Tea Baggers are NOT Populists

Glenn Greenwald pretty much lifts the veil here:
..........how it is, at bottom, nothing more than a cynical marketing attempt to re-brand the right wing of the Republican Party under the exact same policies and principles which defined it for the last couple of decades.

They say that people aren't listening to them. Maybe it is because we did, we tried that, tax cuts and deregulation, trickledown, and with our own eyes watched it NOT work. We will listen when they quit promoting failed policies. When they EVOLVE. (You are right D., they obviously don't believe in evolution).

Sara Palin and Glen Beck are NOT populists. Where else in history can you point to a populist that defended uber wealth and total corporate control over our country? Sure, they will say they opposed the bank bailout. Of course a realistic examination of this should be all the evidence needed to prove how over a barrel the monied have us. But nope they missed it again.
Beyond their fragmented thoughts on the bailout, not so populist. The complete opposite. They are building an alternate reality and people are sucking it up in the Fox Nation.

One thing the punditocracy don't seem to understand is that thanks to Lou Dobbs and other groups like the libertarians, people calling themselves independent are in large measure conservatives.
Here's an interesting article from the Des Moines Register that writes the story but ignores the obvious.

It begins the articles premise thus:
Neither party has a lock on these restless advocates of limited government and fiscal control, according to the poll.

and spends plenty of time pushing that idea. Then further down it is reported:

..... Rhodes, the Iowa coordinator, has amassed an e-mail list with 10,000 names since he got involved less than a year ago by helping organize tax day protests in April. ........Rhodes said hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tea party supporters attended Republican Party precinct caucuses on Jan. 23.
“I started with nothing,” said Rhodes. “Now we’re setting up groups around the state where hundreds of people show up.”
Rhodes is also campaign manager for 3rd U.S. House District candidate Dave Funk, a Runnells Republican.
Tea party activists also are backing a conservative Republican in an Iowa House primary race in northwest Iowa.

In case you were wondering they are supporting no democrats or liberals, or moderates for that matter. I know Scott Brown is pretending to be a moderate but watch how he votes on the big votes. No difference. Just a new marketing campaign.

Repeal The First Amendment?

I don't know anything about this guy and don't claim to support or not support whatever else he has to say.

This is pretty interesting in its own right. How easy it is to corral the unconscious. I wanted to cheer for the lady at the end who actually focused.

Who Wants To Evolve?

I have a friend that I have reconnected with after decades. He apparently is a conservative, although I must admit to finding myself unable think of him in that way. I am trying to explain my philosophy to him. I suspect he has been using the conservative model of liberal like the rest of them. I thought some of it would make a good post. Let me know your thoughts.

I have to admit I have grown really weary of all the bright shiny things they throw up and expect us to call it politics. Most of it has nothing to do with the way the country works or who is manipulating it. Its all distractions. Maybe it is MY reality that is skewed but much of what is going on bears no relation to anything I can perceive as what is really happening around me. Drama and conflict is the order of the day. Especially from the right it sounds to me like they are building a daytime drama, a soap opera, instead of asking the questions and then looking for the answers. Isn't that the way it is suppose to work? The good ol Socratic method? Isn't that suppose to be the standard for enlightened thinking? Isn't that what we are supposedly basing our Western civilization on? Or is that another fault in my perception of reality...or has it been abandoned?
Now it seems we tell you the answer and demonize anyone who questions it. In my reality that approaches madness. How do I have time for fearing somebody on the other side of the world when my very own countrymen would like to see me and all I stand for destroyed? (just ask glenn beck)
I say this with not a whiff of snark or hyperbole...what I see from the right frightens me. I am sure that many on the right would say the same thing about me so let me explain.


I look at angry Christians. People that call themselves Christian that demean the poor to the point of almost deciding they are the throw away people and worshiping materialism and wealth as largely the point of life and an expression of a persons personal value. Yes, I know all about the prosperity gospel. Been in those weeds too. It is all morally repugnant to me.
I watch people rationalize and equivocate for preemptive war and torture and wonder what reality they live in that finds that as evolution or a solution that is anything more than temporary.
All the anger and promotion of fear and destructiveness, is truly scary, and opposed to my moral principals and any dream I have for the world and its inhabitants.

I actually would say I, at the most basic level, agree with those on the far right more than the far left. Unfortunately when it comes to the causes of the problem and solutions we fall apart...example.

The far right often pushes the one world government or new world order. An entire world that is run as one by a few. Not only do I agree with them on this issue but I think its already here!!! No more worrying about it IT'S HERE! Its not a complicated maze of lines and circles on a chalk board. It's not liberals or conservatives, its not socialists or anarchists. Its concentrated wealth with no philosophy but more. Money rules the world..duh!

Transnational corporations, international bankers and industry groups own the world and its money and its people and its jobs and their economies. Its the oligarchy. They already have nearly all the control the "new world order" could hope for. As more giant companies expand by eating the smaller ones it gets more and more concentrated. When they freely roam and pick and choose their global terms their power becomes more concentrated. These companies truly are in a real sense of the term too big to fail without inflicting extreme hardship on all of us. They have us right where they want us.
They fund and manipulate our congress and presidents with money. They ARE the new world order. Until the people acknowledge this and dedicate themselves to work against the real problem instead of all the nutty strawmen we are just going to continue the slide that direction. Bright shiny things to keep you from recognizing the true nature of reality. That's what the news, on all the channels,(especially fox) are. Bright shiny things to give you something to talk about.
Whats funny to me is that all somewhat conscious people realize in at least a subliminal way that big money runs the show but we seem content to ignore it and play out the drama of bright shiny things like good little actors.
Solutions? There are some. There is no need to talk about them unless we are properly addressing what the problem is. Just like everything else. Health care. Problem. Costs to much. How much time did we spend in this debate, on tv and media, discussing this and the possible solutions. Almost none. Bright shiny things.Excuses to do nothing. Our leaders suck.Really bad.

Weekend Tuneage

The fields of Eden
Are full of trash
And if we beg and we borrow and steal
We'll never get it back
People are hungry
They crowd around
And the city gets bigger as the country comes begging to town

We're stuck between a rock
And a hard place
Between a rock and a hard place

This talk of freedom
And human rights
Means bullying and private wars and chucking all the dust into our eyes
And peasant people
Poorer than dirt
Who are caught in the crossfire with nothing to lose but their shirts

Stuck between a rock
And a hard place
Between a rock and a hard place

You'd better stop put on a kind face
Between a rock and a hard place

We're in the same boat
On the same sea
And we're sailing south
On the same breeze
building dream churches
With silver spires
And our rogue children
Are playing loaded dice

Give me truth now
Don't want no sham
I'd be hung drawn and quartered for a sheep just as well as a lamb

Stuck between a rock
And a hard place
Between a rock and a hard place
You'd better stop
Put on a kind face
Can't you see what you've done to me

Get Some Balls!

Who Wants To Claim This Religion?

You've no doubt heard about Rev. Pats' Haiti pact with the devil.
A letter to the editor from the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Dear Pat Robertson, I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth -- glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or "Damn Yankees"? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox -- that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it -- I'm just saying: Not how I roll. You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings -- just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract. Best, Satan

I'm not sure just what religion Pat Robertson is but it isn't mine or anything I recognize as even standard Christianity. All I can get out of it is mumbo jumbo cartoon creations.
If the devil made a pact with our ancestors hundreds of years ago does that mean that we are defenseless? Have we lost free will? Has God forsaken us? If so we have very different concepts on the idea of God...but that pretty much goes without saying.

How Do We Ever Have A Legitimate Political Discussion?

These people are hopeless.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I

t seems to me that the terrorist wants to scare us. Wants us to live in fear. It seems to me to confound and defeat their methods we would want to not go into a state of fear. To not destroy our Constitutional rights, of all citizens. We would not want to spend ourselves into bankruptcy while they fight with box cutters and underwear explosives. Donkey carts and rpgs. I can't imagine how we could win any battle by playing right into their hands. The Fox nation seems to want to continue down a road that is a proven failure. There is no less threat now than there was when they started.

I say quit talking about it so much. Quit turning them into supervillians. You just create more that way. Delusional heros. Yet great leader Peter King thinks we should have MORE talk about it not less. Give them what they want or you are aiding the terroists!!!! Be scared!!! Let the world know you are scared(and apparently quite enjoying it..or you would QUIT!) on world wide television! Ya, that's the ticket!

Spend less money more wisely. Land wars on the entire populace or large segments of it are not the solution if you are truly seeking peace. Majorities of Muslims are opposed to the terrorists and want them defeated as badly as you or I do. Don't believe it, dare to watch AL Jazerra TV on LINK for a while.

Be the example to follow that you would expect from a great leader. As Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." That applies on a National basis. That means torture is out. Legal justice is the pinnacle.

Sad to say but we are never going to defeat evil. It is a worthy battle that is best fought at the grassroots level. By being an individual example of a better, more acceptable way.

Believe The Crazy

First it's Ahmed Chalibi playing the con game, telling our government what it wanted to hear for money. Then there was "curveball" the taxi driver....now this guy. Wow. We have terrible leaders.

Marcy Kaptur On Reform

Turning The Wheel

Here's our current political dialogue. Take a fact or factoid or even point of view. Find anything that could describe it as scary or bad. Make it the new reality. Our discussions on both side are centered on fear. The right has perfected this technique to what may be the highest realms of all time. The left is prone to the same thing though. Global warming...scary! We're all gonna die!
This is why I have never been one to jump all over the global warming thing. I think it is not how we should be talking about it. We should be talking about sustaining harmony with the living planet we respect and depend on for our very being. Birds don't shit in their nest and neither should we. It's not about fear. It's about respect and love.

Unfortunately this is not how our media and reality makers approach anything. Conflict and fear is the mothers milk of continued programming and higher ratings.

As individuals we still have a choice on how we deal with our problems and each other. We choose our perspective on life.

Fear-and all it's products: division, self pity, self centeredness, paranoia, hate, anger.
Honestly, think about how little you hear about or discuss politically that is not fear based. All the news channels LIVE off it. The left can be just as guilty. I fell into it for a long time. I still do. The fact is it is hard not to react with some version of fear when one feels they are being attacked. Empathy is the ability to know other people can have all those feelings just like I do. I think I understand where it comes from.

The other side of the coin is love- and all its products; empathy, compassion, tolerance, forgiveness, friendship and unity(do unto others as...). The crux of the problem is there is very little discussion of these matters we concern ourselves with everyday that are discussed from this viewpoint. We are all on the defensive. Both sides. We are doing it to each other. In the reality I inhabit the ability to face the fear and still react with love whenever or as much as possible is the definition of courage. Lots of scared people around though. Or maybe it is not about courage but just plain laziness. It is just easier to fear than love. The adrenaline rush comes easier and quicker.

Addressing things from the frame of fear impeads progress. Nobody wants to open the door where the scary stuff is. Only when we turn the wheel and start discussing things based from the frame of love is evolution possible. And it is time to evolve.

That said their certainly are real dangers and things to be afraid of out there. We all have our boogie man. Those that will willing or unwillingly destroy everything we stand for and everything that is right and good. For some it is abortion providers or muslims or imperialist americans. For me it is banksters and corporations. My love and generosity for them is limited because I am suspect of their intentions. Such is the case for all boogie men. The fact remains that their are solutions to the problems that lie between us. A solution that would allow us both to have a nice life in a mutually beneficial way. That discussion is for another time. The point being that possibility exists. The key toward making that conversation productive is framing through love and not fear. It is the only way we will ever get through to each other. Fear only intimates. That is the full extent of its value.

We have been programmed through our daily lives to operate out of fear rather than love. When we figure out that we turn the tide when we quit playing their game, that we too stand on strong moral ground, I'll call that progress.
For those that love to hate or are overly self protective there is no hope. For the rest of us evolution lies in making things happen. Big changes are taking place. Which way do we go? It's time to change the frame, turn the wheel, let go of thinking in terms of fear. It's tough to get past without a daily sustained effort. Keep your hands on the wheel. Be a part of true real evolution.

Reading Room

Whiskey Fire:

...I observe in this regard that all local media in the NYC area yesterday sent reporters to the Valley Stream WalMart where raw consumer consumption last Black Friday got someone trampled to death. This year you will be relieved to know, as every goddamn local TV and radio station reported, nobody got killed on their way to enjoying the bargains they need in order to correctly celebrate the holiday that Fox News informs us is properly understood as a celebration of Christ, as opposed to something not Christian, but perhaps pagan, or maybe pro-big government and anti-free-market.

And people bitch about Kwanzaa being "phony." Maybe they should call it Cyber-Kwanzaa Wednesday and give everyone 15% off tube socks and Wiis. Legitimacy at last!

The other thing is, for a world-historical triumphant ideological titan, capitalism sure seems to need a shitload of silly propaganda to keep people believing in it.

CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio – Following a pipe bomb explosion Monday night, police and federal law enforcement officials are trying to figure why a Center Avenue man turned his apartment into a bomb factory.

Police said no charges have been filed against Mark Campano, 56. Police found 30 completed pipe bombs in his apartment along with components to make more, plus 17 guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.Campano is in an Akron hospital with injuries received when one of the bombs exploded.

Barbara Vachon lived next door to Campano at the Center Park Place Apartments for several years and said he was a big reason she moved. "He was always trying to get me and another neighbor to listen to anti-government tapes and watch anti-government videos," said Vachon. "I would never watch them. He was some kind of radical, and he didn't believe in the government."

Good thing he wasn't an Arab or a Muslim or we'd have full bore pounding of fearmongering from the Fox Nation on how we need to get all the Muslims. Since he is white and their fellow traveler ...not so much.

Sarah Palins fake bus tour. She takes the plane. Yet another example of phony populism.

There would be no Afghan dilemma if Bush had caught Bin Laden.
We've been at war for nearly as long as WW 1 and 2 COMBINED. People that can't win a war in that amount of time have no place telling us how to proceed. Sadly for those who worked so hard for change Obama is continuing down the same path.

There Goes Another One

I was listening to music today and came across a song that suddenly has so much meaning for me. My life. Today. I'm not sure the video is close but the words are spot on.

God Bless you John Lennon. It's no wonder why you are an icon of a generation.

You And I Create This , We Are Responsible

If you have a lack of awareness of Quantum Science then much of this may not make sense to you. If you are interested in Consciousness studies then you will love it.

One of the things I have been trying to deal with and improve in my life is my anger. It isn't anymore present in me than anyone else in general but I think it is important to diminish it as far as possible and prudent. Unfortunately when attacked any living creature will try to fight back. Trying to overcome something so ingrained is pretty tough. It is very important though.
One of my favorites and a mentor like person for me, Gregg Braden, points out why getting a grip is so important.

The REAL New World Order

I'm not sure how often this has to be repeated before people grasp this concept. At least it's nice to know I'm not the only one that sees it.

Joe Bageant:
....government/corporations -- the terms have been interchangeable for at least 50 years in this country, maybe longer. For all its pretense and manufactured consent, our government is just a corporate racket now, and probably will remain so from here on out. This is a white people's thing, an Anglo-European tradition. Moreover, we no longer get real dictators such as a Hitler, or a good old bone-gnawing despot like Idi Amin. We get money syndicates in powdered wigs or Savile Row suits, cartels of robber barons and banking racketeers.....

On and on it goes. As the bailouts of the bankers recently proved, even Barack Obama, who descended to earth from Chicago with 10 gilded seraphim holding up his balls, doesn't screw with the corporate money changers. Or the banking corporations, or the insurance corporations, or the medical corporations, or the defense corporations ...

Corporations are now, for all practical purposes, the only way anything can get done, made or distributed, or even imagined as a way of anything coming into being (except babies). Look around you. Is there anything, from the food in the fridge to the fridge itself, from the furniture to the very varnish on the floors or the clothes we wear that was not delivered unto us by corporations?

Our dependency on corporations at every level of the needs hierarchy is total. We cannot see beyond the corporate manufactured reality because, to us, it is the only possible reality. We cannot see around it or out of it from the inside. Corporate reality is all permeating. Air tight, too. Each part so perfectly reinforces all of its other parts as to be seamless. Inescapable. In that sense, we are prisoners for life.

The corporate-government-media complex that manufactures our mass consciousness (hereinafter referred to as "the bastards" for clarity purposes) is simultaneously unknowable, yet easy to believe in.......

At the same time, the sheer magnitude of corporatism's crushing drain upon humanity -- for the benefit of an elite global few -- is all but invisible to most Western peoples participating in its sustaining rituals.

Corporatism's rituals are as reverentially and unquestionably observed in daily behavior as those of ancient Egypt's theocracy or the blood sacrifice of the Aztecs. The Aztecs thoroughly believed their world would end if the gods were not fed enough still-beating human hearts. We believe that the world turns on employment figures, stock prices, our jobs, productivity and consumption. Hourly, we receive reports from the media priesthood on the health of an aggregate god known as the economy. The masses pause to listen, then ask inside their heads, "Will my job, my only source of family sustenance, disappear? I must try harder."

And so, fearfully, we render tribute to Moloch in the form of increased toil, more sheaves of what they alone produced (for it is labor that produces all authentic wealth) in the form of bailouts and sons sacrificed on the altar of war.

High and low, we have been transfigured into a society of performers behaving the way we are expected to behave as productive citizens. Production as measured by the bastards. And we cannot expect to find any Gandhis or Simón Bolivars among that high caste. One does not get there by leading salt strikes, nor does one appear in their boardrooms on behalf of the masses wearing beggar's cloth.......

...we see it as in our best interests to embrace such national blindness. In doing so, we all but ensure a new Dark Age.

Joe continues. He has a darker vision of the future than I do. I am still convinced that good ultimately wins out over bad. How long we wait for ultimately is another question. The process needs to go forward though. You let them run the racket on you or we join together to fight the real enemy. Concentrated wealth.
The right hates concentrated government but they worship concentrated wealth. How they miss the fact that it is actually the same thing is a mystery to me. How they miss that the vast majority of government (our) money goes to corporations and elite is a mystery to me. How they miss that fewer and fewer have more and more of the total is a mystery to me. I think that is why I despise the right wing talkers so much. They are the prophets of redirection. Its all the fault of lazy welfare bums and liberals and ACORN and teleprompters and bows to the Japanese emperor and on and on.
No, our biggest problem is we don't live in a democracy, we live in a corpratocracy. It has little to do with all the silly straw men created by the media everyday. When Joe said above...The corporate-government-media complex that manufactures our mass consciousness...he hit the key. They are shaping the reality they want you to see. It's time to step out of the envelope.

Teddy Roosevelt saw it over a century ago.

At many stages in the advance of humanity, this conflict between the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess is the central condition of progress. ....At every stage, and under all circumstances, the essence of the struggle is to equalize opportunity, destroy privilege, and give to the life and citizenship of every individual the highest possible value both to himself and to the commonwealth. Teddy Roosevelt(R) NY.

Not Our Friends Or Fellows

I saw this story yesterday. It just keeps ringing in my mind. This is the essence of our problem:

......millions of Americans, perhaps even tens of millions of Americans don’t consider a Democrat president legitimate. Don’t consider liberalism legitimate. Don’t consider the idea of the state forming new programs to help people legitimate. So, he’s in a situation a lot like, you know, Abraham Lincoln faced in 1860 when you had millions of Americans who didn’t even consider what was going in Washington to have anything to do with them.


There is no coming together with thinking like this. Frankly, with the morals and values that the fox nation now professes , I don't consider them legit either. Honestly, I'm not joking, the only answer I see is 2 countries.