What’s in a Name ?
By Barry Ritholtz - October 26th, 2009, 1:30PM
Paul Krugman’s OpEd column today referred to the tea party extremists participants as “Teabaggers.”
I love that they are now colloquially called Teabaggers by just about everyone, but how on earth did that ever get by the New York Times editors?
The etymology of that word is not exactly NYT fare — see either wikipedia or Urban Dictionary for what it means.
If I define it, this post will never get past the filters!
Tweet
Facebook
Reddit
Digg this!
October 26th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
LOL — Michael Moore has been using that, as well. I first learned the meaning of the term from the John Waters movie “Pecker.”
October 26th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
i don’t think this means what she thinks it means http://bit.ly/XdNzx
October 26th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Anybody that uses this term to describe deficit / tax protesters can’t be taken seriously. They are just playing for media attention. Same shock effect used by unimaginative comedians.
I put them in the same category as the balloon family in CO. Media Wh*res.
Krugman has been playing to the crowd for a long while. He has jumped the shark.
October 26th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Barry,
They named themselves “teabaggers” when the “movement” first started. It was really comical to see all these well-to-do, faux populist white people using a word that they didn’t know meant something entirely different.
“Teabagger” is the name they have given themselves, and far be it for me to deny them their right to the name. =)
October 26th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
BR, what exactly do you mean or are you referring to when you use the word “extremist”? Does it have any meaning at all?
They named themselves “teabaggers” when the “movement” first started.
Actually, it was a term of abuse adopted by some of the media figures like Rachel Maddow who were trying to walk the fine line between covering the tea parties and dismissing them. The teabaggers then co-opted it as a kind of “wear the scarlet letter as a badge of honor” kind of thing.
October 26th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Mostly, I use the term extremist when referencing the “Keep the government out of medicare” type folk.
Perhaps clueless is a more accurate phrase.
October 26th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Rachel Maddow on MSNBC collected a number of quotes and video clips of Faux News Commentators using the phrase “teabagging,” before the real meaning of the term became widely known.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLsKt4O4Yw8&feature=player_embedded#
More proof:
April 1, 2009 | Tea Bag the Fools in D.C.
http://www.reteaparty.com/2009/02/27/rick-santelli-is-as-mad-as-hell-chicago-tea-party/
October 26th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
This anti-gobinment spending by a black democrat movement (I did not see them out there when Cheney was president) didn’t look things up in Wiki when they named themselves teabaggers, and I doubt Krugman and his editors looked it up (or knew its meaning) when they used the same term.
October 26th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
I prefer to just call them “idiots”.
October 26th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
it wouldn’t as funny if it weren’t the name they gave themselves. or use it in all the news fit to print.
October 26th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
— Saul Alinsky
OK, I get it. It’s a very funny joke. “Tea party” and “teabagging” both have the word “tea” in them — a witticism worthy of Oscar Wilde. Or at least worthy of our age’s eminent wit, CNN’s own Anderson Cooper. Maybe I’m the wrong guy to complain about this. After all, I made what little reputation I have by drinking while reading the news — and being more than a little dirty-minded about it all.
That said, the sexual innuendo isn’t — for once — what interests me. What is interesting is watching the teabagging meme take hold all across the left and even the mainstream media — and why it has.
Ridicule has long been a powerful propaganda tool. Ayn Rand noted just that in The Fountainhead, when villain Ellsworth Toohey explains that he would “Kill by laughter. … One doesn’t reverence with a giggle.” Professional rabble-rouser — er, “community organizer” — Saul Alinsky’s rule five was: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” And that’s exactly what we’re seeing on display all across the left side of the blogosphere and the MSM…”
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/media-hacks-sandbag-the-teabaggers/#
October 26th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
I think Dan Savage may have had a hand in this.
October 26th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
“faux populist white people”?
As opposed, I suppose, to the genuine establishmentarian black people?
Truly, they are the only ones that should be allowed an opinion in this republic.
October 26th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
uh oh, MEH said Ayn Rand
October 26th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
This anti-gobinment spending by a black democrat movement (I did not see them out there when Cheney was president)
A lot of these were the exact same people who flooded their Congressman’s offices with faxes and phone calls opposing the TARP, and nearly defeated it. So they were around before Obama. Bush only had a few months of winter left in office when the bailouts started to become egregious enough to get people out on the streets.
However, you are correct that there is little difference between Obama’s policies and those of the Bush administration.
Mostly, I use the term extremist when referencing the “Keep the government out of medicare” type folk.
Picking out the dumb ones (or letting Paul Krugman do that for you) is a neat trick, but opposition to further federal government involvement in health care is hardly an extremist position, given its track record of success since Medicare was passed. The vast majority of the people at the tea parties knew and understood that Medicare is a government program. Picking out the absolute dumbest ones is just a propaganda device.
October 26th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
@TC
Here’s a fun exercise I like to engage in when I watch coverage of public Teabagging events: Try to find anyone who isn’t A. White, or B. Over 50 years old (and not some poor kid forced to go by his/her parents).
It’s a blast!
October 26th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
>>A lot of these were the exact same people who flooded their Congressman’s offices with faxes and phone calls opposing the TARP, and nearly defeated it.<<
Finding their anti-gobinment-spending religion a few month before their (white, republican) guy is out of office anyway is not so impressive. Now if they had been out there teabagging Bush when he made his unfunded trillion dollar taxcuts, or his trillion dollar medicare drug coverage plan, or his unfunded trillion dollar wars, then I could take their concerns about the TARP and deficits serious. As it is now, the timing of their suddenly getting concerned, reveals a lot about the real motivations that drive these white right wing males. Put a white cap a confederate flag and "concerns" about "state's rights" on them and you have your mirror image of the same clowns from half a century ago.
~~~
BR: I have to admit, de dude abides . . .
October 26th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
@F411:
Jolly good fun, indeed, to paint caricatures and stereotypes of white people. And stereotypes do tell the tale, don’t they?
But remember, live by the sword, die by the sword. Notwithstanding half-white Obama’s election with a goodly portion of the vote of those over fifty and white, if they decide next time that he’s more half-black than half-white, well…whites still constitute about 3/4 of the voting-age population. It might be wise for your politicians to only secretly hold such views, even if those poor, backward, hopelessly mis-informed folks that built this country are still clinging to their guns and religion, and are apparently not wise to the subtle nuances of BDSM pornography.
October 26th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Tea party: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On73aHpgdSQ?
October 26th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Obama is black to black people, and colorless to most white people. kumbaya until Skip Gates, then a lot of whites who voted for him were so upset.
October 26th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
I once read a comment on a blog where they were referred to as, “far right, hard core, Republican Party, ball-licking skidmarks.”
And they wonder why blogs are so popular.
October 26th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Of course, I would never use such terminology.
October 26th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Sorry, the ? kills that… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On73aHpgdSQ
October 26th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Curmodgeon; I know the basic instinct of humans are triabal. But when my tribe (middle aged white males) makes total idiots out of themselves by suddenly getting all hot and protesty about government spending because Obama is in office (a few of them may have begun when it was obvious that he would win) -then I can only laugh at them. Where were their concerns and protest when Cheney passed billions in unfunded taxcuts, a billion in medicare expansion, and billions on unfunded wars. If you want to be taken serious you have to show a little consistency, not partisan hackmanship.
October 26th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
ahhh, reminds me of college basketball:
http://www.frumpzilla.com/image_gallery/DannyGreenTeaBag.jpg
October 26th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
M, the sheriff is near is also a classic. Blazing Saddles is a classic.
October 26th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
gregh, i think that teabagger is now the Syracuse QB
October 26th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
DeDude:
And yours is a valid attack on their opinions. It is not ad hominen, nor structured around their age or whiteness. I don’t particularly care for their arguments, but if Obama ignores their concerns, he does so at his own peril.
And for the record: We are all tribal. It is genetic. But we can rise above the tribal impulses…maybe, and even then, probably only sometimes. But it’s about time that we quit allowing every tribe but the white tribe to get away with acting on their tribal impulses. If this multi-hued, “diverse” (a loathesome word) culture is to survive, then either all get to act out their diversity, or none do.
October 26th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
An article like this diminishes the credibility of this blog. Hence the reason I will read CR all day but this blog I find myself frequenting less and less due to its left leaning political non-fact supporting articles like this one. I stopped krugman altogether. It is a waste of time to read unless you have facts. Calling names is child like. The Tea Party movement is a conservative movement.. It would be good to do a little research first.
Gallup Poll: Conservatives Maintain Edge as Top Ideological Group
http://www.gallup.com/poll/123854/Conservatives-Maintain-Edge-Top-Ideological-Group.aspx
October 26th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Triple C:
Really? I like CR, but its bone dry, with way too much cut & paste from the MSM.
TBP has wit and moxie and blood, and even when I disagree with Mr R., he at least makes me think.
Then again, I am older than most of the readers here. I find idealogues of all kinds to be worthless fools. I didn’t care for the leftists that took over in the ’60s; And I really disliked the clowns that ran Washington for the past 8 years who masqueraded as Conservatives — while the actual Conservatives enabled their reign of error.
Since you seem to be a big C conservative, you might be more comfortable with Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution or Megan McArdle at the Atlantic.
~~~
BR: The last two are big money losers !
October 26th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
BR said: “Mostly, I use the term extremist when referencing the “Keep the government out of medicare” type folk.
Perhaps clueless is a more accurate phrase.”
BR, surely you know that ignorance is the most mainstream trait in Amerika today. Please don’t lump us logical and well-studied extremists in with the common rube. It’s insulting to the extremist and gives the ignorant entirely too much credit.
October 26th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
etymology ?
That’s a fifty cent word!
October 26th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Here are some references to teabag and teabagging in this context…
2/27/2009 ‘teabag’
http://exiledonline.com/astroturf-revolution-dispatch-koch-activists-teabag-media/
4/15/2009 ‘teabaggers’
http://exiledonline.com/how-freedomworks-gave-the-teabaggers-a-dirty-sanchez/
BTW, Taibbi use to work with these guys.
– Ayn Rand noted just that in The Fountainhead, when villain Ellsworth Toohey explains that he would “Kill by laughter. … One doesn’t reverence with a giggle.”
I know Toohey was a villain in Ayn ‘Individualism is great unless you deviate from my sacred teachings*’ Rand’s book and sought to denigrate ideas Rand praised. However, as a general practice, why shouldn’t ridicule be used to destroy reverence of *bad* ideas?
* – See http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard23.html
October 26th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Intriguing. But, he is NOT the most interesting man in the world.
http://jessel.100megsfree3.com/paul-krugman.jpg
Stay thirsty my friends.
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2009/10/dumping-equities-to-support-bucky-and.html
October 26th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Krugman did indeed jump the shark a long time ago.
And, if I read him correctly, a summary of his article:
1) Teabaggers are crazy/extremists who are blocking efforts of reform because they don’t want to even try to reduce costs or provide coverage to lower income people who need it most
2) Teabaggers should take comfort that the Massachusetts plan has worked well!
3) Except that the Mass plan resulted in “lower-income workers still unable to afford necessary care”
4) and Except that “plan hasn’t yet done anything significant to contain costs”
5) Ooops.
October 26th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
yarbles,
see: Stephen Green writes, broadcasts, and enjoys the occasional lovely adult beverage at the home he shares with his wife and son in Monument, Colorado.
re: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/media-hacks-sandbag-the-teabaggers/#
for the record, as if it mattered, I’d take Rothbard, before Rand, in any Draft of cogent Intellectual Talent.
beyond, it is amazing how much energy gets poured into these diversions–if we could, only, harness them, we’d get the Mississippi to flow North..
October 26th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Wasn’t Krugman himself crying about Bush deficits few years ago.
Oh, how soon we forget…….
October 26th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Kort; I think you are reading Krugman like the devil would read the bible. His main conclusion is that the Mass plan fixed some but not all problems AND that after people see what it is (and realize no death panels, etc.), only a few remaining teabaggers want it repealed, the wast majority simply want the remaining problems solved instead.
October 26th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
madman130; the deficits under the Cheney administration were indeed outrageous. There is no excuse for “taxcut and deficit spending” in a growing economy. A lack of taxing all the way up to your spending is only justified if the economy is in a severe downturn (or coming out of one) and needs government to fill part of the hole left by destruction of aggregate demand from the private sector and consumers. During Bush the federal government had a record low in tax income as a % of GDP. His institution of “taxcut-and-spend-your-childrens-money” policies were immoral and seriously hampered out ability to deal with the economic crisis his reckless financial regulatory approaches created.
October 26th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Huh, huh… Yarbles said “teabagging.”
October 26th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Teabaggers have no defined set of principles. They are populists, ignorant and simple.
October 26th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
franklin411,
I get it, man. Not only are they white (LOL), but they’re also over 50 (ROFL!). Hilarious.
October 26th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
hue, yes he is. He still has trouble when the ball is coming at him that fast, can’t count the number of dropped snaps…
Its all about ball control.
October 26th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
I agree tax cuts without spending cuts is child’s game. That’s why I never really liked the pubies when they were in charge.
What about borrowing and spending? Is that what adults do?
October 26th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
@DeDude; that’s all good and fine but we are being told this reform will “not add 1 dime to the deficit” and that we need to provide coverage for the 46 million, er 31 million, er 16 million people. Krugman’s ending paragraphs point out: it’s not allowing for the coverage and costs are not contained. Mitt Romney…republican architect of the Mass Plan…will tell you, the costs are out of control and it’s not, exactly, working as intended. If, somehow, it’s great news that there isn’t a death panel or Mass residents don’t have to go to Canada/Cuba for a simple checkup, then let Palin or Limbaugh know since they make up that nonsense but lack of death panels means nothing if one thought it was all rubbage in the first place…on a facebook page…of a former governor…of what is, basically, a US National Park (sorry Alaskans)
A great piece on 60 Minutes last night on the $60B Medicare Fraud—that will be the next bubble once everybody is on it.
October 26th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Count me:
“Clueless Extremist”
Way to get the comments flowing, BR…
~~~
BR: I actually wrote Krugman, asking if he knew what the word meant, and how he got it past is editors.
The email was too good to waste, and hence this post.
October 26th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
bob, i wasn’t ridiculing him. not many people can play point at Duke and qb at the college level. would have been interesting to see him at Meeechigan under RichRod. or how good he can be with more than just one year.
madman, all the fed gov’t does is spend. when you cut taxes also, you worsens the deficit. supply side is a good theory, bad in practice.
October 26th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
madman130; the deficits under the Cheney administration were indeed outrageous. There is no excuse for “taxcut and deficit spending” in a growing economy.
When you look at the anemic job growth of the Bush years, one could easily make the argument from a Keynesian perspective that without the Bush-era deficit spending, the economy would have fallen into an unrecoverable spiral in 2002/2003. I won’t make that argument because I’m not a Keynesian, but there it is.
October 26th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
The finest documentary on the Teabag Evolution….or lack thereof.
Quote:
Man holding sign which says “Joe Wilson for President”
response: I don’t support Joe Wilson. Bwahahahahhahahaha
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUPMjC9mq5Y&feature=fvw
October 26th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
I get it, man. Not only are they white (LOL), but they’re also over 50 (ROFL!). Hilarious.
Thanks clawback, I get it now! LOLZOR!
October 26th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
The “teabag” thing started within their movement, when they started mailing in teabags to the whitehouse
http://www.reteaparty.com/2009/02/27/rick-santelli-is-as-mad-as-hell-chicago-tea-party/
And then there was that sign at one protest the liberal hucksters glommed onto that probably really started it, “Tea bag the liberal Dems before they tea bag you !!” The danger of homemade political propaganda I guess – it didn’t even call them islamofascist commies! Who invited that guy?
But the first time I heard of tea bags being mailed to congress was all the way back in the Spring of 2007. A story on The Hill quoted a Democratic aid in the House saying “If it means Democrats in Congress get tea bags and hate mail, so be it”, though the context there seemed be that s/he was expecting them from the party’s antiwar leftwing (http://www.ombwatch.org/node/7358).
I have no idea if mailing teabags to D.C. in any of these instances is supposed to invoke the licking of balls or be some sort of scrambled reference to the boston tea party (wouldn’t you throw your tea bag in the ocean instead of in the post?), but I do know that that David Schuster quote about how “if you are planning simultaneous tea bagging all around the country, you’re going to need a Dick Armey” was what made all the time, energy, and dedication that this great nation invested in the Tea Party protests a culturally profitable undertaking.
October 26th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Not to add fuel to this fire, or too much, but the name might be metaphorically accurate and a clear announcement of intentions. If anybody actually read the Wiki entry for example the teabaggers would be the dominants while the teabaggies (intentional pseudo-puns) are not. That would be the rest of us.
A metaphor about imposing your will thru violence on the majority might therefore be entirely an accurate description?
Give it some thought, picture it in your mind if you like ;-)
October 26th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
hue, you are of course right, how many people can put that on the resume? He’s using all of his eligibility to get something out of it, brilliantly.
October 26th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
– it is amazing how much energy gets poured into these diversions–if we could, only, harness them, we’d get the Mississippi to flow North..
OK, but I can’t resist one more diversion! I reread the Rothbard article I mention above and, because Rand’s bad-mouthing of ridicule was in the air, this part caught my eye…
“Wit and humor, as might be gathered from this incident, were verboten in the Randian movement. The philosophical rationale was that humor demonstrates that one “is not serious about one’s values.” The actual reason, of course, is that no cult can withstand the piercing and sobering effect, the sane perspective, provided by humor. One was permitted to sneer at one’s enemies, but that was the only humor allowed, if humor that be. ”
Rand obviously found ridicule threatening to her system and, thus, the system she created forbids it. What an authoritarian she was!
I say: “LONG LIVE RIDICULE!”
October 26th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
next topic forthcoming from BR-
“the salad tossers”
stay tuned
~~~
BR: How funny was Chris Rock’s “Toss My Salad” bit? Hilarious!
October 26th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
@ahab: LOL. Post of the day right there, maybe post of the week.
October 26th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
manny-
took me a while to get around today- that 2/100ths of a point loss to Cvienne last night sent me over the edge-
good thing there is no money on the line- or just may have gotten medieval on someone-
cv= 124.26
ahab=124.24
i was not a happy camper- especially after losing to you just a couple weeks ago- but even then- that was at least a whole point- not 100th’s of a point
October 26th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
@ahab: I didn’t notice that! Wow, that’s brutal. Looks like I have CNBCS beaten. We’ll see after tonight’s game though.
October 26th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Kort; as Krugman points out the first shot at it will not be a perfect solution to everything (as some proponents want us to believe), nor will it be the end of the world and beginning of world gobinment soci@lism enslaving all Americans (as some opponents want us to think). It will likely have some problems, and most people will want us to solve those problems within the framework created by the initial legislation. Just like Medicare/Medicaid, Capitalism, the military etc. etc.; always something to be fixed but we will not just scrap the whole thing.
October 26th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
“What about borrowing and spending? Is that what adults do?”
Yes that is exactly what adults do when the economy hits a severe resession. It is the only way to prevent a severe resession from turning into a free fall depression in a consumer driven economy. Spending drives the economy, and when the private sector fails the public sector steps in and pick up part of the slack.
“When you look at the anemic job growth of the Bush years, one could easily make the argument from a Keynesian perspective that without the Bush-era deficit spending, the economy would have fallen into an unrecoverable spiral in 2002/2003”
Yes, and if Bush had made THAT argument when he cut taxes and increased spending he would at least have looked honest. Indeed, if his taxcuts to stimulate the economy had been short-term (not 10-year structural deficits) even his woo-doo-nomics arguments would have looked honest (still ridiculos and wrong, but at least honest). If those policies had been short-term and had failed, we would not have had the boubles (rich people would not have had all that play-money created by cutting their taxes and boubing up their assets) – and no financial colopse at the end of his presidency.
October 26th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
If those policies had been short-term and had failed, we would not have had the boubles (rich people would not have had all that play-money created by cutting their taxes and boubing up their assets) – and no financial colopse at the end of his presidency.
Actually, the more Keynesian-esque conclusion would be that Bush’s didn’t deficit spend *enough*, since any economic weakness is de facto proof of the failure to sufficiently balloon public expenditures.
October 26th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
“Keynesian-esque conclusion would be that Bush’s didn’t deficit spend *enough*, since any economic weakness is de facto proof of the failure to sufficiently balloon public expenditures”
According to you and what other Keynesian?
I guess you are reading Keynes like the devil reads the bible and Kort reads Krugman.
October 26th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
“According to you and what other Keynesian?”
Maybe he’s thinking of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Keynesianism
October 26th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
My my my, look at all the folks supporting teabagging… It’s kind of hilarious when you think of it, the same anti-gay close minded selfish aging middle aged baby boomers who have had their way all their lives are teabagging their way into history.
They should submit to the tax now, rather as their numbers dwindle, and their voting power declines, those left alive will be taxed harshly and retroactively.
October 26th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Keynes methods were only to be applied during a severe economic downturn (severe, not the puny little contraction Bush inherited from the tailend of the Clinton boom-years and Clinton’s initiation of paying down the national debt). Only to be used if you have a severe fall in aggregate demand driven by reduced spending by consumers and the private sector.
What Keynes suggested was that a severe resession could not be corrected by the market forced, because unemployment would feed a reduction in purchases of goods, leading to factories closing, leading to more unemployment etc. etc. until huge amounts of personal and private sector assets had been destroyed (and the industrial economy would have to be rebuild). The GDP would be reduced to the size several decades previously and it would take several decades to get back to the original GDP (basically you would be starting all over again). In contrast to the Chicago school of WooDooNomics he realized that the deeper you fall the longer it takes to get back (there is no magic “the-deeper-you-fall-the-faster-you-bounce-back” soccer-ball magic effecs in the real world). Organic growth doesn’t go any faster just because it starts from a lower level; and destroyed assets (like abandoned factories) will have to be build back up with the proceeds from organic economic growth.
So Keynes suggested that the correct response to a severe resession was to let government stop the downward spiral by replacing part of the disappeared private sector spending with government spending – and since tax increases would be counterproductive in a falling economy, let most of the spending be deficit spending. If you can stop the GDP fall at a 5% loss rather than letting it play itself out and end with a >25% GDP loss agrarian society, the taxable base would be so much bigger that even after paying back the deficit spending, everybody would come out ahead. So far the Keynes approaches have succeeded as spectacularly as the Chicago schools approaches have failed.
October 26th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
bob, he needs to put it on his resume to get a job. Wall Street? maybe a decade ago. he will not be playing pro sports unfortunately.
October 26th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
You might be a teabagger if . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XivhwO_zWWg&feature=player_embedded#
October 26th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
@MEH — I never quite understood (nor supported) Rynd’s alleged disdain for humor. But after the 100,000,000,000th “Bush Is Dumb” joke (and your post), I’m starting to see what she was on about.
~~~
BR: I don’t think Bush was dumb, but he was rather incompetent . . .
October 26th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
DeDude,
You’ve got the Krugman/DeLong version of Keynes down pat, but in The General Theory, Keynes advocated controlling investment so that surpluses are built up in good times and then spent during down times. The idea that we borrow from the future is an unfortunate development. For one thing, we don’t know whether it’s better to borrow and “stimulate” or not. The Keynesians always talk about idle factories and whatnot, but do we really need to fiscally stimulate 9,000 Cold Stone Creameries or Flo’s Nail Salons? What are the opportunity costs? We just don’t know. Also, the idea about getting “back” to some earlier level of GDP — what if that level of GDP had been fuelled by borrowing several times current GDP. Is that “normal”? Forget Chicago school by the way — what about Boettke and Steve Horwitz or Rothbard? Krugman, DeLong, et al. have never refuted their arguments on the business cycle and depressions.
October 26th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
clawback; I agree that the idea of having build up surpluses ready for the bad times, rather than borrowing from the future is preferable. I considered Cheney’s “giving back the surplus” to the taxpayers argument a joke that wasn’t funny; given the 5 trillion dollar national debt and tens of trillions of uncovered social security/medicare liabilities. I don’t think stimulus should be given to any and all kinds of business, or “dig a hole – fill a hole” types of projects. It should be targeted at things that are investments in the future. Research, education and infrastructure are my favorite stimulus targets. Taxcuts as “stimulus” are for the most part a joke (except for spending incentives), since we all know that in bad times people and businesses will use taxcuts to save or pay down debt, so they have zero stimulation effects. We always want to get back to a previous GDP and past it unless we give up the idea of economic (and wealth) growth. I agree it takes a lot longer if that growth was mainly build on consumption via debt rather than consumption via wage increases in the consumer class. After the last decades absurd tilting of wealth increases towards the investor class we have to find a way to take money away from them (to prevent more boubleomics “miracles”) and give it to the consumer class (to create real sustainable growth). The best tool for that is taxes; and as a bonus we may be able to pay down the national debt.
October 26th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
intentional misunderstanding and distortion of a set of ideas or feelings of those we disagree is certainly my definition of evil ..because it destroys the opportunity for intelligent outcomes… wether it be Ayn Rand, Saul Alinsky, Teabaggers, Rush, Moveon, Democrats or Republicans … is this a blog of intelligence? …those who do this just add to the noise and poison the debate
October 26th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Exposing The Rightwing PR Machine: Is CNBC’s Rick Santelli Sucking Koch?
http://exiledonline.com/exposing-the-familiar-rightwing-pr-machine-is-cnbcs-rick-santelli-sucking-koch/
Last week, CNBC correspondent Rick Santelli rocketed from being a little-known second-string correspondent to a populist hero of the disenfranchised, a 21st-century Samuel Adams, the leader and symbol of the downtrodden American masses suffering under the onslaught of 21st century socialism and big government. Santelli’s “rant” last-week calling for a “Chicago Tea Party” to protest President Obama’s plans to help distressed American homeowners rapidly spread across the blogosphere and shot right up into White House spokesman Robert Gibbs’ craw, whose smackdown during a press conference was later characterized by Santelli as “a threat” from the White House. A nationwide “tea party” grassroots Internet protest movement has sprung up seemingly spontaneously, all inspired by Santelli, with rallies planned today in cities from coast to coast to protest against Obama’s economic policies.
But was Santelli’s rant really so spontaneous? How did a minor-league TV figure, whose contract with CNBC is due this summer, get so quickly launched into a nationwide rightwing blog sensation? Why were there so many sites and organizations online and live within minutes or hours after his rant, leading to a nationwide protest just a week after his rant?
What hasn’t been reported until now is evidence linking Santelli’s “tea party” rant with some very familiar names in the Republican rightwing machine, from PR operatives who specialize in imitation-grassroots PR campaigns (called “astroturfing”) to bigwig politicians and notorious billionaire funders. As veteran Russia reporters, both of us spent years watching the Kremlin use fake grassroots movements to influence and control the political landscape. To us, the uncanny speed and direction the movement took and the players involved in promoting it had a strangely forced quality to it. If it seemed scripted, that’s because it was.
What we discovered is that Santelli’s “rant” was not at all spontaneous as his alleged fans claim, but rather it was a carefully-planned trigger for the anti-Obama campaign. In PR terms, his February 19th call for a “Chicago Tea Party” was the launch event of a carefully organized and sophisticated PR campaign, one in which Santelli served as a frontman, using the CNBC airwaves for publicity, for the some of the craziest and sleaziest rightwing oligarch clans this country has ever produced. Namely, the Koch family, the multibilllionaire owners of the largest private corporation in America, and funders of scores of rightwing thinktanks and advocacy groups, from the Cato Institute and Reason Magazine to FreedomWorks. The scion of the Koch family, Fred Koch, was a co-founder of the notorious extremist-rightwing John Birch Society.
As you read this, Big Business is pouring tens of millions of dollars into their media machines in order to destroy just about every economic campaign promise Obama has made, as reported recently in the Wall Street Journal. At stake isn’t the little guy’s fight against big government, as Santelli and his bot-supporters claim, but rather the “upper 2 percent”’s war to protect their wealth from the Obama Adminstration’s economic plans. When this Santelli “grassroots” campaign is peeled open, what’s revealed is a glimpse of what is ahead and what is bound to be a hallmark of his presidency.
October 26th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Is that really Mark Ames who just posted? I would hope not, because much of what he writes in that article has been disproven (and he’s admitted to some of it). For example, my friend at The Daily Bail was accused of being part of the “astro-turf” based on ZERO evidence. You can read about it here:
http://dailybail.com/home/the-mother-of-all-irony-playboy-magazine-targets-the-daily-b.html
I don’t know who’s dredging up this slip-shod Mark Ames piece (who does good work from time to time), but it’s really not helpful to a real debate about the Tea Party movement and the various groups involved in it.
October 26th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Hey check out these racist rednecks from Vermont (I’m kidding). Notice how the woman speaking blames Republicans and Democrats, quotes Jefferson, and says our fiscal problems have been building for a “long time” (i.e. before Obama) (c. 2:10). I don’t know why Barry and others want to believe that everyone who protested our fiscal insanity is a nutjob.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_owXA9bKtE
BTW, the footage here is taken by a well-known Burlington-area Democrat who supports Obama like you wouldn’t believe. (Crazy Vermonters, being civil to each other and all.)
October 26th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
More crazy racist rednecks from Bowling Green, KY. (Kidding again.) Both the Bowling Green and Burlington Tea Parties declined to allow politicians of either party speak unless they were against the bailouts and the stimulus bill. Burlington refused to allow the College Republicans from UVM be a part of their event. And if you check out Bowling Green’s yahoo message board thingie, it was totally grass roots — like, who’s going to pick up the trash?, who’s going to make the potato salad?, and are we going to let Republican politicians crash our party? (NO!). Obviously there was some astroturf going on, but it’s impossible to write the whole movement off as that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu9fl-8WBi8 (esp. around 2:15)
October 26th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Actually, I think Krugman just picked up on that from the blogosphere, like others, and he’s ignorant of what the term actually means.
October 27th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
“Mostly, I use the term extremist when referencing the “Keep the government out of medicare” type folk.
Perhaps clueless is a more accurate phrase.”
Apparently ridiculing the white middle class worker bleating about his/her crumbling world is de rigueur these days. Lesson learned from the post and reading these enlightended comments: a protest not stated with the eloquence and tact of a considered Harvard grad, is invalid, and any reasons behind the raised voices it are therefore deemed invisible and unworthy of serious contemplation.
I find that rather….unfortunate. For all parties involved. Kill the messengers if you will, but ignore the underlying message at your peril.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
hi lug ..if thats you ..the lug I know..lol
October 27th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Heh. Yeah it probably is ;)
October 27th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
I hate to say it but the rampant stupidity of these comments is disappointing. Blame Bush. Blame Obama. Blame the Baby Boomers. Blah, blah, it’s your fault…ad nauseam with the bickering meanwhile Rome continues to burn. Conservatism = conserve the U.S. Constitution. End the blind allegiance to political parties. Sorry for the rant Barry.