So this is the Tea Party's endgame. No government

[babylonsister]

So this is the Tea Party's endgame. No government

In 1995 Clinton and Gingrich were always going to deal. But these economic fundamentalists don't want compromise
* Michael Tomasky


When Tea Party candidates were elected in a raft of seats across the United States in the midterm elections last November, we wondered what the fallout would be. Now we're finding out.

At the state level, most notably in Wisconsin but in other states too, conservative governors are using the financial crisis – created by Wall Street bankers and the deregulation-mad politicians who serve them – to give the bankers even more power, in effect, by trying to crush the strongest countervailing force against them in our political system – unions.

The public employee union members have generous pension arrangements, and they generally contribute far less to their healthcare benefit plans than most private sector employees have to. But this latest development is a sad sign of the power imbalance in American politics that has accrued over the last 30 years – during which time overall union membership has gone from about 25% of the workforce to barely 11%, and the richest 1% have seen their pre-tax incomes nearly quadruple while median earners have stayed flat.

Were the Democrats cleverer and braver, citizens would broadly know these facts. But most Americans have no idea of the massive class war – stealing from the bottom and the middle and giving to the very top – that has been waged over the last three decades. Instead, they appear to know, or "know", that Barack Obama has governed from the hard left, that unions are piggy, and that an uprising of Tea Party patriots has been all that stands between the good old US of A and a kind of Muslim-Marxism state. In such an atmosphere, the right can move with impunity.

Or can it? We'll soon see. In Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker may have overplayed his hand. One sees signs that regular Americans don't buy all the conservative spin. A poll out this week in USA Today finds that Americans support the collective bargaining rights of public employee unions by nearly two to one (61% to 33%). In addition, Walker is evidently lying through his teeth. It has become an important Walker (and overall conservative) claim that he campaigned on exactly what he's doing now, so what's the big shock? But Politifact, a respected and nonpartisan monitor, combed the record and found that he never said a word on the campaign trail about curtailing bargaining rights.

more...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/feb/23/tea-party-endgame-no-government

[nebenaube]

1. Be very wary...

Because that could throw us into 'continuity of government' mode from which we will never return.

[rgbecker]

2. Oh yeah, but the tea party government wants to make sure workers can't organize.

Free enterprise for everyone but the workers.

[bhikkhu]

3. On this topic, the history of the constitution is worth reading up on

People often think that the constitution was written to guarantee our liberties and limited government, but you have to go back and read what it replaced: after the revolutionary war, a very weak federal government was established. In practice, by having a small and weak central government it was found that commerce and trade suffered, that more organized foreign powers quickly learned how to play us like a fiddle, that the rule of law suffered and the well-being of everyone suffered along with it. The constitution was written to establish a strong enough central government to regulate trade and to match the capabilities of foreign powers, and was accepted by rich and poor alike, as "small government" had been tried and failed.

There is a "right size" to government which is determined to some extent by the practical need of the US to compete and coexist with the rest of the world.

[jtuck004]

4. Do you have links to that which you could post?

Or books that address that directly.

thank you.

[bhikkhu]

6. One excellent book:

"Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution" by Holton.

If you find that in the library you're likely to find as its neighbors another dozen good books on the subject. Madison took notes of the entire constitutional convention, which are also well worth reading if you can find a summary or excerpts.

[jtuck004]

7. Thank you. I am sure I'm not the only one that appreciates it. eom

[Betty]

5. so called "conservatives" really want to replace government

or what's left of it, with the soon to be realized fascist regime that has been bought and paid for by big business types (see Koch brothers, for example). I am really praying that this Walker asshole has overplayed the hand and is waking people up, it seems this might be the case But the whole thing is so insidious and entrenched, it will be a major effort on the part of millions to counteract this.