Comments on: Tea Party Protests Rally Against Taxes

Many Spent Independence Day Speaking Out Against Federal Spending

[Swift2]

The difference for the goofs who support this "Tea Party" business is that they approved of the fraud that made their houses "more valuable," despite the fact they were being sent to the poor house, and they approved of a war of choice based on lies. Now, I'm sorry if there are independents lured into this dead-ender movement. They should take a look around, and do some reading of various histories -- not just the wacko texts of the right wing -- and think for themselves. Like real independents, not the poor deluded fools of the FOX audience.

I think they do have a point in mistrusting MSNBC. One of the bad lessons the left learned from the GOP was to use the mass media for ridicule and propaganda. But what do you expect of a medium that has gone to a non-stop diet of MJ, a crazy recluse drug addict has-been, since he apparently OD'd on anesthetic.

[ubrew12]

They would have been arrested and shot.

[wogerwabbit]

jeeze enrique, dude, get a grip will ya... you're spewing fox news talking points here which have little or nothing to do with reality... I'm surprised you didn't bring up the birth certificate BS. Nobody is taking away your free speech, it's just that nobody is listening to your lunatic rantings. Scream and cry all you want, it will not change the fact that your party and ideas are obsolete... been there, done, that, it doesn't work. You guys have completely alienated 70% of the population with your never ending campaign of hate and fear and frankly, as an ex moderate republican, I'm sick to death of it.

[rednomo]

Only the rich in the gated community are getting richer and the working class is getting poorer. Mass E-mails to congress, as we noted yesterday, short of mass protests (like the ceaseless, impassioned kind that ended the Vietnam War) are a con. The fix is in.

As the Chinese crushed dissent in Tiananmen Square with brute force, corporations like EXXON/Mobil -- who just had the largest quarterly profit in the history of the world -- crush an economic fair playing field with hundreds of billions of dollars. Their are news conferences with e-mail petitions and then they are thrown in a garbage can or deleted from Congressional e-mail, if they ever make it through the spam filter. Progressive organizations and publications use them to create mailing and solicitation lists, not with a realistic expectation of matching the economic juggernaut of the oligarchy that is comparable to the military might exhibited at Tiananmen Square -- or by the tyrannical regimes in Iran, Honduras, and Burma among others today.

And the corporate media and the corporate ads that even fill progressive cites are the "mind framing" context in which positions are calibrated to favor the casino of corporate America, so that the fundamental injustices being done to America are disguised.

If the Dittoheads and FOX News watchers ever got accurate information on how they are being fleeced and robbed, there would be another revolution in American that would restore our original democracy of the people, by the people and for the people.

What is most unnerving, as I wrote yesterday, is that the enormous potential of American ingenuity and entrepeneurialism is being stifled by the gated community that wants to limit the nation's riches -- built currently on massive debt -- to residents who live in the garden of super wealth. Our unique American ability to progress without boundaries is being shut down by the brute force of unseemly sums of dollars.

Oh, we can complain that Harry Reid is spineless, that Barack Obama is too cautious and exhibits more timidity than audacity -- and we do -- but the problem is systemic. Weakness among the Democrats triumphs because too many of them are bought off. And Barack Obama probably quickly discovered that he wasn't top dog: Wall Street and the corporate oligarchy are. And so he made his piece with them.

Instead of change we can believe in, we are getting more of the same. In fact yesterday, President Obama chastised progressives -- yes progressives -- for criticizing the "centrist" Dems who are holding up a government healthcare payer option. That's not change; that's more of the same.

And the corporate media protects the gated village of wealth at every turn. And while thousands of progresssives have generously and passionately supported BuzzFlash over the years -- beginning when we were about the only feisty voice for democracy on the web in 2000 -- others just want to talk the talk, but rather spend money on "brand" products than support the new economy and new journalism on BuzzFlash. They'll pay for a corporate newspaper, cable TV and a large plasma screen HDTV, but won't buy progressive products to support progressive journalism.

Not until we feel the passsion that the members of the Green Revolution feel when they take to the streets in masses will we assume the power to restore our economic and political democracy.

Not until progressives with the financial wherewithal decide to put their country above their bank accounts and support corporate-free progressive media will we begin to counter the mainstream media, whose corporate coverage benefits its own owners.

Because unless we have and own the megaphone, the criticisms of the corporate media bounce right off their back.

We must get the truth through unfiltered. There is no reason we have left for letting the working class be played as pawns to allow the gated community to fix the game and play with loaded dice by creating scapegoats.

No reason at all.

By Mark Karlin

[ubrew12]

That is a helligood post.

[rednomo]

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
Thats how it goes
Everybody knows

Leonard Cohen: "Everybody Knows,"

[jbirdk]

If I remember correctly, the Boston Tea Party was concerning taxation without representation. So my suggestion is that for every tea party scheduled there should be twice as many activists to march in and stage a demand for equal rights - make it a gay pride day for instance, or a planned parenthood day and a demand for women's healthcare clinics in each state, etc. -- because without that, this event not only doesn't make any sense, it's just blatantly moronic. (And besides THAT would be something worth watching -- heh heh.)

[ubrew12]

From 1980 to 2006 the richest 1% of Americans tripled their after-tax percentage of our nation's income, while the bottom 90% of America has seen their share drop over 20%.

Either the wealthy started working 3 times harder or we've experienced a massive redistribution of income toward the rich, thanks to tax cuts. Try the latter.

[ubrew12]

And now, a short break from our regularly scheduled programming of rightwingers wailing about the return of COMMUNISM in America. A simple statistic:

Since 1980, the share of the nations income going to her richest 1% tripled, while the share going to her poorest 90% fell by 20% (or one-fifth). This means that in order for the wealthiest 1% of Americans to triple their income in the last 30 years, the ordinary working American gets paid, on average, $10000 less a year today than he would have been paid in 1980 proportions.

And now, back to the dangers of COMMUNISM, SOCIALISM, AND ALL THOSE OTHER -ISMS rightwing America works overtime to save us from!!

[COT2]

Actually, a lot of us "hicks" did rally against billions wasted in Iraq - we voted - in multiple elections. We threw out the goofies we didn't like, expecting something different. Apparantly, our voting didn't send the message loud enough,so now we rally.

[ubrew12]

And now, a short break from our regularly scheduled programming of rightwingers wailing about the return of COMMUNISM in America. A simple statistic:

Since 1980, the share of the nations income going to her richest 1% tripled, while the share going to her poorest 90% fell by 20% (or one-fifth). This means that in order for the wealthiest 1% of Americans to triple their income in the last 30 years, the ordinary working American gets paid, on average, $10000 less a year today than he would have been paid in 1980 proportions.

And now, back to the dangers of COMMUNISM, SOCIALISM, AND ALL THOSE OTHER -ISMS rightwing America works overtime to save us from!!