CARS FED ON CORN, PEOPLE FED ON HORSESHIT

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Cars Fed on Corn, People Fed on Horseshit: Dave and Joe ponder socialism and the Tea Party


Note: Yet more from the "heathen commie." (~grin~) Although I disagree with some of his positions, he makes a lot of sense, as usual. /LL


Joe Bageant | 1/24/10

Dear Joe,

The Tea Parties started out as Ron Paul supporters in protest of both the neocons and the faux bleeding heart liberals and have been co-opted and corrupted by others so unfortunately are not what they started out to be.


I agree both Dems and Reps have been and are horribly corrupt and just two sides of the same worthless coin flipped for our confusion and division and "their" amusement and profit. My view of Dems and Reps has always been the Dems take your money and give it to people that don't deserve it to get votes and the Reps take you money and keep it for themselves. They are learning much from each other and the main difference now are the sound bites. One of the reasons I have not watched TV for the last 15 years. Few ever wonder why there is almost always a 50/50 split and we just flip back and forth thinking we finally got rid of the last bastards.


I don't think socialism has fared well in the past either though with a few horrible examples coming to mind such as several periods in Russia as well as Maoist China. Hell China is much more capitalistic now and they actually put their criminals to death rather than reward them with large bonuses. I've always been technical and not much of a history buff but want to learn so what examples do you have of socialism working well? Seems it can be just as corrupt as our "democracy". I'm mostly inclined to hope for a benevolent dictator.


I'm basically libertarian -- smaller government is better, do whatever you want but don't hurt or bother anyone else, and I supported Ron Paul since I do believe in the constitution, free markets and capitalism as long as they are kept honest, which is one of the two purposes of government in my opinion -- keep the playing field level and protect us. Problem is they have not been kept level or honest here in the US and elsewhere for a long time as the political and financial systems are horribly rigged and the markets highly manipulated by the likes of Government Sachs on behalf of the Plunge Protection Team. And as far as protection, we are routinely subjected to scare tactics for the financial benefit of the military-industrial complex rather than truly protected from things like scams perpetrated on old folks and anyone else naive, ecological poisoning and ruining our food stock all for profits.

I feel that what Obama has been doing could certainly be called socialism since we are bailing out so many individuals, states and companies that have been anything prudent. I've always worked hard and saved and been fiscally responsible but my finances have been devastated this last year and I don't see Obama's version of socialism helping me or hardly anyone at all except the corporations. Actually, I think he's fascist not socialist, given the continued collusion with big business against the American people (my definition of fascism). I feel it was quite socialist/fascist giving future tax money to people for cars and houses that did not earn it rather than to have given every man, woman and child that was a US citizen $50,000 equally and fairly rather than selectively and mostly instead to the banksters and Government Motors etc.


So I don't know what the answer is but what we have is not working and I'm unconvinced socialism would work either as I think it reduces everyone efforts to the minimal effort as there is little incentive to produce to maximum when your efforts reward someone else that does not often even try. Best would be if we had a resurgence of honest and a sense of universal morality where indeed we were not out to screw anyone and everyone always out for ourselves. I'm all for improving one's conditions through hard work and personal efforts and being able to enjoy the results and do not want to be forced to help anyone else but rather want that to be my own personal decision.


Don't consider me heartless as I do feel that we could and should normally help out a lot of folks that have come upon hard times through no fault of their own such as folks born with disabilities or suffering accidents. As a nation we can and could have helped folks a lot more than we did. Instead we often buy dictators for our corporate profits and the money is gone. I just don't think we should have the welfare system in any way remotely resembling what it is now. If someone loses a job then our government can give them a job as there is certainly much to be done, or help train them for a new job and help with some daycare while they learn or give folks jobs providing the daycare, but just don't put them on the installment plan for free just to secure their votes at the expense of everyone else when society gets nothing out of it but a permanent leech that now thinks doing nothing is a way of life.

Please explain what your views of socialism are as I for one do not have a good image or opinion of it at present after the long history of failed and entrenched welfare and all the useless bailouts to people and companies that did not deserve to be bailed out when my own savings, investments and job and income opportunities were quite devastated after working my ass off my entire life and not getting a single nickel of all this largesse going on but am totally on my own without a shred of support from any government entity.


I do agree with most of what you rant about, but I just fail to see how socialism is the answer -- knowing full well that what we have currently is certainly not.

Thanks,
Dave
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Dave,

My apologies for taking so long to answer your letter. I'm always short of time these days, partly because of age and less time to accomplish things, or as a good friend of mine calls it, ERDT: "Estimated Remaining Drinking Time. Plus there is the age-accompanying slowing of every process. I now take a book to the bathroom -- to piss. Right now, I am pissing my way through Lionel Trilling, which somehow seems appropriate. The net result has been that I've not answered as many reader letters as I would like.


Your letter exemplifies the quandary of countless Americans these days. So I must make time for another overly wordy, poorly informed, meandering reply of the sort visitors to this site have become accustomed.

About the Tea Party movement. Yeah, you're right. It is not what it started out to be. Personally, I believe it has been co-opted by ultra conservative GOP think tanks operating in the background. I've seen it happen before and I believe I am seeing it happen now. With no proof, mind you. However, when I smell fresh dog shit in the air, I assume the presence of a dog somewhere about.


I am not alone in this. Many veteran journalists agree with me privately, but cannot say so publicly because they cannot prove it. They supposedly have journalistic standards and public responsibilities to which they adhere (they cannot prove that either). I, on the other hand, am moreover retired from journalism as a vocation, and have a big mouth. In the typical crankiness of aging Southerners given to drink, I have taken to calling things as I see them. Or smell them, as the case may be. And these days with the political climate reeking like a whorehouse after the fleet pulls out, the olfactory bulbs reign triumphant.

A few years from now someone will write a book about the neocon co-opting of the Tea Party. And all six copies sold will be devoured by amateur political junkies, one of whom will then launch the standard internet rattle and buzz about it, to be read and discussed at length on forums by the other five purchasers of the book. And of course, some university pinhead will do a thesis, which will be published as a book by a university press. Three other scholars will read it ten years later while writing their own thesis. And the Tea Party will become some obscure flake of history's dandruff.


But now is now. The Tea Party is "Now the News," according to MSNBC. Assuming that a 57-year-old matron in jogging pants and a Minnesota Twins baseball cap leering into the camera and dangling a teabag can be called news (It doesn't take much). Anyway, when it comes to the Tea Party's neocon DNA, look at what you've got. A bunch of fringy far right libertarians, who by no means represent the typical libertarian, and guys like Ron Paul, who admittedly has some attractive points, but like the fringe libertarians, seems convinced that a nation of 300 million can operate without any sort of government. How different is that from Grover Norquist, who was gonna reduce government to the size of a baby, then "drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub" (I think I've seen that sick fucker on CSI). As far as I am concerned, if it croaks like a frog and bumps its ass on the ground while jumping into a lake, it's a frog for all intent and purposes.


Regarding your comment, "Dems take your money and give it to people who don't deserve it to get votes. And the Republicans take you money and keep it for themselves."


Cute, but not completely correct. I know because, being in the half-truth business myself, I write that sort of stuff every day. Both parties take our money and give it to people who do not deserve it, so they can pile up campaign support dollars and get fat jobs when their terms are over. This was known as bribery before the syndicates bribed Congress and the Supreme Court into sanctioning the practice.


Getting back to the undeserving "leeches" in our society sponging off the rest of us ... I defy you to personally go out there, take names and photos, then send them to me. And I mean personally, not just some cut and paste propaganda off the web. I am not saying you will not find any. I'm just saying pack some extra shoe leather because such citizens represent a very small portion of the national population. I'll see you in ten years when you are finished.


In testimony to the durability of certain strains of bull shit, Republicans and neocons are still successfully flogging the old welfare queen stuff, not to mention claiming that millions of illegal aliens getting free medical services (This is gonna turn your stomach, but I believe everyone should get free medical services -- even pets. Animals constitute entire nations of other sentient beings sharing the planet. Take a look at the European Commission's Animal Welfare legislation. American citizens should be so lucky). When the GOP is not flogging the iconic "urban single mother," code for black woman, it is minting new myths to suit the occasion. Such as, and this is may be my all time favorite: "ObamaCare Likely to Mandate Free Sex Change' Surgeries for citizens and illegal immigrants" (Liberty Counsel Legal Group; Aug. 4, 2008). By golly that should stop illegal immigration cold, if anything can. "One foot over the border and it's whack and tuck surgery for you Pedro!"


Hic est verum, Davarino: Neither party does shit for ordinary or poor folks unless they are forced to, unless it is to their campaign or election advantage, or unless it will funnel public money into the private corporations backing them. Like giving ghetto kids fast food chain coupons.


You wrote, "They are learning much from each other and the main difference now are the sound bites."

That's always been the case. And it always will be as long as they can keep the public snookered into believing there are actually two parties in this country.


Regarding your comment, "I have not watched TV for the last 15 years." Article continues-


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