By Jane Stillwater
Sometimes when you look at the Tea Party agenda, you
think that you are looking at a Progressive's dream
come true. They want to cut down on the influence of
party hacks and lobbyists in Washington. I'm a
Progressive. I want that too!
Teabaggers want states' rights, Constitutional rights,
individual rights and financial safety for their
families. Me too. They want bankers to stop getting
away with stealing trillions of OUR dollars. They want
an end to a horrific deficit that mostly goes into the
pockets of fat cats. Those are agenda items that I too
support 100%.
The Tea Partiers speak reverently of liberty, justice
and freedom. And isn't that the whole point of being a
Progressive? It is for me. And what about Truth? Both
sides seem to like the concept of Truth a lot.
And smaller government? The Teabaggers are definitely
in favor of that -- and so am I. I'd love to see the
Pentagon budget get cut by half, all that
pork-barreling stop, TARPS ripped out from under the
wealthy and "No Child Left Behind" left in the dust.
There are so many things that Teabaggers and
Progressives have in common. And yet the Tea Party
turned to the GOP for hope, shelter and consolation.
Isn't that a bit like Little Red Riding Hood turning
to the Big Bad Wolf for help? "Lie to me," Tea
Partiers begged the Republicans. And the GOP did.
Bigtime.
And yet Progressives don't lie. But the Tea Party
hates us anyway. Why oh why is that? Progressives walk
the walk. But the GOP just talks the talk. Why chose
Them over Us? Forming a Tea Party alliance with the
GOP just doesn't make sense.
To quote Matt Taibbi in the Rolling Stone, "The GOP
leadership largely succeeded this past fall in
appropriating the political energy of the Tea Party
for its own ends, pulling off a brilliant coup by
using Tea Party rage to push through the long
sought-after extension of the obscene Bush tax cuts.
This was always going to be the model of how
Republican Party hacks would deal with the Tea Party:
Bash the living hell out of hated blue-state Gorgons
like Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama, jack off the mob
by incorporating the Tea Party's
Constitution-and-liberty rhetoric, hand the Tea Party
those reforms that the GOP's big campaign contributors
want anyway (most notably, tax breaks for the rich and
deregulation of big business), and then cough up a
note from the doctor or some other lame excuse when
the time comes to actually cut spending." http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/72-72/4506-the-crying-shame-of-john-boehner
While I truly do not see what Teabaggers have against
Progressives, I can see very clearly why Tea Partiers
should hate-hate-hate the Republicans. And yet it is
the GOP that Teabaggers choose to climb into bed with.
And even as they are getting royally screwed by
Republican fat cats, Tea Partiers apparently don't
even have the moxie to ask for payment for their
services after the dirty deed is done.
Go figure.
PS: If Teabaggers and Progressives could finally begin
to see their common ground and actually begin to work
together, America might actually become an honest and
decent place once again.
As Matt Taibbi states clearly, "Congress used to be an
easy job for any man with a nice fairway stroke, a
limited moral compass and a keen sense of bureaucratic
loyalty.... But things are different now. America is
so broke, there's no longer really any money in the
Treasury to give away — the job of overseeing
corporate handouts that used to belong to the leaders
of Congress has now moved to the Federal Reserve,
which itself is so broke that it has to invent dollars
out of thin air before it can give them away to
influential billionaires. This leaves congressional
leaders with nothing to do but their ostensible jobs —
i.e., fixing the country's actual problems — and few
of the current leaders have any experience with that,
Boehner being a prime example.... He now finds himself
the party's last line of defense against millions of
angry voters who, for the first time in recent memory,
are at least attempting to watch what Congress is up
to."
I'm an angry voter. And the Tea Partiers are angry
voters too. So let's stop all this hatin' on each
other, team up, work together, and take our American
democracy back from the oligarchs and fat cats who own
it now.
Boy, I bet that fat cats like Boehner, Beck, Palin and
the owners of the New York Times and Washington Post
would HATE to see Progressives and Teabaggers united
-- instead of happily at each others' throats and
distracted away from this oligarchy's own lies and
misdeeds.
****
From Matt Taibbi at the Rolling Stone: The Crying
Shame of John Boehner: It was good times in America
for a while. A man could wait for his local
congressman to get caught diddling a 16-year-old, make
a run for his seat, and then spend the next 20 years
getting hustled around the world on golf junkets and
showered with campaign checks and apartments and
corporate-jet flights, and nobody would utter so much
as a peep of protest. Congress was an easy job for any
man with a nice fairway stroke, a limited moral
compass and a keen sense of bureaucratic loyalty; it
was half an acting job and half clerical work, taking
orders from industry captains and selling the
resultant giveaway bills to your voters as principled
blows for Adam Smith, the flag and the free-enterprise
system.
Back when America was still a feared international
bully that was flush with borrowed Saudi and Chinese
cash and could stand to blow a few hundred extra
billion in public funds every year on budget-padding
deals — back in the Bush years — John Boehner was the
perfect candidate for congressional leadership, a
lifetime company man who didn't give a shit about most
Americans but could shed tears on national television
on behalf of Jamie Dimon's bottom line.
Things are different now. America is so broke, there's
no longer really any money in the Treasury to give
away — the job of overseeing corporate handouts that
used to belong to the leaders of Congress has now
moved to the Federal Reserve, which itself is so broke
that it has to invent dollars out of thin air before
it can give them away to influential billionaires.
This leaves congressional leaders with nothing to do
but their ostensible jobs — i.e., fixing the country's
actual problems — and few of the current leaders have
any experience with that, Boehner being a prime
example.
The new speaker represents an increasingly endangered
class of Beltway jobholders who know how to raise
money and get elected, but not much beyond that. He
now finds himself the party's last line of defense
against millions of angry voters who, for the first
time in recent memory, are at least attempting to
watch what Congress is up to. The tee times are over.
http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/72-72/4506-the-crying-shame-of-john-boehner
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