Tea Party Pot Bellies: Michigan's Tea Partiers - What's in their Kettle?

Whistling from their ears, full of steam piped in from the boilers of Koch Petroleum, these angry men and women are pawns of the first order.

Dunces with dulled intellects and greedy with selfish desire to hold on to what little their corporate masters, have deigned to allow them to retain of all their years of work, labor, and endless toil, "Steamed" Tea Party Pot Bellies are in a manipulator's manufactured rage. It's actually one of the saddest stories to be told; it spells out how the public can be conned, hornswoggled, beguiled, into working exactly against what has always been in their best interests, futures, and well-being.

Centers of Civil Discourse Drown Out: American conversation on local concerns in the
corner of the hardware or general store replaced by Big Media and AFP Money
(General Store in Haysi, VA National Archives 1938)

The Michigan TeaPublican (Tea Party Republican) Super Majority back inside the Capitol, all comfy in their leather swivel chairs, faces lit by taxpayer provided laptops, saw an opening to their advantage. True to form,
GOPer's took the easy path: stick to the Corporatist scripts and rad right discipline: Put the burden of revenue off on children, the elderly, the pensioner, the poor, the public servant. By all means protect the business and corporate community!

If only these Republicans strove to serve the real needs of the public as much as they pride themselves in being errand boys/"buds" to business!

What a nunce Snyder is! Says he was "hired" by Michigan to be their "CEO"! Find that in your state constitutions, you uber-strict constitutionalists. It's not there.

Michigan Americans for Prosperity Propaganda Troupes for Senior Citizen as Shock Troops:
Michigan TP'ers at AFP / Mackinac Sponsored Rally in Lansing, MI April 14, 2011 (DailyKos)

Taking a reach-back look at the Lansing Capitol Rally of the Michigan Chapter of Americans for Prosperity (led by Scott Hagerstrom) last spring, one sees photos of row after row of ball capped, balding older white males, supported by carefully placed courtesy folding chairs. They are angry and frustrated waving provocative signs to prove it's just right to be ginned up for projecting anger and blame on someone else and advantage the Rovian Backroom Boys. Steampotters are ripe for backing the blacklash, then when their handlers have taken all the advantage they can, Tea Party Pot Bellies will be toast!

Staring at the ongoing effects of the worst economic catastrophe of our time, the ruinous, failed Bush regime and its unbearable and destructive rampage of eight years (misdirected wars, unprecedented debt, and unequal taxation) was bad enough; not seeing a clear way out, still forced to confront the seemingly intractable flaws and effects of G.W. Bush cataclysm, has left the worried public to sip the bitter dregs resulting from his bad judgment.

Steampotters are forced to stare at a resultant, potential economic and political collapse worldwide. That's too much for a potbellied TeaPartisan under duress and stress. They're ready for a brawl. But with whom? Their neighbors, their grandchildren, the first responders? The cause of their troubles which has them in a kink? They are supporting the very Corporatist interests that have been eroding their nest eggs and killing their democracy. How odd!

Steampotters are damn mad at the demise of their retirement assets stolen by Wall Street and speculators, the trouble their children are enduring, and the loss of their home equity value-stripped as it was in the Bush Bust of 2008. THEY NEED SOMEONE TO BLAME. They are ready to led by the Kochs MEGA-cash-campaigning. As chance would have it, Koch Brothers had shipped in that unsavory character, Dick Morris - and didn't fetish Dick strut his stuff?

Steaming potbellies are addicted to Right's Noise Machine and Rupert Murdock's pap-and-slap
Actually more than 70% of Republicans with cable access watch FOX News exclusively. Nothing satisfies an angry depressed curmudgeon more than more anger and depression. Bad news fuels fear, resentment and aggression.

As dailies, such as the Detroit News and the Grand Rapids Press, slide down the waste pipes, FOX News enriches itself and its Machiavellian owner. An alien with "bought" power and influence. It's a place of influence and profit FOX and Rupert do not deserve.

This is possible because of these same gullible discontents-the more they are depressed the more they want someone else to ante up and bear their far share of load. Many citizens from out the past paid for the infrastructure that was the life-long support of these Tea Party Pot Bellies-now whiners and malcontents.

The whole attitude is: I've got my "little bit" and I'm scared witless it will be lost to someone else. Their mantra: Me, my son John, his wife and my wife, us four and NO MORE. This kind of self-centered selfishness leaves behind both Christianity and neighborhood democracy.

Given permission to lash out and accost others, goaded on by Svengalis re-pleat with talking point books designed to manipulate and exploit exaggerated blame; as long as it distracts the November voters from the Bush Depression (still in bubble wrap) the danger plays right into the hands of the negativists who inhabit both the Detroit News and the dank dens of the deceitful enemies of public life and service.

Warming the Factories of Manufacturing and the Middleclass: Garland Stove Company's
World's Largest Stove, Postcard Detroit MI 1893 (Michigan Historical Archives)

Amway's Richard M. DeVos Sr. and the Brothers Koch are thought to be Depression proof. However, if they can manipulate the TeaPartisans to do the heavy lifting to lobby to remove regulations, and overturn customer protections, and collective bargaining rights, etc. to greatly benefit them and the other greedy Corporatists - this would be perfect timing.

And to assuage the pent-up anger and the angst tearing at the gut of Tea Potbelliers, what do the current Rad Republicans offer?

Actually Harry Truman laid out the genuine GOP "offers" best:

• Republicans approve of the American farmer, but they are willing to help him go broke.
• They stand four-square for the American home - but not for housing.
• They are strong for labor - but they are stronger for restricting labor's rights.
• They favor minimum wage - the smaller the minimum wage the better.
• They endorse educational opportunity for all - but they won't spend money for teachers or for schools.
• They think modern medical care and hospitals are fine - for people who can afford them.
• They consider electrical power a great blessing - but only when the private power companies get their rake-off.
• They think American standard of living is a fine thing - so long as it doesn't spread to all the people.
• And they admire of Government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it.

Harry T. enjoyed the blunt truth of strongly brewed black coffee in a big cup, not a steamy tea made with the deadly Kool-Aid of the Koch Bros. subversions, et. al. served up in a Koch Industries-made throwaway paper cup.

On the Reader:
History on the Garland Company Giant Stove and what happened to this Michigan landmark.
Gazette posts on the Americans For Prosperity run Tea Party Rally April 14, 2011 pictured above in "Greedy Bros Koch-Bought & Paid for Visi-Galts: The Randian Libertarian Spawn - Gleefully Storm the Gates of the People’s House in Lansing, MI" and "Americans for Prosperity’s Cotton Head Grump Out, High on Motrin 800, Fizzles.

Related Posts:
In Detroit: Resentment, Malice & Roaring Opportunism Ride a Wave of Harsh Tea Party Ideology (April 2012) - Revisit Occupy Detroit: the Tea Party is Different – Hank Payne’s Myopic View (November 2011) - The Occupy Wall Street Activists & Grassroots Tea Party Activists Have a Lot in Common (October 2011) - It Was No Frenzy Island: Neanderthals & the Nerd (Republican Leadership Conference on Mackinac Island) (September 2011) - Teaparty leader: The More We Pay Attention - The More Hopeless it Can Seem, Political Parties Only Exist to Get and Keep Power (February 2011) - Saint Ayn - Extolling Great Evil - Used As Source of Tea Party Political Punch Lines

Original.

When Radical Tax Hatred & Vengeance Go Too Far: May 18, 1927 – Sweet Innocents & Loving Teachers Gone Forever - Michigan’s Bath School Massacre

85 years ago today, a maniacal tax-hater bent on vengeance nearly wiped out his entire Michigan community killing scores of children, teachers, and others, including the Bath School's superintendent. Only a part of his explosives ignited. This event remains the single most tragic loss of children's lives due to a school massacre in American history.

This sober and unforgettable heinous event should serve as a strong and present warning: There is a limit to what our society can allow when it comes to direct action and the purposeful stoking up of anger and resentment against taxes and public institutions.

Bath School Disaster Makes National Headlines (Baltimore News May 19, 1927)

Yes, Bath Consolidated School was a 'government school.' Bath School was a public school; operated and run by the local governing school board and supported by the means of democratic voting-majority rule. Bath Consolidated 1927 was a proud community school.

One man, having been elected to the Bath school board, designed to work against it; plotted and executed a diabolical, murderous plan to punish his own community for offending his personal ideology and hatred of taxes levied for progressive educational reform-consolidation of the area's rural one room schools into a new and modern building.

Across the Country People Sense the Ongoing Warning Revealed in the Bath School Disaster

"I realized that today (May 18, 2011) is the anniversary of a terrorist act in Michigan 84 years ago. Ironic and fitting that it happened in Michigan, the home state of Betsy DeVos (sister of Erik Prince and wife of Amway heir Dick DeVos), the rabid crusader for dismantling public education."

This was the troubling revelation and remonstration of U.S. Rep. Emma Berry, from Texas, on this date a year ago.

Today, 85 years after this horrific event, the single greatest domestic terror attack on innocent children in the history of America, we are rightfully reminded that there are radical forces still seeking to destroy, bring down our proud historic institution, the public school.

It may not be one stupendous blast of dynamite under the school house, it is a sustained and sinister series of local and state battles across the country pitched and fought by people with rage and anger at the public school and the teachers who mentor our children.

-----

The rise of the national TeaPartiasns (Republican Tea Party members) across America has given "legs" to the multi-millions of the Walton Family and the Amway Clan which have lit the fuse of mistrust and angst in the minds of the malleable public. Hating taxes, resenting the conditions of urban schools (abandoned by whites and cut off by business and corporations) as well as religious bias against the curriculum that includes a wide spectrum of free expression and critical thinking (dubbed by Fundamentalists and Christian Dominionists as a new religion: 'Secular Humanism') these mega-wealthy radicals (who have done so much to destroy the heart and soul of American communities with their plunder of dreams and usurpation of local merchants places on Main Street), now dane to take away that which is left, the neighborhood school.

-----

The vouchers and the charter school movements were born out of rabid reaction to the Civil Rights Movements of the 1960's and the forced federal integration of public schools. The segregation academy was the response to these revolutionary attacks on the "separate and equal" racial doctrines and the charade of Jim Crow Laws devised to enforce racial injustices, a quasi-pogrom that had ruled in America for far too long. In Michigan during the early 1920's there was a rapid rise in the activity and membership of the KKK. Churches and ministers, leading business men and citizens joined up as was discovered in Newaygo's cache of KKK member records and hidden memorabilia. This movement included religious individuals, mainly Protestant Fundamentalists, who like their counter parts in the Southern Baptist Convention, were rank racial and religious bigots with hatred for the "others" they despised in their society.

-----

The 1920's may have been "roaring" for bankers, speculators, and others on Wall Street and in large urban areas, but life on the farms and in the countryside at large was steadily declining, revealing the tell-tale signs of a economic and social rift. The gap between the wealth and income of the ordinary folk, many of them still on small family farms, was corrosively and aggressively taking hold and would result in, what we know now to be a widespread, deep national depression which lingered into the Second World War.

There are chilling parallels with the 1920's and today. The KKK is passé and in its place is the conspiracy of corporate backroom operators, the Koch Bros. et al, and The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), whose collaboration with FOX Cable News has ginned up a pseudo indigenous/astroturf amalgamation of hate and angst known loosely as the Tea Party movement. Their mantra: No new taxes, no collaboration, no helpful compromise, no bi-partisanship, no hand of fellowship: It's the enforcement wing of the Party of 'NO'.

This rise of a multiplicity of groups-skillfully manipulated and utilized to terrorize the Republican office holders of the nation-via the Karl Rovian tactic of TeaPartisan 'Primarying' of Moderates and Independents in the GOP-has given rise to a 'mob' of malcontents and anti-tax activists who feed on fear, anger, and personal greed. Their targets, much like that of the KKK, are immigrants, minorities, and other elements they envision as gnawing away at their own wealth, assets, and future security.

The Kehoe Malignancy
Andrew P. Kehoe, who was the mad bomber of Bath School May 18, 1927, would fit right in (during the lead up to his murderous act) with the TeaPartisan sentiment and share their anger and desire to radically alter the course of public education. He crossed the indelible line. Kehoe went far to the darkside. There is no way to excuse or diminish his aberrant act of blind rage and unhinged revenge against his own community-its children and teachers, none. There is here on this sad anniversary, however, sufficient and strong warning that the desire to perseverate and concentrate angst on government coercion and police powers to tax its citizens still inflames minds-some of which are unreasonable and unstable.

Squaring Off Against Political Vengeance & Reprisal That Goes Too Far
The current frame of mind in the Republican dominated Michigan Legislature includes a bull-headed determination to take down public schools and replace them with a zoological jungle of loosely-run charter schools, vouchers for religious/sectarian operations, on-line teaching schemes (virtual schools) and full-frontal attacks on the mentors who teach our children in the neighborhood school owned by everyone.

A miasma of delusion and reprisal is currently sweeping the Nation, and Michigan, replete with program cutting and give-aways, for-profit enterprises designed to undercut and replace the public schools. This is coup can only be classed as an updated campaign by some to resurrect the destruction and divisiveness of the KKK, benefit from the power of reprisal and greed, and offer private operators entree into billions of taxpayer dollars specifically set aside for publicly operated education and community acculturation.

Bath School Memorial Plaque Listing Victims (Bath, MI)

Never Again
It was out of such motives that anger and ideology drove Andrew P. Kehoe May 18, 1927 into an act arising out of public school hating, tax-resenting, a single man's act which is unparalleled for its murderous zeal to kill children. Kehoe is a tragic and powerful reminder of unilateral direct action and a ghastly and deviant design laid to takedown a community-centered on obliterating its children.

Communities are rapidly losing their control and oversight of their neighborhood schools. Just as WalMart, with its cheap Chinese goods and poverty wages, has brought down town after town, now the Waltons, Michelle Rhee, Jeb Bush, and others led by Amway and Betsy Prince DeVos (American Federation for Children or AFC) are determined to rifle the assets and plunder the funding sources of your public school for personal profit and their extreme ideological purposes.

If these Anti-Public School forces succeed, we will not have learned the harsh lesson of the Bath School Disaster: The public school will always remain the enduring heart and soul of any community. Public schooling is essential to sustaining American democracy.

A Powerful Afterthought:

Pres. Bill Clinton's Remonstration and Plea Against Domestic Terror, Dark Forces That Give Rise to Evil

"To all my fellow Americans beyond this hall, I say, one thing we owe those who have sacrificed is the duty to purge ourselves of the dark forces which gave rise to this evil. They are forces that threaten our common peace, our freedom, our way of life.

Let us teach our children that the God of comfort is also the God of righteousness. Those who trouble their own house will inherit the wind. Justice will prevail.

Let us let our own children know that we will stand against the forces of fear. When there is talk of hatred, let us stand up and talk against it. When there is talk of violence, let us stand up and talk against it.

In the face of death, let us honor life. As St. Paul admonished us, 'Let us not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.'"

Source: Speech Transcript of President Clinton in Oklahoma City, OK on April 23, 1995.

On the Reader:
Documentary "Bath School Disaster" by Lansing Community College (March 2012).

Contemporary, firsthand account and history of the Bath School District events by local resident M. J. Ellsworth (1927 5th Edition 1991), description of events on Wiki and a Rootsweb extensive list of historical sources and articles.

More recent coverage in "Survivors Recall 1927 Michigan School Massacre" a NPR story on April 17, 2009 and "Local residents recently discuss the future of the Bath School Memorial Park" and historical site - Story and video (May 14, 2012)

Related Slates:
More on Public Education and Michigan Public Schools on the Gazette.

Original.

Hillsdale's Gary Wolfram Elevates Andrew Breitbart - Dean of Defamation - to "Sainthood"

Response to Prof Gary Wolfram on the Detroit / Mackinac News Michigan View in "Ludwig von Breitbart" on March 13, 2012.

Hillsdale’s Dr. Gary must be high on chalk dust. Wolfram's eulogy for Andrew Breitbart was a cold rehash of his idol Ludwig pulled-reflexively from the prof's dusty achieves and yellowing scrapbooks. What exactly connected political hit-man and truth twister Andy Breitbart in Wolfram’s thinking with Dr. Gary's hero Ludwig von Mises?

It must have been a severe allergic reaction to accumulated chalk dust in Wolfram's stuffy cubical at the Rad Right's faint mockup of  a “Harvard”, Hillsdale College, a member of the Poison Ivy League.

Hillsdale College: Leaning right since right-wing Free Marketeers forced
the exit of the founding Free Baptists (Hillsdale Historical Society Archive)

Locked away from everyday reality, Professor Wolfram dwells at this quaint institutional anachronism, hidden away in a small bucolic southeastern Michigan town.

Hillsdale College is more an archetype of civic collapse and failure, retro-progression in quest of a giant need to be noticed in its attempts to pander to the greed of national and international corporatocracy, rather than be a crystalline beacon of higher culture.

Hillsdale exists, in large part, to supply the Too Far Right with pliant foot soldiers such as the murderous mercenary, billionaire scion- Eric Prince of Blackwater infamy.

A liberal arts education seeks to instill a higher sense of history and philosophy into a continuum and expansion of understanding about eternal truth and to build upon the vast achievements and ideals of the progressive human race propelled by the Enlightenment and an ongoing rediscovery of the classic cultures of yore as woven into the march of religion, philosophy, science and human understanding.

Why perseverate? Why ramble on about "liberalism" defined in the enlightenment era as 'the importance of individual liberty and limited government' when what is being espoused at Hillsdale is regression and suppression of modernity and the 'maturing understanding' of the needs and abilities of science and human inventiveness via strangling government?

For chalk dusty Prof. Gary, Breitbart "was an inspiration to those who agree with Mises that 'the ultimate and most profound of the fundamental insights of liberal thought is that it is ideas that constitute the foundation on which the whole edifice of human social cooperation is constructed and sustained and that a lasting social structure cannot be built on the basis of false and mistaken ideas.' “ From this we may try to follow Dr. Gary into believing that Andrew Breitbart was the paragon of TRUTH and ACCURACY.

Here is where Breitbart's notoriety as a crusader in Wolfram’s mind and von Mises' liberalism is seen as versus or against "anti-liberalism," (by which Prof. Gary derides the 21st Century "Liberals"-meaning Democrats and Progressives) and thus becomes lost in that stale cloud of professorial chalk dust.

While Wolfram is perfectly at home seeing himself as a "Classic" Liberal, and not a 21st Century Democrat/Progressive [Boo Hiss] Liberal; the man-on-the-street cannot make the jump Prof. Gary demands. Liberal must always, only mean Democrats.

Prof. Gary Elevates Fellow Traveler, Andrew Breitbart - Dean of Defamation - to Wolfarm’s Constellation of All-Time Ideological ‘Saints’- How Quixotic!

Not to be defeated, Prof. Gary bravely soldiers on. Gary, obviously at grievous personal loss over the death of his grenade-throwing Too Far Right Radical brother, Breitbart) describes his ideological troublemaker and soul-mate as a man labeled by many as "an enemy of the people."  Breitbart earned that exact description by virtue of his relentless partisanship and determination to spin, distort, twist, and invent Breitbart "truth" to fit radical ideology-in the service of the moneyed masters of a growing fascist Corporatocracy.

Andy Breitbart: Lived Large in a Conservative Tub of Small Minds
(TIME posted Bryce Duffy Photo on Brietbart's 'BagNews' 2010)

Breitbart, A Hero to Classic Liberalism? Hardly.
"Governments must be forced into adopting liberalism by the power of the unanimous opinion of the people, claimed von Mises,” proclaims Prof. Gary, emitting a temporary democratic high tone. Then Wolfram goes on to list the areas where Breitbart bent the truth and altered facts to defend a true and genuine anti-classic liberalism-TeaPartisanship given to bottom feeding, dissimulation, and ideological subterfuge he leaves the path of credibility and public trust.

Perez Zagorin, a noted American historian in "The historical significance of lying and dissimilation - Truth-Telling, Lying and Self-Deception" (1996):

"...Since the appearance in 1978 of Sissela Bok's important and widely noticed book, Lying. Moral Choice in Private and Public Life, the concern with lying and deception has continually increased. Bok's work was actuated by worry over declining standards of truth-telling and for this reason apparently touched a nerve. It coincided with the growing skepticism and mistrust felt among Americans and in other western nations about the veracity of governments, officials, and politicians, as well as lawyers, the medical profession, and business corporations."

Just prior to Breitbart's demise, in Troy, Michigan  Michigan Tea Party Republicans (under the spell of and paid & played by the Koch Bros' Americans for Prosperity) hosted one of Breitbart's very last public appearances, shared by Wolfram. This event was at a Koch Brothers pay-to-play sponsored event for Goldman Sach's operative, Mitt Romney, who regaled the Troy/Koch-ish Tea Party elements with his pledges to be one of them.

On the dais was a co-conspirator with Brietbart, Michelle Malkin - a virtual vestal virgin of poisonous venom - in the pursuit of penultimate Rovian truth, skewed to serve FOX's Too Far Right Wingers and corporatist fat cats.

What did the late Breitbart and Malkin bring to the Troy Tea Party Gathering according to Detroit News' Hank Payne?  From his article "Payne in Troy: Tea Party Mitt" February 26, 2012:

"...perhaps most striking was Mitt Romney's extraordinarily detailed, right-wing message perhaps most striking was Romney's extraordinarily detailed, right-wing message specifically tailored for the grassroots conservatives assembled by Americans for Prosperity and warmed up by red meat pundits Michelle Malkin and Andrew Breitbart.”  

This lusty interpretation of the work of Breitbart is shared by non-other-than Sarah Palin:

"With the death of Breitbart, the conservative movement didn't just lose a General " we lost an entire Special Forces Division....But he didn't leave us without the tools and the knowledge we need to fight."

GOT THAT: Brietbart is lauded by Palin as a 'special forces' political/ideological, a high powered hit-man. A deceitful/unprincipled wonk-cum-celebrity in the hunt to bring down America's first Black president.

Is this the “classic liberalism” package that Dr.Gary presents to his nascent ideological apprentice warrior-types in laid back Hillsdale's Rad Right bootcamp?

Bottomline: The Wolfram veneration of Breitbart fails the high ethics and moral high ground test so vaunted by Hillsdale's über-moralizers. The following quote excerpted out of a synopsis in "Andrew Breitbart Dead: Conservative Blogger Dies Suddenly At 43", posted by Huffington Post:

1. "Republican gay rights group GOProud, of which Breitbart was a board member until recently, released a statement saying it was 'stunned and saddened,' and calling him an 'amazing friend and ally.'"
   
2. "Breitbart seldom showed restraint in his vitriol to his critics and seemed to relish in the negative attention his antics earned him. After Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts died in 2009, Breitbart tweeted, 'Rest in Chappaquiddick' and called him 'a special pile of human excrement.' When critics questioned (Breitbart's) tone, he tweeted they 'missed my best ones!'"
   
3. "Breitbart sponsored hidden camera, gottcha attacks on ACORN. Racial in nature, this tactic resulted in a firestorm of criticism. [The embarrassment it engendered stoked up such fierce partisan rants as were heard here in Michigan shrilly mouthed by former State Senator Michelle McManus while running for Michigan Secretary of State.] The edited Breitbart video featured 'some ACORN employees appearing willing to support illegal schemes involving tax advice, misuse of public funds and illegal trafficking in children.' Ultimately the Government Accountability Office cleared ACORN of criminal activities. None-the-less "public pressure led Congress to block previously approved funds from going to ACORN and to stop future payments. Roughly 10 percent of ACORN's funds came from federal grants and the group eventually disbanded."

Just another of Breitbart's tactical 'special forces' successes against Blacks and Obama? Of course.

Carry on Prof. Gary, elevate Brietbart and thereby lower the national bar for truth and civility. How "ill-liberal" in an anti-von Mises pro-Breitbart declination can Wolfram be?

On the Reader:
Read the Detroit / Mackinac News / Michigan View's "All Star" review of Brietbart's 'legacy' including the canonization by Rep. Thaddeus McCotter:

"There was no stopping Andrew Breitbart from fighting the good fight with every fiber of his soul. Good bye and God bless, Brother Andrew. You are loved and mourned and ever remembered."

Related Slates:
"Michigan View's Gary Wolfram Resurrects 18th Cent. Racial Bigotry in His Vision of Economic “Freedom” (ala Adam Smith)" - "Prof. Gary Wolfram of the Michigan View Let’s His Little Light Shine On Greed" - "Our Guides to the Bottomless Pit: Wolfram, Von Hayek, Lewis F. Powell, & A.L.E.C."

More responses to Gary Wolfram and other on the Michigan View on the Gazette.

Original.

Revisit Occupy Detroit: the Tea Party is Different – Hank Payne’s Myopic View

This is in Response to Michigan View's Henry Payne's piece "Occupy Detroit: The Tea Party Difference" in Michigan View / Detroit News on October 14, 2011, which was reposted in the National Review on October 16, 2011.

An analysis of Hank Payne's put down of Occupy Detroit comes up short and defective; Payne's bias rules fact.

Here is a breakdown of Henry Payne, Detroit News, Friday Oct 14, 2011, and his wobbly apology for Tea Partyism over and against Occupy Wall Street protests.

HANK: "Detroit, Grand Circus Park - Desperate to show the Left's grassroots, the MSM [Main Stream Media] has taken to comparing the Occupy movement with the tea party. THERE IS NO COMPARISON."
(Emphasis Added)

ANALYSIS: Everywhere comparisons are being made; and the central role of Americans for Prosperity (AFP) fronted by the notorious KOCH BROTHER'S stick puppet, DICK MORRIS, and other backers and paid provocateurs are being outted and discussed.

HANK: "The 99 Percenters are professional protesters. There is nothing new here. Survey the Occupy Detroit crowd and for the most part it is the usual suspects: anti-war protestors, racial grievance activists, left-wing students, unionists. Activism is their avocation - only the theme changes. In 2006 they protested the Iraq War. In 2007, global warming at Live Earth. In 2010, racist cartoons in the New York Post. This spring they protested public sector union reforms in state capitals. Now they protest corporations. They are supported by the usual names: Al Sharpton, Michael Moore, Bob King, UAW, SEIU. They know how to organize - and just as importantly - the MSM sympathizes with them and covers their every move."

ANALYSIS: The Occupy Protests are moving toward a lasting movement, and a movement that will have a significant impact on not only Wall Street, but alter the political universe centered on K Street and in the smoke-filled caucuses of hamstrung politicos.

Cartoonist Hank Payne Warps and Manipulates His Carefully Chosen Materials to Put Down Occupy's Impact

ANALYSIS: Video from the Detroit News on Occupy Detroit (chosen by Payne) is replete with a black woman with classic racial features, (purposefully-the first frame of the set " placed thus, done for maximum racial impact); especially when Hank uses this kind of slanted material as a compare-and-contrast impact piece with the commentary on the Tea Party-business strip protest-at Birmingham, MI.

HANK: "By contrast, what makes the tea party such a compelling story is that it is not your standard protest. It is a true grassroots movement."

ANALYSIS: Hank must CERTAINLY know better! Across the country the Occupy activity has taken hold in the conversations of the 99%ers. They know things are not as they ought to be-not right by any standard, and they want regress of their grievances with the System.

HANK: "Indeed, as it first took shape, the MSM barely gave it a look. Compare the extensive pre-Occupy Detroit coverage in Michigan's media this week to the nearly non-existent coverage of (the larger) tea party protests in Congressional districts in the summer of 2009."

Hank Payne tries to make a logical conclusion, and fails to grasp the factual details of TP vs. Occupy Wall Street dust-up.

BIRMINGHAM TEA PARTY PROTEST

HANK: "In part this was because the liberal MSM is out of touch with the middle class, conservative voter (as the videos above show, these are two very different protestor demographics). But also it was because the tea partiers were new to the protest game. They were soccer moms, they were doctors, and they were retirees who had never protested anything before. They weren't backed by special interest groups."

ANALYSIS: This Payne assertion is patently untrue and a proven misstatement:

1.) The Koch Brothers political machine Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is a group fronting special interests started by oil billionaire David Koch and Richard Fink (a member of the board of directors of Koch Industries). AFP has been accused of funding astroturfoperations but also has been fueling the "Tea Party" efforts. AFP's messages are in sync with those of other groups funded by the Koch Family Foundations and the Koch's other special interest groups, included is A.L.E.C. The American Legislative Exchange Council with upwards of 200 past and former members in the Michigan Legislature.

2.) Karl Rove operations - "Rove is the embodiment of everything the tea party resents. He supported Bush's decision to bail out the banks in 2008, a major bone of contention with deficit hawks. And it was Rove, as White House political adviser, who pushed for some of the most expensive Bush programs, like the  Medicare-prescription-drug bill, the passage of which cornered the troublesome State of Florida for Bush in 2004 but has already cost more than $1 trillion. The national debt nearly doubled under Bush, from $5.7 trillion to $10.6 trillion. Rove knew he had to inoculate himself against tea-party insurrectionists if he was to keep his footing in the party." Source: The New York Magazine, March 2011

3.) Dick Armey's group - Freedom Works - "(L)et us be clear about one thing: The tea party movement is not seeking a junior partnership with the Republican Party, but a hostile takeover of it." Source: the Wall Street Journal in 'The Tea Party Manifesto" on August 17, 2010.

4.) Central to the TP movement: endless promotion of and for the Tea Party - giving time and place and (adding promotional hype) by Rupert's FOX media empire, made/makes the Tea Party a national force.

HANK: "But suddenly faced with a power-hungry, Obamacare-forcing, Democratic Socialist Washington political class intent on poaching their liberties, they rose 'to take back America.'"

ANALYSIS: TPer's organized to defend the Corporate/Congressional/Wall Street status quo, THESE MEGA-MONIED/SPONSORED 'RABBEL' ARE DEFINITELY NOT TAKING AMERICAN FORWARD.

HANK: "They are well on their way to doing so with the tsunami election of 2010 - and now have their eyes on the ultimate prize: the presidency."

ANALYSIS: Take a sharp look at the Republican primary candidates as they go down one pin at a time " the public is not "buying" their extremism and lack of fundamental knowledge of the issues and foreign affairs, and especially their dance away from Wall Street and Financial reform and proscriptive regulations to prevent more fraud and in-your-face abuse.

HANK: "The tea party agenda, however, endangers the special interests of professional protestors. Not surprisingly, they are striking back."

ANALYSIS: Actually the strength and power of the Tea Party has dwindled and been diminished/fractured THE MORE THE 99%ERS SEE THE TEA PARTY IN CLOSE-UP THEY MORE THEY REJECT THEIR ATTITUDE, ANGER, STICK PUPPET LOGIC. The more the people at the real grassroots learn about these angry protesters; pumped by savage, cynical media, the more they distance themselves from those TP types; some of whom showed up at rallies with loaded weapons at-the-ready.

HANK: "That's the meaning of the 99 Percenters. They aren't a liberal grassroots answer to the tea party. They are the Big Government special interests that are threatened by it."

ANALYSIS: Would Hank know a "special interest" if he met one? Everyone, and imagine the size of the 99%ers numbers hundreds of millions of Americans - who are expressing: personal interest in jobs, freedom from oppressive student loans, foreclosures, anger at their inability to obtain small business loans, credit card interest at historic levels labeled "usury", and seeing the huge ($2 trillion corporate and 1%ers hold-out of capital from the marketplace) CAN BE LUMPED INTO A "SPECIAL INTEREST".

SEE ALSO: Hank Payne's Suggested Video posted on YouTube in August of 2009, with the title "Tea Party Protest Birmingham Michigan" - Introduced BTW by the former Head of the MacComb County Republican Party (circa 2004-2006) saying "... this is another legitimate 'grassroots' gathering...."


The OWS events are morphing into a significant social and political movement across America and into all parts of the world. Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story" has come into its own, as a model for what must be dealt with:

"WE WANT OUR MONEY DOMINATED POLITICAL SYSTEM BACK, AND WE WANT IT NOW!"

"WE WANT SCORES OF SLEAZY FINANCIAL FRAUDS AND CRIMINALS TO GO TO JAIL!"

"WE WANT 'PLAIN ENGLISH' TO BE THE STANDARD FOR INVESTMENT INSTRUMENTS, BUSINESS PRACTICE, AND PROBITY IN FINANCE AND INVESTMENT INSTITUTIONS!"

These Occupy Wall Street (OWS) issues and many more have grabbed the attention of the general population, whom polling shows side, not with Hank Payne or the TP, but with the OWS protests. Even with the recent removal of Occupy from the Wall Street, NYC park, the polling shows that 58% of New York State supports their movement over and against the establishment. 

Occupy Wall Street proclaims today:

"We are here because we believe a better world is possible. We are willing to endure mistreatment, if by doing so WE CAN HELP RE-ENFRANCHISE THE 99% AND RECLAIM OUR DEMOCRACY FROM THE STRANGLEHOLD OF WALL STREET AND THE TOP ONE PERCENT." 
(emphasis added)

Original Part 1 and Part 2.

The Occupy Wall Street Activists & Grassroots Tea Party: ‘Activists Have a Lot in Common’ Finds Support from Grand Rapids’ Crack Business Reporter

Across Michigan there is real movement in an angry population: 'We are damn mad and want to do something to improve the unemployment, lost of manufacturing, the 'senseless behavior of big banks and investors sitting on nearly $3 TRILLION in cash assets outside the market and the economy.'

The behavior of both parties during the 'let's play chicken' with the federal government's credit status and ability to pay its obligation over and against the peppered up focus on the deficits looks more like a political game than a sensible way to run a government.

Hot words reverberate in the dining rooms of local eateries, farm homes, and townhouses: The hot talk centers on the critical issue: "THE FULL FAITH AND CONFIDENCE" of the consumer, the citizen with a need for a sense of direction and security handling their valuable assets and savings. They want to know, 'Is it safe to return to the marketplace, to make commitments, to go to the mall or Sam's Club and do a little discretionary shopping. After all, the entire economy rests squarely on the 'spending' of the average citizen. (Actually millions of pre-teens and teens who spend at the mall during good times, times of prosperity.)

Say What? Spend what?

There are presently, in Michigan, ONE HALF A MILLION UNEMPLOYED OR MORE, SOME ON UNEMPLOYMENT STIPENDS, OTHERS NOW OFF THE ROLLS ENTIRELY. What can these folks spend to jump-start the economy?

How does the fly paper legislative move by Snyder work? The $800 million or so removed by new taxes on pensions and annuity income of pensioners was stolen from those who saved and planned for retirement based on this resource. According to recent information from MIPSERS those pension dollars have a normal turnaround of $6.49 in economic activity when spent by those who earned it.

Now take $6.49 and multiply that by the number of discretionary pension dollars REMOVED FROM THEM BY SNYDER'S GRAND THEFT GIFT TO HIS BUSINESS BUDDIES - say $800 million, and there is ONE ENORMOUS NUMBER OF DOLLARS TAKEN OUT OF MICHIGAN COMMERCE AND ECONOMY. How many factories with how many workers does it take to make up for this GIGANTIC GAFF REDUCING CUSTOMER DEMAND AND SALES?

Nerd-o-nomics has greatly worsened the dirth of demand. Where are the customers? The summarily removal of disposable, discretionary money; to spend that was taken by TeaPublicans from the poor, the retired pensioners, and the elderly has been blown on 'gifting' the Chamber of Commerce business types (without any directives).

The 'Nerd's near $2 BILLION tax shift and other excessive pro-business tactics such as putting stringent limits on health benefits and removing pricing from items at WalMart and other retailers has assured that many businesses will get a 'Tea Party' bonus, but a bonus in tax reduction is predicated on the idea that there is commerce/demand/buying and selling activities upon which taxes are assessed.

Nerd-o-nomics has delivered: No business, anemic demand, lower taxes, but no progress toward recovery. No Jobs. No New Jobs!

The Citizens & Consumers Are Fed Up
What entity, government or individual can be trusted? What media is being honest and forthright about the true state of economic affairs in America?

West Michigan's premiere business editor and reporter has laid out the logic found in the unifing elements between the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street Movement.

Writes Rick Haglund:

"Occupy Wall Street, a growing protest against corporate greed, income inequality and a few other things, is spreading across the country."

"Conservative pundits with secure jobs and comprehensive health care benefits scoff at these protests as the unfocused rants of fuzzy thinking left-wingers who want to destroy capitalism. On their website, occupywallst.org, the protesters describe themselves as a "leaderless resistance movement employing the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to restore democracy in America.

They say they are the 99 percent of Americans who 'will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1 percent.'  Whether the Occupy movement will jell into a potent force for reform is far from clear. It could disappear as fast as it started."

Haglund concludes with this strong assessment:

"But don't count it out just yet. The Occupiers represent a widespread belief that Michigan and the rest of the country have gone off the rails. The tea party was born out of the same frustration; that America was losing its greatness. But while the Occupy movement blames corporate greed, the tea partiers point their angry fingers at government. The Occupiers are raging against more complex forces, which they probably don't fully understand..."

Another snip:

"I'd bet that many Americans who wouldn't go near an Occupy demonstration share the Occupiers' belief that the economy is rigged against them. Corporate profits are at record highs, yet jobs are scarce. Interest rates are at record lows, but it's tough to get a loan. Many people are working harder than ever, but can't get ahead. Although economists declared the Great Recession over more than two years ago, most Americans still are losing ground.

A new study by two former Census Bureau officials, reported last week in the New York Times, found that household income has declined at more than twice the rate since the recession ended than it did during the downturn. While household income declined 3.2 percent between December 2007 and June 2009 - the start and end points of the recession - it fell 6.7 percent from June 2009 to June 2011, the study found.

A new survey by Lansing-based EPIC/MRA, taken earlier this month, found 52 percent of likely Michigan voters believe the state is on the wrong track, while 72 percent think the nation is on the wrong track.

THE STATE LOST NEARLY 6,000 JOBS IN AUGUST. THE STATE'S UNEMPLOYMENT RATE HAS RISEN FOR THE LAST THREE MONTHS AND STANDS AT 11.2 PERCENT.

Which leads me to this question about the Occupy movement: WHAT TOOK IT SO LONG?"
(emphasis added) 

SEE: "Occupy Wall Street protest a long time coming" October 16, 2011.

Ignore Rick Haglund's analysis at your own peril. Change is coming. Change that is pro-active and productive? THAT POSITIVE TURN IS UP THE GREAT AMERICAN MIDDLE-THE SO-CALLED SILENT MAJORITY - OR NOT.

Original.

A mighty Meeting of the Minds: Judis & Kirk & Lofgren

In willful disunion sanctified by TeaPublicans, can a sovereign government survive? Are there no limits to endless their rebellion against the proper role and functions of government?

Russell Kirk laid down this the 6th of his Canons of Conservatism: "...innovation must be tied to existing traditions and customs, which entails a respect for the political value of prudence."

It is doubtful that Jesus will return to Michigan anytime soon. Yet in the meanwhile, Russell Kirk, the guardian of all things conservative has spoken, he said that Christianity and Western Civilization are "unimaginable apart from one another." and that "all culture arises out of religion. When religious faith decays, culture must decline, though often seeming to flourish for a space after the religion which has nourished it has sunk into disbelief."

Quotes from Russell Kirk Conservative, Michigan's own master philosopher and laureate: 1.) The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot, 2.) The Portable Conservative Reader 1982.

Kirk's Six Conservative Canons

1. A belief in a transcendent order, which Kirk described variously as based in tradition, divine revelation, or natural law;
2. An affection for the "variety and mystery" of human existence;
3. A conviction that society requires orders and classes that emphasize "natural" distinctions;
4. A belief that property and freedom are closely linked;
5. A faith in custom, convention, and prescription, and
6. A recognition that innovation must be tied to existing traditions and customs, which entails a respect for the political value of prudence.

John Judis reflects on the total lack of "political value" ascribed to "prudence."  He writes:

"Over the last four decades, the Republican Party has transformed from a loyal opposition into an insurrectionary party that flouts the law when it is in the majority and threatens disorder when it is the minority. It is the party of Watergate and Iran-Contra, but also of the government shutdown in 1995 and the impeachment trial of 1999. If there is an earlier American precedent for today's Republican Party, it is the antebellum Southern Democrats of John Calhoun who threatened to nullify, or disregard, federal legislation they objected to and who later led the fight to secede from the union over slavery."

The TeaPublican lack of civility and "prudence", respect for historic traditions and the role of honest advice and consent has raised the question of the sincerity of their religious faith. Or as Russell Kirk proclaims: "...all culture arises out of religion. When religious faith decays, culture must decline, though often seeming to flourish for a space after the religion which has nourished it has sunk into disbelief."

What has happened in Washington is a breakdown of culture, a disrespect for religion, and a terrible "iron hatred" that seems to permeate every GOP partisan act of obfuscation.

Writes Veteran Republican Washington insider, Mike Lofgen has just left the party after near 30 years of service:

"It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe. This trend has several implications, none of them pleasant."

Here, in part, is Lofgren's analysis of the great danger- present and future - being brought on by the TeaPublican rebellion and it's anti-government putsch which has decimated the party of Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower and now threatens the sovereign success and stability of our nation. Lofgren writes that in his "Manual of Parliamentary Practice," Thomas Jefferson wrote that it is less important that every rule and custom of a legislature be absolutely justifiable in a theoretical sense, than that they should be generally acknowledged and honored by all parties. These include unwritten rules, customs and courtesies that lubricate the legislative machinery and keep governance a relatively civilized procedure. The US Senate has more complex procedural rules than any other legislative body in the world; many of these rules are contradictory, and on any given day, the Senate parliamentarian may issue a ruling that contradicts earlier rulings on analogous cases.

Lofgren:

"The only thing that can keep the Senate functioning is collegiality and good faith. During periods of political consensus, for instance, the World War II and early post-war eras, the Senate was a "high functioning" institution: filibusters were rare and the body was legislatively productive. Now, one can no more picture the current Senate producing the original Medicare "Act than the old Supreme Soviet having legislated the Bill of Rights.

Far from being a rarity, virtually every bill, every nominee for Senate confirmation and every routine procedural motion is now subject to a Republican filibuster. Under the circumstances, it is no wonder that Washington is gridlocked: legislating has now become war minus the shooting, something one could have observed 80 years ago in the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic. As Hannah Arendt observed, a disciplined minority of totalitarians can use the instruments of democratic government to undermine democracy itself."

This disorder and brinkmanship in Washington has not derailed the wealth sucking multinationals from having a record, banner year in extreme profits.

What is wrong with this picture?

Ask any A.L.E.C. member why so many unfairly loaded and corporate benefiting legislative proposals (prepackaged Pro-Corporate designed legislation) are getting fast tracked in the midst of our slide into the Great Bush Depression. God forbid.

The TeaPublican dysfunction and lack of "prudence" have greatly abetted and benefited the "takers" who apparently live in a world removed from those of us who work, teach or serve our fellow community members.

Original.

TeaPublicans: Civic Slackers Filled with Obstinacy, Obstruction, Obfuscation

"Extremists' obstructionism in pursuit of "our way or the highway" is no vice."
- Parody of Sen. Barry Goldwater

Eyes Wide Open
The general population is beginning to see the depth of the civic depravity of the TeaPublican agenda and the thrust of the American Legislative Exchange Council so much a part of the threat the Bush economic implosion thrust upon you and I, ordinary Americans. Two well-placed men from inside the GOP have helped us see the corrupt and malevolent nature of current TeaPartisanship:

1.) David Stockman has asserted that Bush and his cabal created a civic crime "Worse Than Watergate." Former Reagan Budget Director, Stockman was in the heart of the Regan regime and understood the guts of the "Cult of Reagan" far better than most. It was Stockman who enlightened the nation that Reagan cultists were willing to use the huge debt that Reagan ran up to control and defeat social spending in America.

Author John Judis writes this confirming Stockman's "worse than Watergate" assertion:
"Over the last four decades, THE REPUBLICAN PARTY HAS TRANSFORMED FROM A LOYAL OPPOSITION INTO AN INSURRECTIONARY PARTY THAT FLOUTS THE LAW WHEN IT IS IN THE MAJORITY AND THREATENS DISORDER WHEN IT IS THE MINORITY. It is the party of Watergate and Iran-Contra, but also of the government shutdown in 1995 and the impeachment trial of 1999. If there is an earlier American precedent for today's Republican Party, it is the antebellum Southern Democrats of John Calhoun who threatened to nullify, or disregard, federal legislation they objected to and who later led the fight to secede from the union over slavery." "Emphasis added"

2.)  Now comes Mike Lofgren. Lofgren ended his career as a Congressional staffer after years as a respected professional staffer for Washington Republicans in both the U.S. House and the Senate and having served on the GOP Senate Budget Committees. From Mike Lofgren' s essay "Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult" on September 3, 2011:

Lofgren:

"It was this cast of characters and the pernicious ideas they represent that impelled me to end a nearly 30-year career as a professional staff member on Capitol Hill. A couple of months ago, I retired; but I could see as early as last November that the Republican Party would use the debt limit vote, an otherwise routine legislative procedure that has been used 87 times since the end of World War II, in order to concoct an entirely artificial fiscal crisis. Then, THEY WOULD USE THAT FISCAL CRISIS TO GET WHAT THEY WANTED, BY LITERALLY HOLDING THE US AND GLOBAL ECONOMIES AS HOSTAGES."

"...the attitude of many freshman Republicans to national default was 'bring it on!'"

Lofgren:

"It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS BECOMING LESS AND LESS LIKE A TRADITIONAL POLITICAL PARTY IN A REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY AND BECOMING MORE LIKE AN APOCALYPTIC CULT, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe. This trend has several implications, none of them pleasant."

The cultish TeaPublicans around the country have made every attempt to rally the civic slackers, those

Lofgren:

"The only thing that can keep the Senate functioning is collegiality and good faith. During periods of political consensus, for instance, the World War II and early post-war eras, the Senate was a "high functioning" institution: filibusters were rare and the body was legislatively productive. NOW, ONE CAN NO MORE PICTURE THE CURRENT SENATE PRODUCING THE ORIGINAL MEDICARE ACT THAN THE OLD SUPREME SOVIET HAVING LEGISLATED THE BILL OF RIGHTS.

"Far from being a rarity, virtually every bill, every nominee for Senate confirmation and every routine procedural motion is now subject to a Republican filibuster. Under the circumstances, it is no wonder that Washington is gridlocked: legislating has now become war minus the shooting, something one could have observed 80 years ago in the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic. AS HANNAH ARENDT OBSERVED, A DISCIPLINED MINORITY OF TOTALITARIANS CAN USE THE INSTRUMENTS OF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT TO undermine DEMOCRACY ITSELF."

Lofgren:

"A couple of years ago, A REPUBLICAN COMMITTEE STAFF DIRECTOR TOLD ME CANDIDLY (AND PROUDLY) WHAT THE METHOD WAS TO ALL THIS OBSTRUCTION AND DISRUPTION. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress's generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.

"A deeply cynical tactic, to be sure, but a psychologically insightful one that plays on the weaknesses both of the voting public and the news media. There are tens of millions of low-information voters who hardly know which party controls which branch of government, let alone which party is pursuing a particular legislative tactic. THESE VOTERS' CONFUSION OVER WHO DID WHAT ALLOWS THEM TO FORM THE CONCLUSION THAT 'THEY ARE ALL CROOKS,' AND THAT 'GOVERNMENT IS NO GOOD,' FURTHER LEADING THEM TO THINK, "A PLAGUE ON BOTH YOUR HOUSES" AND 'THE PARTIES ARE LIKE TWO KIDS IN A SCHOOL YARD.' This ill-informed public cynicism, in its turn, further intensifies the long-term decline in public trust in government that has been taking place since the early 1960s - a distrust that has been stoked by Republican rhetoric at every turn ('Government is the problem,' declared Ronald Reagan in 1980)."

Lofgren:

"THIS TACTIC OF INDUCING PUBLIC DISTRUST OF GOVERNMENT IS NOT ONLY CYNICAL, IT IS SCHIZOPHRENIC. For people who profess to revere the Constitution, it is strange that they so caustically denigrate the very federal government that is the material expression of the principles embodied in that document. This is not to say that there is not some theoretical limit to the size or intrusiveness of government; I would be the first to say there are such limits, both fiscal and Constitutional.

"But most Republican officeholders seem strangely uninterested in the effective repeal of Fourth Amendment protections by the Patriot Act, the weakening of habeas corpus and self-incrimination protections in the public hysteria following 9/11 or the unpalatable fact that the United States has the largest incarcerated population of any country on earth. If anything, they would probably opt for more incarcerated persons, as imprisonment is a profit center for the prison privatization industry, which is itself a growth center for political contributions to these same politicians.

" Instead, they prefer to rail against those government programs that actually help people. And when a program is too popular to attack directly, like Medicare or Social Security, THEY PREFER TO UNDERMINE IT BY FEIGNING AN AGONIZED CONCERN ABOUT THE DEFICIT. THAT CONCERN, AS WE SHALL SEE, IS LARGELY FICTITIOUS."

Lofgren:

"UNDERMINING AMERICANS' BELIEF IN THEIR OWN INSTITUTIONS OF SELF-GOVERNMENT REMAINS A PRIME GOP ELECTORAL STRATEGY. But if this technique falls short of producing Karl Rove's dream of 30 years of unchallengeable one-party rule (as all such techniques always fall short of achieving the angry and embittered true believer's New Jerusalem), there are other even less savory techniques upon which to fall back."

Lofgren:

"This legislative assault is moving in a diametrically opposed direction to 200 years of American history, when the arrow of progress pointed toward more political participation by more citizens. REPUBLICANS ARE AMONG THE MOST SHRILL IN SELF-RIGHTEOUSLY LECTURING OTHER COUNTRIES ABOUT THE WONDERS OF DEMOCRACY; EXPORTING DEMOCRACY (albeit at the barrel of a gun) to the Middle East was a signature policy of the Bush administration. But domestically, they don't want those people voting."

Lofgren:

"If Republicans have perfected a new form of politics that is successful electorally at the same time that it unleashes major policy disasters, it means twilight both for the democratic process and America's status as the world's leading power."

(Emphasis added throughout these quotes)


See Also the previsous posting "Our Guides to the Bottomless Pit: Wolfram, Von Hayek, Lewis F. Powell, & A.L.E.C.".

Original.

Michissippi’s Shock & Awe: Business Managed Democracy Hangs by a Slender Thread

Snyder's re-invention of Michigan into a northern version of Mississippi is being met with anger and recall activism. Citizens are having a hard time getting real news about what the Business Managed Democracy coming out of Lansing, heavy-handed and top-down, means for them and their children/grandchildren.

Look out! Soon the penetrating light of National Media will be turned, focused on Michigan's large number of recall efforts.

Citizens are increasingly agitated and are vowing not to take it anymore. What they see on the economic horizon, thanks to Nerd Snyder and the Run-Away Train/ Super-Majority of nasty TeaPublicans is totally unacceptable. The loss of over 38,000 jobs will have a thunderous impact on the state.

Snyder has let job creation go by the wayside, while he aids and cheers on the radical agenda of the Koch Bros. et al American Legislative Exchange Council (A.L.E.C.) and its over 600 corporate/BIG BIZ handlers. Putting off job creation until next year is a dumb and disastrous Nerdcentric policy. If the desperate plight of over 400,000 workers unemployed in Michigan does not motivate the Nerd to action, what ever could?

Snyder knows how to inflict pain, but does he know how to comprehend and share in the terrible pain he has created? Perhaps the recall efforts will be a turning point in this regard.

Think about what is underway. Over two dozen recall petitions are filed or in the works. Subjects of the Recall Efforts are: The governor and a wide range of members of the state house and the State Senate.

An active and rapidly expanding effort to put the nefarious and dangerously out-of-control Super-Majority of uber-radicals out of office is well under way.

What happens in tomorrow's Wisconsin recall elections will be a giant signal to voters in Michigan. Success there will sweep over Michigan like a wind-driven grass fire.

Early on we have heard EFM manager Michael Flanagan say just "stay calm" and Mackinac Center's Godfather, Attorney Richard D. McLellan say "don't worry about the recalls, they'll not succeed."

Now, longtime observer, and astute analyst, Bill Ballenger has put out a new, very revealing and disturbing word (If you are a Rad-Teapublican or Rick Snyder): IF JUST ONE RECALL IN MICHIGAN SUCCEEDS IT WILL SPELL THE END TO THE SNYDER "JUGGERNAUT"!

Business Managed Democracy is anathema to community and to Michigan. We can deal with it now, finally and directly. We have seen what the TeaPublican agenda entails and it is totally unacceptable to average Michigan citizen

We have seen what a willful and ill-advised TeaPublican faction can do to the national economy. Today's precipitous fall in the stock market (worst since 2008) wiped out well over a trillion dollars of invested wealth, touching a wide range of people who are trying to stay afloat, while the little dictator, Grover Norquist, and Tea Party radicals continue to call for no new taxes and no compromise - hamstringing government.

The Wisconsin Recall results will spell a real revelation of the will of the ordinary citizens, if there is recall success there, LOOK OUT Snyder and TP'ers the broom will be probing deep in your dark corners.

Original Post.

Exclusion versus Egalitarianism: Big Money, Corporations, and an 'arcane' system of 'citizen' legislatures.

Is there room left for 'Mr. Smith' who goes to Lansing?

"Suppose that there is someone out there with the soul of Abraham Lincoln reincarnated, but as poor as Lincoln was at the outset of his career. Suppose some wealthy patron saw his own convictions better advanced by this younger man. Something very like this launched the careers of Calvin Coolidge, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan. Surely, we do not want to exclude the very rich from presidential politics, but neither do we want them to constitute a unique political class." 

-- Conservative Harry V. Jaffa in Why Special Interests (And the Constitution) Are Good For You

Jaffa goes on to line out the class warfare such as is now infecting Michigan politics:

"What about those infamous 'special interests'?

"Do not those who invest in candidates and parties expect a return on their investments? (We know Betsy Prince DeVos does. She bluntly told us so).

"Do not lobbyists spend untold millions shaping the laws in their own private interests? (These questions are perfectly appropriate).

"What is amazing is that today no one seems aware that they were the subject of the most profound consideration by those who framed, and those who ratified, the Constitution. The Constitution is indeed, in large part an answer to these questions, an answer of which our present politicians seem largely ignorant."

"In the famous 10th Federalist, James Madison framed the problem of dealing with 'FACTIONS,' a word which was a virtual synonym for what we call 'SPECIAL INTERESTS."
 {Parenthesized notes added}

This well-know conservative scholar goes on to point out that "factions" are a natural result of liberty and equality-in light of the constitution. Professor Harry Jaffa explains:

"According to James Madison, however, faction is an inevitable by product of liberty, and to try to cure the evils of faction by abolishing liberty would be a 'remedy' 'worse than the disease'

"Liberty is to faction, what air is to fire. But it could not be a less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, than it "would be to wish the annihilation of air.' 'The latent causes of faction,' writes Madison, 'are sown in the nature of man.'"

"But the most common and durable source of factions, has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold, and those who are without property, have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a monied interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests form the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of government."

Jaffa would be loud proud of Michigan. Here we have honed the "spirit of party and faction" to a blazing, tempered, razor's edge.

The beguiled TeaPublicans have sought to give themselves and their very well-heeled and influential elites, both in-state (and even more pointedly, outstate), great advantage by attempting to take down any opposing organization via crude legislation and unbending obstructionism. Unions and other citizen groups are a distinct and dangerous impediment to this KOCH BROTHERS kind of corporatist free reign, intent upon shaping all aspects of government to serve and enrich themselves and their first love, business.

The Faux Populist Tea Party: Koch Industry/Corporate Sockpuppets
Crying "freedom, freedom, freedom" the Corporatocracy, pushing its secretly developed and BIG money-backed A.L.E.C/ prepackaged legislation (via the Koch Brothers/Karl Rove's militant hayseed foot soldiers) has co-opted many citizens for corporate benefiting purposes . "

Replete with sharp pitch forks-loud disruptive voices and vicious signs this raw element is on a jag. Honest compromise and/or cooperation are anathema in this rowdy crowd.

The Teapartisans have hijacked the Michigan GOP and the state legislature. TP'ers have put Michigan in a choke hold which is detrimental to the very survivability of a middle class and the state's workers. 

LAZY-BRAINLESS LAWMAKING
We now have a NO-BRAIN SUPER LEGISLATIVE MAJORITY which simply funnels corporate-designed, corporate-benefiting legislation right from the CEO's into law. No need for lobbyists, the A.L.E.C. members are the LOBBYISTS facilitating directly the introduction (some cases feature word-by-word copy from an A.L.EC. prepared "Model") and fast-track passage of legislation produced by and designed to directly benefit a long list of SUPER SPECIAL CORPORATE dominate members of the AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE EXCHANGE COUNCIL via the A.L.E.C. direct pipeline from the board room to the citizens' living room and pocketbook.

Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson revealed how he moved A.L.E.C. models he got at A.L.E.C. conclaves as "models" directly into Wisconsin law:

"I always found new ideas and then I'd take them back to Wisconsin, disguise them a little bit, and declare that it's mine."

Likewise Koch Bros and A.L.E.C "models" are CONTINUOUSLY being inserted into Michigan Law by willing members. No straightforward place is left for Mr. Smith who goes to Lansing!


More on ALEC in Michigan can be found here and here.

Original Post.

Americans for Prosperity’s Cotton Head Grump Out, High on Motrin 800, Fizzles.

Yesterday's GRAND GRUMP OUT, with a tiny, few dozen "Mad Mobsters" (as one sign in the tiny gathering proudly proclaimed) was a HUGH HUMILIATING FAILURE.

And to believe Snyder & the green pea legislature are DEADLY AFRAID of this motley crew of naysayer fans of the notorious "paid lady-toe sucker"- FOX's weasel-Dick Morris, and the Brothers Koch-- little-known behind-the-scenes manipulators of public policies and avid promoters of useful pro-corporate agitators.

What can we learn from this Mackinac Center/Americans for Prosperity/Tea-publican PR disaster? 

This "NO NEW TAXES/AXE GOVERNMENT GROUP which has been touted (as so much to be feared by newly elected officials-now sold out to BIG MONEY and the McMasters led TAXHATERS) is really NOT that POWERFUL.

So why all the homage? What the voters of Michigan really wanted was a change from the Granholm/Bishop/Dillon deadlock debacle. Desperate for a return to good government, they voted for CHANGE. In exchange these voters GOT SOLD OUT to two unknown Lucky Sperm Club Billionaires, backers & funders of Americans for Prosperity- the Koch Brothers. These are two Libertarian/CATO troublemaking Corporatists with giant greed-driven desire to rule the country, fascist style.

Voting for what they called "CHANGE," the Teapartians have brought Michigan CHAOS AND CORRUPTION. 

What is their strength? Michigan's Tea Parties Delivered A PITIFULLY INSIGNIFICANT GATHERING OF CIVIC VULTURES

What a sight! A thin cotton-head smathering of grumpy old men, assisted by personal lawn chairs, drew a small circle around AG Bill Schuette and SOS Ruth Johnson looking out over a crowd of arthritic dozens. The organizers included careered second-tier political hacks, whio did what they could to make awaken the dozers and them gin up.

Background literature claims there are 50,000 members(?) of AFP in Michigan-a movement backed by such folks as Amway, Kochs, the Wal-mart Waltons' billions, and so dearly loved by the Detroit News/Mackinac Center consortium.

All headliner Dick Morris and crew could muster, in response to the previous day's tens of thousands of energetic and mobile workers, was a feeble klatch of aged aginners? How humiliating, yet revealing! 

Bill and Ruth attempted to center focus of the disproportionate number of TV news video crews on themselves (TV crews were left to make something-out-of-nothing for themselves for the 5 0'clock news cycle, having driven many long miles to cover this event) in a desperate attempt to justify their appearance at this giant fizzle--a billionaire's Teapartisan event with scant attendance or energy, gone flat.

Michigan's new Attorney General and Secretary of State were OBLIGED TO BE THERE YESTERDAY. For them it was A PAYBACK to the Koch Brothers division of the Tea Party- funded, controlled, and fronted by the Koch's Americans for Prosperity. 

It was from these followers of the Koch's that Schuette and Johnson clamored for backing, sought support, at the cantankerous 201O Michigan GOP nominating Convention last fall. In a divisive and hard fought battle with rivals, Schuette and Johnson had to win over, by selling out, to Tea-publicans in order to be allowed slots on the GOP's slate for the statewide offices they sought, which in turn allowed them to appear on the Republican ticket in November where they were elected.

Over in Wisconsin a parallel civic war between the Koch-backed Tea-Publicans and the working Middle Class has struggled in a highly visible nationally televised imbroglio involving battle after battle and rally after rally. It's all part of a national coup mounted by factions including the billionaire Koch's, Heritage Foundation, Michigan's Mackinac Center, rogue Libertarians, Kochs' CATO, and a ragtag assemblage of Know Nothings-all constantly egged on by the slick Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist.


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Just-Leave-Me-Alone Tea Party Hero John Galt Be Praised: The High Hypocrisy of Galt’s Creator, Ayn Rand

Commentary on Michigan Tea Party announcements of showing Ayn Rand movies, and upcoming Rally run by American for Prosperity in Lansing on April 14, 2011.
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Just-Leave-Me-Alone Tea Party Hero John Galt Be Praised: The High Hypocrisy of Galt’s Creator, Ayn Rand, Who Died Ignominiously Swaddled in Her U.S. Government Benefits of Social Security & Medicaid

St Ayn didn't die nestled with her fabled John Galt in her imaginary mountain enclave, known as "Galt's Gulch." She took Government subsistence.

Rand took benefits under the name Ann O'Connor (her husband was Frank O'Connor). Thus the harsh, arch-anit-social welfare activist and critic died swaddled in U.S. GOVERNMENT HEALTH CARE AND SOCIAL SECUITY!

Tea Party's, "godless" St. Ayn expired bestowed with full government entitlements. This Tea Party false heroine none-the-less will be lauded on Lansing's capitol steps tomorrow. by the nefarious Dick Morris. How bogus is that?

Ayn Rand: 

"The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breaches or fraud by the others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law. But a government that initiates the employment of force against men who had forced no one, the employment of armed compulsion against disarmed victims, is a nightmare infernal machine designed to annihilate morality: such a government reverses its only moral purpose and switches from the role of protector to the role of man's deadliest enemy, from the role of policeman to the role of a criminal vested with the right to the wielding of violence against the victims deprived of the right of self-defense. Such a government substitutes for morality the following rule of social conduct: you may do whatever you please to your neighbor, provided your gang is bigger than his."

- Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)

In St. Ayn's view accepting government assistance and social programs (paid for by the general public to serve us all in our old age or hour of greatest need and fewest/depleted resources) is the to give into an act of a "gang" that is "bigger" than the individual. It must be the lone man, standing alone, who must to be a true man. That ideal man, Galt, must be the sole source of his own destiny and welfare. The government, in Ayn Rand's eyes, as expressed by her rugged individualistic fictional hero, John Galt. (Now the main character in the new and much ballyhooed Tea Party/Libertarian cult film: Rand's Atlas Shrugged, just released) is "a nightmare machine designed to annihilate morality (a specialized definition by Rand espousing "selfishness as a virtue, and egoism as the highest achievement of her view of "morals.")

In Rand's Atlas Shrugged, the government, when it puts regulations and lawful restraint upon the intense and selfish purposes of man or corporations, takes up the "role of man's deadliest enemy" and most significantly Rand's assertion leads to her false conclusion that by extracting taxes from John Galt, St. Ayn's fictional, rugged entrepreneural individual, government is "welding" coercion and force, via its police powers, to collect taxes.

Washington Independent's David Weigel reported the following from "Ask Dr. Helen" Smith and others the subject of Atlas Shrugged:

"Smith (who is know for resurrecting the Galt Theme) was a little ahead of the curve of what has become an incredibly popular meme. Across the broad conservative movement, from members of Congress to activists to economists, Rand's final, allegorical novel is being looked at with fresh eyes. According to the Atlas Society, a think tank that promotes and analyzes Rand's work, sales of "Atlas Shrugged" have tripled since the presidential election.

"One congressman says that Rand wrote a "rulebook" that can guide conservatives through the age of Obama; another calls Obama's policies something right out of the mind of Rand. One economist says that Rand's fantasies have become reality. "Smith is one of many activists citing Rand to explain their decisions to sell their stocks, or to explain why the president's "demonization" of run-amok CEOs is aggravating the economic slowdown. The popular meme is giving critics of the president's policies a way to explain why, they believe, it's doomed to fail - because Rand predicted all of this.

"'...Rep. John Campbell (R-Calif.)- in an interview with TWI, 'I had a guy come up to me in my district and tell me that he was losing his interest in the business he'd run for years because the president wanted to punish him for his success. I think people are reading 'Atlas Shrugged' again because they're trying to understand what happens to people of accomplishment, and people of talent and energy, when a government turns against them. That's what appears to be happening right now.'

"The plot of Rand's novel is simple, despite its length - 1,088 pages in the current paperback edition. The United States is governed by bureaucrats, 'looters' and 'moochers,' who penalize and demonize creative people. The country is in decline because creative people are disappearing - they have followed the innovative John Galt to a mountain enclave, 'Galt's Gulch,' where they watch society crumble. Creativity has gone on strike (the working title of the novel was 'The Strike'), and the engine of capitalism cannot run without it."
Ayn Rand's Intellectual Dishonesty and Rank Hypocrisy: When the reality of cancer and pending death faced her, she willingly applied for and accepted the U.S. Government social programs: Social Security and Medicare."

Joshua Holland, writes the following in an article "Ayn Rand Railed Against Government Benefits, But Grabbed Social Security and Medicare When She Needed Them THE TEA PARTY AND THE RIGHT":

"'Ayn Rand was not only a schlock novelist, she was also the progenitor of a sweeping 'moral philosophy' that justifies the privilege of the wealthy and demonizes not only the slothful, undeserving poor but the lackluster middle-classes as well.

"Her books provided wide-ranging parables of 'parasites,' 'looters' and 'moochers' using the levers of government to steal the fruits of her heroes' labor. In the real world, however, Rand herself received Social Security payments and Medicare benefits under the name of Ann O'Connor (her husband was Frank O'Connor)."

St. Ayn was a hypocrite, but she could never be faulted for failing to act in her own self-interest. As Michael Ford of Xavier University's Center for the Study of the American Dream wrote:

'In the end, Miss Rand was a hypocrite but she could never be faulted for failing to act in her own self-interest.'

Her ideas about government intervention in some idealized pristine marketplace serve as the basis for so much of the conservative rhetoric we see today. 'The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand,' said Paul Ryan, the GOP's young budget star at a D.C. event honoring the author. On another occasion, he proclaimed, "Rand makes the best case for the morality of democratic capitalism.'

Wrote Rand in a 1972 newsletter:

"'Morally and economically the welfare state creates an ever accelerating downward pull.'"

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Journalist Patia Stephens wrote of Rand:

"'[She] called altruism a 'basic evil' and referred to those who perpetuate the system of taxation and redistribution as 'looters' and 'moochers.' She wrote in her book 'The Virtue of Selfishness' that accepting any government controls is 'delivering oneself into gradual enslavement.'"

Rand Capitulated to the Lure of Collectivism

Rand also believed that the scientific consensus on the dangers of tobacco was a hoax. By 1974, the two-pack-a-day smoker, then 69, required surgery for lung cancer. And it was at that moment of vulnerability that she succumbed to the lure of collectivism.

Evva Joan Pryor, who had been a social worker in New York in the 1970s, was interviewed in 1998 by Scott McConnell, who was then the director of communications for the Ayn Rand Institute. In his book, 100 Voices: An Oral History of Ayn Rand, McConnell basically portrays Rand as first standing on principle, but then being mugged by reality. Stephens points to this exchange between McConnell and Pryor:

"'She was coming to a point in her life where she was going to receive the very thing she didn't like, which was Medicare and Social Security,' Pryor told McConnell. 'I remember telling her that this was going to be difficult. For me to do my job she had to recognize that there were exceptions to her theory. So that started our political discussions. From there on " with gusto " we argued all the time.'

"'The initial argument was on greed,' Pryor continued. 'She had to see that there was such a thing as greed in this world. Doctors could cost an awful lot more money than books earn, and she could be totally wiped out by medical bills if she didn't watch it. Since she had worked her entire life, and had paid into Social Security, she had a right to it. She didn't feel that an individual should take help.'"

Rand had paid into the system, so why not take the benefits? It's true, but according to Stephens, some of Rand's fellow travelers remained true to their principles.

"Rand is one of three women the Cato Institute calls founders of American libertarianism. The other two, Rose Wilder Lane and Isabel 'Pat' Paterson, both rejected Social Security benefits on principle. Lane, with whom Rand corresponded for several years, once quit an editorial job in order to avoid paying Social Security taxes. The Cato Institute says Lane considered Social Security a "Ponzi fraud" and 'told friends that it would be immoral of her to take part in a system that would predictably collapse so catastrophically.' Lane died in 1968."

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