how the chamber of commerce et al lost control of their brownshirts

[sheshe2]

SNIP/

With the Democratic victories of 2006 and 2008, Republican backers began to panic. The economic dogma which had obtained since Ronald Reagan’s administration was no longer tenable. The crisis of 2008 promised to sweep away all their most cherished perquisites: lax regulation, laissez faire economics, the slow but inexorable withering of the welfare state. Suddenly bankers and other assorted masters of the universe were less popular than head lice. The world teetered on the precipice of a second Great Depression; the Great Recession which was the ultimate result was nearly as devastating to the US economy; in parts of Europe, it was a Depression in all but name.

Something had to be done, quickly. And ironically, Barack Obama’s election provided the kernel of an idea.

SNIP/

The Tea Party movement which came into being soon after his inauguration should have been laughed out of the public square, with apoplectic middle-aged white men waving bags of tea and swearing on their sacred honor to “take back our country”. But the now-demonized rich saw an opportunity; the mainstream Republican Party was demoralized, after two landslide defeats. Here was a ridiculous movement, but one which had a passion lacking on the Right as a whole. And the rich became rich by never missing the main chance.

Thus began the astroturfing. The Tea Party went from being a ranting rabble to something slick and organized. It injected the GOP with an energy it had lost in the waning days of George W. Bush’s debacle of a Presidency. Suddenly the supine media was awash in stories about this vibrant oppositional movement. And because our media is a failed experiment, it never looked too closely into who was backing the anarchists, and why. To the media, it was just an upwelling of “people power”, its claiming that the sky was pink treated with as much validity as the accepted notion that it was blue.

Snip/

That a group of legislators which represents 18% of the electorate has such an outsized power is due to the rich’s cynicism. The Chamber of Commerce thought it could control the rubes. Once you give someone a whiff of power, they’re not likely to give it back.

More/

http://theobamadiary.com/2013/10/03/how-the-chamber-of-commerce-et-al-lost-control-of-their-brownshirts/

[Cha]

1. Excellent OP from Liberal Librarian, sheshe.. The "teabaggers" would

have been laughed outta here if the US had a media like it did when Murrow, Reasoner, Cronkite et al were newscasters. As it is we have a cnn that quickly dubbed themselves the teaparty station.

The "media" chuck todding it and Kochs funding it and here we are.. a Gov Shutdown. People on furlough not getting their paychecks and people doing their jobs and not getting paid. And, if the baggers have their way our Nation will default on all the USA's bills and will go right in the economic sewer.

Thanks for posting she

[flamingdem]

2. If this continues I expect to see some reaction by the media

They can't keep on without pointing fingers at the guilty parties.
.. can they? Well we'll see!

[Cha]

3. Hey flamingdem..

I would think the Chamber of Commerce, Business leaders, and Wall Street among others that will be devasted by this would start raising Wholly Hell at the propaganda outlets.

good to see you again.

[sheshe2]

5. You are welcome Cha~

Note to myself, never piss Cha off.

Righteous Rant

[PATRICK]

4. The GOP Maelstrom

You have to have something to generate excitement to build politically. Being substantive and actually DOING anything for voting blocs has drawbacks that especially turn off corporate interests and political chameleons. In any event I've been comparing this to the period of the Whig dissolution, not that their any valid relationship or deep knowledge of the subject, just as a way to organize a point of view.

When the Whigs faded away the Democrats stood as the ones who could move into all the territory(political, money, whatever) but in their own way were not energized to do so quickly. Maybe like current Dems they expected nature taking its course to drop everything into its lap.

Into this vacuum came "Know Nothing" pols energized by the bigotry of anti-immigration which unflinchingly included their religion. One of the leaders of this hatred energy was Jewish, one of those sad astounding patterns we see in incredibly irrational individual persecutors-for-influence. Unlike the Tea Party the term "Know Nothing" started as a derisive tag in the papers- the sole media. It referred to their dummying up about meetings, plans, policies.

Well, at any rate they got a new party and a bagful of extremists(verbal at least). It dissolved, the opportunists blending into DC the nuts bounced while a new party saw the still vacant space afforded by the Dems, the useless newbies and the irritated body politic. Hence the GOP.

Today's interests will not let the GOP fade. To whip up people, more hate and irrationality and over the top prejudice. More sidetracking any real discussions that rival the Know Nothings in any manipulative/deceptive category.

But they kept the replacement WITHIN the GOP. The dead have become zombies animated by the Tea Party disease. The failed brains and leadership cannot cure itself as one would have expected the still viable GOP to have done in the past. Cannot dissolve, cannot morph, cannot draw energy. Instead it looks like something circling a soon to be blocked toilet.