right. again let me say this: recounting one quote from a dude from a year ago, and then smearing on the verbal abuse like strawberry jam on bread is lazy, self-congratulatory, and counter-productive. you had a half million people on the mall, and perhaps you had better ask why. mere abuse - know-nothings manipulated by demagogues = isn't helping you yourself understand what's happening. it is obvious to you that only an ignorant fool could possibly disagree with you, for example, on levels of federal power and spending. i congratulate you on your self-esteem, which is precisely proportional to your capacity for self-delusion, but i think you're going to get bludgeoned politically. now when you are bludgeoned, it will be unaccountable. or it will be because people are being manipulated and deceived. or it will be because people are horrendous racists and sexists. now ask yourself: why am i committed to the idea that no one could possibly genuinely or reasonably disagree with me? why would i require my beliefs to be strictly speaking rationally unassailable, not merely true?

what actually undergirds the incredible arrogance and elitism is not real commitment to truth or rational argumentation or something. that's is entirely obvious from the rhetorical moves. what drives american liberalism is extreme commitment to cultural affiliation, unanimity. everyone spends all day telling everyone else how smart they are for agreeing with one another. now really you shouldn't bother arguing with people who are that unable to think, who are that unable to stand on their own, whose entire epistemology is peer pressure and self-subordination to authority (e.g. "science"). tell you what. display some rudimentary capacity for independent thought and i will try to address you with arguments.

Comments

[CB]

Or, as is usual in American Politics, defeat will be at the hands of the almighty dollar.

Jane Mayer's cunning report on tea party funding
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer

[Devin Lenda]

"it is obvious to you that only an ignorant fool could possibly disagree with you...now ask yourself: why am i committed to the idea that no one could possibly genuinely or reasonably disagree with me? why would i require my beliefs to be strictly speaking rationally unassailable, not merely true?"

excellent critique of Arthur Silber.

[CF Oxtrot]

I wish I didn't know so many people who behave just like the ones you're calling out here, Prof Crispy. I'm pretty tired of hearing them talk about how they're smarter, how their policies are better, than everyone else/'s. I ask for examples of the smarter, better and they cite caricatures of Tea Party people and then compare themselves to the caricatures. "Straw man," I say. "Red herring. Tell me what's good about YOUR views, YOUR policies," I say. Again they begin, attacking the Evil Rethuglicans.

All they do is identify themselves by what they are not, while boldly saying they and their policies are superior, and as you said, all the while congratulating each other liberal-progressive for being part of The Club.

They sorta remind me of the Chess Club kids from high school.

[CB]

There's plenty of genuine contempt, and well-placed moral rage in the tea party. However, critiquing them is really not all that difficult.

For one, many of movements supporters are fundamentally misinformed. According to some polls a majority did not realize that Obama's tax cuts actually caused them to pay less taxes, and for some reason are under the impression they are paying more. Moreover, their understanding of worldly health-care systems, ranging from Australia, to Taiwan, and including all the letters in the middle like Britain, Cuba, Denmark, etc, helped contribute to this corporate monster hand-off we'll all soon be the victims of. Had these people really wanted to save on taxes, and lives - noble goals - while paying less out of pocket, and avoiding coercion, they could of looked into numerous foreign health care systems.

Secondly, none of the party seems to know how to use the words Marxism or Socialism correctly. They toss around philosophical, and political concepts, as pejoratives, without being able to define them. They literally embody your same critique towards the left of: "why am i committed to the idea that no one could possibly genuinely or reasonably disagree with me? why would i require my beliefs to be strictly speaking rationally unassailable, not merely true?" If you actually quiz these folks on what they mean by communism, socialism, marxism, it just becomes a matter of slander, and pointing to the long dead USSR.

Thirdly, and to step away from less intellectual matters, while almost all radical leftist - including myself, of the anarcho-communist stream - share their frustration with big government, TARP, and a basically non-accountable federal government, and callous Wall-Street not serving main-street, their solutions to said problems ensure Wall-Street will only be that much further sheltered from main-street. Their candidates are market libertarians, as are their policies. The corporations will only be that much more unaccountable to the people voting. Disasters like the banking crisis we are in now would be exponentially more disastrous. Therefore, reigning in big government, while loosening up restrictions on big business, will only embolden boom-bust cycle, economic crisis, unemployment, and their voices not being 'heard'; since corporations don't give a flying fuck what democratic opinion on a matter is. Any elementary Anarchist - this is directed at you Sartwell - has known for centuries, that just whining about state power isn't enough, there exist coercion, force, and immoral persuasion, in the market as well. Although a state can be tyrannical, so can big business, and big business interest. And there is absolutely NOTHING in the tea-party movement that properly addresses that critical problem; instead it only exacerbates it. Quoting Daniel Guerin "all anarchist are socialist," in that they seek the to have some kind of non-coerced communal say regarding the means of production and how they operate. The tea party does not share this basic principle.

Finally, there is the basic fact that the tea-party movement is really not grass roots; at least in its ability to change things in Washington. As Jane Mayer reported, among others, it's financially directed by market libertarians, who don't share the genuine well-being interest of the 'grass roots' base it claims to support. At its core, the tea-party movement is unfortunately setting themselves up to be victimized by the very people it props up as saviors. Becks political policies are not going to promote life, liberty, and health, amongst main-street, nor are Palin's, nor Paul's. All they promote is property for the few by the few.

And of course, we cannot forget, the movement lacks something the left doesn't lack; genuine critique of immoral war. I do not see the tea party movement critiquing Iraq, or Afghanistan, not to mention our rapid expansion across Africa and Yemen. Or our 865 overseas military bases, occupying over 60 countries. Instead, all the tea-party movement and its speakers tend to see is an empire expanding that promotes 'good' and 'honor,' under the 'one-true god.' Any military, and people that back it, that believe in those kinds of fairy tales, are just as blindly myopic, and potentially destructive - to human life - as any other radical religious armed group. Not only is there no one true god, but my god!, the US military is literally the most destructive force on the planet. Everywhere we go there's rape, torture, wanton innocent lives lost, water sanitation ruined, noise pollution, insurgent uprisings, and more money spent on rehabilitating robots and machinery, than the citizens are are killing as by-standards. Where is the tea-party here!?!?

Want me to go on, or will you make good on your promise: "tell you what. display some rudimentary capacity for independent thought and i will try to address you with arguments."

----------

On a positive note, I do in fact prefer the criticisms of the tea-party to the politically liberal, and the Democratic party, however, I'm so far to the left, I ask you not to confuse me with those party-power sycophants.

[CF Oxtrot]

Regarding Jane Mayer's comical essay, I have to ask a very simple and obvious question.

Why would the Koch Brothers be spending a lot of money funding a "movement" that supposedly is critical of Obama, when Obama's policies are rewarding the Koch Brothers' political agenda?

Does Mayer really mis-read Obama/Biden, and the Koch Brothers, so deeply? Does it matter that she misreads the whole landscape she's describing? Probably not. The New Yorker is the kind of periodical that tends to soothe a known position, not the type that encourages critical thinking.

[CB]

CFox,
You're a bit mistaken, yes Obama is benefiting them, but market libertarians will benefit them all the more. It's basically having your cake and eating it too - at least that's their goal. Also, earlier this year, there was a leak that Obama's administration was going to start getting 'tough' on the financial industry, and literally overnight, millions were poured into the Republican party. Of course Obama and ilk quickly back-tracked, but no doubt the Kochs were part of that initial reaction.

[CB]

Moreover, your criticism is directed at the wrong target. If your rational is correct -that the Kochs are not acting in their own interest - than that is the Kochs fault and not Mayer's, who is merely reporting on their action. I can report on the local school boy selling lemonade for $.05, when it cost him $.06 to make; that doesn't it make it my shoddy reportings fault that the school boy is confused.

[stillnotking]

You spend a lot of time talking about how the tea party people have a deeply-felt sense of grievance, which is obviously true, but not much talking about whether that grievance is legitimate. We're talking about mostly white, mostly older, mostly wealthy people, which is to say people who occupy the most privileged position in American society. Beck's schtick appears primarily intended to convince them that's not true, that for them to pay taxes that go to welfare recipients is some kind of moral outrage and persecution.

I know their grievances are real, I don't need you to tell me that. I just don't think they're legitimate. You accuse liberals of being condescending, but I can't think of a way to tell people "your grievances are not legitimate" without being condescending, except by forcing them to live for a year in East L.A. or something.

[adamcrazypants]

"tell you what. display some rudimentary capacity for independent thought and i will try to address you with arguments."

lol@attributing independent thought with Tea-Baggers. because I get all my news and information from Wolf Blitzer. . .right. dude, I think you're mistaking an argument for a fight. now, deep down in the warm anthracite depths of this movement is likely a kernel of truth. like in any movement. but why should I go digging, when they're clearly idiots? why should I wade through the bigotry and mis-information and propaganda and ignorance? I stopped doing that a long time ago when, it came to the left. why are Tea Baggers worth my time? your time? why is. . .Glenn Beck?

and for that matter, dude: no Obama = no Tea Party. oppositional is oppositional. . .if you want to call out the group think of the Obama crowd, you have to look at what they've done with and how they've treated the far left groups that backed them. look at fafblog. . .look at Get Your War On. . .GYWO disappeared as soon as a Democrat was in office. fafblog gets lit up with hate when they mention that Obama keeps bombing brown people. "fafblog, why you gotta hate? our Man is in office now, we're all set!"

these were not principled anti-war, anti-government folks. they were anti-Bush folks. Obama Derangement Syndrome is the new Bush Derangement Syndrome. the truth, of course, is that both are evil scumbags.

the Tea Partiers are wasting their energy. they're only being spotlit in order to get a Republican into office. that is the only logical outcome of any of this, unless they start breaking shit and hanging legislators. whataretheygonnnado, vote? LOL. vote for whom? oh, now I get it.

once the Republican party is through with them, back to the fringe they go.

this whole shit-show is sad, really.

[CF Oxtrot]

CB, how you would know what I'm thinking is a nice puzzle. If you care to pick apart my comments, try sticking to what I've commented, and avoid pretending to know what I think but am not stating in comments.

Your replies aimed at me read as confused nonsense because they pretend to be assessing my "thoughts" but are not even close to approaching those thoughts.

Meanwhile, the Koch Brothers make a nice target for history-revisionists like Jane Mayer. Bully for her bullshit!

[CB]

CF nice red herring. The crux of your post was this:
"Why would the Koch Brothers be spending a lot of money funding a "movement" that supposedly is critical of Obama, when Obama's policies are rewarding the Koch Brothers' political agenda?"

I directly responded to that, using examples, and analysis. There is no superfluous commentary on what I suspect you might be thinking outside of that critical paragraph. Meanwhile, your present reply simply ignores my direct critique, and focuses on your spurious assumption that I was assuming more than was necessary.