Forum Post: What the TEA PARTY really is
Posted 12 years ago on Jan. 11, 2012, 3:47 a.m. EST by therising
(6643)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I have interacted with many tea party members, met with some of their donors, talked to non-tea party congressmen and non-tea party corporate republicans and read a lot of articles about the tea party in mainstream and alternative press.
As far as I can tell, the tea party is a manufactured movement born out of genuine frustration that was unfortunately and cleverly appropriated by corporate interests because we didn't have our shit together enough to appropriate it at our end. The good news, I suppose, is that we're getting our shit together now and we, the millions, are starting to recognize that we are all on the same team. That's bad news for corporatism but great news if you happen to be a human being.
There are 2 Tea Parties (1.0, mostly dead but not completely) and 2.0 (hijacked).
How soon people forget. The original Tea Party (1.0) began in 2008, when the sitting president was a Republican. It opposed the entire Washington – Wall Street axis of power and greed.
Back then (before the Tea Party became the Neanderthal wing of the Republican Party) the Tea Party 1.0 advanced 5 basic goals:
Ending the debt-based, fiat money system of the Federal Reserve, and moving towards a system of sound money. Ending banker bailouts and corporate welfare. Limiting the federal government and upholding States’ rights. Protecting the civil liberties of the Bill of Rights. Disengaging from foreign wars and entanglements in the Middle East and bringing troops home to “nation-build” in America. The Establishment panicked. The two political parties, the corporate media, and even “Homeland Security” worked along parallel lines to give the Tea Party an ugly make-over.
The federal government planted agents among protesters with racist signs – which then attracted true racists. The corporate media spotlighted the most uneducated, beer-swilling protesters.
Within three months, the Establishment transformed the original Tea Party into a mob of rednecks, hayseeds and suburban rabble.
The Republican Party then delivered the coup de grace. It encouraged the more compliant Tea Partiers to run for Congress, hijacking the movement: Tea Party 2.0.
Today, Tea Party 2.0 Republicans do not fight to “End the Fed” or work to create a system of sound money. Tinkering with the budget without abolishing the Fed simply renegotiates America’s indentured servitude.
Today, Tea Party 2.0 Republicans also adopt a moralistic platform, concerned with the marriage preferences of strangers and what they smoke. Tea Party 1.0 did not distract themselves (or others) with divisive social issues. Instead, the original Tea Partiers focused on the economy, federalism, and ending the wars.
Today, Tea Party 2.0 Republicans are even militaristic, their ranks filled with bugle-blowing Islamophobes.
Tea Partiers 2.0 are willing to launch another war – this time in Iran, engineered by the same neo-cons responsible for the Iraq fiasco.
Not only does Russia insist that Iran does not have an active nuclear weapons program, but the actual 2011 IAEA report highlights activity that ended in 2004. There has been much ado in the western press about computer modeling of explosions in 2008 and 2009 (common in reactor physics), but they not prohibited in the IAEA Agreement or Protocols. (links below the article) . Yes, Virginia, there really is a whole lot of war propaganda goin’ on…
Yet this neo-con, globalist faction is itching for World War III, and they need Tea Party 2.0 to provide them with some fake patriotism.
Indeed, Tea Party 2.0 is an absolute disgrace.
Excellent post. Well done.
LOL, if only any of that were true! Just a fevered leftwing dream. :) Your inability to see reality is why you will have your little noses pressed against the glass in January of 2013 on the outside looking in.
The "original " tea party did not start until 2009, after obama ws in office.
Nobody knows. It's another Koch brothers secret.
Yyyyyyyup
? No that is just another form of propaganda, this revolt has been ongoing for some time and the tea party is new..and not born from the people being upset and starting a new party.. The tea party is and was a hoax that is fizzling cause it did not work and was put to rest as quickly as it came off the Republican meeting room chalk board..
Well meaning Koch Bros. tools.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIgyN0slhC4&feature=related
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TEA is also an anacronym for: Taxed Enough Already
From what I've seen of the TEA Party movement they lacked efficacy because they lacked what OWS has:the very realization that 99% of America has been economically RAPED due to the ongoing derivtives and economic crisis (if they are property owners) they've had:
The equity in their homes reduced or ELIMINATED-this is why we have homes 'underwater' in value and in relation to loans outstanding.Lost their jobs due mostly to OUTSOURCING overseas. Lost their businesses due to the economic crisis.Lost their futures if they are College Students nearing or recently graduated. I received one of my last Kiplinger's newsletters in 2008 and it clearly stated in cryptic fashion that 'Jobs were not coming back.'
Yes, we Americans who are not earning anything above $250K per year and lack an M.B.A. or other business degree that would enable us to be better investment, money and business managers have clearly been duped by those who know better and who have clearly compromised the American Dream.
Now, we have OWS where the crime and corruption in America and the World in government, banking and finance are prominently shared and discussed leading to purposeful protest.
Now we really have to mobilize with professionals such as attorneys and those who would right what is wrong in business and politics.
This is our time to make the right changes and if we are Americans, to return our country to the ideals and functioning intended by our founding fathers through the Constitution and Bill of Rights- let's not squander it!
Nancy is that you? Your research sounds so good, you must be correct!
I'm sure it was born of frustration. However, does the original Tea Party still advocate for the privatization of Social Security? The destruction of the public education system? How about PreReagan taxes?
I don't care how frustrated they are. If they refuse to engage in the issues then it doesn't mean much. I've seen the idiocy that the Tea Party supports. How is the real Tea Party different from the Tea Party that we see now?
Social security should be a state-level thing according to the view. Education not even state but rather local (makes sense). Test scores have plummeted since the feds got involved. Individual taxes also state level (eventually). The feds cannot even deliver water bottles to a stadium. Too many people are looking for answers from DC when a bottom-up, decentralized approach is much better.
Ok, then nothing has changed and it is the same ol'-same ol'
The public education system is in terrible condition. At about 11000 dollars per pupil per year, it is a terrible investment. Vouchers for school choice is the best remedy, IMO, to promote competition and a strive for excellence.
Kirby, children are not cans of beans at a supermarket.
Why would you think I think that Girly? public education is a rip-offf. Too little bang for a big ass buck. Too much bureaucracy. The best thing I heard in the Bosses speech last night was the requirement that all students graduate.
His words were (paraphrasing) that the states needed to keep the kids in school until the age of 18 or graduation (if it is earlier). This presents a couple of problems. The first one is that in many states you are considered an adult at the age of 17. You cannot buy alcohol or any of this but if you are arrested at the age of 17 you are treated like an adult and taken to a jail for adults. So, you can have repercussions for not attending school under that age but as an adult you would never be arrested for that. So, do you see any of the states altering their systems for this? Probably not.
Please explain the comment "Too much bureaucracy."
The dept. Of education, meaningless legislation like no child left behind, four principals at my neighborhood high school and assistant principals as well. I don't think Washington has any business dictating to the local schools. They need to get the fuck out of the way.
The corporations should have zero input. Yet, they do.
The Department of Education makes sure that kids with disabilities do not get screwed among other things. I do not like NCLB. We do have to have some sort of standards. That said, standardized testing must go. Charter schools are misusing or throwing away cash. Cash that we don't have on hand. The public education system works well when you don't slip the nonprofits profit.
The public system is fucked. When I stepped out of line at school, and I always did, I got fucked up, slammed up, beat up, and when my old man found out, I got my ass kicked when I got home twice as bad. Nowadays kids run the place. No shit. My sons 1st grade teacher, 20 years ago said," if I have one student disrupting things, I can still teach the other 25, if I have 2 screwed up kids, it gets pretty tough, if I have 3 disrupters, nobody is learning." This is the damn problem. How does it get fixed when mom and dad go to the bar after work, and the kids are at home fending for themselves? We are screwed. I don't advocate teachers beating on kids btw. It's just that the pendulum has swung so far the other way.
Actually, in the past 25 years due to zero tolerance and testing kids are thrown out of school left and right. Due to inclusion, because local schools have opted not to hire those teachers that are qualified to teach those kids that are disruptive in class are now included in everyone's class. Hence, inclusion.
Take the money that is going to the standardized testing companies and hire the damn necessary teachers.
What? Throw more money at a horseshit system? That's smart. Vouchers. Choice. That is more logical. Competition. Get the public monopoly out of it.
Stop throwing money at the charter schools which are faux privatization and stealing from the public coffers. Stop throwing money at standardized testing companies especially those that are also writing the text books.
Charter schools over all do equal or worse then public schools. Period.They do not teach all children. They pick and choose. They are not held to the same standards and they still fail.
A cookie cutter system that you advocate is archaic and obsolete. Charter schools have problems, as do traditional learning institutions. To imply that charter schools are somehow the problem is ridiculous.
I'm not advocating a cookie cutter system, sweet pea. I'm not advocating that at all. Charter schools are not held to the same standards as public education. That is a fact. Even then, the vast majority of them are not successful I have already brought stats to this argument on this forum.
At this point in the game, with all of the information that we know, there is no reason to advocate for the destruction of the public education system unless you seek to profit. There is no excuse.
Vouchers. Choice. Competition. Free markets. Get the governments boot off the throats of our education system. Monopolies are a bad thing for education. Millions of people do not agree with Darwinism being shoved down our children's throats, so go the private or home school route, paying double to educate their children
Again, children are not cans of beans. You compete with products such as cans of beans. There is no reason for public education to be for profit. None.
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You are unwilling to back up the teachers and what has been an endless struggle to teach. You are unwilling to pay the teachers. The unions must stay.
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No, because you have failed to address the amount of money that is spent on testing companies per year in your state you have no money to be spent on the schools, the kids and the teachers. Period.
That isn't the unions fault. It is called faux privatization which actually costs more in taxes. You have failed to address these issues.
we know who the TeaParty is:
The Billionaires TeaParty
and:
The New Yorker - Covert Operations
Chomsky on The Tea Party v The Occupy Movement
More on the TeaParty:
InformationClearingHouse
InformationClearingHouse Jan.'11
And Chomsky on RonPaul