The Tea Party Is Over - The conspiracy to kill a grass roots political movement

reply to post by Janky Red


Bull#. The two party devil is what espouses the do not vote third party. The only way to stop them is to remove their power. Period.

What you say about stirring the pot is the misnomer. So, what do you want to do, create another party, another movement, another whatever?

Both parties play everyone against the middle.

Hell, in one town, they would not allow people to have elections WITHOUT having the parties on the ballot!

We have to destroy BOTH parties. I could care less what others think. If you honestly feel that either party is different in the whole scheme of things, you would be WRONG.

Who has the power? The candidates/representatives or the PARTIES?

Who decides on the candidate to run? You got it, the party.

Who is behind BOTH parties? The banks and the corporations.

So sorry, if there is to be REAL CHANGE in this country, it is going to come from outside the TWO PARTY SNAKE FROM HELL!

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


You did not think the Republican Party was going to let their most loyal voting base go, did you? They started up their own "grass roots" organizations that got funded through the big corporations to stop any type of competition to the huge health insurance behemoths.

I was also surprised that the grass roots Tea Party movement did not protest the Supreme Court Ruling allowing unlimited corporate and union funding for their political hacks. They basically took the decisions away from the people as a corporation can spend millions of dollars to get their people elected.

Grass roots means the people, not corporations.

If one wants change, join the Libertarian, Green or other Third Parties out there. One knows the above parties will never receive corporate funding.

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
And, to add, the "reform movement" needs ONE crystalizing point of focus...

I would suggest the founding ideals of this country. The Constitution and bill of rights. That's definitely something I could get behind.

I think that's still too nebulous for most people, and certainly open to interpretation depending on a person's political leanings, education, or motivations.

Here's one idea, that could change everything in one fell-swoop: incumbent politicians may not run a reelection campaign. If they're unable to retain their office on the merits of the work they've done, then the voters replace them.

Digest that thought. Think about it. And consider the sweeping changes that one alteration would make to the entire system.

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord

Originally posted by ogbert
Just because these people do not have a leader to wrap around does not mean that they have no resolve and do not add to the momentum that has taken root since the sixties and is flourishing.

But without a ballsy leadership with decisive conviction, any movement can easily be usurped and corrupted. Such as what we're now seeing with the "Tea Party," and in what we've seen with "9/11 Truth."

It's the nature of the beast, and while it "feels" contrary to a person's individual altruistic tendencies, it's the only way to ensure the movement remains pure to it's ideals.

I think this post illustrates two ideological flaws. The first is the mistake of confusing group dynamics with social movements. The Civil Rights Movement was a social movement that had many iconic leaders such as, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Medgar Evers, and the Arkansas Nine. King was the leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Malcolm X was a leader in the black Muslim group, Evers a leader of the NAACP, and Rosa Parks was simply a principled individual who stood tall and demanded to be counted as equal, she led no group, was just a single person who rose to iconic leadership within a movement that was forged by groups such as, the NAACP, the ACLU, Congress of Racial Equality, (CORE, founded in 1942), and spawning the SCLC, SNCC, and various other groups, all of which had leaders.

Group dynamics is the mechanics of any group and they can fall into several categories, where movements are less driven by agenda's and specific goals and fueled more by an underlying tension in the political environment, and will grow as that tension heats up, boiling into a full blown movement once that tension has reached its boiling point, and no amount of intervention by the so called "elites", or "TPTB" will stop the tidal wave of frustration and willful intent of people fed up with the status quo. All revolutions are cyclical, hence the name revolution, and all revolutions can be summed up as coming down to the haves and the have not's, and when the have's have most, while the have not's have very little, revolution will surely follow, and a revolution is a movement. The Civil Rights Movement was a revolution, and it was fought relatively peacefully.

The second flaw in your ideology is the insistence that groups are somehow capable of altruistic behavior. In fairness, perhaps you are lamenting that groups are not adequately equipped to act altruistically, and if you are, I would certainly agree. Groups are by nature, artificial entities formed to achieve the selfish goals of its members. Each member joins a group to further their own interest and will produce as a group based on the belief that production will strengthen a group that will in turn further their own self interests. This is the nature of groups.

Movements, on the other hand, could be argued as being, for lack of a better term, altruistic, as they are more germane to the social needs on a whole, and if Aristotle is correct and all things aim for the greater good, then movements aim for that good in a more general sense, just as the Tea Party Movement has been doing, while groups within that movement operate on a more specific aspect of the movement concerned only with the selfish interests of its members. Each group, acting selfishly, cooperating with each other to achieve a greater good, can then affect an outcome that may be perceived as altruistic, such as Rosa Parks sacrificing the stability of her and her husbands life in order to stand on principle, or King, X, or Evers' sacrificing their lives for the cause, but it is doubtful that Parks set out to sacrifice anything, and simply did what was necessary, at the time, and it is even harder to believe that King, X, Evers and countless others set out to be assassinated in the spirit of altruism.

Altruism is an ideal not practical in human behavior as it demands sacrifice, which by definition is the exchange of something of value for something of a lesser value, which is not at all good business. Groups who survive, do so because they had a leader able to steer the group away from sacrificial events, and into the realm of influence and prosperity. Movements, on the other hand are filled with leaders who rise and fall, martyrs, and an army of grass roots activists who act because they are compelled to rebel against the tyranny of the status quo. George Washington Did not win the American Revolution by himself, and while he was the leader of a Continental Army, there were more than just army regulars fighting in that Revolution, and Washington was merely the leader of a group, the Revolution itself, was a movement filled with other groups, and other leaders, but most importantly backed by enough individuals to make a difference.

It is pointless to employ a strategy of altruism when attempting to secure an objective. Whatever altruism may come from achieving ones objective should merely be the result of an objective achieved and not the method by which to get there. One could not predict the altruistic outcome of any desired objective, as the choice of personal sacrifice is always a personal choice, and sometimes not a choice at all, but simply the consequence of an action or inaction. It would have been counterproductive and defeatist to have predicted the assassination of King, as such a prediction would have done nothing at all for a movement that faltered many times throughout its history.

That assassination of King made him a martyr to the cause of Civil Rights, and he was Sainted and his sacrifice can be perceived as altruistic, but it does no justice at all to the man Martin Luther King, to assume that he did not act in his personal best interest, and hold high regard for himself, and his immediate family. This sacrifice was not a positive event that gave the movement a strategic higher ground, it was a devastating event that severely affected the King family and the movement as a whole. Even so, the movement was not leaderless, and new leaders rose, while fallen leaders served to symbolize the individual resolve of a movement that would not quit.

The media was derisive of the Civil Rights movement when it first gained attention, and even before it began, (technically 1957 to 1968), with organizations like CORE, the ACLU, the NAACP, and even the abolitionists movement, where the leader of a group, the Republican Party, rose to lead that movement as President Abraham Lincoln. When Lincoln was assassinated, the movement did not end, and eventually morphed into what became the Civil Rights movement.

I guess my point is that group dynamics require a leader, movements will find their leaders as those groups naturally aligned with the movement will provide dynamic and charismatic leaders who will in some fashion serve as a symbolic icon of that movement. They are not manufactured, they are made of circumstance, wisdom and resolve, and they rise up when necessary to helm the mantle of leadership, but in no way are they inextricably tied to the victory of the movement itself. Those who survive any violent resistance continue to lead, while those who are felled by such violence remain iconic and beloved, and serve as spiritual guides for the grass roots movements where individuals act withing groups or independently, almost always motivated by their own self interests, to achieve their stated goals.

There is nothing wrong with acting in ones own interest, and if we don't have a chief concern for our own interest then just who the hell will? Part of acting in our own best interest requires the understanding that we are all interconnected and dependent to some degree upon each other. Thus, any actions we take to help others, is in itself a selfish goal, where efforts to strengthen another persons longevity and prosperity better assures your own.

Altruism is a false ideology where words incomprehensible to any species such as selflessness, invade the lexicon to describe an ideology that prioritizes a collective interest over individual interests. It is a collective that demands sacrifice of individuals in order to be a member. In reality, even card carrying members of the Altruist club will hide behind the veil of philanthropy, using the vast amounts of wealth at their disposal to fund projects with the goal of affecting the greater good, but what sacrifice has been made of a multi-millionaire or billionaire who creates a foundation or trust with wealth he has the ability to dispose of? Was it a sacrifice? Were there no selfish intents at all when creating these foundations or trusts? I think the philanthropist is deserving of respect and much thanks, but to be hailed as an altruist? I think not.



[edit on 3-4-2010 by Jean Paul Zodeaux]

It saddens me how easily, habitually, often, and reproducibly both ends of the political spectrum have been successful in their infiltration, undermining, hijacking, and ultimate dismantling, of any well-meaning political or social movement for positive change in our nation's history.

I am averse to both major parties, and most avowed political ideologies in general. Nevertheless, I can't say that I entirely disagreed with the initial aims of the early form of the Tea Party. How quickly its own political footprint, as well as its portrayal in the media, were morphed and transmuted into something that both major parties and others with different interests and agendas could easily manipulate, came as another in a long, painful series of disillusionments and disappointments in my observance of politics in America.

This was not the first time that this has happened, and I sincerely doubt that it will be the last. How adept TPTB (whatever that term means to you personally, be it mundane or more esoteric) have become and remain at accomplishing this never ceases to alarm me.

Originally posted by AceWombat04How adept TPTB (whatever that term means to you personally, be it mundane or more esoteric) have become and remain at accomplishing this never ceases to alarm me.

Read Sun Tzu, Machiavelli and the 36 Chinese stratagems.

I keep saying it but between the three texts you can see everything they're doing.

reply to post by SpartanKingLeonidas

Assimilation was a part of the strategy of this though.

Don't you get it?

If they cannot divide and conquer, they assimilate, or they align with the similar idea and like-minded people, who quit whichever respective party.

The Democrat and Republican parties have had a chokehold on politics for far too long, more like a stranglehold, through asphyxiation sex.

Like I said, if there are two choices, there are no choices.

It is a false paradigm, giving you two choices, guarantees one of two options is picked.

I agree whole heartily with you SKL. I take it a step further by my belief that it is actually a one party system. Alexander Hamilton's Federalist Party. Assimilation is nothing new.

I believe they were absorbed by Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party, and became one powerhouse and then split to assure indefinite political power in the White House.

Lets take a look at the two:

Federalist Party

The Federalist Party was an American political party in the period 1792 to 1816, the era of the First Party System, with remnants lasting into the 1820s. The Federalists controlled the federal government until 1801. The party was formed by Alexander Hamilton, who, during George Washington's first term, built a network of supporters, largely urban bankers and businessmen, to support his fiscal policies.

The Federalist policies called for a national bank and the Jay Treaty to build good relations with Britain.

The Federalists, too wedded to an upper-class style to win the support of ordinary voters, grew weaker every year.

But they did not just go away. They had far too powerful backers to just dissolve.

The Federalists were dominated by businessmen and merchants in the major cities who supported a strong national government. The party was closely linked to the modernizing, urbanizing, financial policies of Alexander Hamilton. These policies included the funding of the national debt and also assumption of state debts incurred during the Revolutionary War, the incorporation of a national Bank of the United States, the support of manufactures and industrial development, and the use of a tariff to fund the Treasury.

And the demonizing begins:

The name "Federalist" came increasingly to be used in political rhetoric as a term of abuse, and was denied by the Whigs, who pointed out that their leader Henry Clay was the Democratic-Republican party leader in Congress during the 1810s.

Sound familiar?

Now the Democratic-Republican Party

The Democratic-Republican Party was founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison around 1792. Supporters usually identified themselves as Republicans,[1] but sometimes as Democrats.[2] The term "Democratic Republican" was also used by contemporaries, but mostly by the party's opponents.[3] It was the dominant political party in the United States from 1800 to 1824, when it split into competing factions.

The party favored states' rights and the primacy of the yeoman farmer over bankers, industrialists, merchants, and other monied interests.

But we know who has the real power.

The party dominated Congress and most state governments; it was weakest in New England. William H. Crawford was the party's last presidential nominee in 1824 as the party broke up into several factions. One faction, led by Andrew Jackson, would become the modern Democratic Party. Another faction, led by Adams and Clay, was known as the National Republicans.

And the media smear campaigns begin:

The new party set up newspapers that made withering critiques of Hamiltonianism, extolled the yeomen farmer, argued for strict construction of the Constitution, supported neutral relations with European powers, and called for stronger state governments than the Federalist Party was proposing.

The new party invented some of the campaign and organizational techniques that were later adopted by the Federalists and became standard American practice. It was especially effective in building a network of newspapers in major cities to broadcast its statements and editorialize its policies. Fisher Ames, a leading Federalist, used the term "Jacobin" to link members of Jefferson's party to the radicals of the French Revolution.

The merging of all the parties:

After 1816 the Federalists had no national influence apart from John Marshall's Supreme Court. They had some local support in New England, New York, eastern Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware. After the collapse of the Democratic-Republican Party in the course of the 1824 presidential election, most surviving Federalists (including Daniel Webster) joined former Democratic-Republicans like Henry Clay to form the National Republican Party, which was soon combined with other anti-Jackson groups to form the Whig Party. Some former Federalists like James Buchanan and Roger B. Taney became Jacksonian Democrats.

And the dissolving of the Democratic-Republican Party:

The Democratic-Republican party split into various factions during the 1824 election, based more on personality than on ideology.

George Washington in his farewell address:

Warns against the party system. "It serves to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration....agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one....against another....it opens the door to foreign influence and corruption...thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another."

earlyamerica.com

Sound familiar?

So in my eyes the Tea Party was a threat to the ONE party system and had to be destroyed from the start.









[edit on 3-4-2010 by timewalker]

I agree the Constitution is open to interpretation. That's what's contributing to a lot of the problems we're having now... I was imagining this group of people who support the Constitution and wondering how that would look in practice, and I realized that many people I disagree and argue with here on ATS also claim to support the Constitution. It's all in the way we interpret it.

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
Here's one idea, that could change everything in one fell-swoop: incumbent politicians may not run a reelection campaign. If they're unable to retain their office on the merits of the work they've done, then the voters replace them.

I love the idea. Let me see if I understand what you're saying. If this new group were to coalesce, its purpose would be to get ONE idea like this to manifest in our current governmental system? And we would do this by ... what you outlined in your first post:

Gather with people who are of a like-mind.
Recognize the fundamental mistake(s) that allowed the demise of the TPM:
Distance yourself from the madness. (I don't know what you mean by this specifically. Drop all partisan association and all attacks on current political leaders?)
Find an inspiring leader.
Then ROAR.

Digest that thought. Think about it. And consider the sweeping changes that one alteration would make to the entire system.

I think it would bring incredible change. Not only would the incumbent have to please the people, but anyone who ran against him would have to prove that he could do a better job, making the incumbent work harder to do a better job, etc. It would have a snowball effect.

I think the Tea Baggers killed itself when numerous members made racist remarks. The republicans are distancing themselves with shifty tactics because FOX publicly supported the last big tea party rally.

ironically, this party let FOX be their talking heads, who riled them up enough to do all the dumb public things the Tea Baggers did in the first place.

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic


No, it is how people mis interpret it to their own means.

You cannot take the words that they mean now into defining the Constitution. You have to take into account the meaning of the words as they were used at the time they were written.

As for the living document, YES, there is a way to modify the Constitution. It is called the Amendment process. That has not been attempted in how many years now. Why is that? Because the people will not allow it.

So, what happens? Well they do several things. Misinterpret, pass legislation that is unConstitutional, set court precedence, have agencies pass legislation, etc etc etc.

Answer me this BH. How is it possible to have the IRS if there is two different Supreme Court decisions that stated, the 16th Amendment gave NO additional taxation power to the federal government?

You cannot, because that is what everyone is beginning to learn. That we have not been following the Constitution for a long time.

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
Democrats will shudder and cry about how terrible it is (that is their role, supply the sniveling spineless), and the media will sensationalize every bit of it over-and-over-and-over again.

The Tea Party and the reactionaries it gathers is entirely an issue of the right-wing. That being Republicans, conservatives, libertarians and what have you.

You're trying to pin some of the blame for the Tea Party's failings on liberals by calling them "sniveling" and "spineless". That's just a reflection of your own beliefs on liberals coming out. They had nothing to do with the lunacy coming from the right. So stop trying to blame them for it.

I disagree...The tea party was not formed by a group of grass roots "free thinkers!" They had a conservative base. Anyone thinking otherwise is just trying to cover its real agenda. The majority of the group was made up of the conservative fringe. They started out accepting the conservative health care lies of death panels, the fear propaganda of losing their private health insurance and killing grandma and grandpa, accepting the conservative claims that all countries who have public health care are all disasters, calling the president a Nazi...I can go on and on. A free thinking organization would not accept lies without doing proper research of the bill and being unbiased in their findings. They wouldn't invite someone like Sarah Palin who represents the fringe right and the uninformed to speak to their members and represent their ideas and agenda. A true "free thinking" organization would accept and represent ideas of all political organizations on those issues that benefit a balanced benefit to the working class, the poor, small business and corporate America. These issues or plans should be based on fact, not propaganda, fear mongering, biased platforms or religious affiliations. They shouldn't claim they have the backing of the majority of Americans when they have a little over of 50% acceptance. And lets not forget how polls include a mish-mash of uninformed and well-informed citizens. It's been proven when people are presented with clear information about a plan instead of sound bites, they will change their decision based upon how much more it will benefit or affect them in a negative way. How many of you have purchase things and have never read the fine print? Only to wish you would have known before hand the negative or positive consequences before signing on the dotted line?

reply to post by SkepticOverlord

Oh, so true. Tea can be a bitter drink. TPTB can sweeten it and make it more acceptable to the masses, thus corrupting the cure to our republics sins. The bitter truth is; saving liberty and honor is not easy and may require extreem sacrifice. Always stand for truth and honor and your soul will be clean.

It is shameful to see the way MSM has handled the TP movement. Although it's nothing new I believe that they are hitting record lows with how far they can sink to quiet the freethinkers. These tactics first took hold for me when Ron Paul was basically cut out of the debate process on national TV and when Michael Badnarik was held for questioning outside a debate. As the masses smarten up the tactics will become bolder and even more shameful. The good thing about this is that you would have to actually be braindead if you can't see the wool that is trying to be pulled over your eyes by the MSM. Their desperate ways only lend credence to the powerful movement of small government and more personal responsibility.

[edit on 3-4-2010 by BrianInRI]

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


PUhlease. The Republican sham called the Tea Party needs to go away before it, and it's Palinites put her into office. We need a real grass roots movement that isn't connected to either party, and outright rejects both Democrat and Republican politicians.

Call me crazy, but I don't think the media is entirely to blame here. People aren't courageous enough to throw themselves on the line as a "leader" or central figure.

Even in this "tea party movement" no one really stepped up to the plate. Everyone was still so concerned with maintaining the staus quo. Not the mainstream pundit driven status-quo but the status quo inside the movement itself.

"We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore".

Yeah okay, but what are we going to do? Who is going to represent us? Who are we and why?

It seemed every tea partier had a different answer to any one of these questions.

No one would stand up and say this is what this movement is about. These are our principle and this set of problems are what we want to address.

Men? Men are weak. There's no strength left in the world of Men. They're scattered, divided, leaderless. -Elrond-

No one would pick up the mantle no one wanted to be branded. Fear and ignorance derailed this movement just as much as the media did.



[edit on 3-4-2010 by constantwonder]

I never understood the reason for political parties. This was the beginning of the end of American people being represented fairly once two parties took over.
We should have more than two fair choices for president, we should have at least 5 or 6 choices or more. The main stream media only loves the two choices because they are both bought and paid for by the same crooks, there is no real choice in this country, it is nothing but an illusion. We will never break free from this unless we get real representatives in offices on all levels.
Only real congressman I seen lately, at least seems honest and real is Ron Paul, but who voted for him last election?? All the lemmings vote for crook A or crook B instead.
I have doubts we can ever break out of the grip of evil until the Lord comes back and takes care of business himself.

The trouble with the two major parties is that they are both in a race for what many of us call "the middle." I think our middle is moving farther and farther right, and has been since the sixties (and largely in response to the changes of that decade) so what we are now calling the middle is actually right of center. There is, as a result, no truly viable left still in existence in this country.

No matter how disparate the two parties seem in election years, the fact is no matter which candidate gets in office he does pretty much the same thing as the other one would do. The one thing thus far that the current Democratic president has done, which a Republican would not have done (and yes, a Republican president would almost certainly have done similar bailouts, perhaps excluding the automakers and including only the financial giants) is get health care legislation through Congress. Even then it is a decidedly Republican version, based largely on recommendations made by Republicans during the Clinton administration and modeled on Republican Governor Mitt Romney's program in Massachusetts.

Because the national drama requires two supposedly different sides, the right has to move even further right in response to what our center-right president has done. The GOP is now split between Republicans and conservatives, and the TPM, before its premature demise, takes (or took) up the space on the right of the right.

I have personally been open to the possibility of aligning with a third party, but so far have not found one. I could be a libertarian, in that I'm in favor of their stance on individual freedoms, but they are, alas, also laissez faire capitalists, which would leave our government still in the hands of the multi-nationals and other corporate behemoths. I also would like to avoid paying taxes and escape the individual mandate in the health care bill, but I am not convinced that this country could really run without tax revenues.

In summary, we now have the right vs. the further right, not even a real right/left divide, so actually we don't have that much to fight about. We are in about as much danger of becoming a truly socialist nation as we are in danger of real anarchy or fascism, but that doesn't keep us from being afraid of one or the other.

BTW: I've been on ATS for about two and a half years, and still haven't figured out what TPTB stands for. Could somebody kindly enlighten me?

Originally posted by Tiger5
Well we should draw inspiration from ( Don't choke) the russian revolution and the black panther party which were both heavily infiltrated almost from the inception but both made seismic changes to their respective societies. I do have faith that we the ordinary working people can change the system.

Without a grassroots movement 99% of the population is completely screwed by TPTB.

[edit on 3-4-2010 by Tiger5]

sorry to be a buzz kill but the implosion of the black panther party caused by the FBI sending hate mail from the east coast to the west and vice versa has only resulted in the eastcoast westcoast hate that still permeates to this day. Grass roots movements or not the population is screwed 99 ways from Sunday.

What most of you don't get is that it's not ideology that destroys the political party in question it's human greed and lust for power.

Most polititions love money and the power it brings. That's why they are either lawyers or accountants. You will Get the odd self ritious do gooder who gets into the game to try and change the world for the better but ends up being changed by the very same system.

This cycle has been playing itself out for generations. People get sick of the satus quo rise up in protest replace the government with a new set of leaders who promis not to repeat the predecessors mistakes and do exactly that. Do you not see the pointlessness of this song and dance???? Political movements are doomed to fail because they are POLITICAL by nature. In order to fix the problem we have to walk away from it all. Who will do thier cleaning their cooking? Who will entertain them? Heal them? We all need to drop this stupid charade we call civilization and just leave become indipendent. Not just support an indipendent PARTY.

Of course as usual this will be like water on a ducks arse. People are just too scared or lazy to drop it all and walk away. I myself am in the process of trying to figure out where to go and how to live off the grid with the resouces I have. I suggest you all do the same.

Originally posted by Sestias
BTW: I've been on ATS for about two and a half years, and still haven't figured out what TPTB stands for. Could somebody kindly enlighten me?

The Powers That Be.