The enigmatic Tea Party movement softened its hardcore image with the recent appearance of Pam Stout, president of the Sandpoint, Idaho Tea Party Patriots, on the Late Show with David Letterman. Mrs. Stout is no doubt a sweet-hearted woman with growing concerns over the welfare of America, but her popularity as a political activist in the fragmented Tea Party movement has cast a spotlight upon common naivete rampant among many Tea Party groups.
Disillusioned Tea Partiers
Widespread political ignorance among various Tea Party supporters appears to be the culprit that undermines legitimate ideals and concerns articulated by many of its informed diplomatic members. On March 30, Letterman sought to conduct a tough interview in a soft tone and bring to light some of the surface-level thinking that seems common among Tea Party members. Leaving aside the insidious rancor and racial hostilities that have attached themselves to the outskirts of the growing movement, Letterman did a good job of getting to a few core issues.
One of Stout's major points was her concern over the notion that businesses receive a bad rap:
"We demonize business," Stout said. "We need businesses to succeed. There's no jobs without businesses."
The audience applauded. Good point, Stout. But, there's a hole being dug here.
The presumed demonization of "business" is an inaccurate characterization of the righteous indignation expressed by a citizenry duped by numerous large corporations in the financial sector. The domino effect of the banking industry crisis impacted businesses across the nation, both small and large. Americans were, and still are, rightfully outraged over abuses of power by large corporations.
Upon close examination, we find that Americans do not despise nor demonize businesses in general. There is, however, a healthy skepticism over the notion that large corporations ought not be subjected to regulatory efforts. The rampant fraud and abuses of power in the business world -- especially in the financial sector -- cries out for some sort of trustworthy regulatory oversight to protect consumers. Who can be trusted to wield such enormous regulatory power is a legitimate question.
Collusion Caused Crisis
America's economic crisis can be pinpointed to a collaborative effort between the controlling powers in the financial sector and controlling powers in Congress and the White House. Where would Tea Party advocates draw the line between business freedoms and government regulation?
Tea drinkers unfortunately missed their big opportunity to divert America from the path of economic crisis when all 50 states attorneys general were battling the federal government and Federal Reserve from efforts to empower banks to employ predatory lending practices.
Cause of Crisis
Tea Party supporters, like Stout, apparently slept through this epic battle of the states versus the federal government. Ironically, at the time of this economic war over the premise of states rights to protect the citizenry, the federal government was led by a Republican president, George W. Bush.
The current issues that have sparked outrage from awakened sleepy-eyed Tea drinkers are reactions to the crisis that has already occurred, initially exposing itself in early 2008 during the collapse of Bear Stearns.
The question on the minds of millions of Americans is: Where were Tea Party supporters when the problems that caused the financial crisis were occurring?
The aforementioned civil war between the states and federal government took place early in President Bush's tenure, while today's Tea Party Constitutionalists remained silent.
Tea Party President
Letterman asked Stout to explain how a Tea Party president would've handled the financial crisis. She stated flatly:
"I think several businesses would've gone out of business. Car companies and the banks."
Stout acknowledged Letterman's rebuttal that nearly two million jobs may have been lost if the government had not stepped in (which was the basis of the bailout begged for by Republicans, including Dubya and then-presidential candidate John McCain). Ironically, the Tea Party's fundamental complaint today was reflected in a poll reported by Fox News that showed a mere 30 percent of American citizens supported Bush's Bailout plan in Sept. '08.
Senator John McCain was quite direct about Bush's Bailout when he spoke to a crowd of supporters in Scranton, PA on Sept. 22, 2008 (according to a report by a local CBS affiliate television station):
"Never before in the history of our nation has so much power and money been concentrated in the hands of one person. This arrangement makes me deeply uncomfortable. We will not solve a problem caused by poor oversight with a plan that has no oversight."
Senator McCain expressed that President Bush and Treasury Secretary had crafted a plan that was unprecedented in American history. The labels of "socialist" and "communist," however, would be reserved for the next president. Meanwhile, McCain openly stated the economic crisis was caused by "poor oversight."
If that's the case, who was overseeing whom? And did anything change, other than a bit of reshuffling the same deck of cards that built the economic house which currently requires all the propping it can get?
Pam Stout remains stalwart in her position against both parties' efforts to buy time toward a solution to avoid an even greater economic catastrophe.
"I understand that," Stout said, in response to Letterman's comment about losing nearly two million jobs. "And sometimes I think you have to take the medicine and perhaps we need to do that as a nation. We have overspent. And at some point you cannot continue to do that. And so, if you let people fail, and you let businesses fail, then other businesses step up because there's still a need; there'd still be a need for cars. So somebody else will start producing more and those jobs will be retained."
Letterman followed with a laugh line, concluding that the "somebody" who would produce more cars would be China ... and the jobs would be lost forever.
Naive Notion
Stout ignores the catastrophe inherent in the sudden loss of two million jobs, making the naive point that something will simply crop up due to entrepreneurial creativity. In the interim between job loss and gain, each out-of-work American is facing monthly living expenses and the creditors and banks who aren't concerned with the debtor's lack of income. Will the two million newly created jobs magically appear before the mortgage is due?
Stout's premise is one that underscores the argument of the theoretical "free market." Unfortunately, her naive notion that the nation simply "overspent" opens her points to criticism of being simply surface-level.
Stout has inadvertently overlooked the deliberate deception that has built up an economic institution so powerful that it can bundle bad debt into U.S. securities and secretly trade it overseas. The bad debt sold by the Fed was accrued initially by banks across the U.S., which sold bad loan packages to institutions like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both of which are today overburdened with bad debt.
Economic Revelation
The reality is that the banking industry, controlled by the Federal Reserve, is in a severe crisis of losing the trust it has built as an institution. That trust is, unfortunately, built upon a foundation of deception, secrets and abuses of power -- as revealed by Mark Pittman, an award-winning financial reporter for Bloomberg who suddenly died last year at the age of 52. The Bernie Madoff scandal pales in comparison to the secrets being shielded by the Fed's refusal to open its books to auditing. The stakes are high -- more than $2 trillion in U.S. securities.
Fortune magazine published a series of articles about the Bear Stearns collapse, which initiated the toppling of dominoes in the financial sector. Here is a tell-tale excerpt:
"Former Bear CEO Alan Schwartz has told friends that he sees their role this way, 'These things happen and they're big, and when they happen everybody tries to look at what happened in the previous six months to find someone or something to blame it on. But, in truth, it was a team effort. We all f***ed up. Government. Rating agencies. Wall Street. Commercial banks. Regulators. Investors. Everybody.'"
Despite changes in the White House and Congress, the same people who were in charge leading up to the economic crisis in this country are the same people who are in charge today.
In case Mrs. Stout and the Tea Party folks needs names, simply check the roster of the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee. The Federal Reserve is still controlled by Ben Bernanke. The former president of the New York Federal Reserve, Timothy Geithner, who stood against a media lawsuit to shed light on the Fed's inner workings, is now the Treasury Secretary working together with the Fed. None of this consistency in the financial sector occurs without congressional collusion.
There are, quite simply, 535 members of a single powerful body that has, in collusion with the president, maintained the status quo.
Meanwhile, Tea Party supporters, who are rightfully outraged over abuses of power in government, seem oblivious to the machinations of giant corporations and banks in manipulating the political processes.
When a sweet little old lady from Idaho boils down the economic crisis in America to the notion that the election of a Black president with a presumed socialist agenda has brought the nation to its knees and threatens the future of America, it reveals the depth and width of the chasm between the Tea Party movement and reality.
It also reveals a desperate need for in-depth civil conversation.
Follow Mike Green on Twitter: www.twitter.com/amikegreen2
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/
Why are these same players who ignored whistle-blower Brooksly Born on the Obama team and close economic advisors?
It is Democrats who voted to give billions of $$$$ to failed banksters and failed Wall Street firms ... and is is Democrats who are still shoveling boatloads of taxpayer money to these failed institutions.
Deregulation of the financial industry occurred during the 106th Congress in 1999, a year before Bush was even elected. More than 70% of Democrats in both houses voted in favor of deregulating the financial industry and the bill was signed into law by William Jefferson Clinton.
October1, 2008 TARP Tally(House of Representatives):
Ayes: 173 Democrats, 91 Republicans = 264 Ayes
Nays: 63 Democrats, 108 Republicans = 171 Nays
435 Total Votes
October 1, 2008 TARP Tally (Senate):
Ayes 38 Democrats 35 Republicans 1 Independent = 74 Ayes
Nays 10 Democrats 15 Republicans 1 Independent = 25 Nays
Not Voting 1
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00213
The Tea Party got it's start during the time of TARP. Sentiments among conservatives were 300:1 against TARP ... yet it was voted for ... hence the taxation w/o representation Tea Party concept.
Notice a MAJORITY of Democrats in both houses who voted for TARP.
Notice a MAJORITY of Republicans in both houses voted AGAINST TARP (and against the wishes of their own President).
Why was that not mentioned in the article above?
I think the tea parties agree with this, which is why they don't trust the Government OR the banks. What you see as "surface-level" thought (nice ad hominem, BTW) is really a displeasure with all big institutions and a trust of anyone with power. So yeah, now people want to be left alone...by AIG, Citi Group, General Motors, and the Government. If GM makes bad cars, then they should fail. If Citi buys bad loans, then they should fail. And the Government should stop spending all our hard-earned cash trying to save companies run by idiots.
And meanwhile, GM will keep making crap cars and Citi will keep taking excessive risk, and our grandchildren will be flat freaking broke because we're sooooo scared of losing 2 million jobs that we ended up losing anyway (just in different sectors that apparently weren't important enough for Obama to save).
Of course, lacking that imagery that the left would have us believe, I'll probably join with the local folks who are tired of the crap coming from our elected leaders from both sides of the aisle.
Hey, how about that "value added" tax coming down the pike........................
* There are only so many ways you can use the word “SUCKS†on a protest sign.
* They will discover that the whole movement is just an elaborate scheme to sell t-shirts on eBay.
* Their local groups will splinter into green tea and regular tea factions with a great deal of infighting. A few will even veer hard to the left with flavored teas and discover they are actually moderate Democrats after all.
* The new reality show, “Who wants to marry a Tea Bagger†will flop and be pulled when it is revealed that, in fact, nobody does.
* Sarah Palin will be the Presidential nominee of the Tea Party, but will spend all $895 of the campaign budget on clothes at Ross Dress for Less leaving the party broke.
* A prominent tea Bagger and a progressive democrat will fall in love and elope. News of this event will be turned into a Hallmark movie-of-the-week. The ladies on The View will love it causing Tea Baggers to suffer deep emotional scars and question the movement.
* Sylvester Stallone will make a 7th “Rocky†film in which he takes on the tea Bagger heavyweights. Yes, people will still pay good money to see a 60+ year old actor beat the living crap out of a bunch of middle aged, white guys.
Regarding bailing out the auto companies – I think you’re the incredibly naïve one – not Ms. Stout. You parrot the MSM talking points about two million people being out of the job, but that is not what would have happened. In bankruptcy reorganization, shareholders would have been wiped out and the bondholders would have become the owners of the company, and the unsustainable labor contracts would have been torn up. Instead, first Bush then Obama interjected themselves into the process, ultimately leading to the CRIMINAL expropriation of the company by the government, to be given to the unions!
Partisans hacks like you are the reason Obama will continue to rape this country by continuing George Bush’s illegal and immoral policies of unlimited unlawful war, empire, indefinite detention, and corporate cronyism. If only the Left would repudiate Obama for what he and the Democratic Party have become – George W. Bush II.
Your attempt to discredit the Tea Party movement is rather weak. It’s hard to decide where to start rebutting it.
The financial crisis woke up a lot of docile conservatives to the fact that Bush’s “compassionate conservatism†was really just stealth fascism/corporatism. McCain is LOATHED by nearly all the Tea Party faithful (they are mostly supporting his primary opponent JD Hayworth) – so don’t try to associate the Tea Party with McCain. McCain is part of the same big-government elite as Obama etc. The fact that the GOP leadership supported TARP was a key motivation in the formation of the Tea Party – it became clear to many that the GOP and Dems were really just two heads of the same hydra.
Also, during the TARP debate, the Tea Party crowd (and Ron Paul supporters) flooded the phones of congress with calls, with at least 90% against the travesty, leading to the initial defeat of the bill in the first House vote. This was a tremendous victory by conservatives AGAINST George Bush, McCain, AND Obama.
Cont...
And don't forget a MAJORITY of D's in both houses voted for TARP (a fact missing from the article).
A MAJORITY of R's voted against it ... against their own President.
On the second go round, no R's voted for the extention of TARP (after they had finally listened to the nascent Tea Partiers).
Dems are still all for TARP, tarp, and more tarp.
You didn’t get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.
You didn’t get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy.
You didn’t get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.
You didn’t get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.
You didn’t get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.
You didn’t get mad when we spent over 600 billion(and counting) on said illegal war.
You didn’t get mad when over 10 billion dollars just disappeared in Iraq.
You didn’t get mad when you found out we were torturing people.
You didn’t get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.
You didn’t get mad when we didn’t catch Bin Laden.
You didn’t get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.
You didn’t get mad when we let a major US city, New Orleans, drown.
You didn’t get mad when we gave a 900 billion tax break to the rich.
You didn’t get mad when the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark.
You finally got mad when the government decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick.
Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, are all okay with you,
but helping other Americans…oh h*ll no.â€
Reporters should be doing their jobs and investigating these people.
GM, AIG, Citibank, JP Morgan should have been given limited TARP funds to weather their shady dealings until each of them was bought out either by other US companies, or, by foreign companies. It's sacrilegious when the very eminent Federal Reserve Chairman, Mr. Greenspan, who championed a regulation-free market, comes out and claims that he was wrong about his theory - wrong when common sense would have dictated that profligacy and greed without regulation will lead to unscrupulous excess.
Finally, a revival of the Glass-Steagall Antitrust Act which was repealed by a bill led by Phil Gramm, will definitely stymie this ridiculous 'Too big to Fail' mantra.