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Save the rich: Tea Parties funded, organized by lobbyists for big business - Page 6

post #251 of 273
4/18/09 at 1:14am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ElCapitanAmerica View Post
I won't even go into the Catholic thing, I'm Catholic, not sure if that one last one was a personal dig
Don't flatter yourself.
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post #252 of 273
4/18/09 at 1:20am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThomasMN View Post
it's advertising with an ideology as the product.
Tea Parties are the Rights response to 'Change you can believe in.' They're both national advertising campaigns.

For the record, I prefer hope to teabagging. But the underlying media mentality is remarkably similar.
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post #253 of 273
4/18/09 at 1:20am
I hope we get our shit together before the aliens finally do show up, or we are going to look like some serious bumpkins.
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post #254 of 273
4/18/09 at 1:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by yt View Post
Chaos, lack of access to a decent education, crushing debt and economic insecurity, and hate/fear of the "other" pretty much guarantee that the real predators are never outed or unified against. It's been a successful formula throughout history.
Advertisers never sell the product; they associate their product with something their target already wants: comfort, love, protection, sex, etc.

Over the last so many years media companies have been jumping from fear to fear while offering something that seems like a solution. Do you remember when SARS was going to kill us? When the audience gets sick of one fear they haul up another. It's interesting how The Shock Doctrine dovetails with that documentary The Century of the Self.
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post #255 of 273
4/20/09 at 2:56pm
And also part of the sophisticated artiste's diet, by that same token.

EDIT: Er, meaning cigarettes...damn, I was lost in this thread and...nevermind.

Anyways, we live in very neurotic times. It isn't quite a conspiracy, because we're giving them the money to do this, and well, I'd hope that some of us can think for ourselves. What I dislike about Naomi Klein's writing is that it's not critical enough towards us, who aren't in the ivory tower plotting ways to "make" the kids wear nikes.
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post #256 of 273
4/20/09 at 3:07pm
What I love about the tea party protests is that there was no obvious ideological concern behind them. There was no unifying theory of why people were doing this, and that's why it failed so miserably. What were people protesting? From all evidence, they didn't know either, except Obama ight be a fascist socialist.
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post #257 of 273
4/20/09 at 3:19pm
I think the tea parties were a great litmus test to see if the right could really just shake their fist and call for a mass protest and it proved that they really can't. I'd be curious to see what would happen if the right organized something like this over one core issue, like gay marriage. At least we'd have all the assholes in central locations.
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post #258 of 273
4/20/09 at 3:38pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andre Dellamorte View Post
What I love about the tea party protests is that there was no obvious ideological concern behind them. There was no unifying theory of why people were doing this, and that's why it failed so miserably. What were people protesting? From all evidence, they didn't know either, except Obama ight be a fascist socialist.
Unfortunately, you can say the same about most left-wing demonstrations, which can be distilled to "Urgh...globalization!" and general, inarticulate anger at something in government or business - without a political platform to back. Either 'side' is impotent. Not that you're cheering for whomever, I don't know what you think...
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post #259 of 273
4/20/09 at 3:58pm
Yeah, lots of the globalization are a mess, specially when the protesters are wearing nikes and listening to their ipods while destroying property with no clear demands.
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post #260 of 273
4/20/09 at 4:00pm
Most left-wing demonstrations involve many issues that coalesce in one large group. Granted, you do have your garden variety knuckle-heads that know there protesting something, but not exactly what. At least the pro-lifers have one issue and a way to resolve it. The weird thing about the tea baggers was that they were against taxation and governement spending, but didn't have a coherent plan to solve unemployment, debt, crumbling infrastructure, the military, energy, etc. If they could do all this while cutting governement spending and reducing all of are taxes to zero I'd be out there with them. They know what they don't want, but not what they want.
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post #261 of 273
4/20/09 at 4:05pm
Some of them are flat taxers.

For the anti-globalization stuff, I also doubt most people had any "answers" to anything.
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post #262 of 273
4/20/09 at 4:07pm
Not to mention the anti-multiculturalism that anti-globalization can imply. I have to admit, I'm glad more and more people are learning english. But, hopefully as a second language. Am I learning another language? No. I don't even know of a specific place where I'd especially spend a lot of time. Without any globalization, well...the world would be much duller. But I'm speaking in vague terms..
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post #263 of 273
4/20/09 at 4:15pm
Check out CNN reporter Susan Roesgen at the tea party losing it...and then what happens when the CNN cameras go off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl4prZCNxAo
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post #264 of 273
4/20/09 at 4:21pm
You can tell that she's surrounded by idiots, and she just hits her breaking point. "You're getting a tax cut!"

As per the left, gay marriage ban rallies tend to be around an issue. Etc. That shit is successful and contained. Anti-war rallies etc. If you want to talk about Seattle from the 90's, perhaps some of it was disorganized, but you have to understand that the left has always appealed to the young, and as John Waters points out that shit is great for getting laid. But in terms of a countrywide commitment these numbers are pathetic partly because there was no message to be had. Likely it a number of unemployed republicans with an axe to grind (sore losing), because both sides have a strong number of "Home team" followers.

I agree w/ Alan's assessment from before, this isn't the same thing.
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post #265 of 273
4/20/09 at 4:42pm
A lot of the anti-globalization and anti-war rallies during the Bush era were pretty disorganized as well. We're not talking 90s here only.
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post #266 of 273
4/20/09 at 5:06pm
Thematically. Rallies tend to cause a sprawl if they are attended.
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post #267 of 273
4/20/09 at 5:07pm
At least the anti-war rallies were organized around a genuine basic premise. Yes, there were differences in people's beliefs and ideologies, but moderates and left-wingers could agree that invading Iraq was a terrible idea. These guys are using a fundamentally false premise as an excuse to engage in some wingnuttery and Obama bashing.
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post #268 of 273
4/20/09 at 5:16pm
I think their basic premise is that the government spending is out of control and that taxes are punishing "success". Of course that falls apart when you go into the details, but that's what it "seems" like they're all about at their core (or supposed to be instead of just Obama the "socialist").
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post #269 of 273
4/20/09 at 5:22pm
Uh, America is a fairly socialist country, except rarely in a positive sense...the US gov't is a massive, byzantine network. All I ever see the parties do is argue over what to do with the wealth that's been concentrated and accumulated. Except the dems have a bit more respect for individual liberty. Really, it's not too far off to call any president one with socialist tendencies. Judging by what seems like a lack of social programs to me, a distant canadian, just about all your money is going to war and keeping the upper-class as it is. Yet, there is barely a spark for change. Wealthy republicans and democrats are basically the same, except the dems are probably less bigoted. Probaby.
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post #270 of 273
4/20/09 at 7:05pm
Found this on Something Awful. Thought it was apropos for the situation.

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post #271 of 273
4/21/09 at 12:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThomasMN View Post
How do you account for the consistency in their message? From show to show they even use the same vocabulary.



Honestly any kind of "armed uprising" that a lot of far right people advocate would be ineffectual and unnecessary. If enough people just didn't go to work it would hold the economy hostage. It won't happen though--too many people with the same problems, but differing ideologies. No solutions, just ideologies.
Haha Atlas Shrugged....for Realz!
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post #272 of 273
4/21/09 at 12:34am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clarence Boddicker View Post
Found this on Something Awful. Thought it was apropos for the situation.
Brilliant.
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post #273 of 273
4/21/09 at 1:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by dreary louse View Post
Uh, America is a fairly socialist country, except rarely in a positive sense...the US gov't is a massive, byzantine network. All I ever see the parties do is argue over what to do with the wealth that's been concentrated and accumulated. Except the dems have a bit more respect for individual liberty. Really, it's not too far off to call any president one with socialist tendencies. Judging by what seems like a lack of social programs to me, a distant canadian, just about all your money is going to war and keeping the upper-class as it is. Yet, there is barely a spark for change. Wealthy republicans and democrats are basically the same, except the dems are probably less bigoted. Probaby.
You should really read Chomsky's views on State Capitalism (particularly under Carter-Reagan-Bush I) to get a better understanding because I believe it resonates as much today as it did 20 years ago when he first was speaking about it during the fall of the Soviet Union.

Read this interview from '91 and tell me what you think about how prescient Chomsky was:

http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/1991----02.htm
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