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The Tea Party movement

· North American affairs

A pretty fair summary of what the Tea Party movement means for current US politics and the races leading up to the mid-term elections. For non-US readers who are unfamiliar with all this, the article is not a bad introduction. At least the Reuters report does not write it off as full of racist nutballs or religious bigots, and actually focuses on the anti-tax, anti-spending viewpoint of the Tea Partiers.

September 2nd, 2010 |

9 comments to The Tea Party movement

  • Richard Thomas
    September 3, 2010 at 4:18 pm

    Whilst I find myself a fellow traveler with most of the tea party’s goals, I have been a bit stand-offish as I had concerns that it would inevitably become corrupted as it came into contact with politics Those concerns are appearing to begin to bear fruit.

  • Paul Marks
    September 4, 2010 at 12:06 pm

    Chris Hitchens is a big user (a very big user) of alcohol (has been all his life) and is dying of cancer – so he is not really in his right mind, his writings have to be judged in that context.

    So what if he (for example) went to the 8/28 Restoring Honor event and found nothing but “white pity” – it is not that he is lying about all the happy people and smiles and black speakers and ….. HE JUST DID NOT SEE THEM.

    Remember he is so pi……… out of his head on booze and meds that it is lucky we did not get an article about pink elephants.

    I am sorry if the above sounds harsh (and actually I wish him well – I hope both that he recovers from cancer and that he gets off the booze) – but it happens to be true, and it is why no one should take anything Chris Hitchens writes seriously.

    Richard Thomas – if you have concerns then get involved (in order to make sure the movement does not become corrupted).

    Remember groups like Tea Party Patriots are bottom up – you can have a driect influnce.

    As for charges of bigotary and so on – the only armed Tea Party person the media could find to film happened to be black (so the media carefully tried not to show his head and arms whilst they ranted on about white bigots) and as for being hostile to nonAmericans……..

    Errrr – what about their treatment of me?

    I have never hidden the fact I am British – born and bred in the very land of King George III.

    I have had extensive contact with Tea Party people for years – and have never found anything but openess and kindness (for example the typical Tea Party person would never have used the blunt language that I used about Chris H. at the start of this comment).

  • mike
    September 4, 2010 at 2:12 pm

    Mind you Paul, I may have been a bit Johnny Walkered myself when I posted that link which has now been tidied up for me (thank you Jonathan – I presume it was you).

    Meanwhile I have a case of my own to defend against.

  • Subotai Bahadur
    September 4, 2010 at 7:40 pm

    Coming from Al Reuters that actually was not too bad an article. They do not explicitly note one fact, however. The TEA Party is fighting a two front war; both against the regime in power and against their enablers in the Institutional Republican Party. While the initial effect is going to be sweeping Obama’s minions from control of our House of Representatives [for you Brits, it is like your Commons] and having a shot at taking control of our Senate [like your House of Lords with real power, and of late they have been acting very much like they are an en-titled nobility]; it is being done by sweeping out the collaborationist Republicans and replacing them with Patriot candidates. We are using the Republican Party as the broom to sweep the country clean against their will. Republican National Chairman Michael Steele is as terrified of and appalled by the TEA Party movement as Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel. The Republican establishment hates us and fights us every step of the way.

    There is a reason that the Republican National Committee is short of funds this cycle. We have learned the hard lesson that if we donate to them, our money will go exclusively to members of the Political Class rather than to Patriot candidates. No more. There is a higher level of donations this year, but we are giving directly to our candidates. And we are now winning more often than not.

    Of course, the Political Class and their supporters are going to make the claims like in the comments to the Reuters’ piece that it is all Republicans and racist white folk. Anecdotes, of course, are not evidence. But the gatherings I have attended have an awful lot of self-proclaimed Democrats and Unaffiliated speakers. [At most TEA Parties, we have open mike speeches, and most politicians of either major party are not allowed to speak. If they do, they do so at their own risk. If our BS detectors go off, believe me, we argue back with more than a little energy.]

    As far as race is concerned, Your Humble Servant is Chinese. In my small town, we do not have many Blacks here, but a large Hispanic population. There is no shortage of Hispanics at our local rallies, nor of Blacks in say Colorado Springs’ rallies; where they have a larger black population. Indeed, at last weekends’ rally it was a Hispanic couple who help edit a Constitutionalist newspaper that recently started in Pueblo, Colorado [largely Hispanic and normally a Democrat Party stronghold] who asked me to write an article for them.

    As much as the Democrats would like to define anyone who is not genetically qualified to be in the SS as automatically Democrat; Patriotism is not defined by race or ethnic origin. It is in the heart; in the love and reverence for the founding documents of our country and in the vision laid out by the Founding Fathers. While I am not of the Judeo-Christian faith, I get the call to duty and honor that Glenn Beck made in Washington. Incidentally, that was NOT a TEA Party gathering. There was some overlap, but the fact that it was not should have our Political Class soiling their knickers.

    Rich Lowry at National Review characterized it as “The Revolt of the Bourgeois”.

    http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/245556/revolt-bourgeois-rich-lowry

    I realize that to Brits [and other Europeans], “Bourgeois” is an insulting epithet. Further, most Brits have no contact with the National Review. Still, I would offer the article for your consideration. And perhaps the thought that it might possibly do some good in Europe if some of you over there imbibed some of our brand of TEA.

    For all the attacks leveled against us, this is Americans doing what they are supposed to do, legally and constitutionally. All, and I mean that literally, of the violence and threats of violence have come from the regime and its supporters. If the Political Class succeeds in crushing the TEA Party; neither the people nor the patriotism will disappear.

    Subotai Bahadur

  • M
    September 6, 2010 at 5:27 pm

    The praise for Martin Luther King and the 1960s civil rights movement from Glenn Beck and co. reminds me of something Murray Rothbard wrote shortly before his death:

    Shortly before I left the libertarian movement and Party five years ago, a decision which I not only have never regretted but am almost continually joyous about, I told two well-known leaders of the movement that I thought it had become infected with and permeated by egalitarianism. What? they said. Impossible. There are no egalitarians in the movement. Further, I said that a good indication of this infection was a new-found admiration for the Reverend “Doctor” Martin Luther King. Absurd, they said. Well, interestingly enough, six months later, both of these gentlemen published articles hailing “Dr.” King as a “great libertarian.” To call this socialist, egalitarian, coercive integrationist, and vicious opponent of private-property rights, a someone who, to boot, was long under close Communist Party control, to call that person a “great libertarian,” is only one clear signal of how far the movement has decayed.

    Indeed, amidst all the talk in recent years about “litmus tests,” it seems to me that there is one excellent litmus test which can set up a clear dividing line between genuine conservatives and neoconservatives, and between paleolibertarians and what we can now call “left-libertarians.” And that test is where one stands on “Doctor” King. And indeed, it should come as no surprise that, as we shall see, there has been an increasing coming together, almost a fusion, of neocons and left-libertarians. In fact, there is now little to distinguish them.

    The fact that people like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin praise MLK just shows how much the left has won.

  • Sunfish
    September 7, 2010 at 3:35 pm

    The fact that people like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin praise MLK just shows how much the left has won.

    How funny. I was about to say the same thing about Murry Rothbard.

  • Laird
    September 7, 2010 at 3:56 pm

    M, correct me if I’m wrong, but to my knowledge no libertarian (or Republican, for that matter) praises MLK for his socialism or his opposition to private property rights; he is honored for his devotion to advancing the civil rights of his people at a time when they were close to non-existent. No one hails Ghandi for his socialism, either (and he certainly was that), but only for his non-violent protests in support of the Indian people. Both had serious flaws, but both also had extremely admirable qualities.

    Does anyone really call MLK a “libertarian”? Certainly not anyone who knows what that term means, and who understands King’s political philosophy. However, that doesn’t mean that we can’t make use of portions of his legacy, just as conservatives can laud the Kennedy tax cuts without accepting the rest of his policies.

  • Paul Marks
    September 8, 2010 at 11:11 am

    You have beat me to the punch Laird.

    Both Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and ….. praise Martin Luther King for his opposition to savage racism (and, contrary to Rothbard in his last years, there certainly was savage racism at the time).,

    They do not praise him for any economic policy opinions he may have held.

    As for economic egalitarianism – it was not Glenn Beck who “joined hands” with a bunch of living Marxists, apeing their language about smashing Western “Imperalism” and so on.

    More importantly Beck (and the others) have seen the enemy strategy (of the Obama Administration – but also of the education system and the mainstream media).

    This strategy is to paint anyone who wants a smaller government as a “racist” and “neo confederate”.

    So you go out of your way to praise Martin Luther King AGAINST RACISM (not on economic policy) and President Lincoln AGAINST SLAVERY (not for his opions on taxes on imports).

    It throws the entire left game plan into utter confusion – if (for example) you get half a million people to peacefully (and joyfully) gather at the feet of the Lincoln Memorial in praise of MLK (addressed by his neice and so on).

    “But, but, but, but……..”

    But nothing – Glenn Beck and the others know what they are doing (they understand), and the Rothbardians do not understand the world we live in – period.

    You can not change the world unless you first understand it.

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