These tea party people....

[Hassled]

Nutters? In this BBC blog, one woman says "This progressive agenda (Obama's economic policies) has progressed to the tipping point in the United States, where we either stand up for the constitution of the United States or we accept socialism, tainted with Marxism."

How can she interpret Obama's policies as socialism tainted with Marxism? Is it just down to lack of education? I really, genuinely, don't understand. I don't understand the fear they seem to have. And they're doing well - they've got the Delaware Senate nomination, NY, Nevada, Colorado, Florida, Kentucky and Alaska. Meanwhile they're being funded by billionaires who clearly have a vested interest keeping the focus on tax cuts for the rich.

I don't know what my point is really - I get that many people want smaller government, lower taxation, less govt spending etc, but that view is already well represented. I don't get this extremism.

You're very mistaken if you think they're only anti-Democrat. They're anti-Republican, too.

They seek to chisel a chink in the system so they can then bend it and change it to their own ends. That's treason.

They're also nut cases and hateful and racist.

I am most certainly with Nigel Lawson. Poor old Monbiot, he had to go against probably the greatest green guru ever, James Lovelock of 'Gaia' fame, and said that Lovelock had had an attack of the bellamoids, as did that other figure David Bellamy

"the venerable father of Gaia theory, possessor of one of the world?s greatest minds, announces in Sunday?s Observer that ?intemperate injunctions about green imperatives could make [environmentalism] as dangerous? as the ideology of the Axis Powers(1). He told the Guardian that a new planning regime for wind farms is ?an erosion of our freedom [that] draws near to what I see as fascism.?(2) His grounds? The energy secretary Ed Miliband had mused that it should be ?socially unacceptable to be against wind turbines in your area - like not wearing your seatbelt or driving past a zebra crossing.?(3)

I have great respect for Professor Lovelock. He has done more to advance our understanding of the planet?s response to climate change than any other living person. But he appears to be suffering from an acute case of bellamoids*."

expatinscotland, as far as I understand it, they are anti-Republican, i.e. anti those Republicans who are selling them down the river with their globalisation policies and any big government policies they may support.

I agree that there are some nutcases among them, and the media makes sure it gives them prominence. I also think some groups are trying tio hijack teh original Tea Party movement for their own ends. There are problems with it, but they are a democratic movement that reflects the people's will, and as ever only in America can the people be heard. Their grassroots organisation can take on the big vested interests of corporate America and the media that follows them.

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They are a democratic movement that only garners support by appealing to knee-jerk prejudice. Right now they are anti all the things people don't like on instinct. (You could walk outside yourself this afternoon with a banner proclaiming you're anti scroungers and anti bank bonuses & you'd draw quite a supportive crowd.) What they are 'pro' (and let's take the constitution as a given) is far more vague. And what they would actually 'do' if they were in charge is rarely mentioned.

Fascist groups here have similar tactics. Appeal to baser instincts... dislike of strangers/foreigners, the suspicion that others are getting something you're not, that government doesn't care about people like you.... lob in some references to national pride.

If enough people fall for the woolly crap, then they'll be in power and then I'd suggest everyone goes and buys a copy of Orwell's 'Animal Farm' to understand what happens next :)

The Tea Party quote I can't forget was a TP spokesperson (I feel gleeful posting that* ) who said about schools, words to the effect:

"If the state doesn't want to pay for your kid's education then pay for yourself. Get a job!!"

I think that quote neatly summarises their general levels of altruism (or rather, lack thereof).

• If you speak American English TP is tantamount to saying "Only suitable for Shit-Wiping" :).

Chil1234, they are not as dangerous as you think. The dangerous nutter image is perpetuated by the progressives as a scare tactic to stop the movement of ordinary people snowballing the progressives out of power. What they are for is small government, exactly like the Tories. They are for getting the state off the backs of the taxpaying public, just like the Tories. They are for scrapping of quangos, just like the Tories. They are for less taxation and less bureaucrats, just like the Tories.

The Tories won here with that message, and the progressives fear that the same message by the ordinary people (not swayed by progressive propaganda) will deliver the progressives a defeat in the United States. That's why they are being portrayed as nutters.

The Tea Party are populists, they are for the people, just as the Boston Tea Party was against the King. 'Animal Farm' was about progressives and their egalitarian philosophy, and what really lies behind that philosophy.

First of all it's the TEA party and it means Taxed Enough Already. They are upset that their money is being spent on bailing out companies who are inefficient and people happy to stay on unemployment for as a long as possible (there are jobs here but no one wants to work with their hands). They have a point in that AIG and the banks who took federal money should have also given ownership to the government. The other thing that has caused this uprising is that after the government bailed out the banks the small business owners had credit lines withdrawn or the interest increased sharply.

Quite a few politicians have tried to appoint themselves as the leader, Sarah Palin being one of them. Right now it looks like Chris Christie will gain political currency through them and become a leader of sorts. Chris Christie is the Govenor of New Jersey. In my opinion, as a New Jersey resident, he is doing a pretty good job of sorting the state out.

From what I have seen the majority of TEA party members are middle class business owners. They are are probably the group who is taxed the most on a percentage basis in the US.

I reject that they are 'just like the Tories'. Our government may be reducing the size of the state for economic/political reasons at the moment but is still committed to certain underlying principles which do not exist in the US but which should exist in a civilised society. The real danger of the Tea Party lies not in their stated aims of reducing taxation or reducing America's dependency on foreign energy, but in the unspoken aims of their supporters. They clearly believe that the Democrats are a lost cause and the Republicans have 'gone soft' for agreeing with things like the bank bail-out and not stopping the health bill. Populism - when it is coming from any extremist position either religious, political or philosophical - is always dangerous.

Chil1234, you read Want2bSuperMum. What is extreme about wanting to make fatcats and bankers accountable for bailouts on the backs of ordinary working people? Look at our council bosses on £200,000 salaries and gold-plated pensions, paid for out of the earnings of ordinary people. The people have been milked for too long and the Americans have got the gumption to say "enough already". Where are our unions, who are supposed to stand up for us? Where were the progressives who pretend that they are on the side of the people? They were doling out our cash to the bankers and presiding over business closures.

The progressives don't like the Tea Party, because unlike the progressives, The Tea Party are a real opposition and threat to the fatcats.

@claig - The Tea Party's 'Contract From America' says nothing about making bankers accountable for the bailout. In fact, their low tax utopia would be quite attractive to fat-cats, I would have thought.

The Tea Party is a real rising of teh populace. It can't be controlled by the spin doctors in the media, despite their smear tactics. The Tea party voters were against the bailouts of the fatcats, because it was they who paid for it.

"Opponents of President Obama?s domestic policy proposals, including the Tea Party and the Party of Tea (the GOP) have used the bank and billionaire bailout as an an example of the bad things that happen when the federal government intervenes in the free market. Sure the banks survived, but no one did anything to help the millions of Americans who lost their jobs and their homes during the same period. Sure the banks prospered and they are now awash in profits, but the banks did not use the money to free up the credit that the economy so desperately needs."

The Tea Party aren't against people getting rich and achieving the American Dream. They are against the Progressive Dream, where fatcats and state bureaucrats get rich due to handouts and bailouts from the hardworking ordinary people.

Whereas if the American banks and subsequently the economy had gone down the crapper, millions of Americans would have seen their jobs & homes saved? And why would banks lend money to people who couldn't afford it, seeing as how that was the way the crisis got started in the first place?

Now if they'd had a stronger welfare state in position before it happened.... maybe the outcome for ordinary Americans would have been rosier than it was?

They LIKE paying more for healthcare than pretty much anyone else in the world.

Oh and if anything stops the republicans regaining the presidency, it will be the tea party nut nuts.

'And why would banks lend money to people who couldn't afford it, seeing as how that was the way the crisis got started in the first place?'

that's what the fatcats tell us, don't believe it. It started due to their gambling in the derivative markets. We've had many housing crashes in history but none of them led to the financial crisis that they gave us.

'Whereas if the American banks and subsequently the economy had gone down the crapper'

the American economy wouldn't have gone down the crapper. That's what the fatcats say, don't believe them. The Tea Party doesn't believe them, and that's what makes teh progressives angry, since it blows their whole pretence. The fatcats very possibly would have gone down the crapper, as opposed to teh situation now, where we are paying their pensions.

"the American economy wouldn't have gone down the crapper. That's what the fatcats say, don't believe them"

Belief belongs with the Archbishops and Mullahs but we can learn lessons from history. The effects of the Wall Street Crash, for example, were pretty stark and long-lasting.

And on the sub-prime situation. Even if you don't think it actualy led to the credit crunch, banks were hardly likely to lend yet more money to the same asset/job/cash/orderbook-poor people afterwards were they? Same problem as we have here... 'lend out more money'.. we demand from the banks... 'but don't lend it to people who can't pay it back'.

docs.google.com/present/view?revision=_latest&fs=true&skipauth=true&pli=1&id=ddv7hj34_03774hsc7

Lehman survived the Wall Street Crash, but didn't survive a sub-prime crisis caused by a property crash. Something doesn't add up. It was derivatives that brought them down, not ordinary people not being able to pay their mortgages.

It wasn't a case of banks lending out money to ordinary people, it was a case of banks begging the government to loan them our money. The Tea Party is right that there should have been a quid pro quo, the government should have nationalised teh banks and forced them to lend money to businesses to keep the people employed, rather than doling out our money in bonusues, corporate hospitality and more gambling.

who is the author of "Subprime : A primer"
Could it be A. Prime Fatcat?

or even his brother, A. Crime Fatcat

It was a credit bubble. Coallateralisation meant that lenders thought they weren't carrying any risk of default, so they leant without checking credit worthiness and made money on the commission. This meant that they had to keep borrowing more money against their long term assets to pay short term obligations. As soon as somebody said 'Hang on, how can we be sure this stuff we are lending you money against is worth anything?' they couldn't raise the money to pay their expenses.

It is a quid pro quo - the money has been leant not given away. If you want the governement to give the banks money to lend to people, why not just get the government to lend to people?

What you are saying is 'Here is £10 to pay your debt to Jack, but I want you to lend £5 of it to Jill'

'If you want the governement to give the banks money to lend to people, why not just get the government to lend to people?'

that's what the Tea Party are about. It's not the government's money, it's the people's money, and instead of the government lending the people's money back to them, the Tea Party want the government to stop taking it away from them with high taxes. It's good old conservative philosophy, let the people keep their earnings, they can make the decision about how to spend it rather than some progressive government bureaucrat who wants to spend it on global warming conferences or some such progressive scheme.

The collapse was a derivatives crash, due to gambling, not due to people not being able to pay back their loans, as the progressives tell us. Here is the editor-at-large of the Washington Times

"The 2007 U.S. subprime mortgage global disaster was also derivatives-driven - and provoked the biggest financial and economic disaster since the Great Depression."

and he says there may yet be another derivatives crash coming

"Today's massive new derivatives bubble is driving the domestic and global economies, far outstripping the subprime-credit meltdown."