[Peace-discuss] Matt Taibbi: Tea Party Parasites

Wed Oct 20 09:39:20 CDT 2010

Mort,

In short, the Democratic Party supports the same corporate system as the 
Republican Party. As long as "well-meaning" "progressives" continue to 
rationalize voting for the Democrats--especially when they are already in power 
and are clear about their intentions--then there's really no point in 
"progressives" calling themselves anything but liberals, Democrats, or whatever. 
Unless a Democrat openly runs in opposition to the established Democratic Party 
views--including on Israel--I don't see the point in voting for him or her 
(including Gill). Even if they pay lip service to "progressive" views, it's 
clear that legislation supported by the party leadership will in no way reflect 
those views. NOT ONE bit of legislation proposed by Obama remotely be described 
as challenging the corporate status quo. Indeed, the opposite.

Other than that, I think that we can do better than guilt by association on this 
list--although the point honestly is that Democrats are the ones that are guilty 
by association, unless they sincerely assert otherwise (I'm not sure that 
Feingold, for example, does). Like anyone, my views reflect those from whom I 
learn, and my own understanding. The article on ZNet is, I think, an original 
contribution in relation to the current discourse. The commenter you refer to, 
Katie, simply asserts that she is "progressive." I find it really banal. What 
does that mean? I'm trying to refer to what the original Progressives thought 
during the Progressive Era when there was even a Progressive Party. It's not a 
pretty sight. It helped us "progress" to internationalism, corporatism, etc.

DG

________________________________
From: Brussel Morton K. <mkbrussel at comcast.net>
To: David Green <davegreen84 at yahoo.com>
Cc: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com; Peace Discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Sent: Tue, October 19, 2010 10:16:43 PM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Matt Taibbi: Tea Party Parasites

David, 

You and your increasingly joined-at-the-hip partner Carl Estabrook are becoming 
increasingly pathological. What is lacking in both of your contributions is any 
sense of nuance or good sense. There is a kind of bitterness apparent (to me) 
which goes beyond the issues discussed. I don't know from where it comes. 

Not all Democrats support Obama's foreign or even domestic policies, so 
vituperation of Democrats (implying all who are so associated), is ill-placed. 
They are not all in lockstep with Obama, although many are. There are varieties 
of Democrats running for office.There are more 
"anti-war-anti-occupation-anti-militarism-anti-corporatism types having Democrat 
monikers than Republican. Yet that fact is ignored as being irrelevant. It is as 
if we should all forget what transpired under Bush II . Yes, Bush was/is a 
bogeyman for progressives. I would venture to say that there are even worse 
types than Obama. At least he's for woman's choice to determine her maternity. 
Estabrook's tirades against all Democrats, against whom he emotes with 
un-Christian(?) virulence, and his and your apologetics for the Tea Party 
(rationalized as a Democratic conspiracy to take one's attention away from the 
evils of the Obama administration and Democratic congress), a proto-fascistic 
phenomenon promoted by the most reactionary elements, is to me malevolent.

What is to be done? Not easy to say. Unfortunately, the system is cooked so 
there are no immediately effective alternatives, no valid democracy, no real 
choice, no intelligent informed rising up of the masses. See the discussion on 
the UFPJ list-serve for an airing of all this. Without revolution, which is not 
around the corner, radical progressive change does not now appear possible given 
the powers that be. However, a change that may occur after 2010 or 2012 may 
indeed be radical, indeed revolutionary, but perhaps not the way many of us 
want. 

As for your article in ZNet, I am in sympathy with what Katie wrote in response, 
and I have added my own harsh comment. I am not afraid to call myself 
progressive or even liberal, even if those words and what they imply are 
anathema to Carl and you.  

--Mort

On Oct 19, 2010, at 8:47 AM, David Green wrote:

Bob, this just really shocks me, I guess. Paul's hypocrisy is allegedly to take 
money from the government whiling being "anti-government." The hypocrisy of the 
"democratically-elected" Democrats is to condescend to people who are "mad as 
hell" (for lots of good reasons, although not often clearly articulated), and 
then drop bombs on Pakistan and support Israel's behavior, etc. I'll take the 
hypocrisy of "the people" any day, even someone is problematic as Rand Paul. For 
you to play the McVeigh card is dishonest and utterly reprehensible. How did you 
feel about the government dropping a bomb in Waco?
>
>David
>
>
>
>
________________________________
From: Robert Naiman <naiman.uiuc at gmail.com>
>To: E.Wayne Johnson <ewj at pigs.ag>
>Cc: Peace-discuss List <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
>Sent: Tue, October 19, 2010 8:28:18 AM
>Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Matt Taibbi: Tea Party Parasites
>
>Cheap shot? It is an essential fact to understand. Someone who is a
>darling of the "anti-government" Tea Party Right is taking government
>money as a major source of their income. This is a key fact that
>people should know in evaluating whether the Tea Party offers a
>political alternative that progressives should have sympathy for.
>
>Most people who count themselves progressive could never agree to your
>claim that just because a group of people are "mad as hell about the
>status quo" we should count ourselves among their number. Timothy
>McVeigh was "mad as hell about the status quo." In a showdown between
>the fellow travelers of Timothy McVeigh and the democratically-elected
>government, I will be on the side of the democratically-elected
>government.
>
>On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 9:49 PM, E.Wayne Johnson <ewj at pigs.ag> wrote:
>> I like the way that Matt Taibbi points out many ills in the society
>> generally without compromise.
>>
>> Matt Taibbi rightly points out the hypocrisy, and I am not a big fan
>> of Rand Paul (he ain't Ron), it is a pretty cheap shot saying that an eye
>> doctor
>> has a blind spot in his ideology because he treats patients who are
>> funded by government programs.
>>
>> The Tea Party is a highly diverse group of people who are mad as hell about
>> the status quo.
>>
>> We all ought to be Tea Partiers on that account.
>>
>> The Powers That Be in both parties hate and fear the Tea Party.  .
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Naiman" <naiman.uiuc at gmail.com>
>> To: "Peace-discuss List" <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
>> Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 10:43 PM
>> Subject: [Peace-discuss] Matt Taibbi: Tea Party Parasites
>>
>>
>> http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/matt-taibbi/blogs/TaibbiData_May2010/218982/83512
>>
>>
>> October 12, 2010 4:16 P.M. EDT | By Matt Taibbi
>>
>> More Tea Party Hilarity
>>
>> Quelle surprise! So it turns out that one after another of the Tea
>> Party candidates is in one way or another mooching off the government.
>> The latest series of hilarious disclosures center around Alaska’s
>> GI-Joe-bearded windbag Senatorial candidate, Joe Miller, who appears
>> to have run virtually the entire gamut of government aid en route to
>> becoming a staunch, fist-shaking opponent of the welfare state.
>>
>> Miller’s pomposity and piety with regard to government aid programs
>> has all along been in line with the usual screechingly hysterical
>> self-righteousness Tea Party candidates bring to such matters, railing
>> against Obamacare and other “entitlement” programs and promising to
>> end the “welfare state.” That makes it all the more delicious now that
>> he and his family have been exposed for taking state medical aid,
>> unemployment insurance, farm subsidies, hell, even for using state
>> equipment to run a private political campaign.
>>
>> Back in June, Miller was saying this about his Republican primary
>> opponent Lisa Murkowski, blasting her for supporting a state health
>> care program:
>>
>> As you are aware, just last week the Anchorage Daily News reported
>> that the Denali KidCare Program funded 662 abortions last year.
>> Senator Murkowski has been a champion of this program, voting against
>> the majority of her Republican colleagues for CHIPRA (HR 2) in January
>> of 2009.
>>
>> Of course it now turns out that back in the Nineties, Miller himself
>> and his three children (with one on the way; he now has eight) were at
>> one point receiving assistance via a program almost exactly like the
>> Denali KidCare program, which is only for low-income earners. Various
>> reports note that Miller received this assistance after he’d bought a
>> house and been hired by a prestigious law firm; he also got low-income
>> hunting and fishing licenses during that time. It’s also come out that
>> he received some $7,000 in farm subsidies and that his wife received
>> unemployment insurance benefits.
>>
>> So now of course Miller, who said he and his family “absolutely” used
>> Alaska’s state medical program, is backtracking and saying that he’s
>> not against the modern Denali Kidcare program, only against the
>> “expansion” of it. But even more telling was his longer answer about
>> the program, as reported in the Anchorage Daily News:
>>
>> Miller said what he's advocating is complete state control of the
>> programs. "That doesn't mean we cut off the programs. That is
>> ultimately a state decision. And I think there is a use; in fact the
>> most effective use is probably those programs that help transition the
>> populations from more of a situation of dependency" to one where they
>> can be economically independent, Miller said.
>>
>> You see, when a nice white lawyer with a GI Joe beard uses state aid
>> to help him through tough times and get over the hump – so that he can
>> go from having three little future Medicare-collecting Republican
>> children to eight little future Medicare-collecting Republican
>> children – that’s a good solid use of government aid, because what
>> we’re doing is helping someone “transition” from dependency to
>> economic independence.
>>
>> This of course is different from the way other, less GI-Joe-looking
>> people use government aid, i.e. as a permanent crutch that helps
>> genetically lazy and ambitionless parasites mooch off of rich white
>> taxpayers instead of getting real jobs.
>>
>> I can’t even tell you how many people I interviewed at Tea Party
>> events who came up with one version or another of the Joe Miller
>> defense. Yes, I’m on Medicare, but… I needed it! It’s those other
>> people who don’t need it who are the problem!
>>
>> Or: Yes, it’s true, I retired from the police/military/DPW at 54 and
>> am on a fat government pension that you and your kids are going to be
>> paying for for the next forty years, while I sit in my plywood-paneled
>> living room in Florida watching Fox News, gobbling Medicare-funded
>> prescription medications, and railing against welfare queens. But I
>> worked hard for those bennies! Not like those other people!
>>
>> This whole concept of “good welfare” and “bad welfare” is at the heart
>> of the Tea Party ideology, and it’s something that is believed
>> implicitly across the line. It’s why so many of their political
>> champions, like Miller, and sniveling Kentucky rich kid Rand Paul (a
>> doctor whose patient base is 50% state insured), and Nevada “crazy
>> juice” Senate candidate Sharron Angle (who’s covered by husband Ted’s
>> Federal Employee Health Plan insurance), are so completely
>> unapologetic about taking state aid with one hand and jacking off
>> angry pseudo-libertarian mobs with the other.
>>
>> They genuinely don’t see the contradiction, much in the same way that
>> some Wall Street people genuinely can’t see the problem with their
>> company, say, taking $13 billion in bonuses in the same year that they
>> accepted $13 billion in state bailouts. You wave a pitchfork at them
>> with little post-its of the relevant figures taped to the ends, and
>> ask them to confess – and they can’t, because they literally don’t see
>> your point.
>>
>> After all, these bankers will protest, we needed to pay out those
>> billions in bonuses to stay competitive! It’s not like we’re just
>> taking the money willy-nilly, like those dreadful people in ratty army
>> coats who shop with food stamps in the bodega downstairs!
>>
>> The rationalization continues: If I can’t help my department heads buy
>> Porsches, they say, the whole system collapses, and the system is
>> what’s important. It’s not like simply handing out money to people who
>> can’t pay their mortgages, which of course is real waste. As Berkshire
>> Hathaway investment titan Charles Munger put it, it’s those people who
>> have to “suck it in and cope.” But bailouts for companies like the
>> ones Munger invests in, like Wells Fargo and Goldman, that’s
>> preserving the system – and we should all “thank God” for that kind of
>> state aid.
>>
>> The reason these arguments are inherently ridiculous is that if you
>> live in America, you have a pretty good chance of being in some way or
>> another dependent upon government aid. Whether it’s aerospace or
>> military contracting or farm subsidies or grants in academia, medicine
>> or the arts… most of us are in some way living off of this spending,
>> directly or indirectly. Defense spending in particular has been a
>> primary engine of American capitalism for more than half a century
>> now. And government subsidies of agriculture and financial services
>> have begun to rival defense largesse.
>>
>> All of which would normally make it unfair for any journalist to go
>> after a politician for taking government aid. After all, pretty much
>> everybody has in some way or another lived off the government in his
>> life – whether by working in a firm that takes government contracts,
>> or attending a state school, or getting into a college thanks to
>> affirmative action programs, or serving in the military or law
>> enforcement, or collecting Medicare or food stamps or unemployment.
>>
>> But these Tea Partyers make themselves fair game with their
>> preposterous absolutist stance on government. If you call Obamacare
>> radical socialism and unemployment insurance a parasitic welfare state
>> program—well, guess what, asshole, you’re going to get rung up when we
>> find out you had your whole family living off state medical aid and
>> farm subsidies.
>>
>> Even beyond that, though, is the way that Tea Party candidates and
>> activists demonize the consumers of “entitlement” programs, branding
>> them as lazy parasites who are taking from hard-working folk by
>> supporting “redistributionist” politicians. You probably heard about
>> the story of David Jungerman, the Kansas farmer who created a
>> billboard that read as follows:
>>
>> ARE YOU A PRODUCER OR A PARASITE?
>>
>> DEMOCRATS – THE PARTY OF PARASITES
>>
>> Of course it now turns out that Jungerman himself took over a million
>> dollars in farm subsidies since 1995.  When asked about the apparently
>> contradiction, Jungerman offered the Miller defense:
>>
>> “That’s just my money coming back to me,” Jungerman, 72, said Monday.
>> “I pay a lot in taxes. I’m not a parasite.”
>>
>> In Tea Party legend the “parasites” would I suppose be people who
>> don’t pay taxes, or pay few taxes, and receive government support in
>> excess of what they pay. Maybe they mean the 39-odd million Americans
>> (about 1 in 8) who are now receiving food stamps. In the Hobbesian
>> jungle the Tea Partyers would prefer we all live in, it’s true, most
>> of those 39 million people (including the just under 50% of all
>> children, and 90% of black children, who will at some point in their
>> lives eat a meal bought with food stamps) would indeed be sucking wind
>> instead of eating cheese.
>>
>> These are the parasites they’re probably talking about. You know,
>> children. Meanwhile, a slick grownup yuppie politician with a GI Joe
>> beard and a breeder wife and eight kids, leeching off the state at
>> every turn and gunning for a U.S. Senate salary and pension on an
>> anti-welfare platform, he’s just a hardworking citizen who simply
>> needed a lift during a “transitional” period. Man, did they break the
>> mold when they made these assholes.
>>
>> --
>> Robert Naiman
>> Policy Director
>> Just Foreign Policy
>> www.justforeignpolicy.org
>> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
>>
>> Urge Congress to Support a Timetable for Military Withdrawal from
>> Afghanistan
>> http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/feingold-mcgovern
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>
>
>
>-- 
>Robert Naiman
>Policy Director
>Just Foreign Policy
>www.justforeignpolicy.org
>naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
>
>Urge Congress to Support a Timetable for Military Withdrawal from Afghanistan
>http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/feingold-mcgovern
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