselves to the movement in peripheral capacities. Armey will appear at a major rally in Atlanta, FreedomWorks said.
All three groups vehemently deny that the movement is a product of AstroTurfing--fake grassroots activism organized from the top down--as some on the left have claimed. They will tell you that citizens-turned-activists, upset with President Obama's economic agenda and the financial bailout, have been calling them, asking for help and how they can organize protests on Wednesday. The movement, they say, is entirely organic: they are mostly providing help and resources to this new class of outraged conservative free-market populists, some of whom are their own members and some of whom are outsiders to politics with whom they've never communicated before--not even on an e-mail list.
FreedomWorks and dontGO seem to have taken ownership of the bulk of this coordination. The homepage of FreedomWorks' website now offers visitors a Google map of protests taking place across the country. They say they know of 600 Tax Day protests for which they are providing resources. The group has used its e-mail list to augment the work of dontGO, which created the website www.taxdayteaparty.com in February. dontGO, which was formed as an online rapid response team during the House of Representatives oil drilling debate last year, says it is "tracking" 700 events under its aegis. Americans for Prosperity says it has 24 state chapters that are organizing events. Overlap between all those numbers is quite likely: FreedomWorks told me a lot of its activity has been clueing its members to other protests in the area, so protesters can cooperate and conglomerate their events.
The movement is not tied to the Republican Party, group spokesmen said, despite a report that at least 10 House Republicans will be speaking at events across the country. Eric Odom, founder of dontGO, has infamously turned down a request from Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele to speak at the group's Chicago event.
Spokesmen for all three groups said they are not aware of any contact (other than the Steele incident) between their groups and federal-level Republican politicians, at the national level at least; Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), however, will speak at an Americans for Prosperity-organized event in Wisconsin, a spokesman for that group said. His appearance was organized by the group's Wisconsin chapter, Policy Director Phil Kerpen told me.
The three groups each want something different out of the protests.
FreedomWorks spokesman Adam Brandon sees them as an opportunity for the right to catch up to the left in terms of grassroots activity, incorporating the activist-network model used most effectively by MoveOn.org.
"Activists in general have learned a lot from the last election," Brandon told me. "You'd see 50 MoveOn.org people standing outside a gas station. We feel just as strong about our issues."
Progressive groups have employed that strategy in support of the same economic agenda the tea party protests seek to overturn: groups like ACORN and Americans United for Change have utilized their e-mail lists of supporters to organize field events across the country in support of the stimulus.
And in copying the left's model, Brandon says, FreedomWorks is no more guilty of AstroTurfing than MoveOn is.
"If you look at MoveOn's model...if you consider that AstroTurfing, I'd probably have to say that we're AstroTurfing," Brandon told me. But if critics assume the organization is top-down, he said, "they're gonna underestimate us."
FreedomWorks will place volunteers at some of the events to collect e-mail addresses and try to grow the group's network of activists. In the same way the Iraq war helped liberals recruit new activists, Brandon hopes Obama's economic agenda will fill conservative e-mail lists and coffers with new support.
dontGO founder Odom, on the other hand, does not see a parallel between his group and liberal ones like MoveOn. His vision for the movement is much more libertarian and revolutionary
"Their agenda was to get these individuals elected. Our agenda is to declare war on incumbency and long term power," Odom told me.
Hence the rejection of Steele's request. The goal is "not to promote Republicans at all," Odom said. "I voted for Bob Barr."
"I think April 15th is going to provide an environment in which a completely new movement comes out of that [conservative response to Obama's economic agenda]...new networks, new groups...the birth of a completely new base," Odom said.
As far as Fox News's promotion of the tea parties, promising coverage on Tax Day (and Glenn Beck's encouragement of viewers to attend), Odom said: "I love it. I think it's a very wise business plan. It's about ratings, that's what's going on now. Many people are looking for coverage."
(Indeed, the tea party protests have generated an epistemological problem for observers: most of the coverage has happened on conservative blogs, and it's always hard to tell whether the accounts are accurate, given that the bloggers back the protests, and there's a seed of doubt, sometimes, as to the authenticity of photos. Of course, now the same is true of Fox News, but at least they will have video cameras spread out across the country.)
Americans for Prosperity says it mostly wants to call attention to Obama's economic policies; ostensibly, at least, it does not have broader designs for the conservative movement or the size of its own e-mail list.
"We just think it's a great opportunity for average Americans to show up and make our voices heard," spokesman Erik Telford told me.
All three groups acknowledge that the reported energy behind the tea party movement doesn't have a particularly narrow focus. They're protesting the stimulus, the budget, the financial bailout (signed by President Bush), and more, they say. They also acknowledge that some will show up not out of economic rage, but out of pure opposition to Obama.
When Fox News's cameras start rolling on Wednesday, we will finally find out what the movement consists of. The only problem is the Heisenberg effect of Fox's cameras.
Lobbyist Money + Right-Wing Extremists = Tea Party
Original Link: http://davidalove.blogspot.com/2009/04/lobbyist-money-right-wing-extremists.html
By David A. Love
The tea parties that recently took place around the country were billed as a grassroots, bottom-up groundswell against taxes, big government and bailouts. Fox News, apparently promoting itself as the official teabag network, hopes to grab ratings by embracing the pseudo-populist protests as their own.
Republican politicians tried to hitch onto the mean-spirited tea party bandwagon, replete with anti-Obama and racist protest signs. That the GOP wants to associate itself with extremist groups tells you the political party has officially fallen off the deep end. White supremacists, militias, secessionists, conspiracy theorists and wingnuts—the subjects of a new Department of Homeland Security report— apparently have a seat at the table of the Republican Party. With the moderates and even the reasonable, book learning-oriented conservatives driven from the GOP, the extremists are now the base, the mainstream conservatives. They are all that is left of a party in tatters, of what is now a regional political organization— Southern, Christian and almost exclusively white.
No more of this going through the motions about diversity, about the big tent. And I think that is fine, because there is no love lost. Many political observers always looked at their overtures to people of color with a jaundiced eye. But the Republicans are playing with fire now as they court the angry lynch mob. And we have been down this road before.
I speak of a time, during Jim Crow segregation, when opportunistic politicians— the White Citizens Council, or the white-collar Klan— appealed to their unwashed racist brethren by standing against desegregation and voting against civil rights. The white-collar Klan gave a good talk. They stood in front of the schoolhouse door to block the Black students from attending class, but they kept their hands clean. Meanwhile, the angry mob, Klansmen and other domestic terrorists, did the dirty work. They acted with a wink and a nod from the respectable White-collar Klan, and took matters into their own hands by burning crosses, lynching civil rights workers, and bombing Black churches. And this is the arrangement that the GOP appears to be establishing with their base today.
From an organizational point of view, the tea parties are a prime example of “astroturfing”, top-down machinations operating under the guise of a faux grassroots movement—like a phony, conservative version of MoveOn.org, but operated by a corporate puppetmaster. In this case, as was reported in The Atlantic and ThinkProgress, they are being led by corporate lobbyist-run, Republican-affiliated front groups and think-tanks: FreedomWorks, a conservative action group led by former U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey; the free-market group Americans For Prosperity, and the online-oriented, free-market group DontGo Movement, which was born out of last year’s offshore drilling debate in Congress. These organizations are writing the press releases and talking points, thinking up the ideas for the signs, setting up the conference calls, you name it.
Americans For Prosperity operates through the generosity of philanthropies such as the ultra-conservative Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation (which bankrolled Ward Connerly’s anti-affirmative action ballot initiatives, and The Bell Curve author Charles Murray), and the pro-oil drilling Koch Family foundations.
In accordance with the interests of Armey’s client base, FreedomWorks has lobbied for the privatization of Social Security, and the deregulation of the life insurance industry. It supports the status quo in America’s use of fossil fuels, and has lobbied against healthcare reform. Further, FreedomWorks has received funding from telephone giants Verizon and AT&T, and has opposed net neutrality legislation that would keep the Internet democratic and open. One FreedomWorks funder is the Scaife Foundation, from Richard Mellon Scaife, key patron of the American Right.
So, these are the White-collar interests behind the tea parties. But what of the angry, disgruntled masses, the violent ones that’ll “git ‘er done”? Well, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) just issued a report called “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.” According to the report, the current economic downturn and the election of an African American president have provided recruitment opportunities for White supremacist and radical right-wing groups. As the report warns, “the consequences of a prolonged economic downturn—including real estate foreclosures, unemployment, and an inability to obtain credit—could create a fertile recruiting environment for rightwing extremists and even result in confrontations between such groups and government authorities similar to those in the past.”
The current situation is not unlike the 1990s, when angst over a recession fed paranoia, and conspiracy theories about the end times, martial law and the suspension of the U.S. Constitution. The environment led to the targeting of government buildings and law enforcement, and resulted in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. It was the largest terrorist attack on U.S. soil before September 11, 2001, in which a bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building claimed 168 lives and left over 800 people injured.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, in 2008 there were 926 hate groups in the U.S.— more than a 4 percent increase from 888 groups in 2007, and an over 50 percent increase since 2000, when 602 groups were active.
The DHS report notes that disgruntled veterans from the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are recruited by white supremacist groups, exploited for the training and skills they acquire in the military. Let’s not forget that Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was a veteran of Operation Desert Storm in 1990-1991.
These right-wing groups are united by their hatred of immigration and a frustration over perceived government inaction on the issue, and they perpetrate hate crimes against Latinos. And in their hostility towards gun control legislation—such as assault weapons bans and proposed universal handgun registration—they stockpile weapons and ammunition, and engage in paramilitary training.
These extremist organizations are also united by their concern over the election of President Obama, which has translated into new recruits. Can we forget the blood-lust at the McCain-Palin rallies, in which crowd participants called Obama a terrorist and a traitor, carried around Obama monkey dolls and called for his death? During the 2008 presidential campaign, then-candidate Obama received more threats than any other candidate in recent memory, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Moreover, several white supremacists were arrested for plotting to assassinate him or threatening to do so.
And the tea parties represent another venue, another outlet for racist and extremist sentiment, all funded by right-wing corporate interests. Consider some of the signs that were held by teabag protestors:
At a Madison, Wisconsin teabag rally: “Obama is the anti-Christ!” “Obama’s Plan – White Slavery.”
In Chicago: “The American Taxpayers Are The Jews For Obama’s Ovens.”
Philadelphia: “Barack Hussein Obama – The New Face of Hitler.”
Fresno, California: “Impeach Osama Obama a.k.a. Hussein.”
In Columbia, S.C., an elderly man held a large sign which read “Barack Obama supports Abortion, Sodomy, Socialism and The New World Order.”
At a Washington, DC protest, one man held a sign which read “Stand idly by while some Kenyan tries to destroy America? WAP!! I don’t think so!!! Homey don’t play dat!!!”
Sadly, under this economic and political climate, some elected officials try to tap into this extremist and racist anger with calls for secession and states’ rights, time-tested racist code words for the suppression of civil rights of African Americans. And the half-baked rejection of the stimulus money by some Republican governors, particularly in Southern states with considerable poverty and large populations of color, smacks of traditional conservative opposition to social programs on the grounds that they’ll help Black and Brown people. It’s funny until somebody gets hurt, as they always say.
So, the white-collar Klan and the regular Klan have entered the 21st century, and what the government intends to do about it this time around remains to be seen. But it is certain that we can’t sleep on this one.
By David A. Love
The tea parties that recently took place around the country were billed as a grassroots, bottom-up groundswell against taxes, big government and bailouts. Fox News, apparently promoting itself as the official teabag network, hopes to grab ratings by embracing the pseudo-populist protests as their own.
Republican politicians tried to hitch onto the mean-spirited tea party bandwagon, replete with anti-Obama and racist protest signs. That the GOP wants to associate itself with extremist groups tells you the political party has officially fallen off the deep end. White supremacists, militias, secessionists, conspiracy theorists and wingnuts—the subjects of a new Department of Homeland Security report— apparently have a seat at the table of the Republican Party. With the moderates and even the reasonable, book learning-oriented conservatives driven from the GOP, the extremists are now the base, the mainstream conservatives. They are all that is left of a party in tatters, of what is now a regional political organization— Southern, Christian and almost exclusively white.
No more of this going through the motions about diversity, about the big tent. And I think that is fine, because there is no love lost. Many political observers always looked at their overtures to people of color with a jaundiced eye. But the Republicans are playing with fire now as they court the angry lynch mob. And we have been down this road before.
I speak of a time, during Jim Crow segregation, when opportunistic politicians— the White Citizens Council, or the white-collar Klan— appealed to their unwashed racist brethren by standing against desegregation and voting against civil rights. The white-collar Klan gave a good talk. They stood in front of the schoolhouse door to block the Black students from attending class, but they kept their hands clean. Meanwhile, the angry mob, Klansmen and other domestic terrorists, did the dirty work. They acted with a wink and a nod from the respectable White-collar Klan, and took matters into their own hands by burning crosses, lynching civil rights workers, and bombing Black churches. And this is the arrangement that the GOP appears to be establishing with their base today.
From an organizational point of view, the tea parties are a prime example of “astroturfing”, top-down machinations operating under the guise of a faux grassroots movement—like a phony, conservative version of MoveOn.org, but operated by a corporate puppetmaster. In this case, as was reported in The Atlantic and ThinkProgress, they are being led by corporate lobbyist-run, Republican-affiliated front groups and think-tanks: FreedomWorks, a conservative action group led by former U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey; the free-market group Americans For Prosperity, and the online-oriented, free-market group DontGo Movement, which was born out of last year’s offshore drilling debate in Congress. These organizations are writing the press releases and talking points, thinking up the ideas for the signs, setting up the conference calls, you name it.
Americans For Prosperity operates through the generosity of philanthropies such as the ultra-conservative Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation (which bankrolled Ward Connerly’s anti-affirmative action ballot initiatives, and The Bell Curve author Charles Murray), and the pro-oil drilling Koch Family foundations.
In accordance with the interests of Armey’s client base, FreedomWorks has lobbied for the privatization of Social Security, and the deregulation of the life insurance industry. It supports the status quo in America’s use of fossil fuels, and has lobbied against healthcare reform. Further, FreedomWorks has received funding from telephone giants Verizon and AT&T, and has opposed net neutrality legislation that would keep the Internet democratic and open. One FreedomWorks funder is the Scaife Foundation, from Richard Mellon Scaife, key patron of the American Right.
So, these are the White-collar interests behind the tea parties. But what of the angry, disgruntled masses, the violent ones that’ll “git ‘er done”? Well, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) just issued a report called “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.” According to the report, the current economic downturn and the election of an African American president have provided recruitment opportunities for White supremacist and radical right-wing groups. As the report warns, “the consequences of a prolonged economic downturn—including real estate foreclosures, unemployment, and an inability to obtain credit—could create a fertile recruiting environment for rightwing extremists and even result in confrontations between such groups and government authorities similar to those in the past.”
The current situation is not unlike the 1990s, when angst over a recession fed paranoia, and conspiracy theories about the end times, martial law and the suspension of the U.S. Constitution. The environment led to the targeting of government buildings and law enforcement, and resulted in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. It was the largest terrorist attack on U.S. soil before September 11, 2001, in which a bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building claimed 168 lives and left over 800 people injured.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, in 2008 there were 926 hate groups in the U.S.— more than a 4 percent increase from 888 groups in 2007, and an over 50 percent increase since 2000, when 602 groups were active.
The DHS report notes that disgruntled veterans from the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are recruited by white supremacist groups, exploited for the training and skills they acquire in the military. Let’s not forget that Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was a veteran of Operation Desert Storm in 1990-1991.
These right-wing groups are united by their hatred of immigration and a frustration over perceived government inaction on the issue, and they perpetrate hate crimes against Latinos. And in their hostility towards gun control legislation—such as assault weapons bans and proposed universal handgun registration—they stockpile weapons and ammunition, and engage in paramilitary training.
These extremist organizations are also united by their concern over the election of President Obama, which has translated into new recruits. Can we forget the blood-lust at the McCain-Palin rallies, in which crowd participants called Obama a terrorist and a traitor, carried around Obama monkey dolls and called for his death? During the 2008 presidential campaign, then-candidate Obama received more threats than any other candidate in recent memory, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Moreover, several white supremacists were arrested for plotting to assassinate him or threatening to do so.
And the tea parties represent another venue, another outlet for racist and extremist sentiment, all funded by right-wing corporate interests. Consider some of the signs that were held by teabag protestors:
At a Madison, Wisconsin teabag rally: “Obama is the anti-Christ!” “Obama’s Plan – White Slavery.”
In Chicago: “The American Taxpayers Are The Jews For Obama’s Ovens.”
Philadelphia: “Barack Hussein Obama – The New Face of Hitler.”
Fresno, California: “Impeach Osama Obama a.k.a. Hussein.”
In Columbia, S.C., an elderly man held a large sign which read “Barack Obama supports Abortion, Sodomy, Socialism and The New World Order.”
At a Washington, DC protest, one man held a sign which read “Stand idly by while some Kenyan tries to destroy America? WAP!! I don’t think so!!! Homey don’t play dat!!!”
Sadly, under this economic and political climate, some elected officials try to tap into this extremist and racist anger with calls for secession and states’ rights, time-tested racist code words for the suppression of civil rights of African Americans. And the half-baked rejection of the stimulus money by some Republican governors, particularly in Southern states with considerable poverty and large populations of color, smacks of traditional conservative opposition to social programs on the grounds that they’ll help Black and Brown people. It’s funny until somebody gets hurt, as they always say.
So, the white-collar Klan and the regular Klan have entered the 21st century, and what the government intends to do about it this time around remains to be seen. But it is certain that we can’t sleep on this one.
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