The Tea Party
There is a lot of resentment from the left directed toward the tea party movement lately, such as the chain letter (of "unknown" author) entitled "A Message to the Tea Party - What Took You so Long to Get Angry?" Needless to say, this is creating quite a stir in the blogosphere, as it was intended to do. (http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=message+to+the+tea+party&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8)
But according to Noam Chomsky, the question we ought to be asking ourselves is:
"why the peace movement, the left, the activist organizations ... are not organizing these people?"
since
"a lot of what they're protesting is pretty sensible."
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2zYaKXeyXE&feature=related)
I'm inclined to agree. A lot of what they are protesting is pretty sensible. However, I think there may be a more salient point to be made here. There are still reasons not to support the tea party movement, since the movement is being exploited by the mass media (via Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, et al ...). And the things the mass media is using the movement for are not worth supporting. They include:
1 - Validating the bipolar system. Laboring under the delusion that checks and balances are at work ... that countervailing forces are working to balance each other, inviting us to believe we should be involved in that wonderful process. If it's all the President's fault, then the President must have power, and if the President has power, that's good because he was "elected" by the people. There must be "democracy". But the reality is, it's not the President's fault because the President has bupkus in the way power, outside of being a mouthpiece. The system is indeed working, but it's not wonderful or just. It's an elitist system characterized by oligarchy/plutocracy/kleptocracy, not democracy, and the so-called "countervailing" forces are working together to maintain the elitist status quo on the home front and continued military expansionism and economic hegemony abroad. The President has zero power except that he is used by the elite to do their will. His puppet strings are quite clearly in the hands of big business. The herd must be steered away from this truth ... that colluding oligarchs have all the power. The myth of democracy must endure in order to protect the establishment. There is a mountain of evidence for elite rule and secretive collusion involving both the right and left.
2 - Helping create the necessary emotional energy or milieu for the next political shift, which the oligarchs have already planned out. If the tea party movement continues gaining strength we can be sure to see a conservative President in two years, which will probably signify some more aggressive military expansion and/or tax cuts for the rich to "save the economy". The media prepared our emotions well for the ousting of Bush. Even many conservatives couldn't stand him at the end. They will do the same for the ousting of Obama, when the time comes - to placate the herd, to keep us calm and productive, make us feel our will is being done, that "democracy" is working. The magical, hypnotic pendulum is working like a charm.
3 - Dividing people, who may become a legitimate threat to the establishment if they become unified. Still, the right and left seem to want to continue believing that they are mortal enemies. Only insofar as they come together is there any hope for them. I would love nothing more than to see people come to realize that they are not - after all - each others enemies. Quite the contrary. The enemy is oligarchy and its mass media/popular culture, which modern day "politics" is a subset of, hence the striking resemblance it bears to pro wrestling.
In short, it's not the tea party movement that does all this. It's the media, as usual, using "peasants with pitchforks" as their pawns. Chomsky's allusion to Beck and Limbaugh is quite appropriate. Perfect actually. And isn't it funny how these resistance groups always have billionaire funders !! (Moveon/George Soros ........ Tea Party movement/Koch brothers, Ruppert Murdoch). * And for very similar reasons, it is fruitless to support political movements on the left. Any political movement, right or left, that has made it's way onto the stage of the mass media, didn't get there without serious assistance! It's always there for a reason other than the ostensible one. On the surface it's sugar and spice and everything nice. Below is something altogether different. Does anyone seriously believe that we are going to get any sort of progressive reform (health care, environmental reform, etc ... ) where we need not be afraid to read the fine print? "Reform" will come, no doubt. It always does. But it's never the kind we want. This stuff is ushered in through a system controlled by crony capitalists. So the results that we keep seeing, over and over again, should come as no surprise. Let's stop pretending already.
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Solutions? Yes we can !!
Solutions? Shouldn't we take what happens in the mass media with a grain of salt? Keep fingers on the pulse, yes, but don't take it too seriously. There are always going to be media pundits and web masters looking to increase their visibility any way they can. Portraying dems and pubs as mortal enemies is par for the course, like in the chain letter cited at the top of the page. But for all the effort the media puts into dividing us, it sometimes has to admit that the people have much in common. A great example was in 2008, as the mass media worked feverishly to create the milieu for the ushering in of a "progressive" President (http://www.gallup.com/poll/107128/bush-approval-rating-down-60-among-republicans.aspx). Citing unity was not the intended purpose of this gallup poll, of course, yet there it is, and a unity we can be proud of, I might add. Yet, the chain letter cited above seems to have missed this, implying instead that conservatives stood by Bush to the bitter end.
Instead of succumbing to divide and conquer tactics, shouldn't we be getting apolitical? Shouldn't we be getting into arenas where we have power, getting busy with our passions and interests and getting connected in our communities? We put stock in the system by participating in it. Why put stock in something that is bought and paid for? Why waste precious energy there, when we know the corruption is entrenched? Hasn't non violent, non-cooperation always been the answer? Hasn't this always been the way to creating genuine change, at the very least in the short term, and quite possibly in the long term as well? The immediate benefits are obvious. When we stop allowing the media and popular culture, including so-called "politics", to control our thoughts and decisions, we free up resources. Monetary, mental, etc ... We free up time. Why wouldn't we question the status quo? Why would we assume that the media, which has an enormous impact on our lives, has our best interest at heart? It's a mindless assumption, clearly.
The values the mass media and popular culture espouse are not ours at all. By discovering our own, genuine values, instead of allowing ourselves to be dictated to with regards to just about everything (from politics and religion to how we spend our time, money and what we eat) we become empowered in a very immediate sense. But we also put ourselves in a better position to chip away at the status quo and change it, for the better, over the longer term, so that we can leave our legacy something better. The status quo is very difficult to change, by corollary. Even the elite mold it very slowly. It's very difficult then to find valid reasons to spend valuable energy on so-called "political solutions." The political/corporate elite control the machinations of the political process! Is it reasonable to believe that we could change anything there that is worthwhile, ie; anything that would actually threaten the corruption within the establishment? Why would the crony establishment, which meets regularly "behind closed doors" (in various private forums not accountable to the people), allow the passage of policy that threatens them? They won't. But what they will do, slowly, gradually over time, is engender policy that takes into account the state of mind of the people. If the people began ignoring propaganda channels of the mass media, then new policy would have to begin reflecting this or else the masses would become increasingly disenfranchised. A disenfranchised populace is counterproductive to the establishment.
We will never change the fact that they control the political process, but we can change our mindset, which over time has to play in. This is the natural consequence of withdrawing our support from the system, not just our monetary support but our mental support as well. No wonder these diversionary "political" movements are so well funded. By keeping the people distracted in la la land, they keep us out of the driver's seat. But then that's the whole point of the "noble lie".
Looks like it may be alive and well.
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* Both the Kochs and George Soros are well connected to the elite round table groups - and a lot of the same causes.
One major Koch connection to the establishment is William Haseltine (http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=william+haseltine&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8) Chairman of Haseltine Global Health, member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the Brookings Institution (one of the oldest and most prestigious think tanks in the country, funder earlier by Ford and Rockefeller).
Soros is a member of both the
Council on Foreign
Relations and the Bilderberger Group, and also sits on the World
Economic Forum. (http://globalresearch.ca/articles/TAL307A.html).
Besides being convicted of insider trading, Soros has also teamed
up with the likes the Bushes, Frank Carlucci (Rumsfeld's mentor during
the 1970s ... ) James Baker ... in a collaboration (and colossal
conflict of interest) that created what was (in 2007) ranked the
largest PE firm in the world - The Carlyle Group (http://www.rense.com/general21/gf.htm)
Still, the likes of Rockefeller, Soros, and the Kochs get to
enjoy being dubbed "philanthropists". How nice.