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Forums - General Discussion - The Tea Party - how frightening is this movement?

MARCUSDJACKSON on 29 October 2010

they are indeed crazy as bat shit!



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FaRmLaNd on 29 October 2010
rocketpig said:
FaRmLaNd said:
rocketpig said:
ConnorJCP said:
rocketpig said:
ConnorJCP said:

I pray Australia never becomes what the USA has become.

You mean it's not already? I've met some pretty damned intolerant people from Australia, especially if they're from rural areas. They stack up unfavorably even to the most redneck of Americans.

No, its not even half as bad as the USA.
USA is still pretty split up between the states.
In USA alot of people believe in religion, and are extremely hypocrite when it comes to their 1st amendment and they tend to forget the rest of the world doesnt share it.
Although ever since Howard lost the election, Australia is becoming worse though. (IMO)
But no, it is not nearly as bad as The USA.

I look at Australia, see rampant racism against aboriginals, a lack of same-sex marriage rights, limited abortion legality, and if they had any Muslims, I'm sure they'd have more than their fair share of Islamophobia just like America or Europe.

So, what makes the USA twice as bad again? Religious people? Because the way I look at it, those American religious zealots aren't getting their way much lately (or ever, really). You see a lot of negativity from American press because the nutjobs always rise to the top. Really, we're no more or less progressive than most of the rest of the western world.

America certainly isn't twice as bad.

Same sex marriage will happen sooner rather then later (especially given the balance of power thats partially held by the greens), the majority of the population supports it, its just a matter of time.

Abortion is subject to state laws and is more open in some states such as the Australian Capital territory where its completely free and less so in others. Thats the price you pay for having state based laws.

A larger percentage of Australia (though some reports I read said its roughly the same percentage) is Muslim then in the US and we don't have significant issues except for the odd thing here or there.

I would agree that racism towards the indiginous Australians is certainly an issue, especially in the Norther Territory and in rural areas. However steps are continually being made to combat this, the thing is , since such a small percentage of the populace is Aboriginal its easy to go for years without running into an Aboriginal person. Out of sight out of mind unfortunately.

That's really my point. Any country that is multi-cultural has its fair share of problems and I have a hard time looking at any country and saying "well, they're pretty much problem free" outside of some of the northern Euro countries who don't have to deal with as much multi-cultural influence as the southern Euros. It's pretty easy to be problem-free when people share the same background and have major connections in heritage. People hear more about the US' problems because we're bigger and more powerful. Plus, our free speech, political system, and media tend to favor letting the loudmouths get the most face time. After awhile, they'll fade off into the background and go away, only to be replaced by the next loudmouth. Given our governmental structure, the nutjobs rarely get any kind of real power.

Certainly.

It is a mistake to malign the US when most of those problems are as you say present in all countries that aren't homogenous. Sydney, the city I live in is the 7th most ethnically diverse city in the world. Whilst white people of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon background certainly are the largest ethnic groups, walking down the street you'd see pretty much every ethnicity represented. From European, to Asian to Middle-eastern etc. The fact that modern metropolitan life in the west has been so successfull is quite amazing considering what the world was like even 60 years ago.



Kasz216 on 29 October 2010
theprof00 said:
Kasz216 said:

Because politicans usually ignore what the people who vote for them want until they are about to lose their jobs?

I mean, you are kidding right? 

What do you mean?

 

Not to mention the Democrats also have to deal with a highly angry "liberal" side on the other side.

Did you watch Obama's daily show interview?

Yeah I did. But Obama's also right on with what he's saying. We focus on the 10% that is bad. That's liberal by nature. Barrack is absolutely right when he says 'people voted for change we can believe in, but forgot that it requires hard work'. That's the problem with our party. We're simply not proactive enough. 

 

Right now the democrats are facing a lot of anger from both conservative and liberal democrats, and it's why the democrats will lose a bunch of seats.

I agree we are gong to lose seats, but I think it has a lot more to do with being in a very difficult time with a lot of angry people than something to do with internal division.




So, because you agree with him.... everbody does.


What I mean is.  The Democrats... ALWAYS (well up until Obama one) prided one thing about the Democratic party.  It was diverse in Idea an opinion and they got it all to work even though they disagreed at times.

They chided the republicans for thinking too much a like and rubberstamping anyones agenda.  (Super liberals like Keith Olberman still talk about this, this is actually exactly what he said about Stewart grilling Obama. )



Kasz216 on 29 October 2010
theprof00 said:
badgenome said:
theprof00 said:

I just disagree.

I wish I had more information with which to argue, but I barely follow politics anymore. It's just a headache. All I know is that Tea Party and GOP used ot be synonymous. Palin was looking like the candidate for next election. Tea party seemed like the new evolution of the republican party. A party by the people for the people. Now the people are gaining power and the GOP is trying to oust them. On top of that, the religious right is growing in power and trying to  claim a piece of the pie. 

That's just how it looks to me.

There were always different groups within the democrats, but the fundamentals were always the same. Social programs, regulation, equality, etc etc.

To me it just seems like the right is breaking apart.

I guess you really don't follow politics, because the Tea Party was definitely less synonymous with the GOP at its outset than it is now that almost all of the major "Tea Party backed" candidates are running on the Republican ticket.

I also don't see why you think the religious right is gaining in power. To me, they seem less relevant than at any point in my lifetime. The culture war stuff is almost nonexistent in this election, at least on the right, and "fiscal conservatism" is the watchword of the day, and what the fuck is up with this dude telling me how to find the Charisma bobblehead in Fallout 3 over and over again? God, I hate this autoplay shit.

If this is true, then I'm even more confused as to what is going on over at fox news.


Well it went like this.

 

1) The Tea Party movement started.

2) Fox news saw this and thought "Hey this is big news, or at least we could make it big news and we've got nothing right now.  It'll show the re-rise of the right."

3) Democrats combated this with claims of racism.

4)The Tea parties started surprising people, by supporting underdogs who would go on and win, and even in some cases befuddling local democrats by endorsing THEM because they were fiscally conservative.  Said politicians not wanting to lose support from them or the DNC basically answered with "Well cool, unexpect but all right.

5) The established GOP started to get worried about the Tea Party movement and formed their own Tea party movement to attempt to control it "Tea Party express" it might of been.... the one Palin fronts.

6) No fiscally conservative democrats really stepped up to the plate so they started running exclusivly on republican tickets because they were eaiser to win.

7) Rather then the Tea Party Express bringing the little groups back to the GOP proper, the little groups actually swayed the Tea Party Express towards them.   Palin Hijacked the GOP's Hijacking... trying to place herself near the top of a political movement with no real guranteed "leadership" or boys club.   Angry afterall as she thinks a lot of why some American's think she is stupid is because of the campaign decisions of the oldschool GOP.

8) The GOP, not wanting to support the Tea Party, but NEEDING those seats so they can get a majority have been funding the races... but trying to stand back.   With local establishment often getting pissed and siding with the democrats so they can hold on to their base of power (See Angle) fearfull if they actually win, the traditional GOP is done in those states/districts.

9) Democrats started picking on... O'donnel because the Republican's aren't going to waste money defending a candidate for a movement they'd like to see discredited... and the Democrats know this hoping by making her looney they can make the Tea Party look nutty.


As for Fox news... they're in the same place the regular GOP is.   Confused that something they thought would last a month is showing signs it may be around for years.



Nirvana_Nut85 on 29 October 2010

The Tea PArty Movement was great when it started as it was originally Ron Paul supporters and 911 truthers who were a huge part of it. The only sad thing is that Fox news and The GOP have tried to hijack it, but as we speak alot of them are being discredited thanks to our good friends over at Infowars.com :)



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Kasz216 on 30 October 2010
Nirvana_Nut85 said:

The Tea PArty Movement was great when it started as it was originally Ron Paul supporters and 911 truthers who were a huge part of it. The only sad thing is that Fox news and The GOP have tried to hijack it, but as we speak alot of them are being discredited thanks to our good friends over at Infowars.com :)


911 truthers... :/



Killiana1a on 30 October 2010
Mr Khan said:
Killiana1a said:

I can sympathize with the OP in having concerns with individual political entities, but I think people are making the Tea Party movement more than it is.

Funny in universities such blatantly racist individuals such as Malcolm X and Mumia Abu Jamal are revered as almost sub-culture idols, but any political movement containing a majority of Whites is made out to be racist, reactionary and xenophobic. Talk about White Guilt and double standards....

That being said, the Tea Party movement is this decade's equivalence in power to the hippies of the 1960s, the Christian Right in 1980s, and the Ross Perot voters in the 1990s.

Or as Newton's Law of Motion states, "To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction."

Conservative Democrats such as myself expected this type of reaction (Tea Party movement) to Democrats controlling all three branches of the US Government from 2008-2010.

Yes, the US House of Representatives will go Republican in less than a week and I surmise it will be close to a 50 seat gain for Republicans. I will be relieved by this because now our politicians will have to engage in politics and compromise reflecting a larger view of the US to get policies passed rather than having Nancy Pelosi and her cohorts stomp on the minority (Republicans) in Congress and ram their stuff reflecting San Francisco values through with no Republican input.

They tried getting Republican input. Why do you think we have this watered-down wishy-washy health care bill, instead of something with some teeth to it?

Republicans would counter, why did Obama sell out to Big Pharma and not allow provisions in the healthcare bill to allow individual US citizens to buy generics or the same drug from Canada or another country?

This "watered-down wishy washy health care bill" is due more to the hundreds of millions the healthcare industry spent on lobbying to protect their financial bottom lines in the bill. This doesn't excuse Republicans who from the day Obama was elected never ever wanted to play politics and compromise, instead they decided from Obama's first day in office to be the Party of No. Well, this will come back to haunt them because Obama has the veto pen.  

Everyone sold out on this bill. My take is comprehensive healthcare reform should have never been taken up until we got the unemployment down to 8% or lower. Instead, Congress spent close to a year wrangling over a significant social policy, while ignoring the more important economic realities.



Kasz216 on 30 October 2010
Killiana1a said:
Mr Khan said:
Killiana1a said:

I can sympathize with the OP in having concerns with individual political entities, but I think people are making the Tea Party movement more than it is.

Funny in universities such blatantly racist individuals such as Malcolm X and Mumia Abu Jamal are revered as almost sub-culture idols, but any political movement containing a majority of Whites is made out to be racist, reactionary and xenophobic. Talk about White Guilt and double standards....

That being said, the Tea Party movement is this decade's equivalence in power to the hippies of the 1960s, the Christian Right in 1980s, and the Ross Perot voters in the 1990s.

Or as Newton's Law of Motion states, "To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction."

Conservative Democrats such as myself expected this type of reaction (Tea Party movement) to Democrats controlling all three branches of the US Government from 2008-2010.

Yes, the US House of Representatives will go Republican in less than a week and I surmise it will be close to a 50 seat gain for Republicans. I will be relieved by this because now our politicians will have to engage in politics and compromise reflecting a larger view of the US to get policies passed rather than having Nancy Pelosi and her cohorts stomp on the minority (Republicans) in Congress and ram their stuff reflecting San Francisco values through with no Republican input.

They tried getting Republican input. Why do you think we have this watered-down wishy-washy health care bill, instead of something with some teeth to it?

Republicans would counter, why did Obama sell out to Big Pharma and not allow provisions in the healthcare bill to allow individual US citizens to buy generics or the same drug from Canada or another country?

This "watered-down wishy washy health care bill" is due more to the hundreds of millions the healthcare industry spent on lobbying to protect their financial bottom lines in the bill. This doesn't excuse Republicans who from the day Obama was elected never ever wanted to play politics and compromise, instead they decided from Obama's first day in office to be the Party of No. Well, this will come back to haunt them because Obama has the veto pen.  

Everyone sold out on this bill. My take is comprehensive healthcare reform should have never been taken up until we got the unemployment down to 8% or lower. Instead, Congress spent close to a year wrangling over a significant social policy, while ignoring the more important economic realities.

It doesn't help that insurance companies aren't really why Healthcare is expensive.

The truth is, nobody wants to tackle the true rising cost of healthcare... because nobody knows how.

All the main costs of healthcare are Education (which could be handled) and Pharmecuticals New equipment.

 

The US comes up with new medical technology at breakneck speeds... because the US accounts for 84% of the worlds medical research funding.

When you consider the EU is a greater economy GDP wise then the US....  this says something.

A decent amount of funding is redundant... but the vast majority of it isn't.

We really gotta figure out how to control those costs without taking out the profit motivation for developing new products, equipments and treatments.

 

As it stands now, our choice is between Unequal care, or equal care... but 10 years from now everyones care is worse then the care even the poorest people would of got under the unequal system.



agardini51 on 30 October 2010

The thing that bugs me about some of these people is the fact that they keep complaining that the Government is spending way too much money and the fact that the stimulus was a waste of money. All of the people that I know that complain about the stimulus money spent it right away. If they really thought it was a bad idea they should have shipped the checks right back to the Treasury. And when in a recession the Government has to spend money to try and pull it out, and then save up money when things are going good. It's pretty basic economics. Another thing that bugs me is the people who think it was a bad idea to save the banks and the car companies. If they think now is bad, how bad would the economy be with no banks, no mortgage companies, and no car companies. Talk about a depression..

The next two years will probably get nothing accomplished if the Repubs take control of Congress as they have already stated that they will not compromise on anything what so ever. It will be a sad day if they do get control. (And this all coming from a person who did not vote for Obama in the election.) I honestly think that he has done a decent enough job considering all that is going on.




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Killiana1a on 30 October 2010
Kasz216 said:
Killiana1a said:
Mr Khan said:
Killiana1a said:

I can sympathize with the OP in having concerns with individual political entities, but I think people are making the Tea Party movement more than it is.

Funny in universities such blatantly racist individuals such as Malcolm X and Mumia Abu Jamal are revered as almost sub-culture idols, but any political movement containing a majority of Whites is made out to be racist, reactionary and xenophobic. Talk about White Guilt and double standards....

That being said, the Tea Party movement is this decade's equivalence in power to the hippies of the 1960s, the Christian Right in 1980s, and the Ross Perot voters in the 1990s.

Or as Newton's Law of Motion states, "To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction."

Conservative Democrats such as myself expected this type of reaction (Tea Party movement) to Democrats controlling all three branches of the US Government from 2008-2010.

Yes, the US House of Representatives will go Republican in less than a week and I surmise it will be close to a 50 seat gain for Republicans. I will be relieved by this because now our politicians will have to engage in politics and compromise reflecting a larger view of the US to get policies passed rather than having Nancy Pelosi and her cohorts stomp on the minority (Republicans) in Congress and ram their stuff reflecting San Francisco values through with no Republican input.

They tried getting Republican input. Why do you think we have this watered-down wishy-washy health care bill, instead of something with some teeth to it?

Republicans would counter, why did Obama sell out to Big Pharma and not allow provisions in the healthcare bill to allow individual US citizens to buy generics or the same drug from Canada or another country?

This "watered-down wishy washy health care bill" is due more to the hundreds of millions the healthcare industry spent on lobbying to protect their financial bottom lines in the bill. This doesn't excuse Republicans who from the day Obama was elected never ever wanted to play politics and compromise, instead they decided from Obama's first day in office to be the Party of No. Well, this will come back to haunt them because Obama has the veto pen.  

Everyone sold out on this bill. My take is comprehensive healthcare reform should have never been taken up until we got the unemployment down to 8% or lower. Instead, Congress spent close to a year wrangling over a significant social policy, while ignoring the more important economic realities.

It doesn't help that insurance companies aren't really why Healthcare is expensive.

The truth is, nobody wants to tackle the true rising cost of healthcare... because nobody knows how.

All the main costs of healthcare are Education (which could be handled) and Pharmecuticals New equipment.

 

The US comes up with new medical technology at breakneck speeds... because the US accounts for 84% of the worlds medical research funding.

When you consider the EU is a greater economy GDP wise then the US....  this says something.

A decent amount of funding is redundant... but the vast majority of it isn't.

We really gotta figure out how to control those costs without taking out the profit motivation for developing new products, equipments and treatments.

 

As it stands now, our choice is between Unequal care, or equal care... but 10 years from now everyones care is worse then the care even the poorest people would of got under the unequal system.

I agree education, pharmaceuticals and equipment are all components in why healthcare is so expensive. For me, it boils down to the system.

First, the delivery of healthcare needs to be improved. Getting my Master's in Health Administration, we looked at physicians and organizations who were practicing innovative ways to deliver care. For example, GreenField Health in Portland, OR is a boutique clinic where you pay a $250-750 annual fee. What you get is the ability to email a physician at any time to cut down on unnecessary, diagnostic healthcare visits. Furthermore, all the medical records are in electronic format, so you don't have to spend 15 to 30 minutes before your first visit filling out paperwork. Here is the site:

http://securemail.greenfieldhealth.com/portal/

Second, the US healthcare system is fundamentally a cottage industry where you have the primary care physician (PCP) as an individual businessman, specialists as individual businessmen, hospice as a separate entity, hospitals separate, medical equipment and supplies separate and on.This type of organization is reminescent of the 16th century where you had miners mining the ore, refineries refining the ore, and blacksmiths creating useable items all as distinct entities.

Kaiser Permanente is and should be the model for US healthcare where you have the insurance company, Kaiser, merged with the doctors, Permanente, under the same roof. For the healthcare consumer, Kaiser Permanente cuts down on extra trips to specialists you have never been to, a PCP who is keen on cutting down on defensive medicine such as CT scans because they have a financial stake in keeping costs low, and the reassurance a highly qualified doctor is on call even if he/she is not your PCP.

Studying Healthcare Administration in Portland, OR, there is a transition under way in the healthcare system. With the requirements of all MDs having to transition to electronic medical records due to HIPAA enforcement, more and more physicians are choosing to work directly with hospitals as employees because their practice cannot afford to implement an electronic medical records system. Furthermore, being on-call every week as a standalone MD is very stressful and selling your practice and working for a hospital cuts down on on-call time.

Finally, hospitals are where the reform is at, they are the center of the change. Legacy and Providence, the two major health systems in the Portland Metro Area are no longer just standalone hospitals. They have become integrated delivery systems (IDS). Meaning, they provide hospital care along with hospice, employed PCPs, employed specialists, medical supplies and equipment, home healthcare, long-term care, and on.

In essence, IDS such as Kaiser Permanente, Legacy Health, and Providence Health have taken all the cottages and put them under the same roof like private business started doing in the 1800s with the forefather of modern day corporations in joint stock companies. This is the future of healthcare.