The Oath Keepers – Some Scary Stuff…

This Mother Jones article is must reading.  Warning:  it contains some very scary information.  How many of the next Timothy McVeighs are there out there?

Tea Parties Are So Last Year

Tea Party groups plan ‘strike’

Posted: January 5th, 2010 05:28 AM ET

From CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser

Tea party protesters gathered on Capitol Hill in September 2009. (Photo Credit: Getty Images/File)

Washington (CNN) – Some Tea Party activists from across the country are planning a ‘national strike’ on January 20, the one-year anniversary of President Barack Obama’s inauguration.

The idea of holding an economic protest sprung up during the holidays as the result of a conference call held by various Tea Party group leaders, according to Allen Hardage, a conservative grassroots organizer from Georgia.

“Tea Party activists are frustrated that despite a huge turnout over the last year Congress is ignoring them,” says Hardage, who is national operations director for the planned strike. “The question is that if the elected officials ignore you, what do you do to exercises your right to self-governance? So we decided to hold a National Day of Strike where we go after the large donors of the people pushing this radical agenda.”

Hardage says the idea of the one-day strike is to focus attention on the businesses that support the most liberal members of Congress as well as groups that advocate “big government” policies.

But Hardage says the move will not be a boycott: “Here we are exposing the agenda of some of the most widely known companies in America and letting the consumer decide. If a corporation decides to jump into politics to the tune of millions of dollars, then they need to expect that they will alienate some of their customers.”

The strike is being promoted online through the organizers’ Web site through Web sites of various Tea Party groups and on social networking sites.

CNN reached out to a number of national Tea Party organizations. While some were aware of the planned strike and some not informed, none said they were going to actively take part in the event.

Lilacluvr

The Five Strands of Conservatism: Why the GOP is Unraveling

According to author, Drew Westen, who is a Psychologist, Neuroscientist and Emory University Professor, the five strands once held together due to “a charismatic leader bringing it together (Ronald Reagan), a tacit agreement among its coalition partners to give each other what they wanted, and a message machine to start selling the idea that that there was coherence to a conservative “philosophy” that was anything but coherent.”

He goes on to say these, “five discrete strands and interest groups that couldn’t coexist … only began to unravel because the GOP under the Bush Administration became so corrupt, inept, and/or bankrupt (or causing bankruptcy) that even moderate Republicans jumped ship.”

The five ideologies:

1. Libertarian Conservatism
   Think Barry Goldwater. Libertarian conservatives believe government should be small and weak and kept that way through low taxes.
2. Social Conservatism
   Believe that they have privileged knowledge of God’s Will and hence have the right to use whatever methods available–including the instruments of state–to impose that will on others.
3. Old Fashioned Fiscal Conservatism
   Fiscal conservatives accept the premises of the New Deal–that we need a safety net, that when people lose their jobs because of economic downturns they shouldn’t lose their homes, that people deserve some minimal degree of dignity in old age if they worked hard for 40 years–but prefer the safety net and tax codes to be thin.
4. National Security Conservatism
   Hawkish (although they have a curious habit of evading military service when it comes their turn), and they are generally quick to accuse others of being soft on the threat du jour (unless the other side happens to be in an interventionist mood, in which case they often morph into isolationists just for sport, as when George W. Bush attacked Clinton and Gore for “nation building” and then went on a six year binge of it).
5. Bigots /Prejudice
   The one Nixon exploited with his Southern Strategy and the Republicans have exploited ever since, whether the issue is voting rights, “welfare queens,” affirmative action, or the fate of “illegals.”  Given that most white Americans no longer see themselves or want to see themselves as racist, and that they actually consciously eschew racist sentiments and actions such as overt discrimination against people because of the color of their skin, emotional appeals to this segment of the conservative population tend to be strongest when a conscious “text” with some merit (e.g., we can’t simply open the floodgates to all who would want to enter the United States and become citizens) is superimposed on the unconscious “subtext” of prejudice (the people flooding in happen to have dark skin).

The reality is that it’s going to be difficult to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, and it’s going to take someone with vision and charisma to figure out which aspects of conservatism to bring back into the center and which to catapult without losing a base that is now seriously out of step with mainstream America.

Faux tea parties aren’t going to get them there, either (and if you ask me, they seem more than a little elite (tea?) and, well, gay (don’t real men drink beer?) for a Party determined to “save the institution of marriage.” But perhaps as they clink their porcelain cups in unison for high tea, they’ll have an epiphany about how to replace their predictable and carping Constant Comments about taxes and deficits with a new blend. Perhaps they could borrow some green tea from the President.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/drew-westen/the-five-strands-of-conse_b_187675.html

fnord

Astroturf Onslaughts: GOP Party of Fools or Dangerous Opponents?

Paul Krugman was commenting on the Tea Parties that the Republicans have been setting up for this upcoming Wednesday.  He seems unsure as to whether he should laugh out loud at the GOP’s shenanigans or to be worried.  Such astroturf tricks have worked well in the past for the Republicans; Krugman recalls the efficiency of the faux riot in Miami-Dade county that stopped the vote in Florida during the 2000 election.  This was not a real “grass roots” protest, but one carefully manufactured by GOP strategists to achieve an end – which they did.  Astroturf activism seems to be big on corporate (or other powerful interests) money, and low on average citizen participation.  The tea parties have been backed by Murdock owned media outlets.

To drive home his point about his mixed feelings on the current embarrassing displays by the Grand old Party, Krugman states:

“But here’s the thing: the G.O.P. looked as crazy 10 or 15 years ago as it does now. That didn’t stop Republicans from taking control of both Congress and the White House. And they could return to power if the Democrats stumble. So it behooves us to look closely at the state of what is, after all, one of our nation’s two great political parties.”

My hope is that Krugman is wrong, because while the GOP may remain crazy after all these years, I sincerely want to believe that the electorate has not.

What do you readers think?

Iggy Donnelly