[Peace-discuss] Bill Blum asks T-Party questions:

Fri Dec 3 11:40:59 CST 2010

It's depressing to see the normally insightful Blum buy the Democratic party's 
mendacious construction of the tea-party.

Blum seems not to notice that the tea partiers are quite right to blame the 
president and his policies because those policies are in support of the "the 
recklessness and greed of Wall Street, the banks, and other financial corporations."

Here's a far better account:

"...the Tea Party movement itself is maybe 15, 20 percent of the electorate. 
It’s relatively affluent, white, nativist. You know, it has rather traditional 
nativist streaks to it. But what is much more important, I think, is its 
outrage. I mean, over half the population says they more or less support it or 
support its message. And what people are thinking is extremely interesting. I 
mean, overwhelmingly, polls reveal that people are extremely bitter, angry, 
hostile, opposed to everything.
     "The primary cause undoubtedly is the economic disaster. It’s not just a 
financial catastrophe, it’s an economic disaster. I mean, in manufacturing 
industry, for example, unemployment levels are at the level of the Great 
Depression. And unlike the Great Depression, those jobs are not coming back. 
U.S. owners and managers have long ago made the decision that they can make more 
profit with complicated financial deals than by production. So, finance—this 
goes back to the '70s, mainly Reagan escalated it, and onward—Clinton, too. The 
economy has been financialized. Financial institutions have grown enormously in 
their share of corporate profits. It may be something like a third or something 
like that today. At the same time, correspondingly, production has been 
exported. So you buy some electronic device from China. China is an assembly 
plant for a Northeast Asian production center. The parts and components come 
from the more advanced countries, and from the United States, and the 
technology. So, yes, that’s a cheap place to assemble things, sell them back 
here. And it's, you know, rather similar in Mexico, Vietnam and so on. That’s 
the way to make profits.
     "It destroys the society here, but that’s not the concern of the ownership 
class and the managerial class. Their concern is profit. That’s what drives the 
economy. And the rest of it is a fallout. People are extremely bitter about it 
but don’t seem to understand it. So, the same people who are a majority, who say 
that Wall Street is to blame for the current crisis, are voting Republican. Both 
parties are deep in the pockets of Wall Street, but the Republicans much more so 
than the Democrats. And the same is true on issue after issue. So the antagonism 
to everyone is extremely high. Actually, antagonism—they don’t like—population 
doesn’t like Democrats, but they hate Republicans even more. They’re against big 
business. They’re against government. They’re against Congress. They’re against 
science."

On 12/2/10 11:32 PM, Brussel Morton K. wrote:
>  To Libertarians and their defenders:
>
>
>  Some questions to ask our quaint little Teaparty friends
>
>  The Teaparty folks never tire of calling for "smaller government".
>  How sweet. Most other Republicans repeat the same mantra /ad nauseam/
>  as well, as do many liberals (not to be confused with progressives).
>  So for all these individuals I have some questions:
>
>  * When there's a plane crash the government sends investigators to
>  the crash site to try to determine the cause of the accident; this is
>  information that can be used to make air travel safer. But it's
>  really BIG GOVERNMENT, forcing the airlines to fully cooperate,
>  provide all relevant information, secrecy is not permitted, and make
>  changes or face severe penalties. Do you think the government should
>  stop doing this? * Following this year's BP oil spill do you think
>  the government was right to bully and threaten the company for an
>  explanation and solution for the catastrophe, or should it have been
>  "hands off" for the sake of small government? * Following a major
>  earthquake there's usually a cry from many quarters: Stores should
>  not be raising prices for basic necessities like water, generators,
>  batteries, tree-removal services, diapers, etc. More grievances soon
>  arise because landlords raise rents on vacant apartments after many
>  dwellings in the city have been rendered uninhabitable. How dare they
>  do that? people wail. Following the 1994 earthquake in Los Angeles
>  the California Assembly proceeded to make it a crime for merchants to
>  increase prices for vital goods and services by more than ten percent
>  after a natural disaster.^11
>  <http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer88.html#note-11> Following the
>  destruction caused by Hurricane Isabel in September 2003, the
>  governor and attorney general of Virginia called on the legislature
>  to pass the state's first anti-price-gouging law after receiving
>  about 100 complaints from residents. North Carolina had enacted an
>  anti-gouging law just shortly before.^12
>  <http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer88.html#note-12> Does such blatant
>  big-government interference in our God-given Supply-and-Demand system
>  bother you? Do you think that our legislators should simply allow
>  "the magic of the marketplace" to do its magic? * Do you think that
>  the government should continue waging war against what they call
>  "terrorists" abroad, since there's no bigger or more expensive
>  big-government action than this? * Do you think the government should
>  continue with its electronic strip searches and body feel-ups at
>  airports or should we allow the risk of bombs being brought on board
>  airplanes? (Or — as an alternative to either — do you think the
>  government should cease its bombing, invading, occupying,
>  overthrowing, killing and torturing around the world so as to put an
>  end to its creating anti-American terrorists?) * If your bank fails —
>  and hundreds have done so in recent years — are you willing to accept
>  the loss of your life's savings? Or are you thankful that big, big
>  government steps in, takes over the bank, and protects every penny of
>  your savings? * Do you think that big government — federal, state or
>  local — should stop haranguing the citizenry about the environment:
>  recycling, air pollution, water pollution, soil runoff, etc., etc.,
>  or that people should simply be allowed to do what is most convenient
>  for them, their families, and their businesses? * Do you think that
>  manufacturers should have the right to run their factories à la a
>  sweatshop in a Bangkok alley 50 years ago or that big government
>  should throw its weight around to assure modern working conditions,
>  with worker health and safety standards? * When a prescription drug
>  starts to kill or harm more and more people, who should decide when
>  to pull it off the market: Big Government or the drug's
>  manufacturer? * Are you glad that food packages list the details of
>  ingredients and nutrition? Who do you think is responsible for that?
>  * A huge number of Americans would be facing serious hunger if not
>  for their food stamps; more than 40 million receive them. Where do
>  you think food stamps come from? No, not from Sarah Palin. * And
>  where, pray tell, do you think unemployment insurance, housing
>  subsidies, and Medicare come from? (There were of course, lord help
>  us, the Teaparty signs: "Keep your government hands off my
>  Medicare,"^13 <http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer88.html#note-13>
>  while simultaneously ridiculing Obama's push for "socialized
>  medicine".) Some of you would probably rather see widespread hunger,
>  poverty, homelessness, and illness in America than have people
>  dependent upon the BigGovernmentMonster. * Do you think that big
>  government is no match for the private sector in efficiently getting
>  large and important projects done? Big government in the United
>  States has created great dams, marvelous national parks, an
>  interstate highway system, the peace corps, social security, the
>  National Institutes of Health, and the Smithsonian Institution; it's
>  also landed men on the moon, wiped out polio, and built up an
>  incredible military machine (ignoring for the moment what it's used
>  for), and much more. * Do you know that twice in recent years the
>  federal government undertook major studies of many thousands of
>  federal jobs to determine whether they could be done more efficiently
>  by private contractors? On one occasion the federal employees won
>  more than 80% of the time; on the other occasion 91%. Both studies
>  took place under the Bush administration, which was hoping for
>  different results. ^14
>  <http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer88.html#note-14>
>
>  We have to remind the American people of what they once knew but seem
>  to have forgotten: that they don't want BIG government, or SMALL
>  government; they don't want MORE government, or LESS government; they
>  want government ON THEIR SIDE.
>
>  I think the Teapartyers are motivated primarily by two factors: 1)
>  they don't have the intellectual competence or ideological
>  independence to place the blame for the sick economy where it
>  belongs: the recklessness and greed of Wall Street, the banks, and
>  other financial corporations; and so they blame the president and his
>  "socialist" policies; 2) the president is black.
>
>  *Mark Brzezinski, son of Zbigniew, was a post-Cold War Fulbright
>  Scholar in Poland: "I asked my students to define democracy.
>  Expecting a discussion on individual liberties and authentically
>  elected institutions, I was surprised to hear my students respond
>  that to them, democracy means a government obligation to maintain a
>  certain standard of living and to provide health care, education and
>  housing for all. In other words, socialism." *^*15*
>  <http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer88.html#note-15>
>
>
>  http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer88.html
>
>
>
>  _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing
>  list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>  http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20101203/20358ac2/attachment-0001.html>