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The Manufacture of the Tea Party

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This is a guest editorial from Dangerous Minds reader Em, expanding on some pointed commentary he’s made elsewhere on this blog. Em—who’ll keep his last name to himself, thank you very much—works in the financial industry:

Although I’ve never been a big believer in conspiracy theories, a well-constructed one creates a narrative that pulls in a lot of facts previously viewed as having no connection. The best conspiracy theories don’t even need to be true in order for them to shine a light on what’s actually going on or, better yet, aren’t technically even conspiracies because the activity is going on in the open, even if unrecognized by many.

Consider how perfect the Tea party is on one level: They have the perfect combination of pro-big-business ideologies combined with a cynical distrust of scientific expertise to the point of even regarding mere “facts” as mind-controlling tools of the ‘liberal elite’ (whatever that is). Add to that, convictions that are built upon what are often regarded as fundamental religious principles, and you have the perfect soldier who cannot be dissuaded, cannot be convinced that they may be seriously misguided about some very significant issues because they fully believe their ideas originated within themselves.

In that sense, the fundamentalist push to reflect “Biblical literacy” within the public education system begins to look like a sinister plot designed to teach followers to shut out facts that contradict one’s ‘personal conviction.’ even if that conviction is actually inherited wholesale and largely unquestioned from someone else. Consider the notion of “Biblical literacy”: Aside from containing countless phrases that can’t possibly have a literal meaning, the original Hebrew has no vowel marks. Like a Rorschach blot, the letter clusters in the Hebrew Bible only make sense if we assume vowels for each of the words. (Indeed, traditional Kabbalists maintain that there’s an alternative set of vowels that, after insertion, yield esoteric meanings.) It’s as if someone wrote the Bible precisely to prevent a legalistic and ‘strictly literal’ interpretation. In a sense, therefore, those organizations looking to ‘reform’ public education by having curricula around the country reflect a ‘literal’ interpretation of the Bible are in reality attempting to impose the will (and interpretation) of a small group onto the rest of the American public. Their claim, “this isn’t about us, it’s about God’s will and the Bible” is a lie, but none of its adherents are aware that it’s a lie, and any attempt to prove they’re wrong using so-called “science” and “facts” is viewed as an anti-religion attack from the godless left. Thus, the religious right have become self-protecting vectors of a certain set of viral memes injected by a small secret cabal and coated with the appearance of objective truth.

Now that the vectors are ready, what will the payload be, and who controls it? You don’t have to think too long to take a good guess: It’s about money, and about retaining the power of certain aging industries. In The New Yorker’s recent expose of the billionaire Koch Brothers (See “Covert Operations” by Jane Mayer), the money trails are traced to the various Koch-created PACs, think tanks and even specific branches of the Tea party. As the Kochs control oil refineries, paper products (such as Dixie cups) and various chemical product companies, seems pretty clear that any Koch-supported groups will certainly not be for protecting the environment, and any talk of global warming will hit the protective ideological coating and bounce off like the hard casing around the HIV virus. As the Tea party and like-minded viruses propagate, they insert their anti-environment DNA and get the new hosts to replicate themselves, working perfectly to push away new legislation from impeding the money-flows into those industries that most impact the environment. Is this a mere coincidence? Perhaps.

One thing I’ve found particularly baffling is the vehemence with which the Tea party seems to fight universal health care. As a banker, I would have thought that widely available health care would tilt the economy ever so slightly in favor of small-to-medium-sized business. Currently, there are plenty of employees of large companies that would have loved to work in a small company, or try their hand at creating a new business, but the need to provide health care for their families was a limiting factor. In other words, universal health care would help small businesses (as it does in the rest of the developed world), not hinder them. But the agenda of the Tea party becomes much clearer when viewed as a mere vector of special interests, particularly those tied to specific sectors of big business.

At this point it’s almost superfluous to point out that the Tea party isn’t about freedom or the Constitution or individual rights. The tactical suspension of habeas corpus (for instance) or the assassination (without any due process) of alleged terrorists overseas who are US citizens doesn’t seem to get any recognition at all by the vast majority of the Tea party. Indeed, those may end up becoming useful levers should Tea partiers successfully insert their payload into the halls of Power and the Whitehouse.

As for balancing the budget, the recent Tea party outcry over the Banking Sector bailout is somewhat harder to understand. Of course, we don’t hear the Tea party discussing the elephant in the room: The vast amounts of money that go each year to funding our military, despite the non-existence of wars on US soil over the last century or so. Neither this nor the two perpetu-wars (each now twice as long as WWII) are ever mentioned in any meaningful way, yet they are obviously enormous and ongoing expenses.  Another little noticed fact is that, in the 2008 election (and in the previous two elections prior to that), ALL of the Red states (with the exception of Texas) were net receivers of Federal tax money, often via military bases or national laboratories (which are very military in their bent). So perhaps that’s the key: Banking bailouts (combined with universal health care) represent a potential movement of tax money away from states and industries that are defense and oil-focused.

At this point I’d step out of a conspiracy-like narrative and ask just how feasible it is that the Tea party movement is a synthetic movement, created entirely by some hidden cabal of (most likely) rich, white men. Part of the answer, I think, is that there are some truly significant social issues that have given rise to the Tea party: Not only unemployment, but the wholesale sellout and movement overseas of industries that once employed large numbers of Americans with solid, middle-class wages. This movement represents a deeper demographic shift that has called into question the very future of many sectors of the American middle class. It only makes sense, then, that a “back to basics” movement arise that seeks to reset the clock to a time when it was far easier for the now-Tea partiers to live what used to be the middle-class lifestyle. Hence, the phrase: “take back America”.

On the other hand, perhaps this mass of soon-to-be lumpen proletariat looked like the perfect clay from which to sculpt a veritable army of ‘true believers.’ ready to fight for the cause of big corporate profits. Indeed, to quote The New Yorker article:

Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist and a historian, who once worked at the National Center for Policy Analysis, a Dallas-based think tank that the Kochs fund, said, “The problem with the whole libertarian movement is that it’s been all chiefs and no Indians. There haven’t been any actual people, like voters, who give a crap about it. So the problem for the Kochs has been trying to create a movement.” With the emergence of the Tea Party, he said, “everyone suddenly sees that for the first time there are Indians out there—people who can provide real ideological power.” The Kochs, he said, are “trying to shape and control and channel the populist uprising into their own policies.”

This is for me where the rubber meets the road, where the alleged conspiracy theory becomes real: Take an unorganized and frightened populace, send into their midst well-funded ideological leaders who speak their language, and then load up this golem with instructions to do its’ masters’ bidding. Drag-drop the doublethink of regarding contravening facts as attacks on purity, and there you go: The Tea party is basically just a co-opted gang of stooges, not essentially different from Basij militia in Iran or the Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution in communist China. Indeed, even the willingness to use violence in order to terrorize the majority into some kind of perceived purity of thought seems to be gaining ground (which is of course just another way to spread a viral meme).

Whether this is an actual conspiracy or not, it’s pretty clear that something like this is happening with the Tea party. And is that a surprise? Any gang-of-goons pretending to purity is in reality just a way that interests-behind-the-scenes leverage their influence to hold on to their power and privilege, just like the Gang of Four launched and directed the Red Guard movement, and just the way the Iranian hardliners control the Basij.

In that sense, then, the Tea party already is the sleeper cell of corporate interests. They are particularly dangerous because they truly believe that their
 ideas stem from some type of deep conviction, rather than having been 
slopped out to them from various right-wing-controlled media outlets. They believe they are acting independently and of their own free will rather than enacting the agenda of hidden privileged forces.

 They’re dupes. They’re stooges. They’re drones.

The hilarious and sad
 thing is that, like any gang of goons, they are regarded as disposable by those whom they unwittingly serve. If they get what they want, they’ll rapidly be so marginalized that they (or their offspring) will end up fighting over jobs at Walmart, with no prospects and no health care. This will be the inevitable and logical conclusion to the economies of scale enjoyed by large corporations that, like a lens, focus the benefit back to a small number of upper-level managers in “Headquarters.”

Years from now, those lucky Tea partiers who manage to survive by working two or three jobs will shake their heads as they push a broom or work the register, and wonder what went wrong.

About the author: Em was a founding member (with John Cale and others) of the New York punk band Doppler Effect in the early 1980s. After living in China in the late 80s, Em worked in the physics and electrical engineering space until 2002, at which time he moved into the financial world. In July, Em returned to the US after having lived in London since 2006 and is a member of the UMOUR art/event collective. He blogs at The Magic Lantern, his"litterbox of the soul.”

Posted by Richard Metzger
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01.21.2011
07:51 pm
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‘Holy preachers’ and the Hooters waitresses
01.20.2011
06:24 pm
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A bunch of goofy holy roller-types confront some Hooters waitresses about their sins. Incredible. FF to 1:30 when the action begins.

Holy Preachers preach to Hooter girls who want to confront the righteousness. In this video, the Hooters girls actually come out to meet the preachers. Listen as one of them claims that her dad is a “pastor” and that she is not going to Hell because she asked Jesus into her heart! Her dad is leading her straight to Hell! What a dad and pastor he is!

 
Via The American Jesus

Posted by Richard Metzger
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01.20.2011
06:24 pm
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Glenn Beck: ‘You’re going to have to shoot them in the head’
01.20.2011
04:02 pm
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Bang… bang… Looks likes someone’s words are coming back to haunt them! Here’s a transcript of what he said on Fox News on June 9, 2010:

“I will stand against you and so will millions of others. We believe in something. You in the media and most in Washington don’t. The radicals that you and Washington have co-opted and brought in wearing sheep’s clothing — change the pose. You will get the ends.

You’ve been using them? They believe in communism. They believe and have called for a revolution. You’re going to have to shoot them in the head. But warning, they may shoot you.”

How much longer is America prepared to put up with this asshole? How can ANY company want their product associated with him and this kind of message! The man is literally advocating treason and yet he’s rewarded with millions of dollars a year and the adoration of Fox News watching nitwits?

Moral to the story: If you piss in the wind, don’t be surprised when it comes back to hit you in the face…
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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01.20.2011
04:02 pm
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Becky Fischer’s warped Christian kindergarten
01.19.2011
11:45 am
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No one who has watched the staggeringly scary documentary Jesus Camp will ever forget creepy Pentecostal kids minister Becky Fischer, whose ministry has been described as fundamentalist “brain washing” or “child abuse” by an awful lot of people (click here for some “special” highlights from Jesus Camp if you haven’t seen the film).

Fischer instills her pre-teen flock with such time-honored (but IQ deficient) Pentecostal traditions as a belief in exorcism, the reality of everyday demons, that they are “present day apostles” fighting “spiritual warfare,” how to be a good Republican and of course… learning how to speak in tongues! (Ask yourself why the fuck would any right-thinking person want their kid “taught” how to “speak in tongues” in the first place? The answer is easy: NO ONE with a functioning brain would!)

This woman is a menace to the minds of these children. No surprise either that her Kids in Ministry website also features the “teachings” of brainless bigots like Lou Engle and Cindy Jacobs.

On a brighter note, probably seven out of ten of the kids who were unfortunately born to couples dumb enough to entrust their children to such warped indoctrination will eventually come to realize that Becky Fischer is a complete idiot and quite a bizarre human being with very, very strange, unscientific and ignorant beliefs and will want to get the fuck out of the Church as fast as they can. Partially as a direct result of being exposed to this weirdo when they were young.

Becky Fischer teaches children an organized system of superstition and ignorance, no more and no less. It’s too bad that there is no government-mandated psychological screening of people like this before they’re given a bunch of young minds to skull fuck.
 

 
Via Christian Nightmares

Posted by Richard Metzger
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01.19.2011
11:45 am
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What if the Democrats ran Bernardine Dohrn for the Senate?
01.16.2011
02:59 pm
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The reaction to the post yesterday about Palin, Sharron Angle, Glenn Beck and the radical right’s violent rhetoric coming back to haunt them was an interesting thread to wake up to this morning. Thank you to (almost) everyone who contributed. A few observations:

First of all, my point, in case anyone didn’t get it, was contained in the bold text (”...the genie is all the way out of the bottle for this type of violence, for them, too.”). I’m saying that the potential for a blowback against the folks propagating the majority of this hate talk is rather ripe. If you piss in the wind, don’t be surprised when it comes back to hit you in the face. Then poor Eric Fuller went and proved my point about 3 hours later, to his shame. His story is the very embodiment of my argument in the post. The guy should have been arrested, but it’s sad

I hardly see any evidence there of a “full-throated, hate-filled rant,” either, as I was accused of in the comments by “Metzger’s id,” someone who obviously did not read what I actually wrote. (Steve Doocey IS one of the stupidest people on television. He’s a fucking idiot and I will not back down from this position).

Commenter moflcky scores when he asks “Do you think it’s worse now than it was in the 60s/70s with SDS, the Weather Underground, the SLA, the Black Panthers, the Klan and the race riots?”

This is a very good point and worth thinking about. However, I think contrasting the difference of then vs today is best served by comparing *the media* that exists today vs. what we had at that time. With just three TV networks, I think the center could hold very easily back then. In the realm of “public opinion” it was much easier to achieve a broad general agreement 40-50 years ago and so there was, by and large, a very strong “centrist” majority. The GOP of Nixon’s era has very little to do with the GOP of today, they’ve moved far, far to the right of the positions they held in the 70s. And the Democrats of today are pretty much standing in the same place, ideologically speaking, as most of the Republicans were at that time. Nixon, it can be argued, was to the left of Bill Clinton, in many respects.

The political elites of both parties moved significantly to the right in the past 40 years, even if the general public did not. As the politicians shifted rightwards, the population, or some of the population, anyway, reacted by going in the other direction and eventually—sometime in the 90s—modern progressive politics is born (just as the Great Society and Roe vs. Wade saw an awakening of the religious right/Moral Majority as a political force in the late 70s).

You could say it was “the dialectic” or “zeitgeist” in motion or even just a “generation gap”—I refer you to Spiral Dynamics or the work of William Strauss and Neil Howe. I think both get it right. The generation up and coming looks at the Tea party and largely sees a bunch of ignorant, cranky old white people. As the younger citizens of the United States grow up, the folks who are attending these Tea party rallies will be dying off.  And as they do, something else will happen that no one can anticipate at the present time. That’s just the way it works.

The Weather Underground didn’t get face time to argue their beliefs on MSNBC in 1970, although admittedly they might today, depending on the ratings potential. I don’t think they had ANY influence on the general public. The same cannot be said of the radical right Tea party-types and folks like Tony Perkins, Bryan Fisher, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Sarah Palin, Sharron Angle, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin and the rest of them.

There is a huge chasm between some misguided grad students who most people were appalled by, and few supported, and an obviously doomed Republican Senate candidate telling her supporters that if they don’t win at the ballot box, they’ll win with guns? This isn’t some group of hippies who appear to be freaks to 99% of the population talking, this is a lemon-faced church lady-type who faced off against the Senate Majority leader and raised a record amount of cash (most from from outside of her state).

William Ayers was brought up in the comments. I find bringing up Bill Ayers, specifically, in this context (and nearly all others) to be utterly meaningless and tiresome. How is he relevant in 2011 or is this situation comparable? Can someone please remind me?. I’ll say it again: the biggest difference between the Weather Underground in 1969 and the Tea party in 2011 is that the Weather Underground never had their own cable news outlet (The Weather Channel?) and 15% of the dumbest and least educated portion of the population did NOT follow or sympathize with their ideals.

Imagine the Democrats were running Bernardine Dohrn for the Senate? Wouldn’t THAT would be the flip-side of the GOP running Sharron Angle? WHO is the equivalent to Sharron Angle on the mainstream Left? (There is NO nuance in advocating “Second Amendment remedies! It’s not a statement open to that much wiggle room in the interpretation!)

Make no mistake about it, this is what MORE THAN HALF of the country is hearing when we have to listen to this Tea party bullshit: These folks want MINORITY RULE.

They will not get it, obviously, without violence.

Posted by Richard Metzger
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01.16.2011
02:59 pm
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Sarah Palin will never win an Oscar, that’s for sure
01.12.2011
10:50 am
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Take a moment to be utterly flabbergasted at how inappropriate and opportunistic Sarah Palin’s self-serving “blood libel” statement is regarding her supposed influence on the AZ shooter, Jared Loughner…

I know people are dumb, especially the vast majority of folks who call themselves Republicans, but they can’t be that dumb (or can they?) to think she’s doing anything more than “acting” statesmanlike or pretending to give a shit – especially when she’s such a bad fucking actor. The whole thing’s so amateurish. Her speech is just rambling nonsense. And they couldn’t even work out how to stop the teleprompter reflecting in her glasses. Whenever she even attempts empathy, she comes across like a glove puppet. An inarticulate glove puppet, at that.

She can’t even say “God bless America” as if she means it! Those three words are the cornerstone of her schtick!
 

 
Thank you Chris Campion of Berlin, Germany!

Posted by Richard Metzger
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01.12.2011
10:50 am
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The Rapture’s been pending for quite some time now, hasn’t it?
01.11.2011
02:58 pm
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“There will be milk deliveries unmade. Transportation services will be greatly impaired by the absence of Christian motormen… House work will be left undone by Christian maids going to a higher realm.”

Yup, “The Rapture” was imminent even back in 1941, when this short film was made. The film’s vintage makes a belief in the Rapture in 2011 seem especially silly. Because it is.

Quite a bit of this film appears in Diane Keaton’s fab Heaven documentary.
 

 
Via American Jesus

 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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01.11.2011
02:58 pm
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Rev. Fred Phelps on the AZ tragedy: ‘Thank God for the violent shooter’
01.10.2011
05:37 pm
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You knew it was coming. Rev. Fred Phelps has made a statement about the shooting in Arizona and he says “Thank God for the violent shooter.” Appointed by God himself! Repent or perish! Yawn. (But God spared the Phelps family from a similar fate?)

The Phelps family just can’t seem to help themselves, can they? The berserk “us vs. everyone else in the entire world” attitude of the Phelps clan is impressive, isn’t it? I mean how unlikely is it that there would be so few defectors from their insane ranks? You’d think that a need to procreate outside of their gene pool alone would prompt one of them to wake up at some point or another to the fact that 99.9% of anyone who’s every been exposed to them would be happy to piss on their graves one day.

Fascinating that there is a genetic component to all of this insanity, though, I must say. This is one crazy, fucked up family.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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01.10.2011
05:37 pm
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U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is on Sarah Palin’s hit list
01.08.2011
02:51 pm
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This shit isn’t cute, never was. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) and at least 15 others were shot at point blank range today. Is it a coincidence that she happens to be in Sarah Palin’s cross-hairs ?

Twenty House Dems from districts that McCain carried in 2008 voted for the health care bill, and Sarah Palin has a target on every single one.

The targets were released on the six month anniversary of Obamacare, and include a lot of familiar names such as John Boccieri (OH), Chris Carney (P N) Gabrielle Giffords (AZ) and Ann Kirpatrick (AZ). The site invites donations, social networking, and the unbeatable Sarah love that has led to a 26:11 win/loss record of candidates in GOP primaries. Granted, some of those were in safe districts, but she’s also pulled off massive upsets that probably outshadow her less successful picks.

Regardless, this site should go a long way towards knocking off the politicians who put their party affiliation ahead of their constituent’s demands. It was announced via a tweet from SarahPalinUSA: “Lies, Damned Lies – Obamacare 6 Months Later; It’s Time to Take Back the 20!”

tweet from Palin: “Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!” Pls see my Facebook page.”

Metaphor, no more…

 
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via Tbogg@FDL

 

Posted by Brad Laner
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01.08.2011
02:51 pm
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Sad images of American airport security theater
01.06.2011
03:43 pm
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A handful of images of the current goings-on in the airports of America. This is where we’re at, saw it for myself while traveling over the holidays. How do these pictures make you feel? It seems almost too obvious to state that I find this security theater horrifying and deeply depressing. We’re too stupid to take care of our sick and poor and we’re too stupid to be bothered by random public humiliation. What’s next?
 
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More groping of the elderly, the infirm, children and nuns after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Brad Laner
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01.06.2011
03:43 pm
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