LOL the Monty Python skit is priceless......Isn't that from the Life of Brian?
The Coffee Party--We Aren't Going To Let The Extremists Run This Country
by Justitia Themis 32 Replies latest jw friends
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CoonDawg
I kind of take offense at your denigration of the coffee party. I personally identify with their main message. Sure, I'm sick of what the Dems and Repubs offer. I feel like they do not speak for the huge swath of people firmly in the middle. I am not a member of any party, but it's nice to see a group that does take a moderate view (or at least that's the view of most I've had contact with) that is somewhat socially progressive rather than the tea partiers who tend to lean more to the right. I've enjoyed some of the discussions I've had. I don't want to see it taken over by left wing extremists anymore than I like seeing the tea party taken over by extreme right wingers. That just promotes more of the same of what we've already had. I'll continue my non-party affiliation and vote on issues the way that I see them and cadidates for what I think they might be able to do. It all comes down to local politics. That's where you are going to have an effect. I will hand it to the tea partiers. They seem to understand that in order to become a national party, they first have to get elected at local and state levels - and they are doing it. The only problem is that they have alowed themselves to simply become a fringe wing of the Republican party, and those masters will expect their due, in time.
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lifeisgood
CoonDawg,
"I don't want to see it taken over by left wing extremists anymore than I like seeing the tea party taken over by extreme right wingers."
I help arrange tea party rallies in southern Mississippi. Our only message is that we want a balanced federal budget. So, tell me how a balanced federal budget is "extreme right winger".
We are holding politicians' feet to the fire to balance the budget and we have told the Congress people of both parties "Balance the budget or you will be going home at your next election".
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CoonDawg
I help arrange tea party rallies in southern Mississippi. Our only message is that we want a balanced federal budget. So, tell me how a balanced federal budget is "extreme right winger".
lifeisgood - I realize that that is the target message and you, along with your immediate tea party associates may stick to that, but on a national level, tea party influence has been bent the agenda of some tea party backed candidates that attained office, such as the Wisconsin Governor. His agenda clearly goes beyond the scope of simply balancing budgets. THAT is what I was referring to. That is taking a much more right wing ideological stance as opposed to simply balancing the state budget. Same here in Florida. The governor, another tea party backed candidate, clearly has the interests of big business at heart rather than simple budget balancing. I'm really trying to be objective and I don't necessarily disagree with all of the broad brush tea party ideas. I consider myself a fiscal conservative that's socially liberal - I know...a walking contradiction - but I refuse to accept that the two are mutually exclusive.
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BizzyBee
Wisconsin Governor. His agenda clearly goes beyond the scope of simply balancing budgets.
Good point. It seems to me that some of the candidates who were supported by the tea party have social agendas that they have brought along with them. So far Congress has been busy not with creating jobs but with immigration, DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act), NPR, slashing union rights, re-defining rape, etc.
It is too simplistic to say that you just want a balanced budget without saying what should be cut. You may say that you don't care how they do it - but you'd scream bloody murder when the street lights go out or the police don't show up or your kid's school is shut down or your SS is cut in half or your food supply is contaminated or .....etc., etc. So far Congress has been busy not with creating jobs
I understand, too, LIG, that you do not speak for the entire Tea Party - apparently no one does.
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CoonDawg
Haha! See? I've always known that there can be civil dialogue between two people about politics. We are not so different. It's a thorny issue that MUST be discussed in a reasonable manner. Of course, not everyone is going to be happy with the outcome, but I do think that progress CAN be made. You're right about congress. They are still playing to their respective bases. Already it is about party posturing in advance of the 2012 race. It's shamefull - but that's what American politics has been for decades.
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NeckBeard
So what has the Coffee Party accomplished so far? NOTHING.
You can't expect a grass roots effrt tpo succeed with statist leftists....a bunch of people that believe in top down everything, not bottom up.
The only way these morons ever accomplish anything is when they are told waht to do. If Obama doesnt send buses, no dice.
http://caivn.org/article/2011/06/25/progressives-try-start-their-own-left-wing-tea-party-again
PROGRESSIVES TRY TO START THEIR OWN "LEFT-WING" TEA PARTY, AGAIN
Responding to the frustration progressive activists feel toward the political power and media attention garnered by the Tea Party movement, former Obama official Van Jones has teamed up with MoveOn.org to launch what they are calling The American Dream Movement. The media is calling it a "left-wing" or "liberal" version of the Tea Party.
The undertaking already has many conservatives scoffing. Conservative blogging giant Glenn Reynolds sarcastically noted, for instance, how many failed attempts there have already been by progressives to start a "liberal version" of the Tea Party, writing:
"Can Liberals Start Their Own Tea Party? Well, we’ve had the Coffee Party, the Brownbaggers, The Other 95%, A New Way Forward, the One Nation Movement — am I leaving any out? I can’t remember — and none of them has gone much beyond a spot of initial positive coverage from the NYT. So, probably not."
Why have all these past attempts failed?
For one, I would argue that they are too contrived, too planned, and too organized from the top down. Contrary to what half ofMSNBC's evening line up would have you believe, the Tea Party movement really is a spontaneous, grassroots phenomenon. No Republican or conservative political activist sat in a room with colleagues planning out a new political movement that would be called the Tea Party. No central organization planned or directed the hundreds of local and autonomous Tea Party protests that happened in cities and towns across the country in 2009. They just happened.
Statists on "the Left" may have a fundamental problem in their thinking that prevents such spontaneous organization and activity. Central to their political worldview is the notion that central planning from above is necessary to facilitate positive social change, or "progress" as they like to style it. If they were able to pull together and truly emulate the Tea Party by means of a totally spontaneous, voluntary, citizen and locally-driven, grassroots movement, they will have ironically disproved or at least substantially weakened a central axiom of their own political philosophy.
But there is one way that a "left-wing" version of the Tea Party could succeed. The Washington Post asked this week, "Can liberals start their own tea party?" and the answer is, "Yes, but only if they are as sincere as the original Tea Party in disavowing partisan politics and business as usual in Washington." The original Tea Party was and continues to be so successful because it has been as much of a rebuke of George W. Bush as it has been of Barack Obama, even making that critical and seemingly-obvious connection, which nevertheless eludes committed partisans: that Presidents Bush and Obama are substantively identical in nearly every way.
After eight years of collective Republican insanity, with President Bush aggressively betraying every single one of traditional conservatism's self-proclaimed values in pursuit of a vision of empire and global hegemony entirely alien to traditional conservatism, the Tea Party has dramatically refocused the Republican Party's priorities on the rule of law, restricting executive power, championing greater transparency, opposing subsidies and bailouts that reward well-connected and powerful corporations, spending responsibly, and even protecting civil liberties. It's telling that because of the Tea Party, Republicans like Rand Paul are now among the most vocal opponents of the Patriot Act and Obama's undeclared war in Libya.
A "left-wing" Tea Party could not succeed by attempting to unite and energize that shrinking portion of American voters who actually want to see an increase in the size, role, and influence of a government that most Americans believe is malfeasant, bloated, corrupt, and broke. If a "liberal" version of the Tea Party is to succeed, it must adopt the original Tea Party's implicit battle-cry: "We want less! We want less!" It must refocus Democratic priorities on less open-ended warfare like Obama's continued campaign in Afghanistan and arguably illegal war in Libya. It must focus on fewer assaults on our civil liberties like the Patriot Act, so carefully shepherded through the U.S. Senate by Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid, and opposed single-handedly by a Republican, Rand Paul. It must focus on less executive power and no more violations of the Constitution.
Like the first modern Tea Party movement, a "liberal" version should hearken back to the Founding Fathers, calling the Democratic Party back to the principles embodied by its early leaders like Thomas Jefferson, who fought so boldly for civil liberties and the rule of law, and Andrew Jackson, who literally risked his life opposing the power of corrupt central bankers and their manipulation of the economy for the benefit of wealthy special interests.
Unless Democrats move in this direction and chastise their own leadership for abandoning their principles, they will fail. But perhaps that's why no such thing as a "left-wing" Tea Party has yet emerged with any amount of influence or credibility, because if all of these things are what progressives mean when they call for a "left-wing Tea Party," such a movement already exists. It's called the Tea Party.
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Diest
Drew, How can you not understand what telling us not to establish a religion or make laws about the free exorcise, would separate church and state. The bible does not say the word trinity but I bet as an evangelical you claim it is still in there... The constitution also give the judiciary the power to rule on the constitution so look at the last 100 years of law before you spout off about what is in the constitution. Check out Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962),
Look also at the Treaty of Tripoli ratified by the senate back in 1792
“As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries” (emphasis added)
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Diest
Neck Beard in CO we are thankful for the Tea Party....the loones they nominated for Gov and Senate both lost. Had they stuck with regular republicans I bet the Dems would have lost both positions.
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Band on the Run
The Tea Party is a lunatic fringe, ill-informed and hateful. My major loyalty is to specific issues but my specific issues are generally supported by the Democratic Party. I studied Political Science in college many years ago. We discussed the role of parties on the extreme, ruining the main party. The names were different, the concepts were the same.
As a Democrat, I heartily invite the Tea Party to organize, organize, organize! A divided GOP, a divided one seen in the hands of lunatics, will lead to a Democratic victory in the general election. Please, I campagined for most liberal candidates in my party. The results were always the same. Defeat in November. Yes, there were some nice primary victory parties.
After law school, I became pragmatic. Clinton produced years of gold. I can still work for issues I care about but my allegience goes to a winner in November. The tea party is drunk with its skewed press as much as I used to be drunk with primary wins or press coverage. Americans want a centrist candidate. They hop between both parties. If Ralph Nader did not run, Al Gore would have been elected. Well, he was elected. But Fla and Ohio need not matter.
Run, crazies on the right, run. Run, so this crazy on the left, can attend the Inagural Ball. Run, so the New York Times newsroom can throw its secret victory party. Run!