Sign at Tea Party protest. Obviously a message about Republican deficit spending.
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has a piece today (7/1/13) about the revolts we’re seeing a number of countries–Turkey, Egypt (once again), Brazil. He gives his usual rap about globalization, the changing job market and the need to be a dynamic self-starter in order to make in today’s world.
But his reference to U.S. politics stuck out. He explains that “too many big political parties today are just vehicles for different coalitions to defend themselves against change,” and this is true here as well as around the world:
So people take to the streets, forming their own opposition.
In America, the Tea Party began as a protest against Republicans for being soft on deficits, and Occupy Wall Street as a protest against Democrats for being soft on bankers.
That is an odd characterization of Occupy, which most of the time tried to stress that the problem with banking interests controlling the political process was bipartisan. It’s not that he’s wrong, but the emphasis seems a little off.
But his characterization of the Tea Party is wrong about the target of their anger, as well as the political motivations behind that anger. How many people watched the Tea Party protests and thought, “Boy, are they mad at the Republicans!”? Clearly the bulk of the energy behind that movement was directed at Democrats and the Obama White House.
CNBC‘s Rick Santelli
And was the political goal really to say something about deficits? Hardly. The main “spark” for the movement came via a rant by a February 2009 CNBC analyst Rick Santelli. He was mad about a mortgage bailout proposal that he thought would “subsidize the loser’s mortgages.” (CJR‘s Ryan Chittum wrote a great account of the rant and the politics of the Tea Party–2/19/09.) Santelli was clear that he was representing the interests of bankers and financial analysts: “We’re thinking of having a Chicago Tea Party in July. All you capitalists that want to show up to Lake Michigan, I’m going to start organizing it.”
And a short while later, the actual Tea Party protests began. That energy was soon transferred to the debate over healthcare, and opposition to the Obama administration’s plan as a Big Government plot.
And it was rather difficult not to notice that the protests were largely about Obama himself–raising all sorts of obvious questions about opposition to the first black president, who was depicted as radically left-wing, possibly Muslim and maybe not born in the United States. That’s not to say that this was what defined the Tea Party; but the intense animosity expressed towards Obama, some of it clearly racist, was not a coincidence.
Of course, some in the Tea Party movement were mindful enough to mention now and again that they were really upset about all that government spending–it’s just that somehow their protests never got off the ground during the Bush years, oddly enough. And somehow the main spokespeople for the movement were people like a far-right Republican politician (Michele Bachmann) and a far-right media personality (Glenn Beck).
Friedman’s not the first person to offer a baffling take on the Tea Party–Times columnist David Brooks (6/14/11; FAIR Blog, 6/15/11) wrote that it was about critiquing the “unholy alliance between business and government that is polluting the country.”
But Friedman’s garbled recollection of a major U.S. political movement is a reminder that someone who doesn’t understand the politics of his own country is probably not going to give you a lot of help understanding the politics of other people’s countries.
This guy needs to be dumped from the mainstream media
Most of us don’t look to Friedman for an accurate historical narrative, but rather to understand how off base his handlers are, what new weapons of distraction they concoct, and how far afield they want to take political discourse and uninformed voters.
Some of us neither drink Tom’s tea nor his brand of Kool Aid…
Unfortunately it all appears to be an over-generalization by Freidman, Brooks and now Peter Hart (here). The “Tea-Party”, as the MSM so likes to refer to it as a monolithically, is as divergent in it’s traits as it is decentralized in it’s real function. Just because a Dick (Army) tries to take it over and become the “leader” for the cause, doesn’t make him that…nor Beck or Santelli (who I doubt most TPers even know of), etc. And your quote from Santelli was way out of context. I think if you listened to enough interviews with Santelli, you would realize Peter that he hates corporatism as much as any of us do…and he recognizes our system as just that…corporatism (anti-free market capitalism). These are bridges waiting to be built that people on the “left” and “right” just forgo I guess out of fear of what one of their friends might say at a dinner party/bon fire if you were to say, “hey, wait a minute. there are a few things I agree with them (Tea Party/Occupy for example) on.” UGH.
Unfortunately your piece just reinforces that here. When a Classical Liberal talks about “capitalism” it means something very different than when a Left/Progressive uses the term. So the latter cringes when a Santelli says “All you capitalists that want to show up to Lake Michigan, I’m going to start organizing it.” He means free market capitalism…the opposite of what we have in the Obama/Bush/Clinton/Bush etc etc Crony corporatist capitalism. These (apparent) nuances are so important.
And really…I know, anyone who disagrees with an overgrown and aggressive government now is an underlying racist because Obama is President. I really expect a higher regard for intellectual honesty here. The rejection of Bush and GOP leadership under his terms did start the still decentralized Tea Party movement…that it coalesced under Obama in the MSM’s eyes is a cynical attempt to dismiss it in similar ways that they dismissed the importance of the Occupy movement. No one claims they are racists, but there wasn’t an Occupy movement during Bush? So what gives with the spin Peter?
It baffles me why Tom Friedman is considered a top notch pundit or why the NY Times bothers to publish his sophomoric analyses.
http://www.nytexaminer.com/2013/01/tom-friedman-is-still-wrong-paul-krugman/
Actually Tea party put a huge pressure on republicans which pushed the whole party more to the right. There were tea party challenges to moderate republican incumbents.
Why do Great Decision courses quote Tom Friedman as some kind of authority on anything?
Barbara
I guess because he has a Noble Prize…which we now know are worth about as much as our dollar, roughly the value of the paper it was printed on:-) Krugman of course still thinks we need cheapen still more though…lol.
And now I see David Lindorff uncovered something recently that kind of supports my points concerning why/how Occupy and the TP were treated differently. The TP was able to be co-opted I think largely because of the leadership vacuum in the Repub. Party after 2008…allowing Republican operatives to transition the movement in to a centrally run anti-Obama platform instead of it’s early decentralized small government anti-establishment platform. The latter is more dangerous to power than the former of course.
Occupy wasn’t easily co-opted because Obama still had many on the “left” confusing his rhetoric with his actual policies and political history. This meant that those joining Occupy felt they had no where else to go…and it couldn’t be pushed “mainstream”, politicized and neutralized as easily. If Lindorff is right, the possible danger of the unpredictable Occupy movement to the establishment caused them to consider some startling responses. We must remember how the WH coordinated a multi-city raid on those protests at one point as well.
http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/06/27/fbi-document-deleted-plots-to-kill-occupy-leaders-if-deemed-necessary/
The Tea Party protest sign showing “Socialists” actually shows anything but true socialists. Ingalls, Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao were self-proclaimed communists who falsely represented their naked authoritarianism as the democratic socialism which has brought about much of the civilizing changes of the 20th century, such as the 8-hour workday, once-upon-a-time-regulated corporations and financial entities (insurance, abusive monopolies, ‘investment’ banking etc.), social security protection of the disabled and elderly, child-labor laws, environmental regulations, safety regulations, etc., etc.
Important omissions from the fake-socialist lineup were Mussolini (who INVENTED totalitarian corporate fascism) and Hitler (the National SOCIALIST = Nazi) religionist totalitarian who had himself proclaimed the Aryan Jesus-like Savior when he established the “German National Church” and nationalized Lutheran and Catholic churches and jailed and/or executed opposition church leaders.
Obama, of course, is not a socialist at all, but a duped Chicago-boy wannabe-elitist Ivy-Leaguer apologist for his Wall Street friends and heroes, and (in a phrase used in Europe and the rest of the Non-USA world) a Neo-Liberal.
The Tea Party fanatics are the latest dupes of false-framing of words and concepts that they are too lazy and irrational to attempt to understand.
Hey Monkee…you’re right in that the choice to label Obama a “socialist” is of course a complete misrepresentation of that term. He is a corporatist (fascist), following in line with too many admins before him this last century.
I would quibble some with the laundry list of “civilizing changes” brought on by socialist ideas. Those same changes were instituted hand and hand with many failed socialist ideas over that same time period. Some are one in the same…and fail not on their merits but on the complexities of human nature which the socialist founders appear to have not grasped well. Fascism was a tweak on socialism of course (along with other political ideologies of that time period)…and many, if not most, historians today would acknowledge that fascism in its historical context represented a “radical centrist” political ideology…gaining power appealing to interests on both sides of the spectrum. Of course Hitler targeted the Communists in particular politically (probably because their weren’t many Classical Liberals around to target as well:-), but it is still not clear whether that was motivated more so by a hatred for the ideas it represented or his distrust of the USSR given the history in that region…I tend to think the latter was more pressing in his view. Radical centrism as an approach isn’t in and of itself a bad thing…how it manifested in to fascism in early 20th century Europe was of course a bad thing though:-) Centrism would be radical in America today after all, because it challenges the dominant corporatism institutionalized in our political parties and process, and more dangerously (IMHO) in our bureaucracy.
But why romanticize a political theory now over a hundred years old (socialism) that has as many downsides (like just one example, a complete failure to understand what motivates humans economically) as upsides? You know? We live in a transformative era and our thinking needs to match that condition. The history of the last century does nothing if it doesn’t teach us that “workers” as a collective unfortunately show no more interest in protecting the future viability of the country or the world than capitalists. Some of the programs you listed specifically prove as much…collectives unfortunately appear to only magnify the self-interests of individuals within them and those in leadership position for them…allowing them levels of power to corrupt equal to their power to help. “Workers” in recent history in the US want all the benefits of a S.S. program for instance, but they will keep voting for the person who won’t make them pay for it now and that won’t require them to take responsibility for voting for politicians supporting what has become a generational wealth transfer ponzi scheme. It may not have started that way…but it has become that and there is no reason to believe that will change unfortunately. It’s a sad testament to human nature, but without consequences, people will in fact vote for people who will steal other people’s property and give it to them for nothing (as de Tocqueville noted almost a century ago of course). You centralize power with all the best intentions but you eventually get an EPA that becomes a tool for crony capitalism, a S.S./welfare system that is used to buy votes, transfer wealth to corporatist cronies in “contracts” and bankrupt the future, a Fed Reserve/Treasury that becomes a conduit for wealth transfers from the capital creators (small businesses and workers) to money changers at TBTF banks and companies. I think we are stuck with this particular sociopathology in human nature (there is no evidence we aren’t)…so consolidating power (wherever…govt or private hands) will encourage the worst elements of any society to try and secure that power and use it to punish their enemies/competition for power and benefit themselves and their friends. They have no ability to understand consequences…it’s part of their mental dysfunction. Decentralization isn’t the panacea to all our ills of course, but as adults we have to make hard decisions and most of the time choose between imperfect options that have the least opportunity for mass destruction. Technology (although central control is being attempted to stifle it) is leading us in that direction as well…and in this case, trying to cram today’s decentralizing forces in to a model created during early/mid industrialization isn’t going to work and will just disappoint and hurt us in the end.
Many progressives have a hard time acknowledging the ‘better angels’ of the Tea Party, which railed against the bank bailouts and corporate-corruption of government. Those impulses were strong until Dick Armey and Glenn Beck and other Republican corporatists got to work co-opting the grassroots elements and stirring in enough anti-socialism rhetoric to cloud people’s understanding. Once they got to work, it became much easier for people to think Obama was a Red than to analyze things like regulatory capture and the bi-partisan corporate consensus that dominates Washington with cooperation from many Democrats as well as most Republicans.
People who care about justice and democracy should look for opportunities to connect with those who launched the real Tea Party, because we have a lot in common. We need to get over the idea that anyone identifying with the Tea Party was/is a raging racist; otherwise progressives will be helping Karl Rove and Armey and Beck and the Koch brothers keep us confused and divided.
Tom Friedman is to be taken as a reflection of the ruling conventional wisdom. With that in mind, reading him (in small doses) will do no lasting harm.
You wrote this, Jack Y.: “And really…I know, anyone who disagrees with an overgrown and aggressive government now is an underlying racist because Obama is President. I really expect a higher regard for intellectual honesty here. ” Where did you get that first line? You’re seeing things that aren’t there, and the result is the comically ironic second line. I’ve harshly criticized the President here and elsewhere, and never once has even the most sycophantic Obamabot gone after me (or many, many others) for being a racist. However, the latent and manifest racism of many Baggers is often easily discernable–that’s what Peter Hart is talking about here. (Indeed: ” . . . the intense animosity expressed towards Obama, some of it clearly racist, was not a coincidence.” Note the word “some.”)
Testing one and a two and a three . . . .
For a devastating lampoon of Santelli, CNBC, and all the financial analysts of corporate media see this clip of the Daily show: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-march-4-2009/cnbc-financial-advice
Oh Bullshit.I have been tea party since day one.How the hell Anyone could believe that a group of people who got together to espouse an adherence to the constitution ,are all the things that slander has heaped on them is mind blowing.I have never seen anything racist in any rally,get together or anything else.This perception is fostered through constant attacks by both left and right .From the swamp that is Washington politics.And they should fear anyone who holds these public servants at their words and oaths(to the constitution) Revulsion at Obamas policies?Absolutely.Any constitutionalist would see it so.Have we struck out at Republican phonies?Yes yes and sadly more and more often.We hold them to the same standard.And they are failing.We are not organized for a power grab.We are normal Americans who see the growth of government power as a tyranny in and of itself.We mean to stand as a counterbalance.
Agree re the TP but it is true that OWS arose with a Dem in the WH and a Dem Senate majority, largely fueled by the Dems unwillingness to push meaningful change.
Just stop writing about Friedman, will help all of us!
Not sure why Peter Hart picked one of the few fairly factual statements Thomas Friedman has ever written to hold up to criticism. And this has inevitably attracted flies… Jack Y is really spewing the ronpaulism. “When a Classical Liberal talks about ‘capitalism’ it means something very different than when a Left/Progressive uses the term,” Jack says irrelevantly. Honestly, who cares? Let’s try reality.
Capitalism is a political economic system whereby a relatively small capitalist class obtains profits from workers’ unremunerated labor – the longer and more intensely wage-slaves work and the less their pay and benefits, the more profit is made. Historically, capitalism has always required large and powerful states, huge corporate entities (from the East India Company on), financial instruments, the military, espionage, mass indoctrination, prisons and cops, etc. The goal (profiteering) requires the political means (the state & corporations). There has never been, is not now, nor will ever be a “free market”. States create and define markets, they integrate financial and productive relationships. Once we get past Jack Y’s Ayn Rand nonsense, then we can move on to grown up conversation…
The Tea Party is/was a petit bourgeois eruption that targeted Democrats rhetorically and Republicans within the party apparatus. The Tea Party shares the same popular class base as the GOP, but the GOP establishment was never happy with the Tea Party. The Tea Party took out several very prominent GOP politicians and forced many others to make insane statements in primaries that came to haunt them in general elections. In fact, many Democrats were quite thrilled to have Tea Party lunatics as opponents. Obama – a WallSt-NSA-CIA-Pentagon sockpuppet to the right of Ronald Reagan – looks relatively sane next to Tea Partyers… it’s doubleplusgood for Obama to have Tea Partyers as opponents. Rick Santelli scored points by blaming elements of the Democratic Party popular base (blacks, low income people) for the financial implosion of 2007-2008. But Santelli’s outfit (CNBC) was also predicting the permanent ruin of capitalism and flight from T-bills, when in fact capitalists and the Treasury Department were making out like bandits. CNBC talking heads aren’t too bright, even for capitalist media. The poor people Santelli and CNBC were kicking in the face would catch the real hell of the recession, and that would be followed by the Obama regime’s sociopathic joy at refusing to address the pain of the many. The fact that Emperor Hope n Change was fronting for a Wall Street / police state regime generated a small section of the Democratic Party base (white college-educated unemployed people) to protest at the apparent betrayal (if anyone was dumb enough to believe King Teleprompter’s Wall-St-written speeches). That group was Occupy, which rapidly collapsed after it was ignored by the unions and the broader liberal apparatchiks (let’s hear it for those unions!), beaten and tasered by the cops (America’s finest!), and infiltrated by the FBI (America’s heroes!). A few remnants of Occupy are today supported by Democratic Party-aligned NGOs, and will soon disappear altogether.
Thomas Friedman is the “right” kind of “reporter” for the Main Stream Corporate Press’ point-of-view. They tend to be Conservative and usually not so far to the right as the present Republican Party is so they can be called “liberal” by them though real liberals know they are to the right of most of the USA’s population.
Esteban you call people interested in less government ,less taxation,and an adherence to the constitution(those people who call themselves Tea party) lunatics.Does it then follow to you that those who are against those things, are sane wonderful people?Or have you just believed…actually believed the farcical made out of whole cloth rants by the tea parties enemies(both left and right)who seek to cement their status as the political elite?Look I heve seen religious fanatics who scream that every Dem is a child murdering Communist.I heard him…..but I didnt believe him.Why do so many on the left move in lockstep and believe whatever nonsense you are told(in this case about the tea party)Go to a rally some time.You will then see that your government(Obama’s regime)has once again….and for the qua-zillianth time….lied to you.Lunatics?Just regular people who actually have read the constitution and have realized that if in fact this government did read it,..they didn’t care for it much.Look we in the tea party are not your enemies.We are Americans just like you.We simply have a clear line in the Sand that we mean to stand by.We don’t believe all politicians lie for instance.Or that the ends(a lie)justifies the means.We mean to set a new standard in Washington that will drain the swamp right and left.Power??????Our power if there be any at all is to tell the truth.Look around you…..Has Obama done that?
2Jack Y
you wrote: “The Republican establishment has done a pretty good job of co-opting the TP label…I’ll give you that…whereas the Democrats weren’t as successful with doing the same with Occupy.”
Because the tea baggers are an always have been, from the beginning a propaganda/disinformation arm of the capitalist (Koch bros.) establishment – and any fool who supports tea party messaging should realize they are working solely to further the interests and well being of that bogeyman of the populist right – George Sorros, and the rest of his caste .Democrats couldn’t co opt occupy wall street ? no surprises here, Occupy was a genuine peoples movement and not an organ of the Democratic party
Marcus whatever argument you put forward vanishes the minute you say tea bagger.Just as those who say nigger….Your vulgarity and stupidity precedes you.Yet I notice you do not refer to ocuppy as the “Occupy anus movement”.So you idiocy does have its limits.And yes those little old woman who believe in the constitution really are part of the capitalist propaganda arm of the Koch brothers empire.In fact I hear they recruit in train stations and old age homes.Ok enough fooling with a fool
Ps……I was there in New york when all this occupy happened.I walked among them talking and listening .Still dont have the foggiest idea what the hell they wanted.Do you think they did?
A Tea Bagger’s a Tea Bagger, dudes–it’s the name they gave themselves. Wear it proudly. Thanks for all that, Esteban. Now that Obama finally is really violating the Constitution, the Baggers are as silent as stones. Our most famous Bagger here agrees with Obama’s spying and persecution of whistleblowers, and by extension, Obama’s defilements of the Bill of Rights. No surprise really–the Right has always been down with the punitive nature of “Big Government”–it’s when the Government cracks down (ever so slightly) on the Corporate world that the Baggers and their leaders in the Republican Party go apeshit. So sad, so sad.
Tim just as a tea party member once used the term tea bagger to the lefts great glee and some black folks use the term nigger I can assure you neither wants to wear the term proudly.Some speak those terms proudly toward insult and injury of their fellow man.That is you
And dont speak for me.Of course I am not for Obama spying or his constant attacks on whistle blowers or anyone for that matter who does not walk in lock step.I felt the same about Bush as did all my tea party friends.I simply said in te case against snowden that he…mr Snowden was a spy who should be tried as such.Your feelings seem to be that anyone who can attack the USA from within should be lauded.I am confused as to what breaking of the constitution by Obama you are speaking of.And the Tea party is silent?THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS.WHICH ONE ARE YOU SPEAKING OF?