Appeasement
Regarding my criticism of the Tea Party:
a post like that is almost always written by a conservative blogger looking to gain approval from his leftist buddies. In fact, he probably heard a similar statement from some so called moderate pundit on TV
A few things, when have I ever done anything on this blog to gain approval from anyone? In fact and probably don’t go together. And I watch absolutely zero television pundits. But to the meat of the criticism:
The whole premise of Say Uncle’s post is BS though. Uncle knows damn well that most of these people were raising holy hell when Bush and the Republicans were running up debt.
But they weren’t taking to the streets and organizing, now were they? Which leads me to believe they could stop doing that when someone with an R after their name is in charge.
Update: In comments, I am reminded of Porkbusters. So, there was definitely some protest activity.
February 15th, 2010 at 10:56 am
There were plenty of protests against the Bush Bailouts, but they consisted of mostly early adopters. And there was the whole Porkbusters thing, too. So it’s not like no one was complaining.
But what got everyone’s attention was this:
Saying that you can’t protest a $1.8 Trillion deficit because you didn’t protest a $500 Billion deficit is like saying you can’t protest a handgun ban because you didn’t protest a machine gun ban. Sometimes people just don’t care until there is a very fast, very large change in situation. Then people realize there is a problem, and they act on it.
February 15th, 2010 at 10:57 am
well, since I can’t do image tags, here’s the link: http://www.wallsofthecity.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/091206-graph-1.jpg
February 15th, 2010 at 11:00 am
Ah. I forgot about porkbusters.
February 15th, 2010 at 11:18 am
It is a matter of degree. Of course Bush’s spending was excessive and wrong. I and many other loudly said so. Obama’s spending, deficits and desired spending are greatly worse. It’s like saying that since you didn’t complain much about the water when it was raining, you can’t complain about the water now that you’re at the bottom of the lake.
February 15th, 2010 at 11:50 am
The GOP lost two elections, that’s how most Americans protest.
I don’t see why you don’t see that as protest.
People who work for a living don’t protest at the drop of a hat like our leftist, daddy’s gold card using, brethren.
As the gov’t showed itself to be more and more uninterested in what Teh Peepul wanted, the protests got really rolling.
I know you don’t count the anti-illegal-immigration protests in the same vein, but they were.
People are protesting the gov’t not listening to us. The Dems ran claiming they would fix what the GOP screwed up, remember Obama and his deficit lowering rhetoric?
It built and built. A movement doesn’t start in a day.
Seriously, go to a tea party event and maybe, just maybe, if you understood it you’d be less dismissive.
Eh, I figure there are just comment begging posts so I’ll ignore them from now on.
February 15th, 2010 at 11:55 am
Isn’t this really just the same as the left. Lots of protests against the war under Bush and not so much with the same policies under Obama. Much like the right seemed to give Bush’s spending like a Democrat a pass but now it is no longer acceptable.
February 15th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Well, the magic graph has been posted, and it really does say it all. Comparing Obama’s budget busting to Bush’s is like saying, “why are you bitching about Pol Pot, you never said anything about all the people Texas executes.”
February 15th, 2010 at 12:05 pm
A lot of the “tea party” is the fight over who gets the soax box and gets to present their views as “gospel”. For instance, right now, we have a “truther” running for the Republican Govenor in the primary. She’s “new and fresh” and batshit crazy. Or at least playing to the batshit crazy. Is she right? Don’t know. I don’t support batshit crazy or the black helicopter brigade. But that’s they type of people you end up with trying to define the movement.
February 15th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
Sorry about the “smear”. You are in fact, probably right 🙂
Btw, the comparisons of the previous commenter’s are pretty good. I feel the need to take a swing at it myself.
Here you go.
It’s like saying that you can’t lead the Tea Party movement because you ran with John McCain.
Oh wait, I said that.
February 15th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Uncle,
Gonna have to take you to task on this one too: PLEASE stop dignifying this weaksauce attack on your position here with a response.
It’s so goddamn obvious that you’re right I cannot imagine the mindset that thinks you’re not…but then again…I guess I can.
February 15th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
I guess I see where you’re coming from on the original post. But then I do think that all people have a certain pain threshold and the present POTUS strikes me as indicating that he doesn’t see any need to show any restraint. The spending mess is nothing new, we just haven’t experienced anyone who openly states that they can cause recovery by spending as fast as they can.
Lots of TeaPartiers see the expansion of big government to giant government as a guarantee that they will never see fiscal discipline ever again.
February 15th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
U2 became so much less cool when all the other kids started buying their albums.
February 15th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
There is no argument that the Bush administration’s budgets had unacceptable deficit spending.
However, with Obama’s budgets, we are talking about an order of magnitude difference and an order of magnitude more vocal response is to be expected.
Obama is making Bush look like a Dave Ramsey fan.
February 15th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
Without endorsing that random broadside, Uncle’s position is equally baffling. Obama’s spending is an order of magnitude worse than Bush’s, which was bad enough to begin with. Some tea partiers may be GOP hacks, but others are just now waking up to the problem and getting involved in politics for the first time. And with GOP’ers worried about, and some tea partiers flirting with, the idea of going third party, they can’t all be GOP faithful.
February 15th, 2010 at 2:09 pm
Be careful of rule #1: “Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.”
February 15th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
All I know is that whatever their motivation, and whatever time frame it took them to get there, is that the tea party movement has scared the shit out of many entrenched asshole politicians. I’ll take it.
February 15th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Conservatives “raised holy hell” two times during the Bush administration: Harriet Miers and the Dubai Ports deal.
Any other criticism was a subtle murmuring of “Well, I don’t necessarily agree with that, BUT…”
Maybe if they had taken to the streets and actually raised holy hell earlier, it wouldn’t have gotten to the point of bailouts and the brink of economic collapse.
February 15th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
“Maybe if they had taken to the streets and actually raised holy hell earlier, it wouldn’t have gotten to the point of bailouts and the brink of economic collapse.”
I didn’t protest in the streets during the Bush administration because I refused to be seen in public with the people who were already there. The kind of people who thought they were making a clever political statement by vomiting on public sidewalks “because Bush made them sick”. The reek of papier mache and unwashed bodies makes ME sick, so I stayed home.
February 15th, 2010 at 4:30 pm
Exactly! I may have disagreed with George’s policies – but not so much that I was willing to associate with a bunch of Bush=Hitler tools.
If the tea party was full of wookie-suiting, tin-foil wearing, tri-lateral commission, black helicopter types – I wouldn’t want to chill in the square with them either.
February 15th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
My wookie suit did not come with a Reynold’s Wrap yarmulke. Should I return it?
February 15th, 2010 at 6:22 pm
Someone may only verbally complain when the bus driver goes 15 over the speedlimit. That same person may then completely freak out when the bus driver goes 35 over the limit.
Its perfectly rational because of the degree of the problem. Oh, and I saw quite a few people get very upset when bush pushed through the bank bailout.
February 15th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
The original nationwide tea party protest took place in 2007 under the Ron Paul banner. Marchers were in the streets, but none if any media attention. Media does take time to label the movement crazy and the right wing partisans found a new “enemy”, though later they found this kooky fringe group was right in what they said, and the independents came for that very reason. Protests took place on the phone against Bush as there were no town halls held for the bailout. A large group of ticket off conservatives joined the Constitutionalists and the Independents in their unified voices to stop the healthcare bill. The GOP saw this force and wanted to tame it, but they did not realize that it was their corruption that fueled the movement to begin with. Pretty soon the status quo GOP sent their agents to attempt a takeover, but the originators and aware did not take the bait, hence the Tea-o-con rally in Nashville that did not represent the bipartisan movement and nothing has changed, other than Palin being exposed for how “rouge” she really is. After the Nashville failure of the GOP the only tactic left was direct attacks against tea party candidates, the first being Debra Medina running for Texas Governor:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQuTEF9ba2s
Medina does not take a position on 9/11, and smartly so as she has had no access to evidence in the 9/11 attacks, nor does she ever state that it was an attack by the U.S. government, but the partisans cheered that a crazy had been exposed while a true conservative tea party candidate was attacked by the “tea party” king, Glenn Beck. This backfired and many of Beck’s followers saw him for what he is, a shill for the Murdoch Empire and a supporter of the neoconservative coup. So while the shattered GOP scrambles to figure the numbers within the tea party that are partisan continues, the tea party lives on in individuals across the nation, as those that attended the Palin Tea-o-Con in Nashville were establishment McCain supporting wingers and did not represent the true tea party movement. One last question for the redstater, Palin luvn, partisans, just how far does your hypocrisy run?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPDbmQmV6O8
True conservatives will eventually regain control in Washington, unless the progressives and neoconservatives destroy it before anyone has a real chance at saving it. It will take a while yet, for those that caused the financial collapse are doing business as usual, with the hopes their partisan sheep will remain blind through their next election. What those on the left and right do not understand about the tea party movement is that it was never supposed to have a leader, the leader of the tea party movement is individual principal, something the partisans lost years ago. It is just a shame that they stay on the attack after their policies have been proven an epic failure, but many are unwilling to point out their failures, so there is no hope in correcting their wrongs while they remain in the majority.
February 15th, 2010 at 7:27 pm
tl;dr
February 15th, 2010 at 11:46 pm
Sorry, I should have put a warning above. *Warning, possible 45 second 3 paragraph read ahead.
Ron Paul nationwide tea party 2007.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvGS12EoZUE&feature=PlayList&p=FA84263008C9D26A&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=12
Now 2010 the neocons send in their “rouge”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yyfobZQUNY&feature=PlayList&p=6DF8BBC89BF74037&index=0&playnext=1
When that tactic failed to harness the tea party, the establishment switched tactics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENEfvrAS_K8&feature=related
Then we find this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPDbmQmV6O8
Then to cast without a shadow of a doubt for Beck followers we found:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zefwbt51aI&feature=player_embedded
This is the compilation that shows from the first tea party until the hijackers of the tea parties cover is blown.
My opinion, feel free to make it your own.
And lastly:
February 16th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
Bush did something far worse than his spending, the Patriot Act and its auxilliaries. Just so you know, you heard it from me when it happened. Bush got no pass, but even if he had, it doesn’t pardon Obama.