Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Smalltown America's Growing Voice of Rage is a Force to be Reckoned With
One of the paradoxes of being a foreign reporter in smalltown America is that within any one day, you will hear people insist that they stand at the centre of global affairs and simultaneously act as though they reside at the very fringes of international interest. As Americans, they feel their country stands as a beacon to the outside world - a showcase for freedom, liberty, democracy and material comfort. As inhabitants of smalltown America, they feel marginalised from the national narrative and isolated from the rest of the world. Within the span of a single conversation you will be told that America is the best country on earth and be asked why you - or indeed anyone - would come to their particular town.
So it was last week in Leitchfield, a small town in central Kentucky. South-east of Louisville and south-west of Lexington, its 6,000 residents live between Nolin and Rough River lakes on the way to nowhere in particular. Leitchfield has known better days, but few here can remember when. Unemployment, long in double digits, has now reached 16%. One in five lives below the poverty line and the median family income is less than two-thirds that of the rest of the nation. Last year Republican presidential hopeful John McCain took the county handily, with 67% of the vote.
On Monday night a young woman working at a local pharmacy first giggled at my accent and then asked what business I could possibly have in Leitchfield. When I asked her what young people do for kicks in a place that doesn't serve alcohol, she shrugged: "Some of them take drugs and have sex. I watch videos with my sister." Just a few a minutes later I was at a town hall event where Republican Senate hopeful Rand Paul lamented the impending demise of America's global supremacy.
"We as a country could go into great decline and slip into the second tier of nations if we don't change our ways," he said. "You cannot just continue to spend beyond your means. We've been doing that for a generation."
Paul, the son of Congressman Ron Paul who attracted a huge libertarian following during the last year's presidential elections, is the insurgent candidate in May's Republican Kentucky primary. Virtually unknown when he joined the race against establishment candidate, Trey Grayson, a poll last month put Rand Paul narrowly in the lead. "2010 will be the year of the outsider," he says. "Someone who is not a politician, like myself, has a really good chance. A better chance than any other year."
He could be right. Paul is riding the wave of the Tea party movement that emerged from the anti-tax protests earlier this year. His bid is being replicated in Republican primaries throughout the country. In Arizona, McCain could be in a tight race against anti-immigration zealot JD Hayworth. Polls show McCain, a four-term senator, in a statistical dead heat - all the more amazing given that Hayworth has yet to announce his candidacy. At the beginning of this year the moderate Florida governor, Charlie Crist, led unknown ultra-conservative Marco Rubio 57-4. By last month his lead had slimmed to just 47-37. Other hard-right challenges are brewing from New Hampshire down.
There is some partisan symmetry in this. While Obama launched a electoral campaign that aspired to become a movement, the opposition has created a movement that is attempting to gain electoral expression. While members of the former found their focus via a candidate, the latter have no champion. It's not even clear they are looking for one.
Whether they will upset or revive the Republican party has yet to be seen. What is clear is that they are a force to be reckoned with. A recent Rasmussen poll revealed that if the Tea party were an actual party it would eclipse the Republicans. In a hypothetical, three-way race, Democrats received 36% of the vote, the non-existent Tea party got 23% and Republicans got just 18%; a further 22% were undecided. The poll also showed that 73% of Republican voters think their leaders are out of touch with the party base. In downtown Little Rock last weekend, the heirs to the protests held a rally of several hundred with standing room only - all the Republican Senate candidates were there.
Gradually a few things about the people in this movement are becoming clear. First, they are anxious to emphasise their economic conservatism. Their mantra is small government, their obsession the national debt. In more than an hour neither Paul nor any of the 35 audience members mentioned abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research, creationism or religion in schools. "Remember when one of Clinton's aides said 'It's the economy, stupid'?" Rand Paul asked me afterwards. "It still is the economy ... I'm not running for preacher. I'm running for office." That does not mean they are not socially conservative. It may be that social conservatives have such a stranglehold on the Republican party that social issues no longer have traction there.
Second, they are almost exclusively white. In a town such as Leitchfield, which is 97% white, in a state such as Kentucky, which is 90% white, that is not really a problem. But in places such as Arizona, Florida, New Mexico or Nevada - key swing states where non-whites are more than a third - it virtually ensures defeat.
That does not make them racist. But they have been a magnet for some racists, whose crude rhetoric and anti-Obama hysteria has made their lack of diversity a liability. On Thursday Paul's spokesman, Christopher Hightower, resigned after it was discovered that a picture of lynching, posted close to Martin Luther King Day and containing the message "Happy Nigger Day", had been on his Myspace page for almost two years.
Third, their success in a general election is linked to Obama's failure. Their achievement is to have organised their rage into a viable force within the Republican party. How they fare beyond those boundaries is another matter. At present both Paul and Greyson would lose to either of the leading Kentucky Democrats. The more sustained difference the administration makes to peoples' lives, the less this anger makes sense.
Finally, the movement's standard bearers seem keen to distance themselves from the more vocal, eccentric elements with which they have been associated. Asked whether he thought Obama was a Muslim and born in the US, Paul said he didn't know but: "Those are things that I would never bring up in a speech and don't have a belief that coincides with people who brought those up as issues." The trouble is, while they may find the birthers embarrassing, their challenge is not feasible without them.
"I call it the national open mic movement," jokes Paul. "It's kind of good in a way. Some people were tired of not being able to speak their piece. But I don't think it has a cohesion yet. It's yet to be seen whether it can transform itself." That will depend, in no small part, on who grabs the mic, who can pull the plug and whether Obama can attract more with his deeds than they can with their screeds.
44 Comments so far
Show AllWhat, other than Obamanible, DEEDS?
Women's reproductive choice was an issue that cost Ron Paul considerable support from swing voters and even a few Democrats in 2008. Now that the Democrats capitulated on choice in their health care "reform" bill, Paul and his ilk will attract many more voters in the 2010 and future elections.
The major parties have a lot of money with which to smear any third-party contender.
The "racism" label is just one of their weapons. But there are many more.
So true...
The far right of course is a politics of resentment and anger. But I myself am feeling my own rage and resentment against the establishment Democrats. At least the far right rage is finding some expression in the politcal process, in the primaries and certainly it will be felt in the general 2010 elections. I on the other side am wondering in the wilderness. I have no primary candidate to support against the Blue Dog democrat in my district, "Jason Altmire" and I still have my fellow "progressives" tell me that America is not ready for real healthcare reform like SinglePayer and that I should still support Obama no matter how betrayed I feel becuase the alternative is worse. I am alienated and will probably not vote in 2010-- at least these teabaggers, even if they lose will make their presence felt, at least they will go down fighting-- I admire that.
I hope you at least get to the polls to spoil your ballot. If not, you are not one of the people you claim to admire.
Oh wait.... Is it possible to spoil your ballot with computerized voting? We use a pencil where I come from.
tammons:
Ask your "fellow progressives" how we move closer to Single-Payer when Obamacare will clearly set health care back nearly 50 years.
Lyndon Johnson's vision in 1964 was Single-payer for all and that got scaled back to Medicare for the over 65 crowd which the insurance companies were glad to be rid of anyway. Keep in mind that few Americans lived beyond 65 during that era and nobody in their right mind would want to insure a demographic limited to elderly people.
To consider today's health care reform moving forward, single payer needs to be available to an expanded demographic. Obama's corporate welfare program disguised as health care reform cannot by any metric be considered a step forward unless you own stock in insurance and drug companies. Perhaps your "fellow progressives" loaded up on those stocks when Obama was elected and they are drooling at the prospect of big returns.
Since 9/11/2001 the Federal government has spent a fair amount of money in small towns, and now most small towns here in rural Indiana have great big new Police/Fire/Emergency Service stations and several newly paved roads and some new sidewalks with possibly improvements to the water and sewage systems. The problem, from the point of the small town, is that these jobs were contracted out to bidders from the city (in small town jargon the “city” is a town like Fort Wayne Indiana with more than 150,000 population) and almost none of the jobs created by these projects went to local residents.
Given that the residents of small towns don’t see direct benefits from Federal projects, especially the federal projects handed down from the Bush Cheney administration, it is a very reasoned reaction for rural communities to want a smaller federal government that doesn’t borrow vast resources that might serve to revive the failing local community.
Finally I just don’t follow the author’s analysis of the insurgent republican movement as a small town phenomenon, Sarah Palin has drawn huge audiences in both small towns and larger cities while promoting “Going Rogue” and I would place Palin at the top of the insurgent movement in the Republican Party.
Having said that, unlike the author of this article, I’d characterize this movement as “Rebels Without a Cause.” I just don’t see any common thread that unites the dissatisfaction within the Republican Party.
which ever dem runs against paul is going to have a field day
tying paul to his ex handler.
White Tea Baggers will brush off any criticism as just "being one of the boys".
I am doubtful that the likes of the Tea Baggers can coalesce into a federal level political movement. Wall Street still runs this country from the top down and the Tea Baggers are not Wall Street friendly.
I think the TBs will succeed in weakening the Republican Party on a local level, but then slam into the same wall local progressives hit when trying to move the progressive agenda to a federal level.
They may not be Wall Street friendly, but they are being cleverly manipulated, through their profound ignorance, into supporting Wall-Street friendly policies.
See my later remarks.
Not sure about this 'small town voice' to be reckoned with. That voice has been fading for the last few decades. Population loss is still at a steady pace in places like Indiana and the lower Midwest. Small towns in Kentucky and out on the plains are watching people move out as well. Where are those people going? To cities with populations of half a million or more, where there is modest economic development and/or oppurtunity to get some technical training at a community college and a better shot at home ownership. These aren't guarenteed, but there's at least a better chance than what they would have if they chose to remain in smallville.
I don't see where the article comports with its title. The writer is/was in a small town where he does not, in fact, report any 'rage' ("I watch videos with my sister", says one resident). The campaigning presence of an "insurgent" Republican candidate for the upcoming state primary denotes 'small town rage'? and with an audience of 35??
Perhaps a small town in KY is not the best place to study the future of the Republican party, or maybe it is, who knows. But our cousin from across the pond listened carefully to a political candidate which in itself is probably foolish.
Being Brit or whatever has nothing to do with the story except to support my idea that he merely rambles on about politics like any other pundit who may have a clue, but only one.
"[Ron] Paul is riding the wave of the Tea party movement that emerged from the anti-tax protests earlier this year..."
I have been in correspondence with two conservative wage-earner suburban/exurban brothers of mine down in Virginia, I have become shocked at the profoundly confused form of economic populism coming from them. It is odd mix of left-anarchish rhetoric like "heavy-handed top-down decision-making", "the elites", and "greedy bastards", with Ayn Randish rhetoiric "freeedom and free markets" (they are fundie-christians and apparently unaware that Rand's objectivism is deeply hostile to religion), One brother was only able to name "Al Gore" in his list of "greedy bastaards".
Mostly, they seemed to just reflexively repeating the standard Limbaugh lines - usualy to the word - even the old "Rachael Carson and the environmentalists killed 30 million African children".
So, this seemingly class-consious rhetoric is then, in a bizarre twist, coupled with Ron Paul and the libertarians ideas. Of course the libertarians are simply promoting a more extreme form of the syatem that has a proven record of screwing wage-earners.
I even see this confusion among the younger contributors here on CD, such as those by Ms. Bedingfield.
Ron Paul is NOT a friend of the worker!
Let us not forget FOX News. Their ratings are relativly high in that 'neck of the woods', and whom ( Murdock) are also sponsoring the tea baggers; No. Ron Paul is not a friend of the worker.
People without an ideological compass flail around looking for solutions to the serious problems which are not being addressed by the established political order. This results in the mishmash you speak of and is very dangerous.
There would be no Tea Bag movement without the power of Big Money and Fox News. All these TBers think they are grassroots. That's how delusional they are.
If those of us who inhabit the left blogosphere had the power of Fox News, we could quickly explain the reality of their situation, who the real enemy is, and the way out of the crisis, for them personally, for the country, and for the world.
But we don't. We have a few miserable websites where we talk to each other day after day, wringing our hands, and waiting for "grassroots" organizations, given tens of millions of free publicity by the right wing media, to start handing out "red, white, and blue" shirts. Sorry, no Brown Shirts this time.
I wish there were easy solutions. There aren't; but they would have to be built by an organization with a few millions members with a coherent program which addresses the everyday needs of everyday people without any "leftish" (not to be confused with "leftist") content which can be used to divide and isolate the organization.
It would involve a lot of door-to-door contact with people we don't normally talk to about the problems of their daily lives and explaining that if we built an organization which addressed them regardless of race, religion, or previous political affiliation, we could improve their lives.
Does this make sense? If so, can we do it?
It makes sense. How do you organize it and prevent it from being sabatoged?
It makes sense--in theory. But how do you explain things to someone who's response to every issue is snappy (and untrue) talking points delivered in a "So there!" manner? They simply don't listen and can't actually argue; their schtick is to drown out. I know, I've tried. Thom Hartmann wrote a book on how to talk to them but it assumes they are prepared to listen and think; it's useless for talking to the wingnuts I know.
Makes sense to me. I agree with everything you say race_to_the_bottom. The people you mentioned that are talking on these websites have not reached that tipping point yet. I'm not sure where it is and I don't think anyone else does either. But recent history can give us all an idea of how far people can get pushed before they start to push back. That is, when one is prepared to lose everything in the name of (social) justice.
When you are prepared to face down water cannons and dogs, being spat on at lunch counters and run off your land by the law of 'imminent domain', refused service in a store or resturaunt because the clerk doesn't like your complexion or your eyes are too slanted, or refused housing even though you can afford it, you will soon gravitate to people with a similar idealogical compass. You can't get any traction in a social movement unless you get out there and get into the shit. Door to door contact is an important part of that, congregations in the form of town meetings is even more important. Sooner or later the tipping point has to go high profile, even if there's pain involved.
As it should be. There's not enough people in this country feeling the pain, at least not enough pain to do anything about it but have discussions.
A sophisticated Berkeley correspondent has similar views. They may come from different central assumptions.
What are those assumptions?
Anyone?
I suspect a big one involves "property." To blunder on, libertarians seem to not regard property as a function of government. This seems clear, since many present themselves as both anti-government and pro-ownership, sometimes even pro "law and order."
Please, anyone, what understanding of "property" and "government" allows people to make both statements without a sense of flagrant contradiction?
Since this seems to be an issue on which both sides take themselves to be obviously correct, let me risk being obvious and present the assumptions by which I see them as contradictory.
* Property is that which is "owned." Ownership is the more or less durable legal or recognized right to use certain things and to exclude others from their use. Taking something in an unauthorized or unrecognized way is stealing, not ownership.
"Ownership" and "property," then, are descriptions of social and government functions, not of any characteristics of the owned things themselves, or of any particular relationship between a person and a thing.
I would call "government" the social determination of who may use such things how, at least where such things are disputed beyond the determination of unwritten social convention. (In this I use "things" very broadly, to include people, actions, and abstracts like "time").
So, for instance, if I produce work for GE on company time, for wages and per contract, GE may own my hours and own the produce of my labor even when the time in labor has passed. If I take that information and use it, say by reselling it to Westinghouse or by posting some part of it on CD, GE's ownership might materially manifest itself as a policeman who might bust me or a judge who might adjudicate damages. Even if the cop or judge never arrive, their presence in the society reinforces that understanding of property.
Now, I imagine that libertarians somehow think that ownership is a natural or God-given function of objects or a natural or God-given relationship between people and objects. But I hesitate to characterize it as such because one tends to badly characterize ideas one does not have oneself, and I do not understand this idea well enough to get why people consider it true.
Given the above, I take private property to be the product of social agreements and law enforcement protections. So I tend to see Reagan's runaway statism as an extension of contradictions in Friedman-cum-Ayn-Rand-cum-Horatio-Alger notions of ownership. I'd say that works for Mussolini, too, by extension, so I find it natural that Friedman would back Pinochet, for example -- though I do see that Ron Paul would disapprove of the lot of them.
interesting piece, bardamu...you say:
"Property is that which is "owned." Ownership is the more or less durable legal or recognized right to use certain things and to exclude others from their use. Taking something in an unauthorized or unrecognized way is stealing, not ownership."
unfortunately, history will show that, in cases like world exploration, wars, railroads, continental homesteading, etc., stealing land does, indeed, lead to ownership...is the desired means of acquisition, in fact...
that is what makes the selling back of the stolen land by the banks now controlling, under the ridiculous, and false, claim of legitmate title, to the working class under long-term, front-loaded-interest-bearing agreements, the equivalent of slavery...
they pulled the rug out from under you, and now charge you to walk on it...they will not stop until the rug is taken back from them...
sorry, double post
Many people now understand that "something" is desperately wrong in America today -- they just don't know what it is.
And they're too dumbed-down by so-called "education" and too anesthetized by so-called "entertainment" ("programming" is the perfect word for what much "entertainment" literally is) to be able to figure it out. Ever.
Welcome to the "NSA," the Neo-feudal States of America.
It continues to perplex me that the right continues to hammer that Hollywood is left-wing.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The US discovered the importance of Hollywood in distributing propaganda, which has continued unabated for the past 60 years. Daily, people are desensitized to violence, injustice and are awed with the impeccable morality of war so that they don't even bat an eyelash when told that it will cost over $600B/year for new war toys. Hollywood is doing a terrific job handling the PR for the MIC.
It amazes me what socialist reform can do for these people and saddens me that they are so ignorant to oppose it.
I watched a documentary recently on cable TV called "Dirty Driving." It was about poor white folks in Indiana who raced "Thundercars" for lack of anything better to do. These people were unemployed and uninsured. One guy couldn't use one of his arms.
Imagine if we had a Green and Perpetual New Deal, Universal Single-Payer, Universal Employment At A Living Wage.
These guys would be working, making their own money. When they get injured, they'd have free healthcare. And if we had renewable, sustainable, clean fuels, they could race their cars all they wanted without making the Earth hotter or getting anyone sick.
Ron Paul is able to get over on many progressives because of his stances on marijuana, foreign policy, etc. The Libertarians in general know how to get over on people because of their "nobody's business if ya do" viewpoint. It sounds pretty good, "personal freedoms."
Until you realize that personal freedom would usurp collective responsibility, you fail to see how utterly Satanic Libertarianism is.
And that's what they are, Satanists. Libertarianism (and yeah I know Chomsky espouses a Libertarian Socialist Democracy. He don't count. :) )Libertarians want what Anton LaVey wanted, and that is a sink-or-swim society.
Oh yeah, gays can kiss in public, people can smoke pot and not get arrested. What progressive can stand in front of any of that?
But what Libertarians do is use those things to disguise a radical free market agenda that would only widen the gap between rich and poor.
Sure, America would no longer be involved in any military adventures. Your gay friends could get married. Weed would easy and legal to get. You would have all of this..."freedom."
You wouldn't even get taxed! There'd be no taxes for you or Bill Gates to pay.
That means there'd be no social services. Health care would become even more of a premium and therefore further out of reach for even more people. Infrastructures would continue to crumble. Price controls would be lifted. After all, ya gotta have competition, right? So bread, milk, probably even water would cost more.
Sink or swim.
Milton Friedman was a libertarian. Ask everyone who lived under his little stints as a consultant.
So me support Ron Paul? Not on your life.
Ron Paul is heroin, and I see so many younger countercultural people supporting people. Not all of them are duped either. Being a metal fan, I used to encounter them often in online forums. This is their profile...
1-Usually white.
2-Usually male.
3-Works in a white-collar field in which they are highly underworked and overpaid. Often the field is I.T.
4-Smokes pot and has been known to experiment with other substances.
5-Believes staunchly in sexual freedoms, I.E. they think lesbotronic sex is hot and want legal prostitution.
6-They have lots of "toys." Wii, hot cars, musical instruments, the latest tech, as well as collectible comic books, statues, old vinyl.
7-They surprisingly like countercultural music like heavy metal, punk, hip-hop, techno, prog rock, goth. They can afford to take 3 weeks off work at a time to attend big festivals abroad. They can buy $1,000 concert tickets that enable them to meet famous bands backstage for aftergig parties.
8-They spend more $$$ than they make and have expensive dining habits.
9-They don't have kids nor do they want any.
10-They tend to be highly critical of religion, lean heavily atheist, and have an intense disdain for "believers."
11-They LIVE online.
12-They are very self-satisfied, smug even. Don't tell them about your personal or financial problems. They will hit you with bootstrap talk. After all, they "worked hard" to get their degrees and "achieve" prestigious positions in which they sit in front of a PC all day and look busy.
13-They know damn well that the economic policies they support hurt people, and they don't care because THEY DON'T WANT TO BE TAXED, PERIOD! THEY WANT AS MUCH MONEY AS THEY CAN GET AND THINK THAT POOR AND WORKING PEOPLE DESERVE TO STRUGGLE!
13a-Some of them fancy themselves as upper-middle class yuppies but turn out to be security guards who read a lot of Bob Kiyosaki and watch a lot of infomercials.
13b-Some fancy themselves to be intellectuals because they like what Auntie Ayn and Uncle Friedrich had to say about life, meaning...
"Party, make loads of money, acquire lots of shit, rub everyone's noses in it, and don't give a flying fuck for anyone but yourself. Ethics bite."
Oh they say they believe that big government goes against The Constitution, but really they're greedy and selfish.
I've worked in many places that employ such "kids", and in general, agree with what you say. Yes, they are pretty smart and nihilistic, but, like hair stylists, are useless. Most have never worked outside, they pay others to have chores such as home/car/whatever maintenance done, and wouldn't know what end of a hammer to hold. In an end-of-the-world scenario, I wouldn't want to be anywhere near these cry-babies.
It is interesting to observe that if the same "kid" joins the military, despite whatever brainwashing is inflicted upon them, these "kids" come out much more organized and highly motivated to get jobs done, no matter how ugly or dirty.
Sometimes I think compulsory national service would be good for such "kids".
Rage? There is no rage here. Rage is when one simply refuses to be taken advantage of [in this case govt./corps.] by displaying complete fearlessness in the face of any threats or consequences made by those that wish to control you.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
The sheer moronitude of the Tea-Bagger mobs' focus on deficits and against government social programs is that it ignores the concerted efforts by their capitalist corporate class heroes to drive as many high-paying manufacturing jobs out of the U.S. as fast and permanently as possible. These idiots hate unions and have bought into the false right-wing premise that it was unions that destroyed manufacturing in America instead of "free trade" treaties still being sought by Republicans and Democrats in office.
Ben Bernanke's decision to curtail "quantitative easing" to the banks with only $200 Billion dollars in chump change to be flung out for "jobs stimulus" to pretend to try to re-grow a real economy will be used against the American people as the excuse to destroy Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and will dove-tail perfectly with the self-immolating hick McPolitics of the Tea-Baggers.
THE CRITICAL TRUE REFORM COMPONENT MISSING FROM THIS LANDSCAPE?
LACK OF A UNITED AUTHENTIC PROGRESSIVE RESPONSE SUCH AS CAN ONLY BE ACHIEVED
IN PRIMARY ELECTIONS BY AN ORGANIZED NEW UMBRELLA PROGRESSIVE POLITICAL PARTY.
metal
Don't be too sure that your interpretation of the Tea Party movement is correct. They seem to be unhappy with both sides,Republicans and Democrats.
I noted in the LA Times this morning that they are out polling either party. Perhaps they are more than you think.
metal, I think you've probably hit the nail on the head. From my own observations and contact with people who're of the same mind as a lot of the teabaggers, I began to realize they weren't all just a bunch of rightwing-nuts, and that many of them are just basically ordinary people, some Republican, some Democrat, and many who never bothered to vote, and most of them who'd never paid much if any attention to government, until it's workings began to bite them in the butt.
Entirely possible. We will find out as this goes along.
Oh dear me, the dandy Brit did some slumming in Central Kentucky and had all his preconceived stereotypes about American rustics fulfilled. Got a byline out of it too!-- how very efficient! Sometimes I wonder if the Guardian isn't a Rupert Murdoch paper.
Poet
"It continues to perplex me that the right continues to hammer that Hollywood is left-wing."
At best Hollywood is liberal, not radical.
One thing I've noticed about famous Americans, be they actors, directors, singers, whathaveyou, they usually seem to come from upper-middle class backgrounds, and when people grow up in such a background, they tend to defend the free market to the death.
Look up a star of your choice on Wikipedia, and scroll down to the "Early Life" section. Chances are, their parents didn't work behind a cash register or drive a forklift. In fact, many of them have parents who worked in entertainment in some capacity.
Gary Younge is fascinated with lower income rural white folks, as if they're all so aberrant.
Except for the politics, nice article. I can never forget the day I left my parent's small town and moved to St Louis. The truth about small town America is that for so long, it has depopulated over the years and just trying to visit it would put me in tears. While I have had to put up with social conservatives in the rurals especially at church, I came to realize that deep down they still had a heart for a great deal of progressive values such as family farms, green technologies, and local jobs and growth. I don't know if there is a future for the young in the rurals. Most of them either sign up for the military or move to the city to work like I did. As for the blacks in the cities, I can tell you that when I visit those neighborhoods, most of them are just as poor as most of the rural whites. The truth is both of them have more in common than they realize. Neither the Republican nor Democratic party is actually helping the working class regardless of race. Instead of worrying about Republicans taking over the Democrats, why not worry more about what each pol has to offer regardless of party.
The most important part of this article for the genuine left:
"In a hypothetical, THREE-WAY RACE, Democrats received 36% of the vote, the non-existent Tea party got 23% and Republicans got just 18%; A FURTHER 22% WERE UNDECIDED."
So, given the options:
1. Dems
2. Repubs
3. "Tea Party Party"
4. None of the Above
22% chose #4.
The question that progressives or leftists (anti-corporatist social lefties) need to ask themselves is:
Who would that 22% have been for in a FOUR-way race?
The answer they may be terrified to hear:
An Anti-Corporatist social left, or Progressive (or Left Coalition) Party!
Don't doubt that there is an EQUALLY LARGE section of the people on the social left who oppose the Corporatist Parties as the hypothetical "Tea Party Party" represents for the social right! The poll is simply not showing this because there hasen't been a "populist"/widely-publicized movement like the "Tea Parties" on the left.
If we get our act together and give the Dems a real populist, anti-corporatist hit from the left, and the inheritors of the "Tea Party" movement that aren't hysterical do so from the right, we just might finally take the suckers down!
-matti.
This is the US we're talking about. You discount the very real possibility that this 22% didn't understand what the question meant.
But in our three-class brainpower dictatorship called Empire USA,
the 10% high society funds all elections, the 40% intelligent
middleclass runs all elections, and my 50% laboring class
was not so fool last year as to vote for our next dictator.
Surely, not until you of the middleclass show some concern
for the 50% of Americans who have not 12 years of formal
education, not until then may your enslavement by the
rich be broken.
rage is an interesting term.
the underlying emotion is not rage but rather fear. and it is racially motivated. not in the sense of hatred but rather fear of lost perquisites, the lost perquisites of being white. we have a massive demographic change happening in the u.s. and whites will no longer be the majority or shall we say "dominant" race even if there is no such thing as race. this is chafing on many. the most surprising thing is that these people who flock to politicians like both pauls and, yes, the minute you seek office you are a politician, is that the people understand little about them. those behind the tea-bagger movement understand agitprop well. they play upon simplistic emotionalisms such as "small government", "the debt" and of course the old stand-by, exceptionalism. these topics, when not truly discussed but simple pointed at and used as debate points are very powerful. where do we think revolutions come from? from those who have the agitprop skills to manipulate those who become the so-called base (read: gullible). ron paul is a revolutionary whose goals are not return to the constitution or any other such nonsense but a return to his vision of the constitution. the key to these people is that they do mix in some genuine thought provoking concepts in their stew. but rest assured they possess no magic formula to alter the trajectory the country is on. if they do not look at abandonment of more=better, abandonment of the deathstyle, abandonment of fossil fuel based living and economics then they are simply one of many who claim to have answers which consists of taking the anger and frustration that is boiling and wrapping it up in a pretty ribbon to sell back to those whose anger it is by telling them certain people are to blame.certain "others" are to blame.
if these small towners want change then they must actively examine what the u.s. does in terms of domestic policy, foreign (projected domestic)policy, military policy, state actions, local actions and most importantly their own actions. they must learn to see beyond today and the lack of jobs (which electing imbeciles like the pauls will not change) and a decent life to see the future for themselves and their children grandchildren etc. and that also includes the children and grandchildren of people around the world.
but that requires creative, critical thinking. and it is always easier to wallow in shallow empotionalisms then it is to think.
BRAIN-POWER DICTATORSHIP ---- Empire USA
There are three neighborhoods in America: the 10% high society
neighborhoods that fund all elections, the 40% intelligent middleclass
neighborhoods that run all elections, and my 50% laboring class slum
neighborhoods, the prisoners of which being not so fool last year as
to vote for our next dictator.
Surely, not until you of the middleclass show some concern
for the 50% of Americans who have not 12 years of formal
education, not until then may your enslavement by the
rich be broken.
bird says: "it is racially motivated."
No, prejudice of whites against other races has nothing to do with
the root cause.
And as this brainwash is a major tool used by the rich ruling class,
to keep the public divided, your motives are now in question.
For corporate lust for excessive wealth now has no bounds and the people
have no choice but a violent overthrow. For quickly could high society
cut back on its greed and save its Empire by:
(1) Make smaller banks out of banks to big to fail.
(2) Give back to Treasure all the trillions handed free to high finance.
(3) Force GM and Chrysler to sell all its foreign auto plants and
restrict car imports.
(4) A new tax structure that made American goods less expensive then
cheep junk from China.
(5) Socialize medicine so that our goods could compete in global market.
(6) Infrastructure is in need of $3 trillion repairs and $4 trillion
for upgrades such as mass transit.
root cause is fear. fear of change. everything else is symptomatic.
your comments may have some merit and will never occur. they involve change and strike directly at the false god of capitalism. the government will never split banks up. to do so would interfere with financialization which is a major driver of the economy since the manufacturing base has been destroyed. forcing the trillions back from the backs cannot happen. the fractional reserve banking system is a ponzi scheme which the entire economy is built upon. there would be total collapse. good luck forcing ford and gm to sell their foreign plants. while one realizes that their moves off of u.s. soil are morally wrong they are right in the eyes of capitalism. restrict imports? interesting concept. what do you suppose would happen with such a massive trade war? retaliation perhaps? how about the possibility of more unemplyed should foreign companies deiced to opt out of the u.s. market and close the plants they built here? tax structure has nothing to do with labor costs. with over 1.5 billion workers in the former ussr, china, india etc willing to work for peanuts because the mercantilist systems in place demand it our goods can't be competitive with a little tax tinkering. single payer is an excellent idea and one that won't happen either. too many politicians are in the pockets of the f.i.r.e. sector and the people are subject to agitprop debate framing involving cries of death panels, socialism etc ad nauseum from dimwits like sarah palin. infrastructure all across the country needs to be upgraded. since one is involved with this issue one relaizes that. it will take massive amounts of cash infusion to do so.
how many of "we the people" are for single payer? how many even understand what it is? how many understand that the manufacturing base is decimated? how many understand that unions were a major driving force in what they have in terms of benefits and wages yet how many are anti-union?
the people are stupid. they are fearful of change. they, those who are white, are definitely afraid of changing demographics. it is foolish to discount or ignore psychology. for agitprop is all about psychology.
Sadly, that little town represents Amerikan stupidity at large.