Where is our Rick Santelli moment? Who will strike the match for the birth of our Tea Party?

[LLStarks]

Why aren't we on the streets yet or organizing mass events?

[Enrique]

1. people are giving GOP reps hell at town halls

Think Progress has been covering it. It's awesome.

[LLStarks]

2. It's not the same. There's no unifying movement for progressives. Unions aren't going to cut it. nt

[leveymg]

3. Maybe we need a billionaire to come forward and do a Koche moment.

In a capitalist country, you get the government and politics you can pay for.

[LLStarks]

4. I guess turnabout is fair play. If the right has their billionaires, we should have ours.

And I'm not talking about Soros.

[leveymg]

6. How many Left-wing billionaires are there? (Why is the Citizens United case important)

That's the point. The Teapots got seed and walking around money. Hard to organize without it, and the Right-wing and the Scalia-Thomas block on SCOTUS know it.

[LLStarks]

8. We'll have SuperPACs too. The Citizens United decision goes both ways. nt

[leveymg]

10. You mean like Colbert's?

PACs are like banks - the bottom-line is assets and cash on hand.

[RandomKoolzip]

5. Why aren't we in the streets? Because we're demoralized, not energized.

[leveymg]

7. Our top elected leadership has betrayed us and kicked us under - of course we're demoralized.

Many of us are also starting to get very angry . . . that, too, presents some potential problems.

[LLStarks]

9. As were Republicans between November '08 and February '09. nt

[Speck Tater]

11. Put 30 Dems in a room and you get 30 different agendas.

If politics were a dog sled race, the Republicans enter the race with a sled pulled by 20 well-trained and obedient dogs, while the Democrats enter the race with 20 feral house cats. Sure, the Republican team is nothing but a bunch of blindly obedient dogs, but their team is the one that will win the race unless we can get our wild cats to pull somewhat in the same direction.

Every time someone posts here about a really important issue a dozen more reply with posts about why their own issue is more important than the issue of the OP. Feral house cats. No teamwork. No common vision. We are nothing more than a loose coalition of people who, in one way or another, oppose the Republicans for various and sundry reasons. Beyond that we can't really agree on anything.

[MouseFitzgerald]

12. Van Jones

http://www.rebuildthedream.com/

[leveymg]

14. We don't need leaders. We need $150 million. You'll see results, immediately.

$50 million for "boots on the ground"

$50 million to cheer them on.

$50 million for the general "morale-boosting fund" - probably the best investment in getting people to show up where you want them.

[Spike89]

13. Well, the tea party has had dubious success for the repubs

Currently their party is being torn apart by ideologues when they really should have unity as an opposition party. Although it might not be a bad thing to remind Democratic leaders that the left has teeth, I'm not sure I want to give the teabaggers any succor at all.

What's really weird is, the left is feeling pretty betrayed, but it isn't so much the hard-core leftist constituency that is getting screwed here--it is everyone, or even a slight lean toward screwing the demographics where most Teabaggers live. Kinda blows the mind, but it also makes it hard for a revolution on the left to gain traction. Bizarre to imagine college kids (who might actually kinda benefit short term from cuts to seniors) out protesting while their parents/grandparents who are getting screwed counterprotest and ask for another helping.

[rucky]

15. It's not in our nature to rally behind a single leader/cause like that.

It's both a strength and a weakness of ours.