Posts tagged “tea party”
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New review of Brian Kahn’s Real Common Sense at Publisher’s Weekly
March 2, 2011
“Well-intentioned reflection on what it means to be a citizen in today’s imperfect America”—Publishers Weekly
Tags: American values, brian kahn, democracy, politics, progressive, publishers weekly, real common sense, right wing, tea party
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Meet a Visiting Cartoonist: A Chat with Ted Rall
September 29, 2010
Ted Rall shares his experience in Afghanistan and discusses the purpose of his book in this brief interview with Mike Rhode from WashingtonCityPaper.com. He talks politics, targets the most severe problems for the American worker and the average citizen, and blames backwards American Capitalism for deliberately making America poorer. What can and should Americans do, according to Rall? Overthrow the government and start anew. As he says in the article, “We can overthrow the system that is abusing us and replace it with something better.”
Tags: afghanistan, busboys and poets, democracy, editorial cartoons, Future of the Left, kickstarter, left wing, revolution, right wing, tea party, ted rall
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Ted Rall: Protofascism comes to America
July 22, 2010
Robert O. Paxton defined fascism as “a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”
Typical Tea Party rants fit the classic fascist mold in several respects. America, Tea Partiers complain, is falling behind. Like Hitler, they blame leftists and liberals for a “stab in the back,” treason on the homefront. The trappings of hypernationalism—flags, bunting, etc.—are notably pervasive at Tea Party rallies, even by American standards. We see “collaboration with traditional elites”—Rush Limbaugh, Congressmen, Republican Party bigwigs (including the most recent vice presidential nominee)—to an extent that is unprecedented in recent history.
Tea Partiers haven’t called for extralegal solutions to the problems they cite—but neither did the National Socialists prior to 1933. Then again, they’re not in power yet. Wait. —Ted Rall at altweeklies.com
Tags: anti-american manifesto, articles, current events, fascism, politics/government, tea party, ted rall
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Noam Chomsky warns about serious possibility of fascism in America
April 16, 2010
“Ridiculing the tea party shenanigans is a serious error,” Chomsky said. … “The colossal toll of the institutional crimes of state capitalism” is what is fueling “the indignation and rage of those cast aside. People want some answers. … They are hearing answers from only one place: Fox, talk radio, and Sarah Palin.”
Chomsky invoked Germany during the Weimar Republic, and drew a parallel between it and the United States. “The Weimar Republic was the peak of Western civilization and was regarded as a model of democracy,” he said. And he stressed how quickly things deteriorated there. “In 1928 the Nazis had less than 2 percent of the vote,” he said. “Two years later, millions supported them. The public got tired of the incessant wrangling, and the service to the powerful, and the failure of those in power to deal with their grievances.” — The Progressive
Tags: articles, matt rothschild, noam chomsky, progressive, tea party
