Just get over the tea-party already

So I'm reading a CNN article...

As a coalition of liberal activists gather in Washington, NAACP President Ben Jealous tells CNN that the "One Nation" movement is not "the alternative to the Tea Party, we're the antidote to the Tea Party."

article here

At first, I'm just interested. Then I start to notice the irony of the guy's name "Jealous" and how he refers to the Tea-Party. Suddenly it hits me: whats the deal with all this tea party hate? Its a form of threatened, or shamed jealousy.

Most of the fights picked against, what is largely a non-partisan (notice I didn't say moderate) movement are being picked recently by those other than the democratic party. Institutional democrats and liberal media has largely learned to say 'Ok maybe we should listen to what they have to say' after almost 2 years of dismissing them. Even Obama doesn't seem so anti-tea party any more. Obama says they've been simply "misidentifying the culprits". Sounds fairly un-hateful to me.

But who has been stepping up their attacks? Liberal media stars, groups like the NAACP, the coffee party? It seems that 'outsiders' who have traditionally drawn large groups or simply wish to draw large groups commensurate with the tea parties are the ones heating up the rhetoric.

In the original article I posted, Jealous says that his movement is the 'antidote' to the tea-party, as if it is a poison seeping through america's veins. Then a few short paragraphs later:

Jealous told CNN that he welcomes Tea Party members...

Oooooookaaaay? So the tea-party as some kind of movement is poison but you'll be happy to invite their members out to your rally.

And what about 'The Rally to Restore Sanity' or the commensurate " Keep Fear Alive March" put on by Stewart and Colbert respectively? Do you really buy into the idea that the Sanity Rally is really bipartisan? Really? Even when there is a faux-tea party 'Fear March' built into the program?

Again this so called bipartisan/sanity movement is nothing more than an anti-tea party march. I'm not even going to get into the coffee party. While I respect those looking for a liberal alternative, the little to no impact made by the coffee party can only be explained by its formation as a loose and lazy parody of tea parties and not so much an organic or substantive alternative.

So what are we left with? The closest I can come to an alternative to the Tea parties is the large anti-war movement built up during the Bush years that, despite continued death in both war theaters, seems to be in decline. But then again, why does there need to be an 'alternative' to the tea-party?

I think most democratic politicans that harped heavilly on how 'racist' it is etc, finally lightened up when they realized "hey, we're the majority now, movements like this usually only build up against majorities. its not too much of a threat that we don't have people marching in the streets for the majority." And I think that's the right answer.

These thinly veiled attempts at mimiking/mocking the tea parties won't do any good because we are a bipartisan nation. The fact that there's an opposition movement to the majority doesn't warrant people marching through the streets in the name of 'sanity' 'antidotes' and 'reason.' Even when support for the US wars was strong and out numbered the anti-war crowd, anti-war rallys consistently dwarfed the rallys that supported the war effort. That's just the way it is.

We need to get over it and let it run its course.

CPUSA is producing this event. My parents didn't escape communism to have it manifest here in the land of the free. Let it run it's course? Sure. I'm betting, however, that this will be a Constitutional re-awakening that has been lacking in this country for so long. It is ignoring the Constitution, ignoring and distorting history that brought us a perpetual war state.

The tea party, at least to me, is the representation of anti-statism. Which I'm am happy to be a part of.

S & F

reply to post by projectvxn


I share your view of the tea-party. But what I mean by run its course is let the giant-rallies that are making the NAACP and media commentators jealous, run their course. If we're right and this is a reawakening then eventually it should capture a place in government and these rallies will probably disperse. Either way though, even a liberal who just sees it as 'anti-obama' or 'anti-progress' has no reason to get as upset as some people are getting or try to stage thinly velied 'antidote' rallies.

Its kinda ironic that all these rallies call themselves things like "one nation" or "sanity" but in reality are almost exclusively organized to counteract a group that they feel has no place in government. Doesn't sound very unifying or sane to me.

reply to post by snusfanatic


They'll push and push. But when your message is the exact opposite of liberty, hard work, and sound government, you're not going to garner much support outside of the people who would join these rallies. I hope they have fun.

My guess is, there's probably going to be riots.

reply to post by projectvxn


Couldn't agree with you more.

The tea party movement is a result of govt. inability/unwillingness to respond to our, the citizenry, needs and wants. Whether that's the reality or not is meaningless, it's the perception that matters in politics.

My local tea-party, though I'm only peripherally involved, runs a political gamut from extreme left to extreme right, and touches just about everything inbetween. It's multiracial, and cross cultural. The uniting factor is anger at govt..

As with any movement this large and varied, it's going to have its fair share of kooks and fringe characters...that almost goes without saying. But the vast majority, which is mostly ignored by the msm, are everyday normal (whatever that is?) folks who work at a job, raise their kids, pay their taxes, and just basically behave as citizens of a nation should. But they're angry, and frustrated...and the target of that anger and frustration is, as it should be, the elected govt in Washington and locally.

November could be an unprecedented political bloodbath, with incumbents in their multitudes becoming unemployed. Ironic, no?

Why should they get over it? Many people told the tea parties to 'get over Obama winning' but they continued to protest, to voice their opinions, its their damn right, in the same way its a right for left wing groups to voice their own opinions and hold their own protests. You cannot expect everybody to listen to the tea parties and the tea parties only, meanwhile everybody else must just keep quiet. That is not the way it works.

Originally posted by snusfanatic
jealous

I don't understand why anybody needs to be jealous? What exactly is there to be jealous about the tea parties? Reactionary, yes, but jealousy? I do not see where exactly? The tea parties are not the first groups to hold rallies in DC neither have they gathered any differently in numbers than previous marches before. In fact I seem to recall the million man and million woman march protests years ago along with the anti-Iraq war marches in 2003 and 2004 that not only consumed the entire nation but the entire world (Paris France itself clocked something like 150,000 protests for a war waged by Americans, backed by most conservatives at the time). So I fail to see what makes the tea parties stand out that anybody would feel the need to feel jealous? In fact if you can tell me what the tea parties have achieved in DC or outside since their introduction, it'd be much appreciated.

But who has been stepping up their attacks?

Tea party groups and supporters have spent most of their time attacking other groups and individuals, it should not be unexpected that other groups and individuals attack back. It goes both ways.

And what about 'The Rally to Restore Sanity' or the commensurate " Keep Fear Alive March" put on by Stewart and Colbert respectively? Do you really buy into the idea that the Sanity Rally is really bipartisan? Really? Even when there is a faux-tea party 'Fear March' built into the program?

Well you can start by explaining to us here how John Stewart is liberally bias?

So what are we left with? The closest I can come to an alternative to the Tea parties is the large anti-war movement built up during the Bush years that,

You'd have to be fairly recent to politics and current affairs to think the anti-war protests were the only major protests to occur in DC. The million man march which consisted of mostly African americans (12% of the country) gathered an estimated 400,000 people by the DC national park service and more expanded nation wide (although the march organizers complained and insisted it was well over two million), million mom march gathered something around 150,000 people (organizers argued it was well over that obviously), march for womens lives (pro-abortion) gathered between an estimated 500,000-800,000 people by the Associated Press and the BBC. As for the tea parties of 2009? the national park service put them at around 100,000.

There are a long list of marches that were far larger and diverse than the tea party protests. Even looking back to the 1960's civil rights marches which had a far larger number and audience, even globally. So the 'closest' thing to the tea parties is a great understatement.

I think most democratic politicans that harped heavilly on how 'racist' it is

Democratic politicians harp as republican politicians or any other politicians harp. They are politicians at the end of the day. As to whether closeted racism is a fuel to many tea party protests, in my opinion that is the case.

reply to post by Southern Guardian


I find it odd that you deal with many tea party members here on ATS everyday and you still think a primary motivation for our opposition to government is racism. None of the Tea party members I've known here on ATS are racist. I'm a Hispanic immigrant and I have not been treated badly by anyone in the Tea Party. I'm in the Tea Party. I'm certainly not racist. My motivations for being against Obama's policies are the same as my motivations for being against Bush's policies.

I just don't get this. I really don't, and I find it personally offensive.

reply to post by Southern Guardian

Democratic politicians harp as republican politicians or any other politicians harp. They are politicians at the end of the day. As to whether closeted racism is a fuel to many tea party protests, in my opinion that is the case.

I wish i could go back through all of your posts, and find every single statement you have come up with over the past year and a half, and show everyone just how often you use the "racism" card......

At every single turn, dispite OVERWHELMING evidence and testimony from people all over the world, and even on these boards, they have disputed the claims of Racism , and provided facts and evidence......even to the point of showing that your OWN liberal progressive party are the ones being the racist or manufacturing it..............

And yet you still throw the race card...........

Unbelievable...........simply unbelievable.......

reply to post by Southern Guardian


If you'd read closely I think you'd find that I agree. Giant marches like the Tea Party put on are not anomalous events, never before seen in American history. Its precisely for the reason that I find attempts to label it illegitimate so distasteful. The Tea Party marches against lots of issues; taxation, spending, etc. And rallies for more progressive taxation/spending would be fine.

What I'm arguing is that these anti-Tea party marches veiled as 'unity' and 'sanity' marches miss exactly the point you're trying to make. Instead of engaging the TP on the issues, they try to make the TP a non issue. That's misstep number one.

Of course there's big big rallies in DC in the past. That's part of my point. Outsiders and members of the minority party always put on these things. The anti-war protests were the most recent example. And thanks for the civics lesson on the Million Man March, but I hardly think that would be considered a modern alternative the Tea Party movement. Neither would 1960s protests.

The point is, people just don't rise up in the streets the way the TP does, when they feel that their views are adequately represented in government. If the Coffee Party ever becomes something remotely influential, if the Sanity Rally ever becomes anything but a joke it will be when Obama or the Democrats lose some measure of power. These things are pointless. The establishment doesn't need a grass roots answer to grass roots opposition. The only reason the opposition is grass roots is because its not the establishment.

So why do they do it? They do it out of jealousy, or something as close to jealousy as organized groups can express. Why manufacture these marches when you have the instruments of power already aligning with your values? The only reason would be to discredit the opposition marches already taking place. So if you look at the Tea Party what do you find: "no more taxing. no more spending. conservative ideals." If you look at the alternatives to the Tea Party rallies you find: "no more insanity. no more tea party. no more disunity."

The rallying cries should speak for themselves. The amount of substance to the anti-war movement while Bush was in power makes these Coffee Party rallies look ridiculous. Groups that have their values well represented just don't do these rallies. Attempts to start these kinds of things when you're the group in power just come across as bitter and lame.

The Tea Party movement has been hijacked by the neo-conservatives and the liberals helped. When the movement first started and became popular, it wasn't a "right" movement, nor a "left" movement but the neo-cons, through people like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, moved in on the movement and claimed it for themselves, rerouting the message, goals and agenda. How did the liberals help? Easy, they started opposing it, as if it were a "right" movement.

When the TPs first started, they were about corruption in government, bailouts and corrupt politicians using our tax-dollars to enrich their friends. The TP was about getting America back to the principals in which it was founded. Then, after the Republic defeat in 2008, the neo-cons needed a better footing and the Democrats needed to get back to pretending there is an opposition. Behold, the hijacking of the Tea Party.


--airspoon

Originally posted by ManBehindTheMask
I wish i could go back through all of your posts, and find every single statement you have come up with over the past year and a half, and show everyone just how often you use the "racism" card

Whats stopping you? You can go down to the history of my posts.

Oh and I stand by them. Racism is the agenda behind many tea party protesters. I mean when last did I see a united white social conservative bunch gather in DC to protest for rights? hmmmm. Let me think. Care to link me to the tea party protests following the passing of the patriot act? How about following the revelation that the Iraq war was a lie? Where were many of these conservative tea party protesters? Where were they during Bush's spending spree? Oh yes yes yes many of them just happened to wake up following the election of Obama.

The tea parties we saw last year were reactionary to the 2008 election and come the next Republican administration, we will see a definite difference in the activity with the tea parties. You are more than welcome to insist otherwise.

reply to post by airspoon


If the Tea Party were one cohesive group I would be up in arms about the Neo-Cons. But they're not. They can only influence a few groups. Freedom works and the Tea Party Express are good examples. But there are other groups out there. Like my local group which has no connection to national Tea Party orgs.

Most of my fellow Tea Partiers are not Neo-Cons at least none that I can identify...but that's would be like not being able to identify yourself in the mirror. The draw back to this is that the Neo-Con run "Tea Party" orgs will make the whole movement look like a bunch of war-mongering nutjobs should there message be what is put front and center. I have yet to see that.

for 8 years i have seen the left treat a sitting president

for the past to years i have seen them treat "thier" president

since the beginning of the tea party movement i have seen how they have been treated

i have seen how the black panthers,code pink,seiu get treated.

i remember how it was "patriotic" to have dissent for bush it was american!

i see how it has been for the past 2 years how it is clearly seen as unamerican to oppose the path and ideals of the sitting president.

either we have freedom of speech and freedom of expression or we dont

either we have respect for other ideals other than our own or we dont.


i am not a teaparty member and i am not a "card" carrying republican i identify with them both and always will.

but having been on this site i have been called every name under the sun and then some.

because they are using their best tool in their "Arsenal" hatred me im not a hater i just dont like whats going on in this country like the majority on here.

i am not jealous but i am inclined to believe the anti-teapartiers are they got their football and have done nothing but fumbled it for the past 2 years.

my guess is displaced anger and hatred for their lack of cohesiveness and short comings.

anyone who doesn't think a smaller government that lives within its means is a great idea your MORONS.


those are the ideals i have embraced from both those "parties" and i reject the rest.

as to the characterization that they are the "antidote" and etc seriously that's what they think they are blind and foolish and too self involved or more to the point they are just being selfish.

that is what this country has become- selfish

what ever happened to those traditional american values of:

RESPECT
SELF RELIANCE
SELF RESPONSIBILiTY
ask not what your government can give you BUT what you can do for yourself.

thats not the country we live in and all those people who see them as the "antidote" to those values i just mentioned well in this persons opinion THEY ARE JUST SERIOUSLY WRONG AND SERIOUSLY WRONG IN THE HEAD.


meh..........

my thoughts i post and you decide :p

reply to post by Southern Guardian


So because we weren't loud and large enough back in the Bush days that makes Obama's recklessness ok and all of us just secretly racist? Gotcha.

reply to post by Southern Guardian


As for Jon Stewart being biased: Part of my definition of 'deny ignorance' is to deny the urges inside of me to find 1,000 video clips/blurbs from Stewart in an attempt to lay out a coherent case of his bias only to have half the members disagree and half the members agree, largely along the lines they would have fallen to begin with.

If you don't see a liberal bias on the Daily Show or Colbert then I'm sorry there's just nothing I'm going to be able to produce that will change your mind. You know, there's nothing wrong with admitting that perhaps someone you like, or someone who expresses your views is biased.

What is going on with the Left in this country? I remember that old quote (is it old? I don't know): "You're entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts." Maybe we need some kind of new incarnation of this quote as it applies to the political spectrum like "You're entitled to fall on the spectrum wherever you like, but please don't truncate the political spectrum so that anyone left or right of you falls off the edge into an oblivion of supposed extremism and insignificance." Na, too wordy.

For the last two years it seems that anyone who disagrees with the President has become an extremist. The first people who noticed this incorrectly replaced the word 'extremist' with 'racist.' But while some people are incorrectly labeled racists (*cough*99% of tea party members *cough*) I think extremism is the better label.

Around September 2008 I remember feeling happy for my Obamafanatic friends here at school. I couldn't stand the guy but they had found something they could believe in. After the election when the news media suddenly discovered "America is a left of center nation" and "A new left of center super majority" people went from believing in something passionately to just outright crazy.

It's like being told that you're the new supermajority changes the way you think about people who disagree with you. A week after the election I sat behind 2 people in class, a guy and a girl. The guy was on his email reading a chain email full of pictures of Palin with a black eye, Obama dressed as superman, etc. He kept nudging his friend and having her look over. She'd politely laugh and they'd bump fists a few times. After about 20 minutes he finally reached an Obama sticker that said "Yes We Did" when he nudged her this time she smiled again but I could notice how annoyed he was making her. The Professor actually ended up calling out the guy for laughing so hard during one part of his email reading, that it disrupted the class.

Its like this Obama election was supposed to be a never ending celebration and people are pi***d that anyone would try to rain on their parade. I just don't get it. I guess its just the other side of the coin when you have someone as popular as Obama once was.

Originally posted by snusfanatic
reply to post by Southern Guardian

 

If you'd read closely I think you'd find that I agree. Giant marches like the Tea Party put on are not anomalous events, never before seen in American history. Its precisely for the reason that I find attempts to label it illegitimate so distasteful.

And you think those other protests have not been labelled or mocked or attacked? Did you see the critical response to the million man march? To the million woman march? Its no different for the tea parties, I do not see why they would be treated any differently from any other movement? People will have opinions and voice them out, and there will be counter opinions. It's inevitable.

Of course there's big big rallies in DC in the past. That's part of my point. Outsiders and members of the minority party always put on these things. The anti-war protests were the most recent example. And thanks for the civics lesson on the Million Man March, but I hardly think that would be considered a modern alternative the Tea Party movement. Neither would 1960s protests.

You'd find many people disagree with you on the notion that the civil rights movement of the 60's are not comparable to the tea parties of today. The civil rights movement was a march against the forcable segregation of American citizens, against the stripping of rights of American citizens. I fail to see how the tea parties compare? Unless tax cuts are more significant than the change of event in the 60's? As of the million man march, I agree, it was a march for the 'black family' and so forth, but they managed to gather a considerable amount of people and media attention, more so than the tea parties.

The point is, people just don't rise up in the streets the way the TP does,

I disagree. It took the tea parties the election of the first black man and a liberal one at that to start moving to DC in their 10'000's and protesting. We never saw that amount of conservative participation since, well? What? The tea parties did not rise up following the patriot act, they did not rise up following the Iraq war, they did not rise up during Bush's spending or Reagans spending. The tea parties were present in 2007 but it was as part of a movement to get Republican candidate Ron Paul elected. They did not rise up when it was relevant, they rose up following the results of a political election. It points to nothing else but a movement of reaction rather than a movement of awakening.

If the Coffee Party ever becomes something remotely influential,

The coffee parties are reactionary to the tea parties.

They do it out of jealousy,

Again I fail to where where the jealousy lies with the tea parties? As demonstrated the movement is no more significant as compared to other movements nor has it had any impact other than to flood the media. Unless you can point to me something on the lines of a strong third party, that'll be great.

Tea Party what do you find: "no more taxing. no more spending. conservative ideals." If you look at the alternatives to the Tea Party rallies you find: "no more insanity. no more tea party. no more disunity."

The last time I checked, the tea parties consted of many folks marching the 'no socialism, nobama, no Democrat, wheres the birthcertificate' routine. It was evident this had little to nothing to do with what the tea parties claimed to represent when they had Bush politicians and advocates speak at many of these rallies. The official slogan of the tea parties is just that, a slogan, it has absolutely no relevance to what most of the tea protesters are really marching up there in DC for.

Come the next Republican administration, the vast majority of the protesters that made the tea parties will return home to their couches back to Fox. The tea parties will be forgotten by then and any mention of 'where have all the tea partiers gone' will amount to such excuses as 'they are still around'. Yep, around and silent.

Originally posted by projectvxn
reply to post by Southern Guardian

 

So because we weren't loud and large enough back in the Bush days that makes Obama's recklessness ok and all of us just secretly racist?

Nope, but it does make it rather hypocritical. I think my point was clear.

reply to post by Southern Guardian


How so? We were there! End the Fed remember? Taxed Enough Already was around for some time before people started to finally see the writing on the wall. We finally got our message out, people are finally taking us seriously, and somehow that makes me a racist. Because according to you that's my primary motivation. And the motivation of every tea partier here who you have debated.

Originally posted by snusfanatic
reply to post by Southern Guardian

 

As for Jon Stewart being biased: Part of my definition of 'deny ignorance' is to deny the urges inside of me to find 1,000 video clips/blurbs

So aside from putting the evidence where your mouth is, you just make the claim and thats that. Right.

For the last two years it seems that anyone who disagrees with the President has become an extremist.

Oh I have absolutely no problem with conservatives being critical or disgreeing with the president as with anybody else. I just seem to have a problem when those same people held a different tone the years prior and have never held themselves accountable to that fact.

Originally posted by projectvxn
reply to post by Southern Guardian

 

How so? We were there! End the Fed remember? Taxed Enough Already was around for some time before people started to finally see the writing on the wall.

Oh yes, like the tea parties of 2007? Or was that rather a scheme to campaign money and support to the Ron Paul campaign? Yes I am well aware of the present of libertarians and their protests back in 2008 and 2007, on the eve of the elections. Mind you though the size of those protests then are very interesting in comparison to 2009. Very interesting.