Judith Gayle | Political Waves
An originator of the Tea Party movement, a big, loud Texan by the name of Dale Robertson is warning that Sarah Palin is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, attempting to ‘bastardize’ the principals of the populist movement and hijack the Baggers into the Republican stronghold.
The movement distanced itself from Robertson during the summer when he was photographed with a controversial homemade sign that represented his passionate thoughts on taxation — and said a little something about his personal bias, as well. Well, so much for the notion that we’ve gone post-racial, now that we have a president of color.
Or perhaps this isn’t a question of either/or. Maybe, in our big divided nation, this is always a question of percentages.
Representative Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota is a particularly visible Tea Party proponent. Frequently over-the-top, she’s a proud ‘birther’ and a FOX News darling, and is in the news constantly due to her immoderate commentary. Despite a poll of GOP ‘movers and shakers’ indicating that 87% consider birthers fringe members of their party, her state was recently surveyed and it was discovered that her popularity breaks down as one would expect along Right/Left party lines; but the surprise, given the supposed leanings of the Independent vote, was that only 26% of them are proud of the job Bachmann has done in Congress, while 62% call her an embarrassment.
Gosh, ya think?
Moral of the story: the more infighting the Republicans do, the more they attempt to use one another while seeking to recapture their power base, the more they fracture and offer nothing to a national conversation in search of solutions. By the way, 78% of the anonymous GOP leadership mentioned above also think that Obama is a Socialist. I guess that’s why Republicans demured on unemployment extension for 1.2 million laid-off Americans last night, unwilling to give up on their “death tax” a.k.a. the Paris Hilton tax.
These folks just can’t help themselves. Their message is clear: we’re not giving anything away until we get a perk for the wealthy. One has to wonder what the Republican unemployed think about all that.
In a nation badly in need of sound governance, the Republican desire to drown it in a bathtub now looks like what it is — political nihilism. Jon Stewart took on their reluctance to actually participate in the transparent debate they’ve howled for last night, making them look like … well … who they are. I don’t think that was their plan.
Today the news of their shadow budget, including assaults on Medicare and Social Security which I detailed in the weekly, has legs that will walk into the homes of horrified Seniors everywhere. In his New York Times op/ed, Paul Krugman called it “a breathtaking act of staggering hypocrisy.” FOX News will spin it to keep the true believers calm, I expect, but you know the old saw — where there’s smoke, there’s fire. The smell of scorched earth economy is hard to ignore, no matter what your political affiliation. Maybe this is the point where we give up either/or ideology in favor of calling in the fire fighters … or maybe we’ll just burn awhile longer.
The thing with this notion of either/or is — it’s an illusion, deliberately brewed, bottled and sold like Budweiser. The Bush administration gave us an absurd and manipulative choice between being patriotic Republicans or weak-kneed liberals trying to pull the nation down into Third World status. It’s a tired old meme that still floats around out there, but the truth is harder to hide these days — the Bushies are the ones that brought the nation to her knees with their tax cuts and loop holes and elective wars, and the Party of No isn’t clever enough to hide their desire to put her flat on her back by continuing to ‘stay the course.’ If the Seniors are abandoned and the middle-class disappeared, who will they appeal to in the future? Makes no sense to me. It seems like a last-ditch effort to keep the plutocracy in power, even as the rest of the nation burns to ash and the golden goose cooks.
Either/or can only sustain itself as long as the plan is working — it didn’t, it isn’t, it won’t. Even its illusory charm is losing steam. People are waking up and having a dialogue, shouted at one another over a picket line and leading off the letters to the editor. Take that as a good sign. That’s what democracy looks like, messy in its practice and a blast of fresh air against the smoke of rhetorical smoke and mirrors.
Because the squeaky wheel gets the grease, all we hear about is the squeakers but the press has finally picked up the larger conversation about Pub obstruction, sensing drama in the GOP’s vulnerability. Nothing smells quite so sweet to media folk as desperation. The Massachusettes vote had them sniffing around the deflated Democratics but these last few days have turned their heads toward the minority party.
Establishment pundits are telling us how confident the Republicans are, how they’re measuring for drapes in their new congressional offices as they rub their palms in glee over their proposed wins in November. We’ll see. The Pubs are confident as a matter of policy, unbending in their self-aggrandizement. Give us another eight months of this and perhaps the frustrated Dems, the skeptical but demographically powerful Indies and even a few disenchanted Pubs will be more interested in a Plan — ANY plan — than None At All.
Jude
McConnell Objects To One-Week Extension Of Unemployment Benefits (VIDEO)
Jude,
I really like the petri dish reference. . . something unseen but alive and growing. Patience is needed. Faith too.
The channelers warnings and the writers advice to develop our inner strengths seem to have taken root through your writing and on to your reading public. The funny, clever and intelligent observations you make in your stories are the sugar that makes the medicine go down easier; the hugs and flowers of an earlier era live on this way. You ARE exercising your strengths and we are so grateful.
be
This is one of my favorite Political Waves ever.
Thank you, Jude, for a wonderful and insightful blog. It’s amazing how much power you can put into a few words.
Barbara – thank you for the astrological perspectives over time. Thank you also for your bottomless well of optimism. You are amazing.
Interesting, Eric — I remember those old hippy daze as love-in, passing flowers around and trying to lighten people up … the Baggers have themselves a hate-in. The only thing they want lighter is the President.
BK — I quite agree that the overload of politics makes people turn away in droves. I don’t remember any political year quite this ‘stuck’ in my lifetime, although the Gingrich years were tough. That makes my job harder, and the activists job in attempting to start a progressive movement. We don’t have one anymore and that’s a crying shame because ‘center’ is still a little left of Moses.
I think of this timeframe as a Petri dish where we’re growing something — and I think the realities of life are giving people the heads-up they need, popping the ‘exceptionalist’ bubble, as it were. Some still don’t believe it’s happening but I doubt that’s a problem with Lefty’s. The painful part of this has to trickle up and that’s where our patience will be tested.
I always think of the channeling in the 90s that told us this period would be one when many many souls would find themselves unprepared for what they’d meet. The writers I read are the ones that keep pointing us in the direction of fleshing out our internal strengths, the ones waiting to be exercised, and reclaiming our power. We’ve got what we need, we just don’t remember. Me, I still just want to hug everybody and pass flowers around. I guess you can take the girl out of the 60s but you can’t take the hippy out of the girl.
Thanks for passing that link along — and I agree that the press has made much of this because it’s a ratings side-show. But this kind of thing that has echoes because it’s a movement based on anger — and everybody can relate on some level. Unfortunately God, guns and rage produces regrettable events, like this one: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/02/times_tough_all_over_pt_2.php?ref=fpblg
When we give political legitimacy to groups like this, it encourages a kind of vigilante mentality that can’t be ignored long.
This is a fine article Jude, and so is your weekly page. In the weekly story you said “. .but this energy is going to break eventually, . .” and I thought about the major energies of Pluto square Saturn and then Uranus creeping closer to the t-square formation. That energy will be with us for some time but incrimental changes during that time can give us hope (or despair) as we wait for that break.
For example, I was looking at the Winter solstice chart (12/21/09) and the Spring Equinox chart (3/20/10) in a discussion about Sarah Palin, and focused not on the major dominating t-square but the Aquarian influence that has been discussed often for the last year or so. In the solstice chart the Moon is conjunct the Jupiter, Neptune, Chiron group which is coincidentally conjunct the U.S. Moon (Sibly chart). Think back to all flaws in our system(s) we Americans have had to face, starting with the Christmas bombing attempt and the way the bomber was allowed to get on a plane to the U.S. The illusion of safety was destroyed and it was painful to acknowledge.
I think that is a sign of Chiron conjunt the U.S. Moon. One way the Neptune factor can be seen at work is in the lies told to the public by many in government as well as the banking world, big Pharma and other powerful groups. Jupiter and Aquarius have availed so much info about it that the public is bombarded with information to sort through, if it is willing to do so. Mostly, it is a big turn-off.
Come the Spring Equinox and Chiron and Neptune will still conjunct the U.S. Moon, but Jupiter has moved on into Pisces and this time the transiting Moon will square the U.S. Moon. Perhaps this means that while the painful disclosures and subterfuges will still be with us (the U.S. Moon), this Equinox Moon will challenge the Aquarius planets from pragmatic, no-nonsense, money-smart Taurus. A down-to-earth perspective might be welcome by spring!
Then there is the additional challenges from Vesta in Leo and Pallas Athene in Scorpio to the Aquarius Neptune and Chiron. These three goddesses, the Moon, Pallas and Vesta complete a fixed grand cross and it is all “feminine” energy. Pallas and Vesta are not so dependent on the masculine energy so this might take the form of groups less bent on attack and more receptive to merging ideas. Both Pallas and Vesta are retrograde, and with Vesta’s commitment and Pallas’ integrative (weaving) talent, we might hope for cooperation to develop and writers like yourself to continue to educate and inform us of possible solutions to our country’s dilemmas. The start of an idea (plan?) is better than none at all, right?
be
Well, it’s a media phenomenon.
The modern day right wing hippies.
interesting article ‘Why Does Everyone Obsess Over the Tea Party Yahoos’:
http://www.alternet.org/story/145634/why_does_everyone_obsess_over_the_tea_party_yahoos
questions why people are even labeling it a movement