McConnell Declares All Out War On The 'Bagger Nation
 

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topof...#axzz2vhjOPVov


David Horsey at The LA Times

Isn't that why the baggers set up their own little congregation across the street from CPAC, because they didn't think CPAC was addressing a "conservative" enough agenda?

Yup. CPAC's precious bodily fluids aren't pure enough for the faithful in the 'bagger drum circle.

I think Yurtle just lost his primary. Don't forget that he's running state-wide in Kentucky, the state that elected Rand Paul.

John

Yeah, I expect it'll be tough on guys like Jon Stewart and Billy Mahr if the Turtleman is retired.

I like Bevins. He may be a little too wacky even for them Scotch Irish hillfolk Kentucks.

I recall commenting a few years back that the Tea Party was little more than stooges for the GOP and that, once the Tea Party outlived it's usefulness, the GOP would turn on them.

Here we are.

Republicans eat their own.

Dave

GOP, the piranhas of politics, feeding on their own.

Like OWS.

Pete

OWS? Do you have any examples you can cite where one faction of OWS basically vowed to destroy another faction?

John

I was referring them to being stooges for the Dems, then tossed when not needed.

Pete

By "stooges" do you mean organized and supported by the Democrats? Any proof of that?

John

No, I mean used for political purposes. The left always trots out the fringes around election and puts them back in the closet once they've won ;)

As does the right.

Pete

Unlike the Tea Party, OWS was a largely spontaneous and totally grass roots movement. They didn't have the Koch brothers giving them free climate-controlled bus rides to national landmarks, decked out with multiple Jumbotrons blaring speeches from AM radio demagogs. The comparison is absurd.

John

Agreed, the right is much better organized.

Pete

OWS wasn't organized at all or, for that matter, all that focused.

If you really payed attention to what OWS was pissed off about, you'd see that the one thing they agreed on was that the political system as a whole, regardless of party, was completely under the control of..... you know..... Wall Street.

Nothing about what they were up to served to advance the Democratic Party agenda. Sure, they may have been "left-oriented". The thing is, though, the Democratic Party isn't. They are at best center right. "The Left" in the US is completely without representation in the political arena.

John

Great post!

I agree that our left isn't very leftish as the world goes. However regarding the OWS, they certainly played to the Dems in the election. Or would they vote for Romney?

Pete

First off, where's the evidence that OWS participated in the election at all, either by voting for or campaigning for a candidate? It wouldn't surprise me to learn that those who did vote voted for third party candidates: Green, Libertarian, etc.

Asking whether an OWS participant would vote for Romney is about as silly a question as you could ask. What reason could any of them have for voting for a corporate raider who sends entire factories overseas and argues that "54%" of us will never "get it"?

John

It was rhetorical.

Pete

I agree with John. I never saw a direct relationship between OWS and the Democratic Party. Just a grass roots movement opposing WS influence to our political system especially after the taxpayer bailouts, in which both parties were complicit. A spontaneous protest group and not a political organization or is there a OWSPAC that anyone knows of?

BTW, how and when did the Democratic Party came to be called Democrat Party? I hear this usually on right wing radio.

When you say "Democrat" you get to end the word with "rat", get it? Those Republicans are so clever!

It actually started with Newt but Frank Luntz, the right wing messaging guru, was the one who told elected Republicans to use it exclusively. Infantile and effective.

John

The biggest challenge that "the left" has in the political arena is that they can't be honest about who they are, generally speaking. I'd suggest that, on one hand, many of the CA House members are pretty far left. But, even in a left-leaning state like CA, if many of them were to come out publicly and proclaimed the aligned with the political "left", some of them would become unpopular in a hurry.

Over on the east coast, Markey or McGovern in MA don't publicly let their lefty freak flags fly, but their public positions on most issues wouldn't never be mistaken for the products of the Heritage Foundation.

On the other hand, here locally, if John Conyers came out publicly as a communist, no one would be surprised. :rolleyes:

Pete I was a member of the Joe Clark Conservative Party in Canada and the Democratic Party is to the right of me. I hear the words liberal and soci@list bandied about down here and you guys would not recognize either one if they bit you on the arse.:p

Your Republicans call themselves Conservative which is pure BS as most of them make Ayn Rand look like a commie.

LOL! But you accidentally put 'ic' on the Democrat party :D

Pete

Communist is an extreme and mud-laden term.

Has Conyers endorsed the nationalization of all industry and real estate? One-party rule with a gulag for anybody suspected of opposition?

Or are you playing McCarthy?

Any OWS people in congress?

I think the Democratic Party realized they were, for the most part, just a bunch of rowdy college kids when the unions attempted to get involved and saw what it was and that it was doomed to become an embarrassment. Something they had prior bad experience with in the 1960s & '70s. (No offense, Bob.)

As for the Tea Party, I'm thinkin' the GOP saw the age of the supporters and saw the opportunity to pick up lots of reliable voters. However, they didn't realize those voters would offer up candidates that had multiple screws loose and intended to turn on their host.

Dave

Playing? I don't think so.:rolleyes:

Newt is a man I have come to detest. A sinister, lying, cheating, holier than thou SOB. Thanks for the info.

None taken Dave. My membership in the Youth International Party expired in '75 when I voted for the peanut farmer.

I actually went with another McCarthy that year (actually '76) - Clean Gene.

Regards,

D-Ray

Complete horseshit, a product of a far right mind which believes anyone not as far to the tight as it is has to be a "lefty".

Horseshit and double negatives!

The dumbest part of this, of course, is that you didn't even think to mention Bernie Sanders.

John

I've heard that lovable So(c)ialist pinko is considering a presidential run. Don't think he'd win, but he would spice it up a bit.

He is thinking about it. If he does, and if he gets on the ballot out here, I'll vote for him in the primary. (Now that California has an open primary system, I can do that, even if Bernie runs as an Independent/non-aligned candidate.) Since California's a safe Democratic state, I might even vote for him in the general.

John

Of course, it would also take a far left mind to write the above post. Perspective is everything, I guess.

Okay, I'll cop to that. I am indeed pretty far to the left...... and, except for Senator Sanders, I don't see anyone in elected office anywhere close to where I come from.

And I'll second and expand a little on what DQ said. Anyone who tosses the word "communist" around with respect to American politicians is a clueless reactionary mouth breather.

John

Of course it is. People seem to mistake communism with the Communist party. Communism and a totalitarian government are polar extremes. The biggest downfall of communism is the fact that peoples need to be governed always leads to a totalitarian government.

That's quite a blanket statement. :)

John

Sounds like Marc is going pink. ;)

You raise an interesting point, and certainly one can imagine a non-totalitarian communist country. One can imagine non-totalitarian market so(c)ialism even more easily. But I think the biggest thing leading to totalitarian communist countries was the radical nature of the transition from private ownership to state ownership. This can hardly be accomplished except by a revolutionary government that has swept away all opposition and gathered all power to itself. And having total control, it never relinquishes it.

Indeed. And the American Democratic party is probably further to the right than any governing conservative party in any industrialized country in the world (e.g., the CDU/SPD coalition in Germany).