You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
Home Front: Culture Wars
Berkely's Ctr. for the Comparative Study of Right-Wing Movements studies the Tea Party
2010-10-25
On the night before we are scheduled to address this conference, the Tea Party experts are treated to a meal at the Faculty Club. It sounds fancy, and it is, with the feel and décor of a Sundance ski lodge. Over craft beers, wine, and cheese, we discuss that favorite topic of liberal academics: What the hell happened to Barack Obama? Why does the right have all the energy that he and the left used to own?

But the focus is going to be on the academics and the activists, on and off the stage. They want to know what the hell is going on. They are in Berkeley, where they are used to venerating left-wing activism and putting up sandbags against the once-a-decade conservative wave--Reagan (twice), Proposition 13 (about property taxes), Proposition 209 (about affirmative action), George W. Bush. The Tea Party, though? A bunch of people who reverse-engineer Saul Alinsky and yell "Keep the government out of Medicare" and have conservatives shouting down politicians and filling street corners?
The rest of the piece demonstrates how resolutely the left insists on thinking within the box. These people aren't progressive, they're staunchly reactionary, standing four-square against the flow of history. They're using axes and bow saws and a schematic of a Franklin stove to understand the nuclear power plant in front of them, poor dears.
Posted by:trailing wife

#12  Why don't they just stick to making paper mache for their Big Giant Puppets? They're good at that.
Posted by: tu3031   2010-10-25 22:13  

#11  But America is a Republic with a lot of selective democracy. It's VERY hard to change the constitution and that protects people against the state and thus those who benefit from a rent seeking government.

Obviously sociopaths want the state to do their bidding, so they can use other people.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles   2010-10-25 17:57  

#10  Perlstein moves around the question. "The thing that makes America different, and this is a very dialectical, paradoxical concept, is that we have a lot of democracy," he says. "The idea that everyone has an opinion of about what they're hearing is both the glory and the tragedy of American democracy."

Oh you poor little post-modernist mothÂ…why are so drawn to your paradoxical flame? Perchance there is no tragedy in the concept of individual liberty at all. Maybe the only tragedy is when Progressive eggheads, such as yourself, contemplate replacing a "lot of democracy" with "selective democracy". In fact, that just might be the answer to your whole Tea Party conundrum - eh?
Posted by: DepotGuy   2010-10-25 16:37  

#9  Children and people in Berkley say the darndest things! I lived there for years, and I have a simple question for these pinheads: do you feel safe walking around the Berkley/Emeryville/Oakland "no man's land" at night?

Didn't think so. Why don't you study THAT problem and stop worrying about whether or not "you" can arrest someone in Peoria for having political views you don't like.

Morons.
Posted by: Secret Master   2010-10-25 16:19  

#8  "most likely drive the left nuts"

That's not a drive, John - that's a two-inch putt.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2010-10-25 14:36  

#7  #5 Liberal Fascism is the biggest internal threat facing America today.

Andrew C. McCarthy has a recent book entitled: The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America.

A book that links the left to facism, religion (islam), and jihad. Such linkages most likely drive the left nuts.
Posted by: JohnQC   2010-10-25 14:17  

#6  What could POSSIBLY go wrong?
Posted by: mojo   2010-10-25 13:45  

#5  Liberal Fascism is the biggest internal threat facing America today.
Posted by: Dinah Kanser   2010-10-25 13:05  

#4  Yes indeed. They aren't liberals. They are fascists.
Posted by: DarthVader   2010-10-25 12:40  

#3  "people who reverse-engineer Saul Alinsky"

LOL LOL LOL!!!

It's just so easy to ridicule the left these days. As Glenn Reynolds says, they're credentialed, not competent.

From the article: "I wonder if we're likely to see a Timothy McVeigh situation," says Nicholas Robert, an attendee originally from Australia, who basically wonders if any Tea Partiers can be arrested. "It seems to be that we're being very polite. I wonder if there are any legal mechanisms—one that comes to mind are the provisions used to crush the Wobblies."

Wow. Please stop calling them liberals.
Posted by: Black Charlie Chinemble5313   2010-10-25 12:21  

#2  Of course, the reporter won't tell you that.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305   2010-10-25 12:10  

#1  Your tax dollars at work. I bet they got a grant from some government agency for this little get together. I wonder which one and how much?
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305   2010-10-25 12:09  

00:00