Humanity: Good News, Bad News

[Lord J Esq]

A fascinating retort, focusing on my own careful use of the word "lawful," which I included at all only as a show of goodwill to the conservative side! The Crash the Tea Party people advocate any nonviolent means to dispell the Tea Party. I mimicked that in my own wording, but had to change "nonviolent" to "lawful" so as to avoid being misinterpreted. When I saw you had posted I knew you would be up to your customary contrarianship (ah, you predictable you...), but I didn't expect you to pick that particular angle of contradiction. What you're trying to say is that Truthordeal and I are only in disagreement inasmuch as he does not consider infiltration of another group to be a lawful act, or, if not unlawful, then, to use your word, does not consider Crash the Tea Party's strategy to be "moral," and that, beyond this, he and I are in agreement that some actions are simply not appropriate in political activism, inherently. It is a curious point to make, saying, effectively, "You're in agreement except for the part where you disagree," and therefrom concluding that the Tea Party is a red herring inasmuch as (in your view of Truthordeal's view) some actions are simply never appropriate, regardless of who the target is.

That logic, however beneficial to Truthordeal's confidence in his right to express himself, completely misses a very crucial aspect of my position, which is that the nature of the target does influence the validity of what actions are appropriate to take toward it, and that therefore the discussion of the Tea Party's nature is appropriate--if not to Truthordeal then at least to me. My use of the word "lawful," as extended to the assumption that I hold some actions inherently inappropriate, does indeed (if correct, which it is) set me up to agree with Truthordeal that some actions are inherently inappropriate, but establishing this space of absolutes does not alter the fact that (in my view) some potentially inappropriate actions are not always so. If I were to attempt to heed your advice and engage Truthordeal on his terms, my argument would have had to be that infiltration is not necessarily an unacceptable political activity. I could have made that argument, and perhaps he would have been more susceptible to such a maneuver, but it would have completely ignored the key issue on the table, which is the nature of the Tea Party. If not to him it would have been a dishonesty to me. Your advice, were the clocks to be turned back and the advice heeded, might have fostered amity (or not), but it would have avoided the point--the point being that the Tea Party is an exceptional force and warrants extraordinary action against it. Your reasoning, Thought, fallaciously requires that the arena of debate cannot be extended to include the premises with which we enter into debate nor the framework in which we argue. My chosen line of argument was admittedly ambitious, requiring Truthordeal to not only completely change his view on the Tea Party, but, as a consequence of that, to reevaluate his condemnation of Crash the Tea Party as well; yet, what other line of argument would have facilitated my point, which was not that Crash the Tea Party's strategy is not inherently inappropriate, but that it is appropriate in this situation?

As an aside, I think you have deprived Truthordeal of the chance to confront these ideas laid out in my last post seriously, as now he can simply say "What Thought said" and be done with it without further thought. Sometimes the untried are best let alone to try for themselves.

[Truthordeal]

J, I'll get to your post in a minute, however there is something in my original post that I want to qualify:

It wasn't right when the right wing did it, but at least they didn't stop anyone from getting their message across.

What I was referring to here was the right wing's attempt to paint Obama as a Muslim during the 2008 elections, as well as a horde of other things that have happened since then. The right wing tried to discredit him based on his race and origin, yes, but you didn't see any "infiltration" schemes into his rallies to shout that he was a Muslim, or that he was a 9/11 Truther, etc. What uprisings, for lack of a better word, took place during any of Obama's speeches were by a handful of wing nuts, not an organized group.

Seeing an entire organization dedicated to attempting to overthrow a movement of protesters or nay-sayers is ridiculous. Rather than attempting to battle these people on the facts and merit of their cause, they're the ones committing terrorist actions. They're saying "Hey, I don't like your cause, so I'm going to use the same tactics that Stalin used to discredit his opponents," and that is abject inanity.

I've said some things on this forum that the leadership might have found stupid or repugnant, but not once did they edit my posts to add something like "I am a misogynist," or "I hate women," to discredit me. I couldn't stay in a community that did that. Instead they called me out on the flaws of my arguments and told me directly "Truthordeal, you are acting like a misogynist." This Crashers groups is doing the first bit, and that's not helping their cause at all.

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Now, all of this constant propaganda by the right-wing media and fundamentalist religion has crystallized into a purer form of the evil that has been festering inside the Republican Party. This "Tea Party," despite the cute-sounding, vaguely historically-minded name, is literally  a modern-day analog to Nazism.

This is it. The Tea Party is a suitable vessel for Nazism in our time. (Less severely, but still catastrophically, it is also a suitable vessel for a terrorist movement.)

The situation is very bad and very dangerous, right now, this hour. This is the DEFCON 3 stuff. We have, in our midst, a vibrant and growing political movement that would destroy life as we know it.

J, I doubt I need to actually come out and say this, but I disagree with your take on the nature of the Tea Party movement. You are giving them way too much credit in their capacity to do anything, except change policy(they managed to do that with the healthcare bill).

These people aren't revolutionaries; they're working and middle class people who don't like having tax money taken out of their paychecks. You seem to think that these groups are doing this on ideological grounds, and they're not. These aren't people from Westboro Baptist Church taking the streets shouting that 'God hates fags," and lynching black people. The lifestyle of the majority of these people is not a Christian one; it's agnostic. Most Christian families live a completely secular life outside of Sunday morning(that is, assuming that they still go to church). They couldn't care less if the chick down the street has 18 kids before she's 17, just so long as she doesn't try to collect welfare on all of them. They don't hate blacks, and I doubt they think enough about the Jews to attempt another Holocaust. They will not set up concentration camps and start murdering people, because they have to get up for work the next morning, and because they're not stupid.

Yes, they do probably own guns for protection, sport or otherwise, but that does NOT make them armed and dangerous. These are people who just don't like the European style tax system, where you give up most of your paycheck and the government gives you all sorts of goodies. They'd rather keep their money and do what they want with it, and that, albeit a bit selfish, is not an act of revolution. These people don't want a dictatorship; hell, that's what they think they're fighting against! They're not gonna let their leadership make one after fighting to stop the evil one that Obama is planning(tongue-in-cheek).

How do I know this? I live with these people! I have my entire life and I probably will for the remainder of my life. You're willing to discard these people because you've never lived in the same sphere of existence as these people. You view them only as conservatives, and by your definition, if they are conservative-minded, that means that they are part of this larger conservative entity that works and acts as one. They're not. And to see the conservative movement as this one large en masse being is absurd.

I'm not going to join the Tea Party movement. Principally, because I like social security, unemployment and welfare. I like having my trash picked up, my electricity connected and yes, I do love the Internet. Even though I share some fiscal conservative views with them, they and me are not allies in this. Despite all of that, thus far the Tea Party movement has not done anything violent. There have been no riots, shootouts or burnings, and it seems to be keeping that way. There is no DEFCON 3 threat presented by these people as they're not going to grab their guns and march on Washington, even if the great god of conservatism, Sean Hannity wills it. They are not evil people.

Now, I know what you're going to do: You're going to draw a parallel between them and the beginnings of the Nazi party in Germany(actually, you already have, but not-so-directly stated). You're going to point out that the original Nazi Party was made up of middle and working class people who just wanted jobs and more money, which led to a right wing dictatorship over a left-wing economic structure. But there are some things that you'd be missing:

-This is a recession, not a world-wide economic depression with 25% unemployment and hyperinflation that makes shoes worth 20 million dollars.

-We have not just come out of a world-wide war where we were wronged severely in the negotiations of the armistice.

-There is no central symbol of hate that everyone unites around. You'd probably argue that the Tea Partiers all hate blacks, women, gays, Muslims or atheists, because a) conservatives are racist, misogynist bigots, or b) Christians hate women, gays and anyone who doesn't agree with their theology. Again, and this time I'll be extremely blunt about this: you're wrong.

-There is, as of yet, no grand leader of the conservative movement; the only people in the running would be Sarah Palin(whom I believe to be a red herring candidate), Newt Gingrich and Dick Cheney(who actually supports gay marriage).

-There has been a Holocaust. We(the citizens of the world) have lived through one and know better than to let it happen again, at least on our own soil.

Your analogy to the Nazi movement has some scary context, but it's far off from the truth. The entire nature of the Tea Party movement is economic. Their rallying cry is "don't spend our grandchildren's money!" after all. This isn't a Christian movement, this isn't even a conservative movement(there are tons of libertarian and liberals associated with it). Most importantly, this isn't a revolutionary or terrorist movement. Just as they played on the racial divide in the US to discredit the Tea Party, you're using fear tactics and are single-mindedly lumping them in with every radical aspect of the right wing because the majority happen to be conservative, and that is abject inanity. The difference between them and you, and what makes you more "right" in this case, is that instead of undermining the movement by purposely spreading negative news footage(propaganda), you're debating on the facts, misguided as your view of conservatives is.

[FaustWolf]

Such a scary analogy indeed. Nah, everything will be okay as long as they don't form their own army or anything.

...

Oh snaaaaaap.

"Is it scary? It sure is," said tea party leader Al Gerhart of Oklahoma City, who heads an umbrella group of tea party factions called the Oklahoma Constitutional Alliance. "But when do the states stop rolling over for the federal government?"

So, like...how is this gonna work, guys? Not like this, I would hope. I write this tongue-in-cheek, but I must confess to being a bit nervous about the whole "bring a gun to the legislative process" idea.


I'm curious as to whether anyone thinks the Coffee Party could become an appropriate counterforce. If we can get a Beer Party going, we'll finally have that three party system we've always wanted in the US!

[Lord J Esq]

@ Truthordeal:

That was a good reply. The major flaw in it is that you're equating my description of what the Tea Party is capable of doing, and would be likely to do if given the chance, with what the Tea Party actually is doing with itself presently. Obviously, at the present time, there is no armed insurrection, they are not committing murder or rape, they are not committing arson or assault, they are not circumventing the security services or usurping extrajudicial powers, they're not repressing or extorting citizens and businesses (although there has been some of that), they're not committing lesser violence and intimidation (although there has been some of that, too), and so on and so forth.

They're not doing those things now, but under the right circumstances they would. Why is it you think they wouldn't? Do you disappreciate the ease with which social stability can be upended and “ordinary” people driven to heinous acts? Do you think “the right circumstances” are improbable to the point of being implausible? Do you think the Tea Partiers are just not capable of such deeds, that they couldn't become what I have described?

I would genuinely like to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I am not enough of a fool to commit that much wishful thinking. They tell us who they are, and who they want to be. You need to pay more attention to what people in the Tea Party are saying, and you need to give more critical thought to what they mean. You don't need to take my word for it. As you said, you live among them. So avail yourself of the opportunity to learn.

I understand your difficulty in piecing it all together. The Tea Partiers are almost pathetic, what with their badly-written signs, their talk of epic conflict while eating pizza, their general dishevelment and dishabille, and their earnest feeling of helplessness at the phantom socialist menace. But none of this makes them harmless. The followers of any movement are similarly humble, similarly reminiscent of their cultural backdrop. The Tea Partiers are not dangerous because of their appearance, or even their ideas. They are dangerous to the nation because they are becoming better-organized and more influential.

Perhaps I've spent too many words on what is essentially a very simple idea: People can (and often do) behave very differently when they are acting as part of a movement. A movement brings with it its own culture, and with culture comes the mores and folkways of social interaction and personal conduct. A movement provides the validation of numbers, compelling people who would not act alone to act as part of something larger. The Tea Party has seized upon, and fostered, more than just outrage at economic policy. It has seized upon, and fostered, the whole far-right ideological basket of furies. Now, surely, although the Tea Partiers occupy a very narrow ideological space, they are diverse in other ways—in their passions, their motivations, their specific views on policy. I don't mean to treat them as a bunch of clones. But, in a political activist movement, the ones who are more serious, more severe, more extreme, will become the ones who have an outsize influence on the movement as a whole, and on the tendencies and inhibitions of the rest. The Tea Partiers are disconnected from reality, they are extremely aggravated, they have adopted a confrontational attitude, and their ideas, if you will excuse me, are a gigantic pack of the most hateful shit this country can presently produce. The Tea Party movement is one of extremism, hatred, and stupidity. As it grows in cohesion and influence, it becomes more dangerous, because it accumulates the apparatus to pursue its hateful ideas. Elements within the Tea Party have embraced the fringe terrorism which is already occurring on the American right. You say there has been no violence yet, but you're wrong about that. The only thing missing is that the Tea Party is not yet explicitly calling for violence. Sympathy-wise, they're with it. Many of them are hoping for someone else to light the fire.

Your reply is wrong on numerous specific points, but I'll overlook those for now in favor of sticking with the grander view. Although, if you wish, I'll revisit your post line by line.

@ Fausty:

I spent a while listening to one of its founders talk at a Coffee Party gathering. The Coffee Party is, by design, inclusive and un-provocative. It is therefore doomed to irrelevance because it doesn't address the problem. While I agree with their premise that they represent the silent and frustrated majority of Americans, I disagree with your speculative notion that they could possibly serve as an effective check on, alternative to, or escape from, the Tea Party.

[utunnels]

Bad news: Strong earthquakes hit Qinghai, China.

[Lord J Esq]

Oh, golly...

The microlending industry, trumpeted as a way for totally destitute people to escape poverty, has become dominated by loan sharks who have harnessed these transactions as a source of wealth for themselves--by charging exorbitant interest rates.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/world/14microfinance.html

Every. Single. Time.

Every single time a good idea comes along, that promises to bring a measure of social justice into the world, the same group of parasites drools in avarice at the thought of profiting from it. Often, those profits are ill-gotten enough to undermine the whole effort.

People should not be making that kind of profit from microlending. It's not supposed to be a source of wealth. It's supposed to be about helping the people who get the loans...and recouping only enough interest to say that you yourself broke even. That's what it's supposed to be. It's not supposed to be a grab bag of goodies for the creditor.

Every single time...

It's not the money itself that does this. This is simply what many humans do with themselves when they have the power. They steal, oppress, and cheat. And most humans are abject enough and wretched enough, regardless of what country they live in, to be perpetual victims of it. It's the perfect ballet: cheaters and fools, dancing together, for all time. They are all of them mooks.

It's very hard to protect against these kinds of abuses. Humanity has evolved to commit and endure such abuses on and of itself. We are, in our worser ways, a pathetic, miserable, contemptible gaggle of thugs and weaklings.

My tendency would be to say that the responsible people should have greater power over the irresponsible. But that's troublesome: It wrongly burdens the responsible, and it guarantees most humans to a life of deficient self-determination. One of the questions in my philosophy at present is whether that state of affairs would be better than the present one. I don't frakkin' know.

[Truthordeal]

@ utunnels

This seems to be the year of Earthquakes. 2009 had people dying left and right, and I suppose this year does too, just in a far more dramatic fashion.

And of course, the nut jobs are going to use this as evidence that 2012 will be the end of the world.   

-------------------------

Do you think “the right circumstances” are improbable to the point of being implausible?

For the most part, yes. To have a situation where conservative middle-class America would find open and armed revolt as a necessary action, there would have to be something completely destructive out of the Obama administration. Raising taxes despite his promises might piss people off, but not enough for them to foment an insurrection. I think, probably the only plausible situation where the Tea Party movement(as a whole, and not the nut cases that FW's post mentions) would grab their guns and start rebelling, is if Obama came out public and blatantly said: "I'm a socialist, I'm going to make the United States the next Soviet Union, and by the way, religion's no longer legal." Barack Obama's not that stupid, nor does he have enough power to make that happen even if he were.

Now, as to why I think it would have to come to something like that? The United States has been through times like this, back in the 60's and 70's. There were several sides protesting at the same time: the bigots who wanted to deny blacks the right to vote; the hippies and "free-lovers" who were pretty much Marxists on a drug trip; the Civil Rights Movement, which could've very easily turned into a violent revolution without the leadership of people like MLK; the college students who wanted a more liberal society(whether or not this meant communism or simply more social reform depends on the group and the person); and more radical minority elements, such as the Nation of Islam. I'd argue that most of the protest movements during this time were far more radical than the Tea Partiers are today(compare "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" with "Don't spend our grandchildren's money").

Despite all of these factions, and the heavy handedness of the federal and state governments on the matter(Kent State and the sheriff's in Alabama come readily to mind) there was no violent revolution. There were nut jobs who committed assassinations of political leaders--Oswald on Kennedy, James Earl Ray on MLK, the Arab national on Robert Kennedy--and there were people like Bill Ayers who decided that domestic terrorism was a good idea.

The difference between these people and the Tea Party movement is that the people committing violent and treasonous acts were all underground, whereas the Tea Party Movement, like the Civil Rights Movement, the hippie movement and the bigot movement, are all very public and organized. The threat of domestic security isn't in the organized marchers, but in the wing nuts that blow up monuments. There IS a difference here and you need to understand this. You've said before that the moderate groups strengthen the extremes, and if that's true, then the Civil Rights Movement helped Bill Ayers with his terrorism.

I'm optimistic, that in a post-9/11 world, where security to such things has been heightened to the point of annoyance, that we can even avoid that much bloodshed this time.

Bear in mind, the goal of the Tea Party Movement(not their leaders, or one or two members that get caught on newsreel) is purely economic, whereas the protests of the 1960's and 70's were social and political movements. Social "revolutions" are always going to be more radical, cause more fervor and piss off more people and political reforms are usually what leads to violent revolutions in the first place(America, France, Russia, China).

If Barack Obama is an effective enough president that his plans keep the middle class(who is suffering the most, tax-wise) happy, then there should be no problems out of the Tea Party Movement. If he can't, then as a president he and his ideas for reform are wrong, and that matter will be settled in 2012, by elections, not violent foment, and definitely not by the end of the world.

J, one thing you said perplexes me still: you said that the Tea Partiers are dangerous because they're more influential and more organized. If this is true for the Tea Party movement, why isn't it true for any political reform movement that becomes influential enough? Why bother fighting for anything if you'll just be equated with terrorists when your cause gets enough support? Is it just because they are mostly conservative, and therefore have an ideology that you disagree with?

Again, it seems to me that you're willing to write all of these people off for fighting for a cause they believe in, simply because right wing extremists have been doing what extremists do. You are equating these people with terrorists because they're involved in a conservative movement, and that isn't fair.

[Thought]

As a gentle reminder to all (myself included), one is supposed to post an example of both Good News and Bad News.

[Thought]

And on that note:

Good News
President Obama orders hospitals to allow patients to dictate who can see them and who has the power to make medical decisions, including homosexual partners.

Uncertain News
New York City Schools are to abolish their "rubber room" system where teachers are sent to wait until disciplinary hearings.  While this old system was in no way ideal, this would only really count as good news if the disciplinary procedures are streamlined. Putting a teacher on a year's suspension before they even get a hearing is unacceptable. But, putting a teacher on a two week suspension before a hearing is more reasonable.

Bad News
Insurance Companies are already trying to find ways around Health Insurance Reform.

[Lord J Esq]

J, one thing you said perplexes me still: you said that the Tea Partiers are dangerous because they're more influential and more organized. If this is true for the Tea Party movement, why isn't it true for any political reform movement that becomes influential enough? Why bother fighting for anything if you'll just be equated with terrorists when your cause gets enough support? Is it just because they are mostly conservative, and therefore have an ideology that you disagree with?

What troubles me the most is how disconnected from reality these Tea Partiers are. Yes, the conservatism is a major exacerbation of their repugnance, but I look with disgust upon all peoples who are so willfully ignorant and hateful. That is the crux of it.

I've been reflecting upon our exchange over the past couple of days, and I do want to say that I spoke in error by not being emphatic enough in one specific point. Let me try again. I don't consider the Tea Party likely to progress farther than it already has--unless it dilutes its positions, which won't count; what I'm concerned about is the potency and the purity together. I think the limiting factors acting on the Tea Party, combined with the difficulty of the ground ahead, will prevent these people from fulfilling their dangerousness. The danger itself represents only a risk of the evil they might do. What is so significant about the Tea Party is that it credibly presents as much of a threat as it does--not that those threats will actually be made good on. They are the proverbial enriched uranium of a rogue state, difficult to achieve and far from delivering a cataclysm. I would hate ever to be perceived as an alarmist. I have not said that they will overrun the country. I don't expect they will. My interest in the Tea Party is that they be understood for the danger they present, and that they be opposed in whatever ways are effective and lawful.

[Lord J Esq]

Good News
Cloud Ships Could Reduce Global Warming and Increase Land Rainfall

They would be wind-powered with a romantic, steampunkesque style of rotor that would fit right at home on a Miyazaki airship. They would be remote-controlled, too, so no cargo.

~~~
Bad News
News Media Falsely Claim Females Are "Hard-Wired" to Fear Weight Gain

What irresponsible journalism! Read the story for yourself. Clearly what the experiment was demonstrating is that people, females in particular, are conditioned to stigmatize weight gain and fear it in themselves. Yet the use of the term "hard-wired" implies a genetic basis, which, in context, is used to attempt to justify our society's obsession with fat.

Mooks.

~~~
WTF News
None today. Up yer nose with a rubber hose, Thought.

[Lord J Esq]

Qwest, my Internet Service Provider is being bought.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/technology/23phone.html

Ah, shit. You know my broadband rates are going to go up. One of the few good things about Qwest is that it has been incompetent enough of a company that rates are significantly lower and less fee-saddled than the slick Comcast people. And Qwest's website was always mostly easy to use.

I'm not naturally a cynic, but I have so little respect for the telecom industry that I'm expecting to get shafted in this deal. I hope I'm wrong. I also hope Seattle gets its act together and builds a public broadband grid. Unless we win the Googlecarrot, that's so not gonna happen. Ugh!

[utunnels]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8625676.stm

Hmm, that is a new sign of danger.

[Lord J Esq]

WTF News:
Blind Diner Refused Entry to Restaurant Because Staff Misheard "Guide" Dog as "Gay" Dog

This one comes from Australia, not the U.S. South, which explains how the word "guide" could be mistaken for "gay." Still, imagine what that conversation must have been like!

Host: You can't come in here with a gay dog.
Diner: Doubleyou-tee-ef, mate?! What do you mean I can't come in here with a guide dog?
Host: We don't allow that sort of thing. You'll have to leave.
Diner: But I'm blind and this is my guide dog.
Host: We don't want to hear about it, sir. Please leave.

At least the guy is getting some compensation.

[Kodokami]

Bad News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_dying_and_ignored

Simply ridiculous, and depressing, and a load of other negative adjectives.


Good News
There was a food fight in my school today (no, that's not the good news), and my friends and I were first to volunteer to clean up. Makes me feel like I'll know the right to do if I ever come across the above situation, and do it.