The Wall Street Journal writes today about how the tea party movement might be turning on Wall Street. I don't really believe it, but I'm excited by the possibility. Could the tea party guys actually be legitimate? Well, there is one way they can prove it.
I've made a lot of fun of the tea party people on our show. The main reason is that I think they're being led around the nose by corporate interests while mistakenly believing they're fighting the powers that be. They're being used as tools by the same exact people they think they are battling against, i.e. the elites that screw over the little guy.
But now, I'd like to change course and welcome them in. I believe portions of the movement are redeemable (we'll find out soon enough if I'm smoking crack on this one). Yes, some of them are full-blown crazy with their birther theories and lunatic signs about holocausts and fascism. A lot of them are actually mad because they think they have lost their privileged position in the country (hence, the cries of "I want my country back"). But many of them are populists that have simply been led in the wrong direction.
I'm going to be so bold as to say they can work with us. And we can work with them. But they have to do something first -- prove they are not tools of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the country. Fight the banks!
See, here's my theory. The people who fund the tea-parties (their buses, websites, signs and yes even their donuts) have absolutely no interest in fighting the banks. They have no interest in pointing out that the banks took massive amount of taxpayer money through TARP, AIG backdoor bailouts and secret Fed loans. When it comes to protecting health care companies, they're in. When it comes to fighting the government if it tries to help the poor and middle class, they're in. But if you challenge corporate America, they're out, way out. No interest.
But those are the right-wing groups funding these efforts, not the actual people in the protests. The right-wing groups are not redeemable. And the tea party protestors can mark my words. Those conservative organizations will never lead a protest of the big banks that took government money. You watch. And when you see I'm right, then see if you're ready to answer my challenge.
I issue a challenge to the tea-party movement. If you're true to your word, and you believe in protecting the American people and principles, and you think government is too big and hands out money to the wrong people, then join us in fighting against the biggest giveaway to biggest culprits. Fight the power of the banks with us.
Don't listen to your leaders that tell you that liberals aren't capitalists. That's nonsense. We're the real capitalists. Just like you, we don't think the government should be in the business of handing out taxpayer money to people who didn't earn it. And if you're against handing out government money, you certainly have to be against giving that money to the richest people in the country and the ones that caused the economic collapse in the first place. You're not a sucker, are you? Why would you want to give away your money to those people?
The bank executives who are responsible for our terrible recession are about to walk away with record setting bonuses. Where did they get that money in these tough economic times? From you! They picked your pocket.
You know who helped them do it? George W. Bush and Hank Paulson. But also Tim Geithner and Barack Obama. I told you we agreed. See, I wasn't kidding. Hey, why don't you ask your organizers who have been so busy protecting private insurance companies how come they never organize any protests against Tim Geithner? Wouldn't he be a natural target as the Treasury Secretary when the economy is in recession and the banks are getting away with billions? Have you ever wondered why those well-funded tea party organization websites never have buses going to protest at Wall Street or the Treasury Department?
Join us. We can build a real populist movement that isn't funded by corporate America. That actually cares about the American people and throws the crooks out on their ass. That fights the elites who have captured the government and turned it into their own private piggy bank.
Or don't join us, just as long as you fight in the right direction. Prove you're legit. Fight against the banks that are about to take all of our money home in bonuses for themselves. You fight them from the right. We'll fight them from the left. And we'll meet you in the middle. The real middle of the country that is tired of being run over by the big and powerful interests in Washington and Wall Street.
Follow Cenk Uygur on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks
If elected, to limit their efforts to those authorized in Article One, Section Eight.
Most of us agree substantially with Congressman Ron Paul's views that we need to eliminate corporatism and all the ills related to it.
To audit the FED and expose it's favoritism.
To stop trying to force our society on other nations against their will.
To bring all our troops home and concentrate our military spending on defensive power.
To make business responsible for the consequences of it's actions - punish fraud.
To let profitable business' buy the assets of those that fail and create new capital honestly.
I believe that includes a good many things that Cenk uniformly advocates.
Both political parties are clearly in the pocket of Corporate America (and actually have been for some time now). If the right-wing "crazies" ever gained enough sense to realize that their concerns are better addressed by progressive solutions, there might be actual political reform in the U.S.
While the articulation of the Tea Party movement is risable, the underlying suffering upon which it is based is very real.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A&NR=1
The divide and conquer strategy of the powers that be keeps the ignorant from truly understanding the basis of their anger and results in such ridiculous petitions as "keep your government hands off my Medicare".
If the underlying populist rage were to be properly defined and addressed and members of the so-called Tea Party movement were somehow educated and subsumed by progressives, there would be a true castration of the present system of blind corporatist government.
Tapping into that rage can be a very powerful tool. How to get the populist extremes of the left and right on point is a Herculean task, but one worth waging. The Huffington Post's continual effort to define the "left/right" paradigm as nonsense is definitely part of that task.
I wouldn't mind this for one reason, it would pit the K Street organizers of the "grass roots" tea party against those they are manipulating.
That said, these people are told it's the Obama Bailout, despite the fact he inherited it from Bush the 2nd, and then they run out and paint signs demonstrating how disconnected from reality they are.
I'd argue that trying to call on tea partiers to go after those who do steal their money -- the monied GOP -- is a bad idea. I agree with the populism a Tea Party should represent. The sad part is not only is the partiers' view of reality and outrage false, it is misdirected and a tool of the GOP leadership. And these people have fallen in line -- it seems to be what they do.
Really, are these the kind of people that will reform government for the good or for ill? Ally with them today for expediency and in the future we'll divide over the fact they can't accept the reality of Obama's citizenship.
Their character isn't deserving of anyone who is a true populist that wants our Republic to be more like it should be... To ally with them really only mirrors the behavior of DeLay and his ilk.
I do like the link about where the money for the donuts comes from... good stuff.
Younger people may not know it, but older people realize the powers that be will not tolerate being stood on end. This includes the Fed, DoD and other entities that are powerful beyond belief. To demand President Obama to bring down these entities is akin to sending him in alone to vanquish the entire m@fi@ organization. Impossible and only one outcome.
I believe President Obama is doing the best he can do in this toxic construct. A nation on the verge of financial collapse was not the right time nor place to implement radical changes in the finance world. Now that the situation is somewhat stable, we do need to pressure banks and corporations as an united front to save what is left of the middle class.
This movement could focus on POLITICAL REFORM and breaking up the stanglehold that financial institutions have on our government and its citizens.
Too Big to Fail Financial Institutions -- break them up -
Reinstate Glass-Stegall ACT
Repeal the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000
Repeal the Bankruptcy Bill of 2005 - that disadvantaged millions of average Americans
Criminal prosecutions for the worst offenders in banking crisis
Give direct support to homeowners who are "underwater" with their mortgages (not the overly limited plans the WHouse has instituted with very mediocre results)
Give left over "bailout" cash to local and community banks to lend to small business and homeowners
This agenda would capture the imagination of the public.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern_Pacific_Railroad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankism
Which itself is an outgrowth of general RWA concept of ingroups/outgroups:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_authoritarianism
BTW....some have tried to academically describe a certain "left-wing authoritarianism" but it's just really there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_authoritarianism#Right_and_left
We are the left are the proverbial cats who refuse herding.
Can't have any competition, this Corporate Red/Blue party
Cenk's proposal has little chance of getting on the oligarchy's MSM, so most teabaggers will never hear it. Though it makes a lot of sense, it's going to be a hard row to hoe.
I'm still trying to figgure out where y'all see the progressives and the teabaggers having common ground.
The progressive wants to replace "big corporations" with big government. As "bad" as corporate is government is a 100 times worse. In the real world bad business go away, bad government just gets bigger. The bailouts were juat an excuse to make big corp big government. Bad business needs to go broke and go away.
I see no common ground, sorry
How can anyone possibly be upset about someone on welfare and not be insane about the banks stealing 700 billion of our tax money?
Heres one more: If the real issue to the Tea baggers is the debt, where is uproar about expanding the war? It will cost multiple times what health care would but not a single word from the baggers on it.
After that there's probably a large overlap where us little guys can relate.