My Tea Party

looking to the Right

I was a conservative and not a Republican long before anyone thought of the modern Tea Party movement.   Like many people, I was an excited early participant in the early Tea Party effort.  I have continued to attend local get-togethers and occasionally offer my opinions.  All of that has been with less and less enthusiasm for the effort.  The reasons are as simple as they are fundamental. 
First, I am a basic conservative (read: old-time conservative) and second, I like to think for myself.

Tea Party participants want to take back the country and instill true conservative values, so why shouldn't I, being a lifelong conservative, be absolutely dedicated to the success of the Tea Party movement?  To answer that I have to expand greatly on my basic points above.  It really has to do with what the Tea Party has become and how that has shaped modern conservatism.


Tea Party at The Top

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The vast majority of Tea Party supporters I have asked say that the TP movement is self funded.  They tell me that it is a body of dedicated people joined together to fight big government and its oppression.  They seem totally unaware of the huge corporate big money effort that has sustained the TP while injecting special interest ideals and completely reshaping meaning of conservatism.  It's not just the multi-billionaire Koch brothers and their Koch Industries, it's the conglomerate of huge insurance companies, big oil and every other powerful corporate interest that can benefit from reducing the power of average people while gaining greater control over government.  Case in point; the main financial opposition to Obamacare quietly comes from those insurance companies who were getting a nearly $140 billion subsidy (theoretically for interfacing between patients and Medicare).  They lost that under the Health Care Bill and they want it back.  That's a lot of corporate welfare and they are willing to fight for it.  Not that Obamacare is all that good, but it isn't bad in the ways that Tea Partiers have been led to believe.

Big time religion comes in second in influence over the TP movement.  No, the big churches don't contribute the hundreds of millions of dollars that come from big corporations, but they do pump in people.  Not just average people, but zealous soldiers who have no regard for the Constitution, the freedoms due Americans or anything else that is not on the Christian agenda.  This segment of the TP movement is working fervently at changing the very meaning of the Constitution by attacking its basic principles and revising the history of its founding.  You hear it all the time at TP rallies and meeting, "There is no separation of church and state!  We are a Christian nation!  The Constitution protects family values!  Abortion must be stopped!"   On and on they attack safeguards to freedoms well grounded and intended in the Constitution.  They teach people that the Constitution isn't what our forefathers and the courts have intended.  When convenient, they deny science and most of all, they work hard to force these views on everyone.  If you have attended a Tea Party rally lately, you've seen that it is working.

How Does All That Influence Trickle Down?

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Never underestimate the stupidity of a large group of people.  It is an important and central point to the success of big corporations in taking control of the right wing that they have programmers who craft the corporate message into almost sensible rhetoric for the non-thinking multitudes.  These icons of inspiration and learning are paid multimillion dollar inducements to guide the thinking of group-think addicted Tea Party followers to nonsensical conclusions that directly benefit the extremely wealthy.  We have all heard their senseless babble.  From Rush Limbaugh to Glenn Beck and from Sean Hannity to Bill O'Reilly they send the same message  over and over, day after day.  How do they all arrive at the same conclusions, even the same sound bites with flawless accuracy?  They are paid to say what big corporations, big-time religion and the super wealthy want them to say.  They speak and the Tea Party echoes.  They are the programmers hired by the super wealthy to program the compliant flock of followers who rally around every concept that puts the interests of corporate America ahead and above the rights of everyday taxpaying Americans.  Look at Glenn Beck's well publicized $32 million income.  Around $3 million of that is earned at his job, the rest can be characterized as the payoff.  What do big corporations, big-time religion and the super wealthy get for their share of that $29 or so million?  They get programming that produces tens of thousands of obedient followers fighting for corporate welfare while impoverishing the middle class.  Of modest incomes mostly, they nonetheless cry for huge tax breaks for the super wealthy and big corporations and they fight against anti pollution laws that hold big corporations accountable for damage done to the public and leaving it to the government to clean up the mess at taxpayer expense.  This coddling of the giant powerful corporation by government is not a new idea.  It has been the dream of much of the super wealthy class forever.  What is new, is the force of the masses of duped average income people shouting in support of this idea at the expense of their own good future.  Little do they understand (or want to understand) that, given success by the Tea Party, they will work for pennies, be saddled with all the tax burden and be deprived of the protections of the Constitution and government.  That really is shooting oneself in the foot!


Tea Party Confusion

At a recent local TP gathering I played a short recording of Ann Coulter on the Sean Hannity show.  She was explaining how there is no "Wall of separation" between church and state.  Her point was that the First Amendment states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...." and it therefore, applies only to Congress.  Therefore, she argued, while congress is limited by the First Amendment, the Supreme Court and the rest of the nation has had it wrong in restricting the states from any religious involvement they want, including teaching religion in public schools I suppose.  Sean Hannity readily agreed and so his audience once again got a dose of the Kool-Aid that the Constitution has been misconstrued and old time conservative values were wrong.  I then asked for comments and behold, nearly every TP follower had already been programmed to buy that line!  I was horrified.


Following up on the Ann Coulter position (and lately the position of all right wing talk/programmers), I said, "Then would you agree that your right to speak your mind and indeed, your very right to gather here can be limited at any time by your state or local government?"  There was laughter followed by many explanations that free speech is guaranteed as is the right to gather and address the government.  "But wait," I said, "the First Amendment says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.  Nowhere else in the Constitution protects free speech.  So, it follows that if the First Amendment restrictions on religion applies only to Congress, it is also true for free speech or freedom of the press or for our right to assemble here, right?"  So programmed were many of the Tea Party dupes that they argued that it applied differently to religion and free speech.  For some, no amount of comparative logic would turn on the light.  In the end, most agreed that Airhead Ann had it wrong.
Airhead Ann didn't have it wrong, she was simply saying what she was paid to say.  She was doing her part helping program the masses to follow the will of big-time religion.  She and Hannity and the rest have no qualms about pushing our form of government closer to that of Iran and other theological states.  They are happy to simply cross out Muslim and insert Christian.  If that means ignoring, re-interpreting or destroying the Constitution, so be it.


Accusing The Enemy

That the design of a constitutional democracy calls for continuous negotiations is of no consequence to a movement of puppets driven by their master to serve only one goal.  If you listen to the programmers (Beck, O'Reilly, Hannity, etc), you hear a continuous stream accusations toward their perceived enemy, which happens to be anyone who doesn't agree with every aspect of their message.  The tactic is to accuse the enemy of doing whatever it is you are doing in order to divert attention away from your own misdeeds.  It works.  At least it certainly works with the Tea Party followers.  They nod their heads in agreement as their favorite commentator presents a totally fictitious scenario and pronounces, "You didn't hear that in the main stream media!  They just tell you what they want you to hear!"


When Beck tells the world that there is no such thing as global warming, he accuses the left of lying to you for their own personal gain.  He is telling you that because he gets paid millions to tell you that and, without defense against the scientific evidence his only argument has to be that they are lying.  With all the right-wing so called modern conservative commentators you get a heavy dose of, "They are coming after me. They don't want me to tell you the truth."  For the simple of mind, this reinforces the image that the other side is lying and supposedly garners some sympathy for the commentator who is standing up to the evil of the other side (all for a mere $30 million a year).

 

The Political Consequence

The Tea Party has become a powerful force in American politics and it is demonstrating that power at the polls and in its influence over what candidates and people in office say and do.  Their power comes from the lockstep march and their unswerving dedication to the positions of big corporations, big-time religion and the super wealthy.  Since they generally all get their information from the same source and have been trained to hate anyone who shares a moderate or opposing point of view, they are intolerant of political leaders who stray from the dogma of right-wing political commentary.  The result is that any elected official who tries to do the job of governing through the democratic process of argument and negotiation is instantly marked as a traitor to the TP image of conservatism.  In the Tea Party world, only the most reactionary, rigid and right-wing leaning politician can survive.

That thing about government being designed so representatives in Washington represent all the people of their districts and negotiates for their best interests is out the window when it comes to Tea Party support.  To be supported by the Tea Party, a politician must drink the same Kool-Aid from the same bowl as all those TP zealots and must demonstrate rancor and hatred of anyone who doesn't.  That explains why TP favorites are often bottom-of-the-barrel intellectually and absurdly identical in political positions and why we end up with nut cases like Sharron Angle running for office.  There is no room for free thinking or objective observations in the TP world.   Conservatives used to be widely different in opinions on specific issues and happy to discuss and debate their positions.  In the TP world, only modern conservatives are allowed and modern conservatives do not deviate from the platform of big corporate interests, big-time religion and the super wealthy.  Modern conservatives have drunk the Kool-Aid and are marching lockstep without deviation from the herd.  They and their Tea Party have long ago trashed true old-time conservative principles in favor of their programmers wishes and they are hard at work forcing this new wave upon the nation without regard for the damage to the fabric of our society.

 

 

Political Corruption?

Is it political corruption or just public deception when big money with special interests overwhelms the political system and the minds of so many?  We certainly would consider any politician corrupt if he or she took money directly as payment to influence the political process.  Political commentators like Glenn Beck and friends are not politicians though, at least not in the traditional sense.  They have every right (thanks to that first amendment that they want to destroy) to say whatever they choose.  It's not their fault if there are thousands who listen and don't stop to question their idiotic dribble.  They are making millions serving the interests of big corporations, big-time religion and the super wealthy while proposing political positions that would drastically degrade the lives of their loyal followers.  What they are doing and saying is not illegal.  It is immoral and cruel, but they make a profit at it and as long as fools will follow, they can continue making that profit.  They are killing the concept of conservatism by advocating corporate control over the lives of ordinary people and inserting religious control as a constitutional standard.  These right-wing political commentaries are undermining the basic individual freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution and substituting a form of corporate protection and welfare that every average American will have to finance, but it's not political corruption.

 

The Great Thing Is

The great feeling that comes with being a Tea Partier is that you don't have to take responsibility for anything.  It's a religion upon itself with forgiveness built in.  A basic premise of the TP movement is that whatever is wrong in America is someone else's fault.  The ridiculous war in Iraq that virtually all these TP followers supported even after it was obvious that we had been lied to by the Administration is someone else's fault.  The horrible economic policies of the Bush Administration that led us into bankruptcy, "Not my fault," says the TP follower.  If you are a TP type, it's O. K. if you supported it then, but don't worry, you have no responsibility for the consequences now.  You just blame that socialist president and you are forgiven, if not him, just be sure to blame someone.


Another great thing that comes with the Tea Party label is the right to ignore the truth and make up even the most preposterous scenario to support the Tea Party position.  Go ahead.  You can do it.  Your programmer says it is O. K. You can say that the President is a Muslim even though everyone (including you) knows he is not.  You can say that the Health Care Bill contains a provision for death panels even though it simply isn't now, and never was true.  You can blame the economic collapse on liberals even though the economic policies you supported caused it.  You can insist there is no separation of church and state in the Constitution or that there is no right to privacy.  It's all O. K. because your programmer told you it was.  Honesty is no longer important in the world of modern conservatives.  All you have to give up is the right to think for yourself.  After all, you've bought into the corporate, bi g-time religious and super wealthy fantasy that making them more powerful and richer will improve your life.  Good luck!

A man's words are a measure of who he is only when they match his actions. - Jenny Jerrome.

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