Forum Post: TEA PARTIER here. Help me help you
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 13, 2011, 8:47 a.m. EST by number2
(914)
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I can participate fully in an anti-fascist movement, where our primary goal is to reform the corporate/government bond. Others of the so called "radical right" will join you too. Watch, you'll be labelled the "new radical left". Anyways, I think it's important to refuse this label.
I want to be with you but there is only so far that I can compromise. Clearly, we've got some socialists here and I'm fine with that as long as I'm not asked to participate in that.
It would be great if if when the unions or msnbc came by, OWSers said: "out of respect for the whole spectrum of people we have in our membership, we can't allow you to represent us."
I have equal disdain for fox and the repubs btw. They should be refused as well but i don't think they're even trying with this group.
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I'd be considered a leftist by the current configuration of most people in this country, and I support this post. I'm not looking to kill capitalism or anything like that. I hear many from the right speak about personal responsibility for those who are in dire straits all the time, but when that same rhetoric is turned around on those who are acting incredibly irresponsible in positions of power it gets brushed off. That is a huge focus for me personally. I do my best to maintain my own personal responsibility. But the ramifications of my actions don't affect the lives of so many, like those who create silly ass derivatives, CDOs and CDSs. Personal responsibility indeed.
Anyway, rant off. I'm with you number2. Come on down and let's talk. That, to me, is the main point at the moment.
Here is how you can help Mr. Tea - I thought you would be interested in the electronic petition that has been created on We the People, a new feature on WhiteHouse.gov Warren Buffet himself outlined this petition to stop the corruption in Congress. If this petition gets 5,000 signatures by October 22, 2011, the White House will review it and respond! If a petition gets enough support, the Obama Administration will issue an official response. You can view and sign the petition here: http://wh.gov/gWX
This is why we have to remove politics from the OWS movement. It's not about our own political agenda. If we can figure that out then we will become even stronger and maybe fix this broken system / government.
I need to ask a question: How is it you "Tea Partiers" are somehow against "corporate welfare" yet want nothing more than cutting the corporate tax and gutting regulations? I just don't comprehend how you don't consider that "corporate welfare", to be honest.
Welfare is giving money not the act of taking less.
From what I understand it was the removal of regulations that allowed the bankers to get away with this. Appropriate regulations are in order. Giant bureaucracies won't help us though. For example the dept. of energy has not helped us become energy independent.
and I believe this is spot on, if the Tea Party as a whole feels the same way. I don't think large bureaucracies are going to solve anything, but regulations have to be in place to prevent this from happening again.
How do you feel about removing corp influence (union as well as far as I'm concerned) from government? What about lobbyist?
I think it's important to note that the tea party was spawned becuase conservatives were not happy with what they were getting from Bush and the republican party. So to suggest that the republican party is sinonymous with the tea party is absurd. Who of the American people wants to be screwed further? I'm an average joe citizen with no connections. Lobbyists only hurt me.
You never have to participate in anything you are opposed to. I support socialized medicine, and I respect unions, but you can still agree that the middle class is shrinking and that the income gap is growing. This is what democracy looks like. Your views are welcomed here.
I agree, why can't the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Stree work together on issues they have in common?
Do you pay taxes? Do you use government services like public roads or expect the fire department to show up in an emergency? Then you are a "socialist". The question is not whether you want socialism (all governments are socialist to some degree), it is what kind of socialism do you want? Because right now we have the worst sort of corporate socialism, and it is not pretty. The worst kind of socialism is the kind that privatizes profits (increasingly mostly to 1% of people) and socializes costs (like the Gulf of Mexico oil pollution or nuclear-meltdown risk with Fukushima or health problems from coal burning in the Midwest or bank bailouts). See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
that's a good point. I would say I am 5% socialist then I do agree with programs for the disabled. It needs to have strict limitations on it though.
I would also say that we have socialism for the rich. Let's work to end that.
yeah corporate welfare
Fair enough. Now we can argue percentages and what they should be about. :-)
A deep issue relating to percentages is whether our society can function with a concentration of wealth (especially with automation) which might otherwise need to be addresses with progressive taxation. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/opinion/sunday/kristof-americas-primal-scream.html?_r=2 "Economists used to believe that we had to hold our noses and put up with high inequality as the price of robust growth. But more recent research suggests the opposite: inequality not only stinks, but also damages economies. In his important new book, “The Darwin Economy,” Robert H. Frank of Cornell University cites a study showing that among 65 industrial nations, the more unequal ones experience slower growth on average. Likewise, individual countries grow more rapidly in periods when incomes are more equal, and slow down when incomes are skewed."
Personally, that's why it might make sense to have 50% of the GDP (the size of our GDP in 1993) redistributed as a basic income, and have a free-for-all for the rest without a minimum wage, employment discrimination laws, or things like that. Related: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income "Winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics who fully support a basic income include Herbert Simon, Friedrich Hayek, James Meade, Robert Solow, and Milton Friedman."
It is increasingly questionable in an information age if people need to be motivated or incentivized through money at all; see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
But, there is also the question of whether big government as we know it right now creates a concentration of wealth in practice (big money having captured the regulators and lawmakers to pass laws in its own favor) and so is part of the problem (which I would tend to agree with to that extent). But the fact that our government is broken in a lot of ways does not mean government is always broken. When your car is broken, you probably usually take it into the shop rather than get a bicycle (as nice as bicycles are). As I read recently, the most vibrant societies tend to have both a strong vibrant exchange economy and a strong vibrant (ideally participatory) government planning sector. China seems to be outclassing the USA in that sense, oddly enough.
Related: "Our One-Party Democracy" http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/opinion/09friedman.html "The G.O.P. used to be the party of business. Well, to compete and win in a globalized world, no one needs the burden of health insurance shifted from business to government more than American business. No one needs immigration reform — so the world’s best brainpower can come here without restrictions — more than American business. No one needs a push for clean-tech — the world’s next great global manufacturing industry — more than American business. Yet the G.O.P. today resists national health care, immigration reform and wants to just drill, baby, drill."
We need better discussions about all this, as I suggest here: http://occupywallst.org/forum/to-the-admins/#comment-136854
Civics nitpicking: Fire depts and roads for the most part are paid for with city taxes, and even a far North libertarian is usually tolerant of localism. The corporatism/fascism we experience is largely a federal disease.
I do agree that the worst type of socialism is private profits and socialized costs/risks. Keep repeating this.
Federal tax-funded research into new medicine and new technology can benefit everyone in a nation or around the planet. So can tax-funded production of free software.
The centralization of wealth needs to be dealt with at a federal (or global) level, as otherwise states end up being pitted against each other in a race to the bottom. Only big governments (or the People collectively) have the power to deal with big concentrations of wealth (and even then it might not be enough it seems if the government gets co-opted). Although some libertarians make a good point that things like patents, copyrights, and limited-liability laws and enforced monopolies related to legal barriers of entry based on lots of regulations defined by the State may empower big corporations, and without them we might not have as many huge companies. So, it can get complex. You need the right kind of big government to deal with big money. That's a challenge. Or you need to move beyond money as much as possible to weaken the meaning of it.
Thanks for the agreement on "the worst kind of socialism being privatizing profits and socializing risks/costs". I agree it would be good to repeat it a lot more, especially any time people start pushing free markets as the alternative to socialism. All markets are shaped by their societies and what are acceptable externalities.
Hi Tea Partier.....your key point "I want to be with you but there is only so far that I can compromise" is that you can compromise. We are a middle of the road country where all want to benefit in the American Dream. We have strayed from that. Together we can get back to the middle and move forward.
Agree!
I think We all as americans just need to say Where done with parties. We are the people we peacefully assemble but we donot signify with anyone party.I hope that out of this we can start up the beliefe in americans hearts that a patriot does not have to belong to a party to bring good change for the people of the nation
I was watching Piers Morgan interview Kelsey Grammer last night on CNN. When Grammer expressed some sympathetic views to the Tea Party, Morgan asked him,
Well, are you against gay marriage? You know the Tea Party is against gay marriage
We don't need any Tea Party homophobes
what a lying sack.
Boycott!!! Imported goods!! Buy Made in the USA
I'm a Nader, Kucinich, Grayson fan, but I'm changing my voter status from Dem to Repub so I can vote for Paul in the NY primary. Obama's out of the question. I take Paul at his word that he'll stop the wars and audit the Fed, if he lives that long. He's the only one even close to the original "tea party" protests on Wall Street in 2008. His fundamental constitutionalism is somewhat glib, but the voting game is always a compromise.
Unions have warts, but their members are part of the 99%. So far, they haven't co-opted #OWS for themselves.
Hope you participate in #OWS. That's what it's all about.
taking a poll http://blog.richardkentgates.com/ please pass the link, i will report the finding openly on this forum once i have a good amount of samples