They still wouldn’t send in the army, though.
It is central to the discussion. All groups have their whackjobs, their extremists. For example, if the Sierra Club had a couple guys who, in their spare time decided to bomb a Hummer dealership, I wouldn’t tar that group with the actions of an extremist. Would you? Clearly the NBPP took those actions as matter of policy, and in a premeditated fashion. Further, they celebrated the disgusting act after the fact.
My guess is that something similar is happening with the Tea Party. The vast majority are peaceful (but angry). Their recent rally was widely viewed as the cleanest, most orderly one we’ve had here in DC of that size in, basically, forever. If they have a couple members who, while members of the TP, decided to also burn down some NAACP building… would you say ‘the Tea Party’ did it? Or just those extremists?
Do you actually believe the stuff you write? Or are you just trying to be outrageous for effect? By virtually any objective measure, this administration has been the most liberal we’ve had in… well… ever. Frankly, you sound so far out there that you make Bernie Sanders look like Pat Buchanan.
As I have said before, sometimes I wonder if you are a Rovian plant, trying to make the standard-issue left look crazy.
Please, feel free to enlighten us. This accusation is tired and shopworn to the point of cliche.
Wants to lower taxes? Check.
Wants tax rates several dozens of percentages lower than Eisenhower or Nixon? Check.
Does not want to implement major welfare-for-the-poor increases (the conservative bogeyman).
On the other hand, does not make a major push to end corporate welfare? Check.
Continues non-traditional means of warfare eroding our civil liberties? Check and mate.
There’s some objective measures for you. The accusation is redonkulous.
For one thing I never said these assholes were “my buddies.” In fact I agree with you that they’re idiots. And unlike how the right does with the tea party, I don’t see any mainstream democratic politicians rushing to embrace these guys.
And no shit there aren’t Bush rallies going on now. I was asking where were the belligerent, gun toting left wing assholes when he was president.
And you speak of bipartisanship in his administration. I didn’t think the right embraced such a thing. Tell me how those in his party reacted when he tried seeking a bipartisan solution to immigration.
I’d say the Tea Party did it, because they are a collection of racist thug-wannabees for whom burning down the NAACP building would be a not much of a stretch. If they didn’t lean so heavily towards the old you’d probably have seen more violence by now from them. And you are ignoring that the thug and lunatic elements of the Right has and has had for a long time plenty of support right up to the top. The Democratic leadership didn’t go around implying that Bush would be assassinated if he went to their state; Republicans did that about Clinton, and they’ve only gotten crazier since. And then there’s all the support and respect that anti-abortion killers and bombers get, and that terrorists like Timothy McVeigh get. There’s plenty of support for violence from the right.
That’s just ridiculous. Obama is just another example of the march to the right that has been going on in American politics for decades. He’s a right wing corporatist who would have fit in perfectly not too long ago as a Republican, if it wasn’t for his skin color. He’s moderate right wing; not left wing, not even a centrist.
Oh yes and then what about the left wingers who in the '70s vigourously endorsed who would lead the largest mass suicide in history, namely Jim Jones? He was as I’ve said before praised by Rosalyn Carter, Walter Mondale, Jerry Brown, and Harvey Milk and whom Jesse Jackson has defended after the mass suicides? No right-wing lunatic be it David Koresh or Tim McVeigh has enjoyed such mainstream support.
This garbage again? Didn’t I already educate you about that in another thread.
Its true they may never have seen it coming that he was a cultic nut but he was already a dominating and meglomaniac personality and he was a Communist (not Socialist) sympathizer who defended Stalin and Kim Il Sung. If someone who the Tea Party widely praised ended up commiting violence (even minor one) there will be a shitstorm.
Jim Jones was not a political figure. He was praised for genuine humanitarian efforts. The celebritities who occasionally said good things about him knew of his humanitarian efforts, but they did not know him personally. This attempt at character assassination by vague association is really puerile.
Jesus himself was a Communist, by the way.
And what does it matter what political affiliation Jones may have had? The 70s were a very long time ago. There has been a great deal of political change since then.
Walking around with guns at town hall meetings? Calling for the death of the President? Talking about “Don’t recant! RELOAD!”
I’m thinking “no fly list” here, at least.
They didn’t send the army after the Branch Davidians or Randy Weaver (Posse Comitatus, I believe), but they did send in heavy armor after the former. For far less than what the Tea Party (and all those Idaho-style militias) is doing now. That stuff might have been BATF but when you’re staring down their barrels it looks like regular army to me.
The word “army” was a figure of speech and not too wild eyed considering the level of firepower that law enforcement has leveled against people who did not represent a threat to anyone (and I stand by that because of the lack of meaningful convictions of the Branch Davidian survivors).
Great video and a great point.
I don’t think there is *that *much of a debate here. The sole point of this video is that the Tea Party would be treated very differently by the government if it was a majority black movement, rather than a majority white movement.
I completely agree, and would only add that the mainstream media would also treat it differently.
I would also suggest people read the original articleon which it is based.
But we don’t need to imagine. Just consider what happens when Muslims criticize the U.S. for its foreign policy. They are not praised for exercising their free speech rights, nor are they depicted as patriotic. Instead, they are condemned at the very least, and possibly investigated by the authorities for ties to terrorist groups or subject to violence. If they even have the temerity to build a non-political religious center in New York, their very motives and civil liberties are questioned, to say nothing of being praised.
I think the Bush admin had several streaks most would call liberal, or left wing.
[ul]
[li]He signed the Medicare Part D (unfortunately - it’s an unfunded giveaway that we can’t afford), vastly increasing the government scope into healthcare. This, if nothing else, establishes his liberal bona fides, despite the rantings to the contrary by the left[/li][li]He tripled aid to Africa.[/li][li]He spent money like a liberal, without regard for the deficit or debt[/li][li]He supported an amnesty program for illegal immigrants; and as per your comment, he has no control how his party is going to react to it, all he can do is push it and sign it if it comes to him, you should know that.[/li][li]He was big on compassionate conservative stuff, helping the poor through faith-based organizations[/li][li]He put 4 broads in his cabinet, plus his nat’l sec advisor :D[/li][li]Signed a big nuke arms reduction w/Russia in May 2001 [/li][/ul]
Don’t get me wrong, he had a lot of conservative streaks too, especially the protecting the country stuff and lower taxes to encourage economic growth.
Can we put together a similar list for this administration? Where is the Obama version of Bush’s Medicare Part D? What program or bill has Obama signed where he looks like a righty?
But it’s a bridge too far.
Sure, it’s a metaphor, but the question was whether the video was correct, and your interpretation here still leaves room for some kind of armed confrontation. Marginalizing and ignoring is a more effective way of dealing with groups you don’t like.
For one, you don’t risk making martyrs out of them and having others take up their cause–how many militias cite Ruby Ridge and Waco as calls to arms?–and for another, without the big bucks of the Kochs and Scaife and other deep-pocketed wingnuts (and a propaganda network all their own) a LefTea Party would not have been able to fund or publicize the events that gave it momentum and credibility. That’s my only quibble.
A Tea Party from the left would get exactly as much attention as the Coffee Party does now, IMO.
I wonder if the other lefties on this board agree with your positions. Since nobody ever says anything, I have to assume that you are the voice of the SMDB left. It’s clear we have ‘if you’re in Hawii then even California looks East’ syndrome at work here again.
But one last point for you to ponder:
Forget about whether he’d look like a Republican - to me, parties are pretty silly. Would he look like a conservative? In other words, using maybe the best definition I can think of (and listen up Ludovic, as you need a little assistance in this area based on your post): have his policies, the legislation he’s fought for, the bills he’s pushed through… have they increased or decreased the amount of government involvement (a righty would say ‘intrusion’) in American’s lives?
You say he’s a right wing ‘corporatist’ (whatever that means). Is that because he hasn’t pulled a Chavez and nationalized all industries? Because we don’t have a Cuban-style economic paradise right now? Seriously?
His policies and agenda that hurt American business:
- the healthcare law (AT&T has already taken a $1b hit to earnings because of it, lots more to come)
- threatening to allow taxes to go up on high earners, including some small businesses
- lots more quota/setaside programs in federal contracting
- cardcheck cardcheck cardcheck (maybe the single most damaging thing he could do to our country’s economy, and a surefire way to raise the wages of a few dinosaur industrial works at the price of shipping a buttload of jobs overseas)
His policies that help American business:
.
.
.
::crickets::
Medicare part D was a corporate giveaway, with the beneficial side effect (for the right) of helping to bankrupt the program. If Bush was at all interested in the health of seniors, he would not have explicitly forbidden Medicare from bargaining with drug companies.
The idea that mere spending is a sign of someone’s political leanings is absurd. Both Bush and Obama were happy to bail out the banks; Obama was just willing to toss some scraps down to the working/middle class to maintain the pretense of caring about them. Robbing public coffers has long been a trademark of fascist dictators, but it also became a strategy for the “libertarian” American right. The goal was always to spend the government into deficits (but on military expenditures, rather than social programs), then use the deficits as an excuse for cutting social programs. It would be a double win for the wealthy elites, as they not only reaped the benefits of publicly funded organizations (e.g., pharm companies taking drugs developed by the NIH and patenting them for profit; selling the internet technology developed by the government without paying any fees for it), but also were able to acquire a captive costumer base–when utilities were privatized, citizens had no choice but to become customers of the corporation that filled the vacuum left by the government in providing these services.
Snip.
DT is the far left of this board. I like to think I’m more realistic in my views, but still lean heavily left on most issues. Obama is barely a centrist at this point. He’s leaned more right than left on most issues and has continued policies that his left leaning support did not endorse. The US as a whole is more conservative than the world political stage, so you have to take that into consideration when talking about these types of issues.
He has not kept his word on a great deal of his political promises; the majority of which are in the social realm which were key issues for voter like myself who are independent. Every time he stalls on something he promised, or conceded to the right for the look of the thing, he moved farther to the right. He has not used his position effectively to whip congress into shape, and he’s struggled with the military without need to. DADT for example could be ended immediately as he is the CIC. Instead he’s going a long, torturous, more palatable route to the right. Gitmo could have been shut down, but he’s bowing to the right again and dragging his feet. His economic policies have been solidly centrist leaning right. In the case of the bailout he should get a pass since there wasn’t a whole lot of better options. He could have instituted a lot more reform and punishments than he did though. Congress holds the blame for a lot of this, but the President has a bully pulpit, and so far Obama has used it extremely sparingly in my opinion.
-
the healthcare law
–>a giveaway to the insurance companies by requiring citizens to purchase their crappy product without giving them an alternative. -
threatening to allow taxes to go up on high earners, including some small businesses
→ the taxes would only go up to 39%, still much less than the 92% in the 60s…when the economy was booming and that dang socialist Republican Eisenhower was in charge
→ bank bailouts in the trillions
→ an anemic stimulus for the rest, 1/3 of which was tax cuts
→ trying to help small businesses with loan interest subsidies, the very plan that conservatives supported previously…but are now unanimously against -
cardcheck cardcheck cardcheck
→ the Employee Free Choice Act has not been passed. If it was, it would facilitate the formation of unions by workers. I know, it’s a scary thought that people might actually band together to stand up for their rights. This actually would be a mildly liberal legislation. But it has yet to pass.
also:
continuing the spying and torture programs
continuing the contracts with Blackwater
continuing the wars, which are just a massive transfer of wealth to corporate interests
…
Hardly. That’s a conservative trait not a liberal one; you know, those evil tax and spend liberals who occasionally try to pay for things instead of racking up the debt. This is especially true with the whole “starve the beast” idea on the Right, where they want to spend America into as big an economic disaster as possible so they can get the political leverage to cut social programs.
There’s no such thing as “compassionate conservatism”; conservatism is and always has been about greed and hatred, not compassion. He was simply trying to find an excuse to break down the separation between church and state and use government money to fund Christian proselytization. Forcing people to listen to religious preaching under the threat of going hungry is not remotely compassionate.
All of them? Where doesn’t he? Even his supposed “health care reform” is just a revived Republican plan.
That’s just your fantasy, not reality. My fellow “lefties” disagree with me all the time. Not that I’m more than moderately left wing; like so many right wingers you are so wrapped up in the American right wing bubble you have no idea what the actual spectrum of political opinions are like.
Conservatives love to push government into the lives of Americans. They just hate to use it to help people.
No, its because he bends over backwards to make them happy at the expense of everyone else.
His health care “reform”, which isn’t much more than a giveaway to the health care insurance industry. His bailouts. His refusal to punish the people responsible for the economic disaster.
And conservatism isn’t pro-business; it’s pro-rich people. Businesses are expendable, as are the people who work there; what matters is making sure the rich get richer and smacking down any of the serfs who complain about it.