For all the media hype, how much influence has the Tea Party had on this
election? Well, name a single Tea Party candidate who won a seat that
the Republicans would have lost without him or her?
That's right-- not one.
Why? That's pretty straight forward: a "movement" unconnected with a
particular idea is always going to fizzle. The Tea Party doesn't
really have a single coherent idea that isn't
- already held, in emasculated form, by the Republican Party,
- too whacko to ever be implemented,
- too generalized and idealistic to have any real application.
In August, CNN revealed that the percentage of Americans who actually call
themselves members of the Tea Party? 2.
That said, what a shame that we won't have a real tea
party victory. A victory by the Tea party-- by the true believers-- would
be as devastating to corporate interests and old guard Republicans as it
would be to the Democrats. If Tea Party Candidates came in and cleared
out the lobbyists, the backroom deals, the earmarks, and so on, we
might all be better off than we would be under a victory by so-called
moderate Republicans.
The picture, at the top, is of my feet, 1976, Calgary,
Alberta, sitting in a basement apartment we rented for the summer while
working for the United Grain Growers.
October 31, 2010
It's a little puzzling that so much mainstream media--
allegedly "liberal", of course-- have given so much coverage to the Tea
Party, which, as the Washington Post discovered, is actually quite small and
really insignificant.
Why why why? I don't believe in
conspiracy theories, so it must be because conflict and anger and spectacle
make good news.
"Look at Lott's lobbying clients: Citigroup, General Electric, Raytheon, Entergy and other Beltway bandits,
subsidy sucklers and regulatory robber barons. These guys live off of bailouts, massive government spending,
and earmarks. These are exactly the policies Republicans are supposed to oppose, but don't. They're also the very
things Tea Partiers and Jim DeMint rail against most."
Read more
at the Washington Examiner.
It's not that big of a secret that the real movers
and shakers in the Republican Party are not Joe Miller, Christine O'Donnell,
and Sharron Angle, or even Jim DeMint or Sarah Palin. Well, I think it
is to the Tea Partiers.
Listen to this
comment by Trent Lott, Svengali of the Republican Establishment, now a
lobbyist just raking in the dough, as was always his purpose as a Republican
politician (if you receive the money afterwards, is it still a
bribe?): "As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt
them".
"They" are the tea party. It won't be difficult-- "they"
are Republicans. They actually believe that in America, the goal of
government is to provide a level playing field so that companies can battle
it out among each other to provide consumers with the best products at the
best price. They are in for a shock. The first thing they will
learn, from Trent Lott, Karl Rove, and the others, is that the purpose of
Republican government is to pin down the young, the poor, the middle class,
and entrepreneurs so that the corporations can ransack their pockets with
impunity. The rich, powerful
corporations actually control the legislative process through lobbyists who
lob millions of dollars at every politician in the firm belief that their
votes can be influenced.
What Lott is afraid of-- and it's an amusing
scenario-- is that some of these tea party candidates are what I call "true
believers". What if they reject the money and vote their conscience?
Oh my! The horror! At what point will Sharron Angle realize that
she is not voting to "level the playing field" on most legislation-- she
will be voting to confer fabulous favors and benefits upon powerful
interests who will gladly, in return, pay for the expensive negative ads she needs to run in
her next election campaign when, undoubtedly, she will be running "against"
Washington.
Jon Stewart hilariously showed us John McCain, in a recent
campaign ad, declaring that Washington was "broken" and needed to be fixed.
Then he showed us McCain using the same line over and over and over again
going back to his first election campaign 30 years ago. Fool me once,
shame on you. Fool me twice.... three times... eight times... ten
times... uh... doh!
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© Bill Van Dyk
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