10:45 The most complete discussion of the Tea Party yet - good watch

[underpants]

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/peggy-noonan-tries-paint-tea-party-spontan


That's what populism wanted. Populism was for social justice, where government's stepping in to help people fighting forces too big for them to fight themselves.

So when I watch the Tea Party today, try to appropriate the tag of populism, you really think that's really at odds with American history.

ZAKARIA: So Charles, would you agree with that? That the populist movement, in its essence, has really a kind of movement of -- of people wanting government involvement?

CHARLES POSTEL, AUTHOR, THE POPULIST VISION: I -- I agree with that, very much so. This is a good description. It was -- the epicenter was Central Texas back in the 1880s and '90s. Poor farmers wanted to use government to make a better life for themselves. They wanted to use government to make a better life for poor people, and that's the --

ZAKARIA: So what --

POSTEL: That was what it was about.

ZAKARIA: So what is the Tea Party?

POSTEL: The Tea Party is a conservative movement, not a populist movement. It's a conservative movement that doesn't think the government should make a better life for poor people, for -- for the common person.

<...>

ZAKARIA: Peggy, what do you think? Why is the energy there?

NOONAN: Because they feel, I think -- I mean, I spend a lot of time talking to and e-mailing with folks who were involved in various places in the Tea Party. They're so diverse in their thinking and some of them talk about the tenth amendment or some of them talk about this.

But the one thing that they have in common, and if they stick with this I think they will be very attractive in the future to centrist voters and thinkers. The one thing they have in common is that they are making a kind of economic protest against the federal government in Washington.

They're saying you are too big. You demand too much. You are changing the shape of too many things. You're regulating too much, and all of this promises to be bad for our country in the future.

But it's economic issues that they talk about.

I think, as they evolve, if they become involved in other issues, it may not be so attractive to centrists. But I think if they stay where they are and look to their knitting, it will move forward and be something very interesting and full of implication.

ZAKARIA: Bob?

CARO: Well, you know, Peggy, you're -- you're perfectly right. It's economic interests they're talking about. The interests they're not talking about is social justice.

The whole idea of populism is that government must step in to help people fighting forces that are too large for them to help fight themselves. Who would say, in the interest of -- if you talk to the populist leaders and you said 39 or 40 million Americans don't have health insurance today, who in the original populist movement would not say then it's the job of government to step in and do that?

That's the terrible thing that's been lost in this debate. The whole history, the whole fight, you might say, for social justice in America is sort of being left out of this discussion of the Tea Party Movement.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/peggy-noonan-tries-paint-tea-party-spontan

[Beartracks]

1. Populists - Selfless. Tea Partiers - Selfish.

At least, that's how it seems to me. It's the difference between, "How can we make things better for everyone?" and, "What's in it for me?"

-------------------------

[oswaldactedalone]

2. Here's another link to scary Tea Partiers - The Koch Brothers

and the development of the philosphy which resulted in them creating the Tea Party.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/13/tea-party-billionaire-koch-brothers

They want to completely dismantle government regulations to feed their need for greed. Very dangerous people. It's scary to think how they've brainwashed the weak-minded among us to buy into this destructive philosophy.

[underpants]

4. I just watched that on another thread

looks like a good documentary

[Uncle Joe]

3. But the corporate media is trying to label them as "populist" because the corporate media knows

that populism is where the political energy is most justifiably coming from.

Al Gore knew it toward the later stages of the 2000 campaign and he surged at that point but the corporate media criticized him as being too populist.

So now the corporate media is trying to co-opt populism by re-branding conservatism, aka; corporate supremacy as being for the people populism, the Tea Party is concrete evidence of the corporate media's brainwashing power.

Thanks for the thread, underpants.

[underpants]

5. You are welcome Uncle Joe.. n/t