We TEA Party supporters didn’t “win” dick. Because we only win when the country and its citizenry win, and adding an additional $2.6 Trillion or so in debt with the promise of adding new government “revenue enhancement” legislation — all in exchange for distant reductions in the rate of spending on money we already don’t have — is not a win.
Have we “changed the conversation” in Washington? Who cares. Talking is what they do.
What I want is a change in the behavior in DC. And until we rip the statists out of Capitol, that won’t happen. Meaning, we all keep losing. And the fact that we’re doing it more slowly is hardly a consolation.
Prepare for a “new recession” caused by “draconian GOP spending cuts” “forced” on us by the “terrorists in the TEA Party” — and calls for new stimulus, more quantitative easing, and calls for a raise in “revenue” by way of cutting “tax expenditures” in order to “create jobs.”
And when that message gains traction as the ascendant media narrative — non-existent spending “cuts” are the cause of a new recession — remember that it was Boehner, McConnell and the boys who, by pretending we actually “won” serious “cuts” with his risible deal, have set us up to take the blame, even as the President and the Dems get their additional trillions and so can demagogue us on the economy going in to 2012 elections.
Listen: The Tea Party didn’t win shit, and we know it. We were cut off at the knees by many on “our” own side, and now we’ll all have to suffer for their cowardice.
Awesome. Somebody send Bill Kristol a fucking fruit basket.
(h/t Rush Limbaugh)
What have we lost?
David Walker, the former Comptroller, has been beating this drum for years and still is because it hasn’t been addressed.
Says he, we’re all familiar with the virtue of compounding interest for the lender of money, but there is a mirror evil of compounding interest working against the borrower. The longer the nation waits to deal with it’s burden, the worse the compounding interest works against us. So really, it comes down to more money lost as the time mounts up.
I’m afraid what we’re losing is the country. Sure. We’ll rise again, pheonix-like.
But first we have to burn everything to ashes.
For only controlling 1/2 of one third of the government, the Republicans did OK. For controlling about 1/5 of the Republican Party, the Tea Party did ok.
Two things need to happen for real change:
1) The Tea Party needs to run candidates against liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats (Blue Dogs) and win in 2012.
2) The Republican Party needs to control both houses of Congress and the Presidency in 2013.
Burning everything just sounds like breaking windows to make work for glaziers. No thanks.
That would kind of get rid of Maureen Dowd’s zombie apocalypse, I think.
What needs to happen is the electorate needs to be forced into making a choice.
That’s true Ernst, and the time grows short. Walker calculated there’s about three years before we’re on the slippery slope of Greece. He may be off by a bit here or there, but it seems there’s little doubt that the boat must turn and soon.
nobody gives bumblefuck the benefit of the doubt anymores except for your true blue America-hating obamawhores
even NG calls him “that douchebag” now and she voted for him
Or not. In which case,
burn, baby, burn.
I’ve said it once before, but it bears repeating now:
There are two futures before us. We must work hard to promote the one, and work hard to protect ourselves from the other.
it might be quicker if the lackey would just say what bumblefuck is responsible for
Make me understand “or not” Ernst? Does this mean that “or not” may well be the preferable outcome?
If this is so, entailing the burning of everything, we’re going to have to have awfully strong arguments to persuade ourselves of it aforehand aren’t we? I mean, it might be that the proof is only in the eating, but we’re making this pudding first and have to decide what goes into it, so if burning everything is the outcome we want we need to know what goes in to make it so, let alone assure ourselves we’ll know what to do when we stand in the ashes.
Or does “or not” simply mean we have no positive sort of control over the eventual decision the voters will make? Which, if that’s the case, I can’t but agree.
Cap’n Ed is convinced in his head that the teadoodles stand victorious!! Hallelujah can I have an amen?
That’s me being sanguine, sdferr. We’re going to get to the right place. Eventually, that is. The only question is, will we go there willingly, or will we be dragged there, kicking and screaming? My guess is we’ll do the right thing. But only after we’ve tried everything else.
My guess too.
The sort of funny part is that the cause of doing the right thing will probably more confirmation of a Hobbesian thesis (fear of violent death) than an Ancient thesis (acting out of genuine political wisdom), else the Ancient sort of thesis would have been acted upon already. Course, the Hobbesian thesis has an advantage, being already baked in the cake (another cooking metaphor!).
probably be
Not necessarily, sdferr. After all, genuine political wisdom is rarest of the rare.
Yeah, I overshot there. Should have just called out ordinary work-a-day political wisdom, or what Aristotle referred to the the architectonic wisdom of pragmatic politics.
‘This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning’
– Winston Churchill
If I blow up my neighbor’s Corvette, there’s no threat that I’m going to do it.
OT: Interesting question raised at Ace’s place. Does anyone know somebody who is an Obama convert, meaning did NOT vote for him in 2008 but WOULD vote for him in 2012?
Listen: The Tea Party didn’t win shit, and we know it.
Everyone knows it. They’re giving us props now so that they can blame us later when it all goes south.
Which they all know will happen.
But first we have to burn everything to ashes.
Except that we’re not as well-organized as those who have been planning for decades to rush in and fill the vacuum. Like the “Arab spring” in Egypt or the expulsion of the Shah in Iran, the fall of the tyrant results in the rise of a worse one, who is able to build his machine quickly because the former institutions are weakened or gone.
There are two futures before us. We must work hard to promote the one, and work hard to protect ourselves from the other.
Damn straight. But we’re fools if we think we can up and recreate the American Revolution just because we’re Americans and we have a Constitution in our pockets. All of the revolutions since the American one have been French, because they have had to rise up against the machine in their own lands, rooting out the bad folks to make way for the good. The American Revolution, on the other hand, was about cutting the umbilicus and going forward with the institutions that were already there: no destruction required.
So unless we’re going to set up an American colony across the ocean or on Mars, then cut the cord, we need to face the fact that if we go French, we’ll end up with Napoleon.
OT: Interesting question raised at Ace’s place. Does anyone know somebody who is an Obama convert, meaning did NOT vote for him in 2008 but WOULD vote for him in 2012?
Nope. But I do know plenty of people who are the opposite situation: Obama voter in 2008, no chance in hell of a vote in 2012.
Darth, the only one I can think of who’s that stupid is TIMMAH!, but I don’t know that he didn’t vote for Obama in ’08.
Anybody know anybody who’s a member of CPUSA?
[…] Hey, media (including you so-called “conservative” organs who backed this sellout debt-ceiling d… Prepare for a “new recession” caused by “draconian GOP spending cuts” “forced” on us by the “terrorists in the TEA Party” — and calls for new stimulus, more quantitative easing, and calls for a raise in “revenue” by way of cutting “tax expenditures” in order to “create jobs.” […]
Pinochet is more like it. Think of it as Napoleon in one country. But I think you’re exactly correct, which is why I’m in favor of a restoration rather than a revolution.
Cap’n Ed is wrong. And in the old days of the blogsophere, he’d link to me and I to him and we’d argue our points.
That’s all ended now.
Certain “conservatives” didn’t like being challenged, and they changed the game once they realized that, unchallenged, they could grow large and control the narrative. Real debates of the kind we used to have — fruitful, substantive — are gone, and those who don’t pay tribute, marginalized.
Not by Cap’n Ed, mind — he’s a fair guy, if a bit too pragmatic for my tastes. But if you look around, you can see where and how the right wing narrative has been consolidated, and when you look closely, you see an awful lot of ex-liberals, corporatist Republicans, and lawyers.
Funny how that works, huh? And we wonder why we keep losing.
“you see an awful lot of ex-liberals, corporatist Republicans, and lawyers.”
well here’s some jen the rube( a 3fer) to underline your point
link
you could call maxine waters an ultra-marxist but i don’t think jen the rube ever used that description
You’re an ultra-conservative if you believe in liberty and personal responsibility.
Jennifer Rubin should stop pretending she’s anything other than a leftist.
Except that we’re not as well-organized as those who have been planning for decades to rush in and fill the vacuum.
What do you think is happening right now? In the absence of any leadership from the Right (if such a body can even be said to exist in this country), the Left has filled the vacuum and run roughshod over our freedom and dignity, stealing not just our money, but our children’s and our children’s children’s money. In the absence of any representation on the Left or so-called Right, the Tea Party has spontaneously risen to fill the vacuum and try to claw back some liberty. It took the first group 70 years to grab power; we’re going to do it in 1/10th that time.
And if we should fall short, and the whole machine comes tumbling down, I honestly don’t see don’t see how the Chicago machine comes out ahead. Sure, the Proggs will still own the slums and the campuses; whoopee for them. The Browncoats will hold the sparsely-populated but resource-rich rural lands. Obama (or his master) has no secret police to lock up our families. I don’t for one moment think that the Army or National Guard would allow any such thing, and even if they should fail, we’ve the 2nd Amendment to exercise. And that last resort is the thing that makes comparisons to other revolutions fall apart — an armed populace changes the game completely.
No, when the walls come tumbling down, people are going learn that imaginary money on Wall Street can’t be eaten. They’re going to learn that political promises and lies can’t keep the lights on. They’re going to learn that the Norman Rockwell types that have been the target of generations of insults are in fact the only people who can thrive on their own. Anyone with means is going to hightail it to the small rural towns where they can find food and protection, and the big cities will burn.
We’re not well-organized, but by God we’re prepared, and we’re not going down easy. Life for me and mine would be hard, but there still remains a working society outside the cities, and that society doesn’t depend on Washington for much. We’d get by.
The thing about those ex-libs, corporatist Reps and lawyers? They’re all 2nd class passengers on the ship of state. And since both parties are prepared to drive the ship of state into the iceberg in order to sieze control of the lifeboats, they want to be sure to position themselves in order to actually make it on board those lifeboats, regardless of which party takes charge of them.
You and me? We’re locked in steerage. So fuck us and what we think.
Unless of course they decide there’s enough time before the ship sinks to fashion a galleon out of the lifeboats. Then they’re going to need some of us in steerage for galley slaves.
She just serves to remind how completely is the ultramontaine left driving events. The far left is now the center left, the center left, the moderate left and the moderate left is the new moderate right. That’s why John Boehner’s the leader of rightwing extremist cell.
Beating back the not infrequent incursions of the urban-reavers is going to be rather bothersome.
time for a new narrative
Hacktastic: Martin Bashir and shrink analyze childish, possibly psychotic tea partiers
Bottom line – we are SCREWED!
These morons could care less about Americans.
How about the moron who is suing some TEA party oof-shoot because he lost his “livelihood” in an election?
Excuse me?
Representing a district is your “livelihood”?
Stupid cunt.
You’re right, of course. It’s almost as if the people who run for office are inherently statists. We keep sending people to DC thinking they’ll shake things up, but instead they just settle right in. Heinlein was right, anyone who would run for office should be disqualified from holding office, but that’s easier said than done.
Of all of the failures in this bullshit “crisis” none will be more devastating in the long run than Republican buy-in to the leftist’s budget language. I used to think the Establishment Republicans just did not understand that they were setting the statists up to win. I’m not so naive anymore.
Gahrie how’s this:
Two things need to happen for real change:
1) The Tea Party needs to run candidates against
liberalall non-TEA Party Republicans andconservativeany D+10 or less Democrat district and win in 2012.2) The
RepublicanTEA Party needs to control both houses of Congress and the Presidency in 2013.And the Republicans can join us or just work directly for Obama.
The prescient Stanley Kurtz on the Community-Organizer-in-Chief’s negotiating from behind strategery.
@31. I sure hope you’re right Squid. It’s certainly what I’m counting on. Somehow I can’t see our governor deciding we should go down with the ship, and we in Wyoming have all the resources — natural gas, oil and refining capabilities, coal and hydro-electric generation, abundant water and agriculture enough to supply our own needs, and heavily armed rednecks who’d be glad by this time of the tourist season to start shootin’ at anyone with green license plates. (I’m only kidding a little there.) We also have a lot of National Guardsmen and recent ex-military who are about as practiced at modern warfare as anyone can be and I’m not kidding about that.
I don’t want to sell the TEA parties short. Given the little time they’ve been around they’ve accomplished a lot, but I fear it’s much too little, way too late. Too late to turn this country around before we suffer complete financial collapse. Look at the assinine terms of the debt limit increase and the overwhelming numbers who voted for it and it’s pretty obvious the TEA Party has a long way to go. Unfortunately, we’re out of time. I fear that those in power will try to use the coming crisis to take the country in directions that we’re just not willing to go. I hope and pray that I’m wrong, but I’m putting my money on, and in, beans and bullets.
My advice, if things start looking like they’re going to go seriously sour get the hell out of the cities, they could well become death traps. When people don’t get paychecks they may well decide to stay home and that means no police on the street, no firemen at the station, no gas at the pump, no food in the stores, no trash pickup, and the water and electricity get iffy. People get all hungry and thirsty and shivery in the dark and about then the rioting and looting and burning start. It would be much better to have a place prepared though, as the little towns out back won’t be able to absorb many refugees and FEMA won’t be coming to the rescue.
Interesting times we live in and I’m afraid it’s going to get a lot more interesting shortly.
Ps. I should put in a plug for Bill Quick’s survival preps website. Lots of discussion on what to do come TEOTWAWKI.
TEOTWAWKI: That’s like native american speak for Ragnarok, isn’t it?
The prescient Stanley Kurtz….
And perspicacious too!
Persistent as well.
this one is for mr. jeff from mr. karl’s post:
link
[…] thing is, they got themselves suckered on this deal, as both Bill and Jeff have repeatedly said: Prepare for a “new recession” caused by “draconian GOP spending cuts” “forced” on us […]
[…] party ”won” was empty words of praise from the GOP hacks that the tea party has now changed the direction of the discussion in DC. Changed the direction of the discussion??? BIG DEAL!!! That might have been a victory a few […]