US Tea Party v's 19th century British Chartist movemnent?

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US Tea Party protests/movement = 19th century British Chartist movement?

During the 19th century, the British Chartists protested for social and political reform, up to 1 million people turned up at protests, they were often working class (common- ) people who wanted better political representation in Parliament and improved working conditions. I think, the US Tea Party movement is similar to the Chartists - the Tea Party movement's grievances are also fuelled by a perception that politicians are out of touch and do not properly represent the people, their is anger at US government because it waisted tax money on the stimulus packaged and bailing out the banks, which didn't help workers (didn't help the common people, only the rich). See this quote from a 19th century Chartist, so similar.

If it is not yet highlighted, I think the Tea Party movement could start to concentrate on a lack of perceived political representation on Capital Hill. If so, people will start to protest against Government (like the Chartists), a government that is seen as out of touch and that tends to preach down to middle America. This would be very bad for Obama, who I think is similar to Jimmy Carter, member of the intellectual elite and cerebral i.e. a bit Nerdy (Jimmy Carter was a Nuclear Scientist btw). I just saw Obama joke about the snow storm that hit Washington, he wont be shovelling any snow!

I think this Tea Party movement was "gestating" during George W. Bush's presidency, he was picked over Al Gore because he was seen by voters as having a common touch, he didn't talk down to people, unlike Gore and Obama seems to do today. People want one of their own on Capital Hill (Sarah Palin???).

This means that Sarah Palin could become the leader of a new party in the next year or so, when the Tea Party movement crystallises into a political party (or more likely .. several parties). But, it may like the Chartists, just fall apart into disorder ... see quote below:







http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartism

I think it speaks for a nerve struck by excessive govt spending for everything from protestant conservatives to libertarians with social liberal thought processes.

People have different outlooks on this. What I find fascinating is people ranted and raved about the spending under Bush, then the same people barely bat an eye at Obama spending 10x as much easily - I don't think its hypocrisy so much as those same people hated what Bush was spending money on and are more in tune with what current congress is doing, even if its holding the head of our collective well being under water with its foot.

What I'd be fascinated to understand is where the collective psyche of the U.S. is headed - we know what conservatives stand for in terms of spending and government, we get glimpses of what liberals want (speaking more in terms of those who are more statist) but it seems a bit fuzzy - aside from giving government more of the reigns I still have no idea what their end game is or even if they have one. I'd like to think that we know better, at higher levels, not to spend ourselves into hyperinflation and utterly tap out our foreign financiers but then again I'm not sure if a) our current congress has rather magical thinking on where money comes from or b) that the very idea is to weaken the U.S., under the notion that if the U.S. stops being the leader that the world will be more equal and thus be a better place. That's not intended as a talking point - I just really wish I knew what people were thinking or, when they might say that 'the ends justify the means' - how sure they are that their ends will materialize and that they'll get what they think they're getting.

Obviously a lot of people are very angry and looking for a target. In Germany it was the Jews. I wonder what it'll be in the USA. All Palin needs is that little square black mustache under her nose.

I might recommend Ryan Seacrest - he's as good a target as any.

I do like to drink tea. Especially green tea. Beyond that, I have nothing in common with the Tea Party folks. Except maybe that I also enjoy Lews Carroll.

I doubt Palin has any chance at winning the presidency.

I feel the real problem is political parties themselves. They get people to wear either Donkey or Elephant masks. As tech said, people who complained about Bush's spending have no problem with Barack "money grows on trees" Obama's spending, because their donkey mask will not allow them to see anything a democrat does as wrong. On the other wing, many of Bush's policies where in clear violation of the conservative ideal of a smaller, less powerful government, yet many allegedly conservative republicans stayed with him to the end, because their elephant mask kept them from seeing anything a republican did as wrong, even if it was in violation of everything the party allegedly stands for.

it also creates stagnation: if one party has an idea, the other party will stop it nothing to stop it, regardless of wether or not it's good or bad. Bipartisanship exists, but it is too rare and too unpredictable to be a reliable means of keeping one party from fighting the other for the heck of it.

there are other problems too: a good politician will inevitably be corrupted by their own party, because their party will shun them if they refuse, kind of like what's been happening to poor Mr. Obama. What's more, parties work to cover each other's corruption at the expense of the well-being of the nation.

to make things more entropic, people will not vote for third parties because they do not believe they have any chance of winning, which is of course a self-fulfilling prophecy, keeping the same two parties in power uncontested for WAY too long, where they have plenty of time to keep getting more and more aloof and corrupt.

Wouldn't it be great if we did away with the labels, and had everyone just say what their ideas where. let the people decide if someone was "liberal" or "conservative", or something else entirely.

"Party politics will be the death of this nation." -George Washington

Wait a minute. Why didn't these people complain about President Bush's profligate spending? Where were these tea-drinkers then?

Aren't these people just Limbaugh zombies? Or Republicans?

Well, at the Tea Party Convention, they advocated a set of first principles that really sounds like the old-fashioned conservative Republican platform. We can see the Tea Party's actual disdain for civil liberties (as opposed to their rhetoric about freedom) in their support of torture and their steadfast support for a strong, belligerent national defense (i.e., they could easily support another Iraq and pour billions of dollars into another such foolish war).

In contrast to the Tea Party, the British Chartists sound like they wanted more democracy. Most of the reforms they advocated sounded like they were about making Parliament more responsible to the common people. Instead of dismantling government and handing it over to for-profit corporations, it sounds like the Chartists wanted a democratic government that worked for reforms that bettered the whole society.

In contrast, the Tea Party revolves around conservatives who are wary of liberals to begin with, and many especially do not trust a black liberal with a "foreign-sounding" name (e.g., the Birthers). Thus the Tea Party quickly began organizing after Barack Obama's election. These are people who were raised to equate liberalism and social reform with socialism, which they equate with Stalin and Hitler. These are people who are deeply suspicious of the social changes of the past 60 years or so (going all the way back to the civil-rights movement and then the 1960s). They equate "Big Gubmint" with socialism (especially when done by Democrats) and would rather see corporations have unlimited power since the free market can do no wrong.

Palin is not a fascist.

Bob Kolker

The Tea Party is proto-fascist in the same sense the Blackshirts and Brownshirts were.

Is that a try at humor? TARP didn't happen until the end of his presidency, when people were being convinced that the money *had* to be spent, otherwise our economy would tumble into a liquidity freeze that would mean 1930's depression all over again; plenty of people debated that as well but, in the end Bush signed off on that move - that issue and the outcome are still a mystery.

As for getting some kind of visual grip on the deficits:


Its extremely difficult to look at that and still say "Yeah, I see no difference - where were the tea baggers during Bush?".

No, the tea party revolves around republicans.

while it may be separate from the republican party, the republican party stopped being conservative a while back. If the republican party had been conservative, Bush would have been lynched the second he suggested... well most of the things he suggested.

the republican party has evolved into some kind of alien mindset, the modus operandi of which is foreign to conventional political science and perhaps even mortal logic. the people continue to follow them because they have always known the republicans to be the conservative party, that is what the idiot box tells them, and they continue to believe it to be true no matter how far the republicans deviate from the conservative principles of small government.

while there are still conservatives in the republican party, they also seem to be moving toward this strange ideology, and as far as I can tell, the teabaggers also appeal to this mindset which, for lack of a better term I will call "republican".

again, the real problem is the party system. mob mentality is moving the republican party away from conservatism and into waters that where left uncharted for a very good reason.

The Teabaggers are the political heirs of the Know-Nothing movement that tried to give failed President Millard Fillmore another term in office. Also they openly cater to the segregationists and the sorts who would have joined the Ku Klux Klan decades ago, though blacks are now joined by Hispanic people as a great enemy of the "real America".

They offer bloodletting and leeches as the solution to the economic crisis - all the experts said that a fiscal stimulus was and is required and yet these people think that bleeding the economy to death will cure it. They believe that the rich are virtuous totally yet extremely jealous and quick to anger if annoyed, and that the number one priority of governments is to appease the super-rich at all costs. In fact, the way they describe the super-rich suggests a god.

At the Teabagger convention, they even expressed pride that those who were running the convention were gouging them mercilessly because to not like it is to oppose "profit" and such opposition is the great evil of this day!

If I was Usama bin Laden I'd be sending as much money to the Teabaggers as possible and more still to the Ayn Rand Society.

Well, you have to consider the different circumstances: Bush's predecessor left him a budget surplus and a peaceful, prosperous country. At the end of the Clinton administration, we were projected to completely pay off the national debt by now. Bush got us involved in senseless wars and screwed over our economy to the point where the overwhelming majority of economists believed Obama had to spend those massive amounts of money to dig us out of the ditch that Bush left us in (in fact, most economists believe Obama's stimulus package was too small). Obama came into power with the US at war and on the verge of financial collapse. While he hasn't impressed me yet, you can hardly blame Obama for the sh***y state the country was in when he took office- that was Bush's fault.

Remember also that Obama watered down the stimulus in a vain attempt to appease those who call him Hitler and compare him to the Joker, to appease the Teabaggers who for some reason are being taken seriously - that reason having to do with their role as shock troops for the plutocracy. About half of the stimulus was tax cuts. Even now he goes on about the need to use tax credits and to give incentives to the private sector to hire, instead of directly setting up projects under government control, which would be a much more efficient use of stimulus money. But as the people who call him Hitler and the Teabaggers would cry out that he is a Communist one more time if he did that, he doesn't want to do that, he wants to be their friend.

Back then it was secession from the British empire what made Americans free.
The Americans of today very rarely consider secession from Washington DC.
They dream with fixing their "country" and reforming their federal govt.
Too much pride and ignorance is preventing them from considering secession, but who knows, maybe they change...

The millionares of the US are ALL tied to the corporate sector some way or another.
These wont want a decentralized system lacking a central regulator because this compromises their monopolies.

They will spend, and are spending, a lot of money to discourage secession and promote "patriotism".