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April 19, 2010

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Our lost Edens haunt our dreams and distort reality. I say this as someone who has no particular love for American culture circa 2010. It is what it is, but I'm not nourished by it. Even so, we either engage reality or we become sick with nostalgia.

I think about the Tea Partiers with that in mind. I know where they're coming from because I grew up in a place where there was still local color and community connections. Sunnyslope was hardscrabble but coherent. There was a main street that looked a bit like Wickenburg's today. Families tended to stay put. Nationally, it's the loss of these sustaining bonds that informs many of our current political and social resentments.

Sunnyslope was annexed to Phoenix in 1960. A town that had only partial suburban character was now part of a metastasizing mega-suburb. Circle K convenience stores appeared. The Chinese groceries disappeared. Streets were widened and de-charmed. The homely and touching aspects of the place began slowly disappearing. The economic and population boom now defined our lives.

Tea partiers want something impossible, which is a return to the America they grew up in. They've politicized a neurosis for which there is no cure. Glenn Beck tells them that SOCIALISM!!! is the sickness. They believe him because he seems sincere and understands their own melancholy. It's an intoxicating prospect when voting a certain way promises to cure sadness.

The barbarians are at the gate. They found a Muslim mole to further rob our lovely country of its heritage. It's not too late to take it back but total resistance is the price that must be paid.

Sometimes I wonder whether my kid (age 10) is more knowledgeable about the world than I was at that age. I quickly come to the conclusion that he most definitely is. I think we sometimes fail to grasp the effects that the IT and telecom revolutions have had on all of us, particularly Americans. Yes, the internet can be a powerful propaganda tool. But, I think it has been a net positive for our society's overall education level.

I consider myself pretty cynical about the state of America - but I do disagree with those who believe the teabaggers are any kind of threat. They don't have the fundamental elements of an effective organization: leadership, structure, management - they don't even have an agreement on the basic things they stand for. Yes, Fox News can beat the drums and yank the chains - but let's not overstate Fox News' power either. They, like other traditional media, have been and will continue to be, drowned it in the information overload that the IT and telecom revolutions have created (unless net neutrality is eliminated).

My sense is that the chirps from this "movement" will continue to irritate for the foreseeable future, but in the end that's all they will be - chirps.

The poll results also show that Tea Partiers are on average older than the general population: 29 percent of TPs were over 64 versus 16 percent of the random respondents; 46 percent of TPs were 45-64 versus 34 percent of the randoms. That's 25 percentage points above the norm for ages 45 plus. Here's the full poll:

http://documents.nytimes.com/new-york-timescbs-news-poll-national-survey-of-tea-party-supporters?ref=politics

Both fiscal conservatism, and racist attitudes (which were once common but are far less so in todays schools, media, and other formative social institutions) correlate somewhat higher with older individuals.

As for education, the percentage of college grads and post grads is higher, but there are plenty of degrees (e.g., mechanical engineering, business administration, dentistry) where one might avoid most liberal arts classes since they aren't part of the core requirement (and in the case of some business schools may scarcely be offered at all).

"The falsehoods that the tea party believes about American history and government alone are legion."

Yes, but this is also true for the general population. Many have little or no concept of history; the main difference is that the TPs are interested in history (albeit a skewed version reflecting their personal biases) whereas the general population isn't generally interested.

I suspect that a number of TPs are small business owners: the income data suggest that this may be on the order of 20-30 percent.

Note that only 12 percent admit to household incomes greater than $250,000 but the Bush era tax cuts are scheduled to expire at the end of 2010, and the top two marginal personal income tax rates (33 and 35 percent at present) would revert to the Clinton era 36 and 39.6 percent rates, respectively.

More specifically, the 36 percent rate would kick in at $250,000 (surprise!) for married couples filing jointly (minus the standard deduction and two personal exemptions).

http://taxes.about.com/od/preparingyourtaxes/a/tax-rates.htm

Since many TPs are linked to the tax protest movement, or have strong objections to federal income taxes, it may be that high-income members are underreporting in the poll (if they're already doing it or plan on doing it in their 2011 tax filings).

Still, the number of TPs reporting income in the range from the median household income ($50,000) to $75,000 accounts for a significant portion of the higher-than-average income difference between TPs and the general public. So it isn't all capitalists: there are also a large number of professionals working for someone else.

Mr. Talton wrote:

"Could it be that the tea party agenda nicely distracts from the corporate oligarchy's predations or meshes with its own goals (e.g., no regulation)?"

Good questions.

I think it's clear that the Tea Party agenda strongly tends to transfer culpability for the recent (and ongoing) crisis from private financiers and realty professionals, to government (and, unlike liberals, NOT because of insufficient oversight and under-regulation).

Nobody in the Tea Party movement seems to care about mining safety. Nobody in the TP movement seems to care about downsizing, union-busting, outsourcing, or inadequate wages and benefits. The Tea Party is all about cutting taxes (especially personal income taxes, most of which are paid by the wealthy), cutting government services (because these require taxes for support), and the elimination of government "interference" (read: oversight, regulation, monitoring, and even encouragement) in private enterprise.

I don't think they're pro-corporation so much as anti-government in ways that are tantamount to supporting a corporate agenda. As such they are easily used by corporate public relations professionals and lobbyists without being able to perceive themselves as patsies.

Of course, the corporations, being more sophisticated, have their own ways of subverting the system, and don't expect to do away with oversight, merely weaken the powers and budgets of its public overseers, as well as introduce loopholes and financial offsets.

"The media continue to give publicity to the tea party (and I am guilty in this section, too). The evidence points to a minority of the discontented white-right, yet they are able to generate unquestioning coverage in a way the much larger anti-war protests of the Bush years never did. Among the oligarchy is the corporate media."

Nothing evokes knee-jerk jingoism like a war. That's true for Congress, that's true for the general public, and it's true for professional journalists. Look how badly both Congress and the NYT (among others) were suckered on Iraq. It years for war sentiment (both popular and establishment) to turn enough to allow a presidential candidate to get elected (in part) on a pledge to get our troops our of Iraq.

The media are also copy-cats, and the Tea-Partiers are getting big press, in both talk-radio (which is itself largely arch-conservative) and by such outlets as FOX News. HuffPo reports that FOX is actually agitating on behalf of the Tea Party protesters, encouraging viewers to participate:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/08/fox-crosses-the-line-with_n_184805.html

Another factor: the anti-war protesters were genuinely grass-roots, whereas the Tea Party movement (see the poll) almost invariably votes Republican. And 97 percent of TPs are registered to vote. You can bet that has come to the attention of Republicans and the conservative establishment in general. Professional public relations organizations are at work sending editors and journalists story "leads".

The TPs are also colorful (costumes) and crude, not to mention downright threatening (urging "revolts" whether or not rhetorically).

I'm not sure how sympathetic the general corporate media is. I don't think a whole lot. The Establishment already has its shills and they're a lot better behaved, well connected, and effective than the TPs. Still, we've already seen how "popular" movements can overlap with and be made use of by the oligarchy.

P.S. I suspect that in addition to talk-radio and FOX News, local television news is helping things along. It's just too easy and inexpensive to send a camera crew out to cover a bunch of yahoos with crazy costumes and signs shouting for the overthrow of the government.

And unlike anti-war or other (generally lefty) protesters, the Tea Partiers don't have to worry nearly as much, at least in their core message, about offending the sensibilities of local television station owners and anchors -- all of whom are wealthy.

Most newspaper journalists, by contrast, are not wealthy. They're also generally better educated (and more liberally so, in the classical sense) than TV and radio talking heads.


What about a "Taco Party", at least in AZ? Our state seems destined to become what one wag referred to as "the new Alabama" because the legislature has been taken over by "The Kookocracy". (Jon's very apt term) So where are the coherent, media-savvy Latinos? Would a Taco Party be too racist?

"You can't eat foreclosed houses" . That's a good one, Jon. With your permission, may I use that in e-mails and conversations during the next few weeks? I have a couple of brother-in- laws who could stand to hear it. Maybe send you a $1 for each time I use it?

Jim,

I'm Hispanic. If there were a "Taco Party", when we show up, there had better be tacos, lots and lots of tacos AND margaritas, or I promise you there will be gunfire. I'm just saying................

Use away, Reb. No charge

The Tea Party is merely the latest manifestation of the generations-long effort of the conservative movement to discredit the whole idea of effective government or civil society. People dimly recognize they are being screwed, but it is difficult for those who don't have lots of time and an inclination to search for news from a variety of sources to understand who is doing the screwing. It is no accident that one of the targets of this attack is public education. There's nothing worse for a movement that relies on a misled and confused populace than critical thinking skills. Things will soon be much worse than you realize, post-Citizens United, as direct corporate contributions to candidates become possible. Perhaps in a generation it will become too obvious to ignore that America has declined to second-world status, and people will demand action. But I wouldn't count on it. Unless and until it is economically advantageous for corporations and movement conservatives to see America prosper, we will continue to falter. I think our future will looks something like oligarchical post-Soviet Russia, or perhaps Italy: a small number of elites will profit from paartnership with the government, with mass media in on the game and helping to distract/suppress/confuse the average voter.

There were no less than four items on the Tea Partiers in today's Arizona Republic, two letters and two op-ed pieces.

One of the latter was a column by Michael Barone. (I hope it was obvious that in my sanguine comments about journalists I didn't include op-ed writers. Barone is both wealthy and as much a part of the oligarchy as it's possible to get, visibly).

The piece, titled "Defying Obama's Culture of Dependence", is rather informative -- not in the way it intends to be, of course, but in what it says indirectly about the oligarchy and its goals and methods.

Barone is careful -- one might even say desperate -- to position the Tea Partiers, not as self-interested cutters of the federal income tax, but as something far more abstract and noble:

"The tea partiers see things differently. They're not looking for lower taxes - half of tea party supporters, a New York Times survey found, think their taxes are fair."

The other half, of course, think that federal income taxes ARE unfair, and make this a main thrust of their propaganda -- something which the other half (in no hurry to defend either the federal government or taxation) are quick to agree with in the abstract case: apparently taxes are "unfair", even if not for themselves personally.

At first glance, this might seem to indicate some remarkable schizophrenia on the part of Tea Partiers. However, 47 percent of the general population owes no federal personal income tax; and for the Tea Partiers, even with their incomes as a whole skewed toward wealth, something approaching half of them owe no federal income taxes; and many more still contribute only marginally.

It's hard to claim that YOUR personal federal income taxes are "unfair" when YOU don't pay any.

Barone goes on:

"Public policy also helps determine the kind of society we are. The Obama Democrats see a society in which ordinary people cannot fend for themselves..."

Well, this is obviously leading toward an oversimplification: EITHER society is such that ordinary people cannot fend for themselves, OR else they can. There is no middle ground, no context, no possibility that "ordinary people" might be able to fend for themselves well under some circumstances and against some parties, and not so well in extraordinary circumstances or against the economic, legal, and social might of concentrated wealth.

The idea that ordinary individuals can "fend for themselves" (i.e., act with parity) against multi-billion dollar corporations, such as medical insurance companies, is self-evidently false: in reality, ordinary people are in the position of supplicants, and have neither the financial nor legal resources, nor legal standing, to assert their equality, without an equally big player (i.e., government) stepping up to bat for them.

But Barone is careful to avoid even the consideration of concrete details which he knows would quickly scuttle his argument:

"... where they need to have their incomes supplemented, their health-care insurance regulated and guaranteed, their relationships with their employers governed by union leaders. Highly educated mandarins can make better decisions for them than they can make themselves. That is the culture of dependence."

One supposes that Barone doesn't object to the earned-income tax credit, since Ronald Reagan expanded it in 1986. Perhaps he's referring to the minimum wage, though Obama didn't institute that or expand it. Perhaps he's referring to the tax credits introduced into Obama's stimulus package at the behest of congressional Republicans, which form the largest single component of that package to date? (Odd, since Republicans like Barone don't normally object to tax cuts...)

As for "their health care insurance regulated" -- well, imagine! The very idea, of regulating big corporate health insurance...not to reduce predation upon the general public, no no no no no....but simply as an object lesson to increase "dependency" on government.

Well, let's see: the new regulations seek to prevent insurance companies from denying insurance to those with pre-existing conditions (i.e., to make sure that the sick can get medical coverage); to prevent insurance companies from cancelling the insurance of those who develop sickness (how unreasonable that someone should insist that insurance pay for the medical coverage it promises and not merely collect policy payments from the healthy!); and other ghastly examples of a parasitical, scheming, Big Brother. Because we all know that individuals are every bit as powerful as the big insurance companies. Stop sucking at the tit of big government, you weak and foolish individuals!

"...and their relationships with employers their employers governed by union leaders..."

Talk about flogging a dead horse...only 7 percent or so of the private workforce is unionized; but apparently even this pitiful residue is deeply threatening to the oligarchy. There is always the possibility of a good example spreading and reviving the whole, particularly if labor-friendly legislation should be proposed.

"Highly educated mandarins can make better decisions for them than they can make themselves. That is the culture of dependence."

That's the false dichotomy by which the oligarchy hopes to split the people, or rather, to prevent solidarity and to widen the existing splits into 300 million isolated splinters: either you make decisions for yourself, by yourself, OR else you're being led by the nose by "mandarins" ("highly educated", unlike most of the population, and therefore more easily used as wedges to inflame popular resentment).

The idea that GROUPS of individuals might rationally organize in order to increase their powers via collective bargaining, is never considered. How could it be? To admit that unions could function to empower individuals would be to lose the argument at the outset: much better to begin by defining unions as helpless sheep led by "mandarins" in order to offend potential "sheep" and scatter them, so that wolves can prey upon the laggards.

Emil, the "false dichotomy" here can only work in a political culture so addled that a virtual majority of citizens see themselves as upper-middle class. Trick one: con workers and stressed middle-income earners into seeing themselves as "haves". Trick two: make them think they're net losers in a functional social democracy. Trick three: conflate the very idea of social democracy with wholesale theft of wealth from the "haves".

It's a dizzying and desperate act of chutzpah, yet the Randian right has largely succeeded in confusing nearly half this nation into believing it. People with SS, Medicare, child tax credits, mortgage-interest deductabilty, student loans, FDIC, even food stamps and Medicaid, somehow see themselves as "rugged individualists" and others (say, blacks) as leeches and parasites.

Ask a right-winger where the ideal society exists and they'll sputter and stammer before alighting on a country with an even stronger redistribution of wealth than our own (Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland seem to be the perennial favorites).

The predicate of the right-wing thesis is pretty much a lie and a slander (black fecklessness). It's irrational and deeply insinuated into our national belief system. I'm not sure you can educate people out of it but if you don't, the people will continue to vote against themselves and their own's country's long-term interest.

Soleri, thanks for your excellent observations. (All the more so with the remark about Switzerland, whose taxation and spending programs most of us -- myself included -- are largely unfamiliar with. Please work some details from this theme into a future comment!)

Michael Barone's column demonstrates a new twist, which might be termed the "fourth trick" (I've seen it elsewhere of late, though it remains to be seen how strongly it catches on):

(4) Attempt to separate the "middle class" from the working class and the upper class, by suggesting that the wealthy have formed an unholy alliance with the poor for the purpose of...well, Barone never makes it particularly clear, much less compelling.

But apparently, the wealthy are in cahoots with the poor because "the educated class" (of whom Barone is undoubtedly a shameless member) "administer or believe that their kind of people administer those transactions. They are the natural constituency for the culture of dependence."

http://www.creators.com/opinion/michael-barone.html

"Those transactions" apparently referring to the nebulously defined but sinister acts of taxation, administration, or government spending, performed by the Obama administration -- and of course, all those educated folks who hopped on board because they saw the spitting image of themselves in the anonymous tax-collectors and bureaucrats of the federal government.

Today's edition of The State Press featured an opinion piece by a promising young man named Andrew Hedland, titled "Tea Partiers uninformed, many untaxed". It's precisely the sort of thing I might have posted last evening, in place of my comment, had I possessed more than an hour of online time to research, compose, and type. Hedland documents the Obama administation as the source of major tax cuts targeting individuals and business, from the stimulus bill to the healthcare reform act -- 25 tax cuts of various sizes in all.

"This is a far cry from the "socialist agenda" and "tax and spend policies" this president has been accused of. Before another tax rally is held by Tea Partiers, I encourage them to look at them to look at the cold, hard numbers."

Highly recommended:

http://www.statepress.com/2010/04/20/tea-partiers-uninformed-many-untaxed/

By contrast, Robert Robb, the Goldwater Institute's sock-puppet on the pages of the Arizona Republic (to paraphrase Mr. Talton's piquant description), spent a column re-asserting the myths of the defunct but archetypal Reagan Administration. Reagan ought to be remembered as the Great Taxer, or at least as the Great Hypocrite, as I documented in the following copy of my comment to Robb's column (complete with working hyperlinks):

Mr. Robb wrote:

"Liberal gains were permanent; conservative gains ephemeral. The central domestic-policy success of the Reagan presidency was the reduction in the top individual income tax rate to 28 percent. In less than a decade, it was back up to nearly 40 percent under Bill Clinton."

Even more ephemeral than Mr. Robb suggests; and his phrasing is misleading. The top federal personal income tax rate was 50 percent for the first six years of Reagan's presidency (1981 through 1986). In 1987 it was 38.5 percent (or a single percentage point below the top rate under Clinton's. It was only in 1988, the last year of Reagan's presidency, that the rate dropped below this: however, though the marginal rate for top earners dropped to 28 percent in 1988, there remained a "bubble" which taxed the middle class at 33 percent. Scroll through the tables of The Tax Foundation:

http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html

Furthermore, Reagan raised taxes in other ways during his tenure, in effect shifting the decreases in the upper bracket (which had been 70 percent in 1980) to the backs of the middle class. As Bruce Bartlett (domestic adviser to Reagan and Treasury Secretary under Bush Sr.) notes, The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 (TEFRA) " alone raised taxes by almost 1 percent of the gross domestic product, making it the largest peacetime tax increase in American history". (TEFRA increased the unemployment tax rate and broadened the wage base, doubled excise taxes on cigarettes, tripled excise taxes on telephone service, repealed scheduled increases in accelerated depreciation deductions, and instituted a 10 percent withholding on dividends and interest paid to individuals.)

And:

"In 1983, Reagan signed legislation raising the Social Security tax rate. This is a tax increase that lives with us still, since it initiated automatic increases in the taxable wage base. As a consequence, those with moderately high earnings see their payroll taxes rise every single year. . . In 1984, Reagan signed another big tax increase in the Deficit Reduction Act. . . The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 raised taxes yet again. Even the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which was designed to be revenue-neutral, contained a net tax increase in its first 2 years. And the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987 raised taxes still more."

http://old.nationalreview.com/nrof_bartlett/bartlett200310290853.asp

Note that the Reagan payroll tax increase was fraudulently billed as "pre-funding" future shortfalls in the Social Security program: what it actually did was raise payroll taxes above what was necessary to fund cash benefit payments, using the difference to pay for other programs; in other words, the payroll tax surpluses created by Reagan's tax increase were used to fund general expenditures. You can see historical payroll tax rates here:

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=45

So, it's a myth that Reagan lowered taxes: on balance they increased. Whether or not he "initiated them" he signed on to them. He could have vetoed them; and some of them (like the payroll tax increase) he actively campaigned for.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/2010/04/20/20100420robb21.html

P.S. Sorry, that's Andrew Hedlund.

Education, today, seems to mean 'having a degree' in something. The degrees available today are mostly specializations (as alluded to in an earlier comment above).

To appear educated you merely need to have an opinion on something. It need not be your own. You can use the Pope's opinion or Rush Limbaugh's opinion or, to be fair(ish) the un-questioned opinion of someone on the left such as Mr. Talton.

Also mentioned above, kids are better educated today IN SOME WAYS than we were. But they are worse-off in many others. Most of them cannot multiply or divide without their cell phone's calculator. Those that can don't know what "times" means. But I'd be willing to bet that many of the Tea Party can't do any better.

Understanding history is a different thing than knowing a few handy quotes about Hamilton, Hitler and Hilary. Especially when they are quote-mined to be the opposite of what the speaker meant.

They have no critical-thinking skills so they can't tell a good argument from BS and can't tell circular-reasoning from a tautology. Its no wonder they are led so easily. And here I am speaking of the Tea Party as much as today's kids.

If education was ever really good, in general, I didn't see it. I was appalled by how little the 'top 7%' in my high school actually knew in the early 1970's. They appeared to be good at taking tests and doing homework but they learned almost nothing. They got into a good college though, and no doubt a degree in something profitable.

That's what education (and success) look like in America.

I had been searching for this quote and I finally found it. It's quite appropriate for this recent eruption. In fact, it was in Simon Winchester's book about Krakatoa. The quote is from Will Durant:

"Civilization exists by geologic consent, subject to change without notice."

I was really taken by the quote. I have preached for years to my friends that, while we fret how badly we are soiling our nests (cities), in the end , a geologic event could wipe us off the face of the earth and the earth would not even skip a beat, while it does so. Of all of Man's traits, Man's arrogance always amazes me. I, for one, realize how small of an existence I represent in the overall scheme of the universe. I hope that when the Yellowstone caldera finally explodes, that me and my family are safe in Heaven tweeting each other with the latest Angel iPhones.

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