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| H/T DownWithTyranny |
Earlier today, in researching a post about corporate shill Artur Davis, I recalled how, when growing up, I first grappled with the idea that poor and middle class people-- and it was Southerners I was thinking about at the time-- could make common cause with conservative politicians and right-wing parties. Conservative parties are-- over and above everything else-- reactions against any semblance of equality for poor and middle class people. That's the raison d'etre for conservatism to begin with. In the case of Southerners-- who were at the time massively abandoning the Democratic party and moving to a the "new" GOP of Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon, the tendency was to chalk it up to naked racism. But naked racism was just part of it. Just like naked racism is just part of the misplaced allegiance of the teabaggers to the Republican Party today.
Ten things that are plucking my last nerve.
1. The assertion, generally by Republicans, that a requirement to bring photo ID to the polls has something to do with curbing “voter fraud.” One candidate even said in debate the other night that voter fraud was on the rise in Virginia. When asked to provide an example he, of course, could not. Look, you don’t steal an election where the votes are cast, you steal it where the votes are counted. Anybody who gave this issue about ten seconds of thought would realize you can’t fix an election by voting fake voters. It’s too cumbersome, requires too many people to be in on the scheme. It’s a silly idea. We’ve had three presidential elections in this country that might have been stolen — 1880, 1960 and 2000. If they were, they were all stolen after the polls closed. So, when Republicans get serious about voting machines with computer software that can’t be easily hacked and paper trails to allow an accurate recount, I’ll believe they care about “voter fraud.” Until then, they’re just trying to suppress the vote.
4. The way some people who cheered on the Tea Party rallies last year, mock the Occupy Wall Street rallies this year. And, I suppose, vice versa. Before the Tea Party got co-opted by the Republican Party, it expressed a lot of the same populist outrage that Occupy Wall Street does. In my view, this is a country long in need of a little healthy populist outrage. The nightmare of the powers-that-be is that the Occupy Wall Street folks and the Tea Partiers might realize that they’re mad at some of the same people. That graphic going around the Internet isn’t a total joke; there is an intersection of interest between the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street around the too chummy relationship between government and business.
This is what democracy looks like.
Ain't gonna let nobody turn me around
Ain't gonna let nobody, turn me around
Turn us around, turn us around
Ain't gonna let nobody, turn me around
Keep on a walking, keep on a talking
Gonna build a brand new world
YES, WE CAN!
YES, WE ARE!
YES, WE WILL!
2 comments:
@Redeye "[T]here is an intersection of interest between the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street around the too chummy relationship between government and business."
Redeye, I feel that there should be an "intersection of interest between the Tea Party and [the] Occupy Wall Street" movement, but I'm having trouble actually seeing a nexus.
Help me out here: The Tea Party's biggest supporters are the Koch Brothers, and other corporate bodies, with the goal of decimating those forces that impact their bottomline--unions, and regulators.
The Tea Party came on the national scene in a serous way to stop the Affordable Care Act, Obama's signature legislation, although it's generally averred that it was because of the bank bailouts.
TeaPartyites are Republicans, but a special brand of Republicans. Here's what a recent survey found:
"Who are the people who make up the Tea Party movement?
"According to a new survey undertaken by sociologists from Vanderbilt University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Tea Partiers are an old movement in new (albeit retro) packaging.
"'The Tea Party movement is best understood as a new cultural expression of the late-20th century Republican Party,' said Steven J. Tepper, associate professor of sociology at Vanderbilt and associate director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy at the university. 'Compared to the Republican Party, Tea Party supporters are more likely to support libertarian principles. But virtually every other characteristic of Tea Party supporters – from demographics to political and social attitudes – matches the profile of Republican supporters.'"
And we have this from the same survey: "The surveys identified four major traits of people who identify with the Tea Party – authoritarianism, libertarianism, fear of change and anti-immigrant sentiment."
TeaPartyites want to slash the size of government (the EPA in particular), more than it wishes to quash the unholy alliance between government and Big Money (i.e. corporations).
I hear you B D! The Occupy Movement doesn't need the Tea Party.
Read This
Occupy Wall Street Will Only Reach Critical Mass When It Attracts the Minorities of Brooklyn, Across the River
With all of the media now focused on the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Lower Manhattan, it’s easy to lose sight of the real human tragedy unfolding right across the bridge. I’m referring to Brooklyn, New York’s most populous borough, which has suffered mightily since the economic meltdown of 2008. Though the crowds participating in the Occupy Wall Street movement are now more racially diverse than at the outset of the protests, most disadvantaged Brooklyn residents are still shying away from demonstrations. This fact is most glaringly evident when one takes the 2 or 3 train from Fulton Street near the protests and heads out into Brooklyn: while most of the protesters are young and white, the subway riders are predominantly African-American and Caribbean.
http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/13111
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