What Should Progressives Do?

[amborin]

Chomsky has more or less urged progressives to engage Tea Partyers, in order to rein in their rudderless populist rage and to perhaps steer them toward progressive objectives and outlooks. Tea Partyers share some common grievances with progressives, particularly concerning economic issues. But the overlap is slim, and, while not a monolithic group, TPers seem fairly unanimously strongly opposed to many crucial progressive ideals and goals. They are also wary of co-optation. TPers are pushing right wing republicans further righward; amazing that Perry, of Texas, for example, has been out-righted by a challenger.

So, what should progressives do regarding TPers? And, should progressives take a lesson from TPers, concering activism? Howard Zinn and many others have argued that progressives have to marshall a vocal social movement to push dems toward progressive goals. If TPers can do it, why can't we?

This ny times article on TPers is alarming; they're getting more and more numerous and organized. The snippets here show the few areas of possible common agenda with progressives....it's a long article....



snip

".....The ebbs and flows of the Tea Party ferment are hardly uniform. It is an amorphous, factionalized uprising with no clear leadership and no centralized structure. Not everyone flocking to the Tea Party movement is worried about dictatorship. Some have a basic aversion to big government, or Mr. Obama, or progressives in general. What’s more, some Tea Party groups are essentially appendages of the local Republican Party.

But most are not. They are frequently led by political neophytes who prize independence and tell strikingly similar stories of having been awakened by the recession. Their families upended by lost jobs, foreclosed homes and depleted retirement funds, they said they wanted to know why it happened and whom to blame.....

snip

.....Fear of co-option — a perpetual topic in the Tea Party movement — lay behind the formation of Friends for Liberty.

The new grass-roots leaders of the inland Northwest had grown weary of fending off what they jokingly called “hijack attempts” by the state and county Republican Parties. Whether the issue was picking speakers or scheduling events, they suspected party leaders of trying to choke off their revolution with Chamber of Commerce incrementalism.....

snip

....Mr. Paul led Mrs. Southwell to Patriot ideology, which holds that governments and economies are controlled by networks of elites who wield power through exclusive entities like the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations.

This idea has a long history, with variations found at both ends of the political spectrum. But to Mrs. Southwell, the government’s culpability for the recession — the serial failures of regulation, the Federal Reserve’s epic blunders, the cozy bailouts for big banks — made it resonate all the more, especially as she witnessed the impact on family and friends.

snip

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/us/politics/16teaparty.html

[T Wolf]

1. Disagree. You CANNOT fix stupid and for the most part, the baggers are stupid. They do not

respond to logic and reason - if they did they would know the truth about who has fucked them over.

The baggers are overwhelmingly a mob of racist, ignorant, assholes who have latched onto this "movement" as a vehicle to fight back against any attempt to bring progress to America.

They do not need to be engaged. They need to be eliminated.

[amborin]

4. how would they be eliminated? woulldn't they have to be engaged first?

[T Wolf]

5. I would suggest Lily of the Valley - it does not leave any traces. nt

[MineralMan]

LOL!

That sounds, somehow...familiar...

[Goldstein1984]

8. "They need to be eliminated"

Do you have a plan?

[MineralMan]

9. They already have their own plan, and it's working nicely.

[amborin]

14. my thought, exactly

[Goldstein1984]

19. We may only be seeing evolution of their movement

The Tea Party movement, as Chomsky points out, has a core group with legitimate complaints. That core group may succeed in throwing off the racist elements; they're already rejecting the "astroturf" corporatist elements trying to manipulate their movement. Progressives should consider the possibility that a legitimate populist movement may emerge.

I think it's that potential for a legitimate conservative populist movement that's the real threat to a progressive populist movement that isn't taking shape at all.

I think this is far more complex than just a bunch of wackos doomed to self-destruct. It's tempting and emotionally satisfying to label the entire movement as the racist, illiterate, and paranoid people that too many of them are. I suspect that there are a significant number of them who are not following Palin or Tancredo.

[valerief]

18. If you can train a dog, you can train a teabagger. nt

[MineralMan]

2. I think progressives should encourage the TPers to duke it

out amongst themselves at every opportunity. They have nothing but contempt for progressive ideas, so any overlap is illusory. Let them eat their own and perish from their cannibalism.

[amborin]

3. but there are some areas of mutual concern: the economy

it's too large a group to simply ignore

[MineralMan]

7. Of course there is mutual concern. But...and this is a major thing,

the Teabaggers "solution" for that has nothing whatever to do with progressivism. While two groups may be able to identify a problem, it is the suggested solution that defines the group.

I do not think we should ignore the teabaggers. I think we should encourage them to destroy themselves through in-fighting. They seem well on their way toward that goal, even now.

[amborin]

10. the article suggest they seem to be getting more numerous and better organized

seems alarming to me

they are succeeding in pushing rightwing rethugs further rightward

[MineralMan]

11. That's fine by me. Let them become a third party for the GOP.

Whatever harms the GOP is a good thing.

[BeFree]

15. Yeppers, MM

They are hanging themselves. Give them just enough rope and....

Meanwhile, cat herding has proved to be a bit beyond our capabilities. Eh?

[Warpy]

6. While we might be able to talk to them one on one in real life,

engaging them either online or as a group is fruitless and might be downright dangerous.

The problem with populist movements like these that start out being controlled by one group of scumbags is that they follow mob psychology eventually, rather than the leader. That means that while they're starting out a rudderless group with nothing in common but free floating anger looking for a place to land, eventually they start to move in a unified direction that doesn't come from the scumbags at the top.

As for talking to them one on one, I suggest following the KISS rule, "Keep It Simple, Stupid." In other words, when they start ranting about welfare people dragging the country down, remind them it's the BANKERS who got greedy and caused the crisis. When they talk about high taxes, remind them it's the CORPORATE BOSSES MAKING MILLIONS who are holding their wages down and sending the good jobs they used to have offshore.

You won't penetrate the cement the first time. However, if enough of us are out there identifying just who is responsible for this mess, we'll eventually get through to enough of them to make a difference.

You never know what enough dumb and desperate people are capable of. If all they do is scare the hell out of Congress, they'll be serving a useful purpose.

[amborin]

12. are they having more success than progressives?

have progressives been able to push seated dems further toward progressive positions?

[Sebastian Doyle]

13. I'm pretty much on the same page with Chomsky and Thom Hartmann here

You obviously can't reach the racist idiots, or the zombies who are too stupid to realize they are being manipulated by Glen BecKKK, the Dick Arm(e)y, and the Koch brothers. But the actual populist anger beyond that is very much a force to be reckoned with, they just need the facts to steer them in the correct direction.

[amborin]

16. that's the scary thing; the rudderless populist anger n/t

[igfoth]

17. I have tried to engane them in a sane rational discussion

but the ones that I have dealt with are either racists or totally uninformed because of nothing but Beck, Limbaugh, O'Reiley and Faux Propaganda.

All the ones I dealt with are so disconnected with reality that sane engagement is not going to happen

[old mark]

20. Progressives should get themselves organized before attempting to fix anything or anyone else.

We are constantly fighting amongst ourselves, and with "moderate" Democrats, and we are not held in good regard even by our own party.

The idea that progressives as we exist today can engage anyone, even the ridiculous 'baggers is a delusion.

We can't even engage our opwn White House.

mark