The Tea Party Won

The Tea Party Won

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/08/opinion/credibility-chutzpah-and-debt.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

MoveOn.org furnished the first link and economist Paul Krugman the second. While it is true that the tea party, aka the far right republican base, pushed for the crisis and succeeded in getting some bad big gov't spending cut and a downgrade of the nation's credit rating in the process, very little good can come out of a simple partisan slogan like MoveOn's. Protesting stupidity is important but beyond that what's the point? Starting an internet campaign that doesn't cost much money is a good idea and I suppose making a statement that not all Americans are nuts at least shows some kind of genuine opposition. The White House certainly isn't opposing the loonies, or even trying to change the story.

Dr. Krugman went after the far right republican extremists for causing the instability in markets which will lead to far more cost by raising interest rates than cutting food inspections and pell grants will save. The obama administration may have lots of problems, but I doubt they would have started this without help from the bad cops. The NYTimes, as usual, went on record with the establishment prescription, here and here, but dealing with fanatics will require stronger measures. At least they pointed the finger at the right targets, it is the republican party in its entireity that is responsible for throwing 200 years of stability out the window. Past crises, like the Civil War for instance, were caused by extenuating circumstances but the mischief caused by republicans whenever a Democratic president is in office recently is as avoidable as it is predictable. The ideological underpinnings of conservative southerners secceding is worthy of being traced to today's dickmonkeys but I'll set it aside for now.

But, by also tying the guilt for crisis to S & P's lack of credibility; Bang! We finally get some traction to the real villains pulling the strings behind the political stage. Krugman draws attention to the crime that banks have perpetrated lately but is usually more interested in the shadow cast by wall street that is government. As an institution, wall street banks and investment houses cannot hope to stand up to the federal government, but picking off individual (and so fallibly human) politicians and turning them into allies looking out for wall street's interests has been an awfully successful strategy. Krugman has been right about a lot of things, he was talking about the collapse in employment during those wonderful, debt-fueled bush "boom" years when I lost two jobs and realized that good paying factory jobs were pretty much over. If he had been prescient enough to see how right wing attacks on teachers would be destroying my prospects for employment after all these years of college, maybe I would have started a small business of some sort. But businesses fail like crazy and well, at least no one can take away my degrees.

So, MoveOn's slogan is misleading if you look behind the scenes. The tea party doesn't really matter, they can yell and scream about whatever they like but politicians work for organized crime on wall street, not a bunch of naive and gullible old white people. Hypocrisy is rife in their astroturf "movement," for instance, if this debt deal leads to cruel slashing of Social Security and Medicare who will be hurt more? The minorities they target have already been decimated by past cuts, the "entitlements" they worry so much about going to black and hispanic people go disproportionately to retired white people. No matter, perception is far more important. If Taibbi's description of the financial mess is even partially true, it doesn't matter what the teabaggers do or say it is simply a way of big money to co-opt the righteous but undefined anger out there. I finished Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America and have to say that the subject matter really is cause for despair but he presents it in such a way that helps keep your chin up.

Obama has repeatedly proved that he works for wall street too, talking softly and carrying no stick when it comes to banksters, and actually appointing Goldman Sachs alumni to his treasury department. Giving in to tea party terrorism doesn't threaten wall street in the short term, that is why he was free to do it. But, what happens the next time speculators and goldman decide to crash the economy? Not that there is much it left but if the federal reserve, US treasury, and taxpayers are all tapped out after a decade of bailouts, tax-cutting, and wars will the next president be able to scrape enough billions together to bail them out again? How about the next bubble? The system is pretty much broken in addition to being broke, I have to wonder at this point what the GDP is for the bottom 98%. If there is any hope, it will have to come from an actual grassroots movement formed around ideas and not candidates.

Maybe the road back to that starts tomorrow with the recall elections for the Wisconsin State Senate.