Audaciously Brazen (Part Three)

(Note:  This is the third and final segment in a three part series under the general heading of Recent Currents: From the "Tea Party" to the 2012 Election.  Click here to view the first segment and second segment.)

What will be the primary features of life among the ordinary following a Teavangelical victory in the 2012 presidential election?  What are the critical flaws in their ambition to amass material wealth?  Is there any room for tolerance and inclusion?  Or is opposition to Obamacare but a smokescreen for other  unreasonable sentiments?

The election of 2012 contains enormous implications for ordinary citizens.  Should the Teavangelicals be permitted to run their play unimpeded, what ordinary citizens may experience is the real agenda, designed to “repeal” virtually every aspect of F.D.R.’s New Deal social order.  It is a huge undertaking, understood to be a reverse social engineering project of revolutionary magnitude.  And “replace” with what?

The real “Teavangelical” agenda appears to begin and end with the same basic principle.  It envisions an unregulated system of capitalism with a select few individuals sitting atop.  This is coupled with a strong national military to facilitate the transportation of goods and services and to protect investments in furtherance thereof.  Period.  The social safety net is effectively eliminated.  It’s every man for himself in a land where every man is slave to a wealthy few.

It is big government, Tea Party style.  Unfortunately, it is best suited to serve the occasional rich man who lives on an exclusive island than the masses of ordinary citizens who live in an inclusive democracy.  It is a bridge to the past, genuflecting before the foot of that runner who has already crossed the finish line, while the masses of ordinary citizens remain tethered to the starting block.  And coming as it does less than a handful of years following the failed priorities of the Neocons, attempting to target and obstruct the Obama administration as the scapegoat, the agenda is audaciously brazen.

In what is seen as an increasingly narrow vision of the democratic ideal, the theory of American capitalism favors materialism and material accomplishment first and foremost.  To protect material interests, it champions the legal protection of property rights, corporate and special interests over the interests of human welfare.  It also tends to favor the cementing of private material gains in perpetuity. This gradually and unacceptably concentrates equality of opportunity which is supposed to be available to all citizens into the hands of fewer and fewer individual beneficiaries of special privilege.

Over the succeeding generations, the present rules of the game have been utilized to create a class of numerically small but extremely wealthy conservative citizens which today we call Teavangelicals.  If the rules can never be modified to correct inequities by the very same government that created those rules, the formula will continue to favor growing economic disparity and class division.

And so it is little wonder as to why the Teavangelical platform wants less government.  When government attempts in good faith to call a foul and change the rules, government is portrayed as the evil.  Finally, claiming the moral high ground, it is said that both the existing plan and its material beneficiaries have the blessing of God.  Therefore, no effective impediment can be placed in their path.  Their victory is complete.

But the argument is sophistry, since the Teavangelical agenda contains at least two critical flaws.  First, any platform which favors property rights over human welfare by definition fails the basic litmus test of adherence to the disinterested ethical obligation to serve others before self.  Teavangelicals are unable to effectively reconcile that a Christian God, in fact, appears to advance quite the opposite claim.  And secondly, the main interest which binds Teavangelicals together is selfishness.  So when they are attacked, they divide their energies into individual fits of independent, self-possessed despotism and are thereby degraded.

On occasion, a situation occurs which provides a glimpse of what American society might look like in a future world where ordinary citizens live in perpetual subjugation to their Teavangelical “brethren.”  Might a bit of room be allotted for tolerance and inclusion in the rich man’s continuing obsession to acquire even greater material wealth? [i]  Don’t count on it.

A final story may best serve to illustrate.  Angry over the proposed national health care bill prior to its passage, some demonstrators, mostly Tea Party activists outside the US Capitol shouted “nigger” at US Rep. John Lewis, D-GA, civil rights icon.  Lewis was nearly beaten to death during an Alabama civil rights march in the 1960s.  The protesters also shouted obscenities at other members of the Congressional Black Caucus, lawmakers said.  “They were shouting, sort of harassing,” Lewis said.  “But, it’s okay, I’ve faced this before.  It reminded me of the ‘60s.  It was a lot of downright hate and anger and people being downright mean.”

But it didn’t stop with racism.  Protestors also used a slur as they confronted US Rep. Barney Frank, D-MA, an openly gay member of Congress (Frank also happens to be left handed and Jewish).  A writer for the Huffington Post said the crowd called Frank a “faggot.”  Frank told the Boston Globe that the incident happened as he was walking from the Longworth office building to the Rayburn office building, both a short distance from the US Capitol.  Frank said the crowd consisted of a couple of hundred people and that they referred to him as “homo.”

Frank told the Globe:

I’m disappointed with the unwillingness to be civil.  I was, I guess, surprised by the rancor.  What it means is obviously the health care bill is proxy for a lot of other sentiments, some of which are perfectly reasonable, but some of which are not.

The challenge of ordinary citizens, then, is to be a proponent of progressive ideas to improve our democratic ideal, regardless of the politics, regardless of the political party.  This means striving toward that elusive goal of achieving meaningful equality of opportunity for all citizens, not just the wealthy or privileged few.

-Michael D’Angelo

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[i]  “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” – Matthew 19:24; Mark 10:25; Luke 18:25.

        How might billionaire individuals such as Rupert Murdoch and the Koch brothers attempt to justify their conduct alongside this particular Biblical quotation?  Each man is understood to be among the richest known men in the world.
        Murdoch is the Australian American global media baron and the Chairman and CEO of News Corporation, the world's second-largest media conglomerate.  In 1953, Murdoch became managing director of News Limited, inherited from his father.  He acquired troubled newspapers in Australia and New Zealand during the 1950s and 1960s, before expanding into the UK in 1969.  He moved to New York in 1974, expanding into the US market, and became a US citizen in 1985.  By 2000 News Corporation owned over 800 companies in more than 50 countries with a net worth of over $5 billion.

        Murdoch has been listed three times in the Time 100 as among the most influential people in the world.  He is ranked as the 13th most powerful person in the world in The World's Most Powerful People list, published by Forbes in 2010, with a personal net worth of $7.6 Billion.

         In July 2011 Murdoch faced allegations that his companies had been regularly engaged in the illegal practice of hacking the phones of private citizens, including the cell phones of deceased victims of “9/11”.  He also faces police and government investigations into bribery and corruption in the UK and FBI investigations in the US.

         The Koch (pronounced coke) family is most notable for control of Koch Industries, the second largest privately owned company in the US.  Fred C. Koch was born in Texas, the son of a Dutch immigrant.  He started the family business in the 1920s, developing a new method for refining heavy oil into gasoline.  In 1927, Koch developed a more efficient thermal "cracking" process for turning crude oil into gasoline.  This process led to bigger yields, higher octane and helped smaller, independent oil companies compete.  The larger oil companies filed some 44 different lawsuits against Koch, Koch winning all but one.  That verdict was later overturned when it was revealed that the judge had been bribed.

     The Koch brothers, David H. and Charles G., R are two of four sons of inherited wealth who have funded  conservative and libertarian policy and advocacy groups in the US.  The Koch family foundations have given more than $100 million to think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute, as well as more recently Americans for Prosperity.  Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works are Koch-linked organizations that have been involved in the Tea Party movement.

What Does the "Tea Party" Really Want? (Part Two)

(Note:  This is the second segment in a three part series under the general heading of Recent Currents: From the "Tea Party" to the 2012 Election.  Click here to view the first segment.)

What does the Tea Party really want?  Is it just about making a case for a smaller federal government?  Or is there more to it than that?  Does the movement have a real, unstated agenda, which is a poorly kept secret?

Many ordinary citizens would sleep much better at night were they to understand that the Tea Party movement was just about cutting federal spending and the size of the federal government.  Interestingly, the Tea Party’s stated platform sounds quite similar to the Bush/“43” agenda for compassionate conservatism at its inception.  Which, given how that particular political movement turned out, should give ordinary citizens pause.

Some current events may present ordinary citizens with but a hint of what the Tea Party really wants.  One example, in particular, is informative.  In the words of Lindsay Graham, the respected moderate US Senator, R-SC, known for crossing political lines to get things done:

'Everything I’m doing now in terms of talking about climate, talking about immigration, talking about Gitmo is completely opposite of where the Tea Party movement’s at.'  …  On four occasions, Graham met with Tea Party groups.  The first, in his Senate office, was 'very, very contentious,' he recalled.  During a later meeting, in Charleston, Graham said he challenged them: 'What do you want to do?  You take back your country --- and do what with it?  …  Everybody went from being kind of hostile to just dead silent.'

Another example, subtle as it may be, consists of the present movement among some Republican members in Congress to eliminate funding for National Public Radio (NPR).  Congress had passed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which then-President Lyndon Johnson signed into law, creating NPR.  Millions of listeners have come to rely upon NPR, which receives about $90 million in federal funding annually.  But the Congressional Budget Office calculated that the net savings from defunding the network would be zero.  Some say the proposed legislation is no more than an ideological attack on public radio, masquerading as a fiscal issue.  For it is well known that Republicans have long been critical of public broadcasting and accuse it of having a liberal bias.

In a final example, in working towards final passage of the new national health insurance law, President Obama had said that all options were on the table, except the status quo, which was no longer working.  And as the president had said, Republicans simply offering to do “nothing” was indefensible.  Since the system was in need of reform, it was the correct approach.  Against the advice of many experts, including some of his own personal advisers, the president braved great political risk, continuing to push the issue.  His own perseverance was rewarded.  In March 2010 a triumphant President Obama signed into law his landmark national health care overhaul, saying it enshrined “the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their health care.”  The passage of this signature legislation had escaped every American leader that has tackled the issue dating back to T.R. more than 100 years ago.

While much of the new law is still unclear, ordinary citizens are made to understand that the main benefits of the law are not designed to kick in until 2014, after the upcoming 2012 presidential election.  Among the important benefits include the elimination of an insurance company’s previous right to deny coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions, the ability of a child to remain on his or her parents’ family insurance plan to age 26, and documented cost savings of $1.3 Trillion spread over a 20 year period, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (as compared to an “alternative” model where “nothing” was done).

Republicans and Tea Party activists nonetheless want to “repeal and replace” the law, believing, rightly or wrongly, that their success in the 2010 midterm elections was a mandate to do so.  But, when asked what their “replace” law should look like, they can cite no additional benefits which the new law does not already contain.  They are completely lacking on specifics.

There are yet other examples of what appears to be a secret, hidden agenda: from union stripping bills through the elimination of the right to collective bargaining; to attempts to “privatize” Medicare; to restricting access to the voting booth to those with a valid driver’s license or state picture ID card on the guise of a disingenuous claim of previous voter fraud (designed to make it harder for students, the sick and disabled, people of color, all of whom typically vote the Democratic ticket); to making it difficult if not impossible for a woman to get a legal abortion; to implementing mandatory drug tests for citizens receiving public assistance; to opposing same sex marriage laws; to declaring war on the EPA and the provisions of the Clean Water Act.

These examples may provide but a preview of the real agenda.  The results of the 2010 midterm elections are perhaps best viewed in the context of a play in a football game where an offensive lineman moves before the ball is snapped.  The official throws the yellow penalty flag, blows the whistle and a false start is enforced.  The offense re-huddles.  When it re-sets at the line of scrimmage, meanwhile, the play formation itself does not change.  It consists of a moral agenda, so indicative of the Neocon religious movement which appears to have effectively infiltrated the Tea Party.  The two ideological cousins, the evangelicals and the Tea Party, seem to have fused into a new force which may be more appropriately described as the “Teavangelicals.”

The 2012 presidential election represents the actual play that will be run.  Will ordinary citizens allow the Teavangelicals to advance?  Or will the Teavangelicals be stuffed at the line, turned back and thrown for a loss?

(The third and final segment in this three part series contemplates the primary features of life among the ordinary following a Teavangelical victory in the 2012 presidential election.)

-Michael D’Angelo