Why Tea Won’t Work This Time
Not only was this populist tea fest diffuse, it was also as much a same-old “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” game. Everyone was attacking Obama either explicitly or implicitly, when the whole boondoggle — and the thing you’re paying $42k for — and seeing 25 cent returns on the dollar for — started way before he ever took that oath to the Constitution. We’ve really got to grow up, get smart, and dig ourselves out of the manure heaped on us. Seeing Network last weekend made me wonder, did we ever even begin to get away from the Carter-era slump? Or did we just get buried under a pageant of free-market falsity, global asset bubbles, and great showmanship? (We went on to elect an actor in 1980, after all.)
Is it just a simple matter of “voting all the bums out” — as a few signs advocated?
I don’t believe in man qua corporation as having a soul — and that’s a sticky snaggle for libertarian conversions in my book. We’ve got these corporations on our hands. Lots of them. And we’re saving them right now. Of course, we don’t wanna, because in the world according to Darwin, they don’t deserve it. And that’s what a couple of signs said.
Yet other than taxes, what pitchfork have we with which to attack this capital gains-loving Marie Antoinette of Manhattan? If one were to write Revelations today, one could send the Whore of Babylon with Roman corruption and kings at her breast into early retirement. The Whore of Manhattan, we’d make, with Blankfein and Vikram, sucking away.
Examine this pseudo-biblical snatch from Network and its corporate demon, Arthur Jensen:
“Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little 21-inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx?…We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that…perfect world…in which there’s no war or famine, oppression, or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.”
You see, tea baggers, We the People are not the Geneva-loving Rousseau’s Corsica or Poland, starting with a new constitution afresh. We have no democracy. We have only the media, chattel of the corporations that are hoping to eek one last ounce of profit from the old dead horses called newspaper and broadcast TV. Why do you think we see so much of Obama on our late night and Geithner on our sacred Sunday mornings?
How do I know that Mr. Jensen’s speech is not what pure libertarianism would look like if thrust atop this ugly, brutish state? Would I be happy there? Would I be tranquilized?
I’m thinking the best you and I can do, dear reader, is defect…make nice paper-dollar profits on the IBMs and Dows and their tiny brethren…and depart after turning it into gold. Go somewhere with cheap land…and buy cattle, sheep, goats.
After all, who among us really has the nads, the arms, or sufficient belief in mankind to rewrite the social contract of these United States?
(Hush, Texans like Rick Perry, we hear your clamor…but do we believe it?)
How the Rest of the World Sees Tea Baggers
Always ask: What do our fellow nation-states make of all this? After all, what is diplomacy but a massive PR campaign? And how will we know which country will harbor us gold-bearing exiles the best?
Here’s a headline courtesy of Agence France-Presse: “Anti-Barack Obama ‘Tea Party’ Protests Mark U.S. Tax Day.” The article juxtaposed the words “modest crowds” with “several thousands.” It admitted the protest had a “catchy theme,” but questioned the strength of the “mostly Republican forces” whose party has “been in disarray since Sen. John McCain lost the White House” — a party whose senior figures “appear lukewarm” to the tea parties.
Maybe that’s just because they have issues with verbal jokes that mix them up with “tea bagging” — the sex act — which we all laughed about the morning after. Strategically, there’s no reason for the Republicans to ignore the voice of the Ron Paul fringe, which is getting louder…they’re still doing worse than Obama in Gallup polls, and they’re up for re-election first.
We all know it’s good to ride the faux-populist express…Just look at who ran it straight up to the door of the White House last year.
I know die-hard Dems who voted Reagan into office his first year…for fiscal conservatism, and fiscal conservatism alone. Look how well that turned out! Running from one platform and party to the other is as dizzying as a dog chasing its own tail.
Americans need to stop being twits first and foremost. Posthaste, Patriot…keep your brain for yourself!
Regards,
Samantha Buker
April 21, 2009
Samantha Buker
Samantha Buker was born in Baltimore at the start of the "Reagan Revolution." She thinks Adam Smith is wrong because he believed that the individual man is a moral one. She thinks Karl Marx is wrong because he believed Man as a collective was moral. She's always wanted to write a novel on the Great Depression...and now has the chance to write one about her own time. Miss Buker is associate editor of three Agora Financial publications: Capital & Crisis, Mayer's Special Situations, Strategic Short Report. She's wanted to write for Whiskey readers since she first heard about Agora Financial.
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All of this nose-in-the-air laughing at the ‘tea-baggers’ is not just hypocritical, it’s disingenuous. Where were you, Oh You Smart Whiskey-Room people, during last year’s campaign? Were you saying ‘new boss same as the old boss’ back then? Or were you chanting along with the rest of the ‘hope and change’ choir? Let me see you recant your pro-Obama apologism.
Admit you were duped. If you voted for Obama, find a mirror and look yourself in the eye and tell yourself, ‘I was a stupid fool, duped by the politicians.’
Until you do that, until you find it in your heart to admit and proclaim that Obama is part of the problem, you’re just another noisy hypocrite.
I have to agree with you on at least one point: There are more and more of us willing to leave. We’ve just finished absorbing 8 years of brutal mockery (when you make a joke, and the punch-line is that Bush can’t read, the message that we conservative Christians recieve from that is that we are not welcome in the national discourse – and we felt that, strongly). We really believe that laissez-faire capitalism will work, not because we’re just following the crowd, or believing what the pastor tells us, but because we’ve really studied, reasoned, and researched the question. We really believe that abortion is murder, and that this country is in the middle of a silent genocide of Soviet proportions.
Here’s what you should know: The more people on the streets protesting, the better for the country. The people who care enough to protest really believe in American democracy. I didn’t protest because I understand that those in power don’t feel that they need to give me a fair hearing. They think I believe what I believe because I’m stupid and brainwashed and I can’t read, like Bush.
Well I can read, and there are a lot of people like me, and they’re losing us. We can disappear into the mountains, and never have to deal with this rotten government again. And if Obama does what the left elected him to do, we’re going to.
Rick, please tell me you don’t think that we in the Whiskey Room ever cheered for a politician. We like Ron Paul and all, but at the heart of this newsletter is a deep mistrust of governmnet—ALL government.
If you think otherwise, then you really haven’t been paying attention.
Samantha,
Have you ever heard of the “K.I.S.S.” method of doing “anything”? (which includes writing)??…………Please dear, when writing, please………Try to “KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID”………….Say what you mean……………mean what you say and move on to the next subject. Hiding your thoughts, opinions, beliefs in tortuously twisted prose and metaphors only confuses the reader and is apt to drive him/her away…….. no matter if they agree with your point of view or not. Ms Buker, please write so we can figure out your “angle of attack” so we readers can decide whether we like or hate what you have written. In this case, I can’t even say whether I agree what you wrote or not………………but I did get a headache.
Not all of the economic mistakes are Obama’s for sure they started in 1933 with Obama’s kindred spirit FDR, then another pile of manure was dumped on us by LBJ. The only failure of capitalism and the Constitution is that we the people allowed the government to use our money to create a Democrat voting block by the creation of the welfare state. And no matter how much money your economy can generate socialism is not supportable. You cannot reward people being lazy and expect then to suddenly change their behavior and become productive members of society. The is the reason Obamanomics or Keynesian economics, or Marxism, or whatever name you want to reference it does not work. People prospering in America is not a matter of luck or chance as Obama seems to think, it is a matter of work, I work between 72 and 84 hours per week and no one deserves a piece of what I make. And to suggest that I steal money from the “rightful owners of Americas wealth” is a sick joke. The greed that is killing America is the greed of those who do not put forth the effort to prosper, but somehow feel that they are entitled to part of what others earn. The Democrats and Alinsky followers foster this greed and use it to destroy the country. Modern Liberalism is a pockmark on the face of America, a virus that weakens our nation and destroys the pillars that supported this great nation, and it must be defeated.
This is the best article I have read on here in quite some time.
The really funny thing is that the original tea party was perpetrated by those engaged in the import of untaxed tea;
The King eliminated the tax, putting the smugglers out of business – so they destroyed the legal product;
The party was in response to the lifting of a tax, not its’ imposition.