Me And Some Little Old Ladies In Tennis Shoes, We're Havin' A (Tea) Party

The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan reveals who the Tea Party activists really are:  they aren't Independent at all, they are actually conservative Republicans.  To quote Sullivan, "Duh!"  But just to avoid stereotyping, seriously, who are they really?  Sullivan bases his "duh" on this survey done by the Public Religion Research Institute which is currently making the rounds.  Survey data says that those who identify with the Tea Party movement are "more likely to be non-Hispanic white, are more supportive of small government, are overwhelmingly supportive of Sarah Palin, and report that Fox News is their most trusted source of news about politics and current events."  OK, we knew that too, but it gets better.  81% identify as Christian and 57% identify as Christian conservative; they make up 11% of the adult population nationally, and identify -- either loosely or strongly -- with the Republican party.

Still haven't told you anything you don't know? You are asking why this survey is news and why Brokeback Journalist thought it was worthy of extended comment? Well here's something you don't know then.  Peter Galuszka, who blogs at Bacon's Rebellion, but is today blogging for WaPo, claims that the Virginia Tea Party is the best organized and fastest growing in the country at 30 chapters and 8,000 members.  But this is good news, because the movement would have to grow a lot faster in four weeks to throw an election that Obama and the Dems are not poised to lose already for having governed as the centrists in liberal clothing they have been since the Carter administration.  According to the State of Virginia's official county-by-county figures, there are 5,020,225 voters registered in that state, making Tea Party voters, even if they all turn out and vote twice, less of a factor than your average haul of spoiled ballots.

Of course, nationwide it is estimated that 3 million registered voters are actually dead, which is kind of interesting if you think about it too.  Blog that one, suckah!

So why do we talk about the Tea Party all the time if they represent such a small fraction of our political public?  Could it be because the major Tea Party funding organizations are actually run by professional politicians like former California State Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian and former Majority Leader Dick Armey of FreedomWorks, experienced operators who are playing insider style dirty-tricks politics and masquerading as outsiders? Could it be the corporate funding (the Sarah Scaife Foundation, a branch of the Mellon fortune, is in for more than $2.5 million to date)? Could it be that both the Republican and the Democratic parties have a vested interest in voters not scrutinizing too closely the economy they have collaborated in wrecking with war and deregulation?  Can it be that the Tea Party is pretty insignificant, that the media has forgotten how to do real political reporting, and that some of the newer electronic media outlets never learned to report a political story in the first place?

We can haz spellcheck? Hat Tip.

The paucity of real political news seems like a point of entry for any analysis:  look at what gets printed, and you've got to wonder why.  Under the headline "Pallone  Trying to Hold Off Anna Little," we discover that Representative Frank Pallone (D-NJ) has a 12 point lead in New Jersey's 6th, and that Little, a Sarah Palin wannabe, actually has "very little chance" of winning the election. In other words, it isn't the desperate struggle the headline implies.  Similarly, according to the Anchorage Daily News, a California Tea Party group claims to have raised $35,000 in a two hour telethon for Joe Miller, running for a Senate seat in Alaska, but that is a far cry from the $550,000 that Tea Party Express spent on the primary, so someone's got to ask the question:  "Who cares?"  A group of nuns running a radiothon could raise $35,000 for Haiti in two hours too, while Public Television raises $12,000 in a ten-minute break from the Lehrer News Hour.  Miller, you may recall, upset Republican "normal" Lisa Murkowski in the primary.  Murkowski is running as a write-in candidate (hey, it worked for Republican -- er, I mean, Democrat Joe Lieberman in the Big Nutmeg.)

But you gotta love Christine O'Donnell's new ad, "I'm not a witch -- I'm you,"which unfortunately refuses to embed properly here (perhaps an oblique message that she is not "embed" with the old-style Washington politicians.)    This strategy opens the door to all kinds of inventive political ads:  for Charles Rangle, "I'm not a tax cheat -- I'm you;" for Jim DeMint, "I'm not a homophobe -- I'm you;" and while we're at it, let's run Robert Byrd in West Virginia:  "I'm not dead -- I'm you!"  I bet the Dems would take that seat!

But why should the little old ladies in tennis shoes  at the Scaife Foundation stop at the Senate?  Robert John Burck, otherwise known as Times Square's Naked Cowboy, is running for President in 2012 as -- you guessed it!  A Tea Party candidate.  At a press conference today with First Lady hopeful Cynthia Fox at his side, Burck avowed that the Tea Party was "the only legitimate grassroots movement in politics."  DNAinfo reports that at a press conference today a fully dressed Burck claimed he will throw himself into his campaign full bore, however despite his sincerity the "announcement was greeted with a range of indifference to outright hostility from those at the press conference, including one reporter who asked him if he was wearing a codpiece in his pants."

There's the liberal press for you:  always trying to divert us from the real issues.

Sunday Radical Roundup: From The Sublime To The Ridiculous

OK, it's senior honors thesis week, so you cannot really expect much. Thanks to the East of California List Serve I have some real news, and the rest is just grab-bag city.

Fabulous In All Ways: CFP of the Week. "Consuming Asian America," 2011 Association for Asian American Studies Conference, New Orleans, Louisiana, May 18-21, 2011.

The theme for the 2011 AAAS conference “Consuming Asian America” is inspired, in part, by the site of the conference itself—New Orleans, the city that measures the success of its Mardi Gras celebration by weighing the garbage collected the morning after and whose shopping and nightclub district for locals is called “Fat City.” We invite proposals to engage with all aspects of consumption, such as excess (after all, New Orlean’s tradition of Mardi Gras suggests an excess of consumption), labor material culture, technology, marketing, identity, assimilation, gender, popular culture, religion, music, or tourism.

The title “Consuming Asian America” has a double sense, referring both to the consumption performed by Asian Americans and the consumption of objects, people, and practices that are marked as Asian American. We are interested in the material practices, actions, and cultures of different versions of the consumer, such as eating, buying, viewing, as well as the larger metaphor of consumption.

For example, proposals might examine the material reality of food and its cultivation, production, labor, and marketing: agribusiness, the restaurant industry, our current fascination with television food shows or “authentic” ethnic eating. Others might examine consumption, purchasing, and power by examining chains of production, from the unseen labor of overseas and domestic Asian workers to how the advertising of various products specifically employs or ignores Asian and Asian American bodies. This topic also encompasses the widespread consumption of goods and services identified as Asian or Asian American. These might include religious iconography, such as Mehndi and the Buddha, artistic traditions such as haiku, martial arts, or manga), or language and writing, such as Chinese writing in keychains, home decor, and body art. Consumption also can be thought of as a means of absorbing, reformulating, or challenging culture through various technologies: how images of Asians, from the yellow peril to the model minority have been circulated and consumed by a multi-racial America, and how one might control or resist the consumption of Asian America.

This is the first time AAAS will meet in New Orleans. Accordingly, we are interested in the ways in which New Orleans (and the Gulf Coast more broadly) has been the object of consumption post-Katrina, as well as the relative invisibility of Asian Americans in the public attention following the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. How might this conference steer us away from being unthinking consumers of New Orleans culture and instead engage us with the possibilities of critical activism?

Submissions due by Monday, November 1, 2010: submit online here Hat tip.

Job of the Week: Who says the job season is over? "The 4th Psychological Operations Group is seeking highly qualified applicants for a two-year (renewable for up to 3 years) Intelligence Analyst position focused on the eastern Black Sea/ South Caucasus region. Work with other civilian specialists conducting research and writing 20-40 page studies, work closely with U.S. and possibly foreign military personnel, travel within the United States and abroad in order to conduct research and support military operations. A strong background in study and research of the history, politics, and culture of the region of specialization is required. Prior residence in the region of specialization is extremely desirable." Must be a U.S. citizen and be able to obtain and keep a SECRET level security clearance." Oh yes -- must speak Armenian, Azerbaijani, Georgian, Kurdish, or Turkish. Russian is acceptable, but only if you are really, really good.

Otherwise, there are really no jobs this week.

Hip-Hop Artists Of The Week: Have you ever wondered what it would be like for a Tea Party Rally to feature a white, anti-tax rap group? Thanks to We Are Respectable Negroes now you know!

Sunday Radical Roundup: Death, Taxes and Homocons

The Only One Missing Is The Mad Hatter: Today's front page story in the New York Times on Tea Party activists reveals what we already suspected: that many of its leading activists are comfortably unemployed. Many key players at the local level are older people of retirement age who are supporting themselves on Social Security and Medicare: one actually retired so that she could pursue her activism full-time. This is why they are able to dedicate themselves to running off at the drop of a hat to make signs or protest the extension of health care to younger people who have failed to exercise the responsibility to stay, or be, employed at the jobs that would give them access to affordable insurance. Because they have already paid into these big government entitlement programs, senior activists explain, "they are getting what they deserve." Hoo-hah!

But it's still big government, right? So some people deserve services from big government and others don't? How about the people who have paid into Medicare who are undocumented immigrants? Or the 11.5 million people who have paid into unemployment for their whole lives whose benefits and COBRA will run out on April 5 because Republicans, led by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla) are blocking an emergency spending bill (as the US spends $720 million per day on the war.)

Well yes, it's all big government. The maintenance of rest stops on the highway is also a function of big government, one that probably costs less than about a half day of war. In a bell weather move, the Arizona Department of Transportation -- starved of money by the good people of that state -- has had to close thirteen rest stops. This means that you can drive the width of the state on Highway 40 and have absolutely nowhere to go to the bathroom that is safe, private and clean. Arizonans, at last report, are incensed. So are people in the states where they are raising taxes on everything from haircuts to funerals because elected officials are too chicken to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy.

My advice to academics is that whatever you are teaching next year, find some way to talk about how and why governments raise revenues; and the misinformation that "small government," low income, corporate and property taxes, and de-regulation hold the promise of utopia for the little guy because it is just not true and never has been true. By trying to kill taxes, so-called populists and their spokespeople in both parties have produced a regressive system that actually is hardest on the little guy who needs to take a whizz or bury grandma. Poor people are actually paying taxes on behalf of the rich when state revenues are collected primarily at the cash register. Curricula should also include discussions of the infrastructure maintained by government that allows us all to actually go to work; the reasons why education should be a loss-leader, not a break-even endeavor; why feeding people and keeping them healthy is good for the economy; and other material connections between the health of large institutions like banks, hospitals, universities and public transportation systems and the well-being of the littlest hard-working guy or gal. Don't want the government to bail out the banks, but you do want to prevent your overpriced house from going into foreclosure? It's two sides of the same problem: you can't help the people without helping the banks, and vice versa.

Finally, United States history demonstrates quite graphically an unregulated economy is not a better economy: look at the nineteenth century, why don't you, which was just one big boom-and-bust cycle. In fact, while you are at it, volunteer to teach a history class at a senior center, since that is where it seems you could do a lot of good.

Speaking of Taxes, There Is Also Death: The book of the week, hands down, is Final Acts: Death, Dying and the Choices We Make, edited by Nan Bauer-Maglin and Donna Perry (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2010). While I must add the disclaimer that I know one of the authors Very Well, it is a beautiful collection of reflections on death and dying, with a high emphasis on the choices that one's own death potentially entails. How to plan for death, how to receive death, how to struggle with the choices loved ones have made -- or not made -- about their own final decline, and how chronic illness and/or aging creates the possibility for thinking about one's time on earth are all reflected upon in this collection. The scholars and writers represented in the collection represent the social sciences, medicine, philosophy, psychology, literature and women's studies. Anthropologist Nancy Barnes writes about her strong-willed mother who had intended to end her life in the event of a long, fatal illness -- and then was unable to do so as her dementia eroded the rational mind that had made those plans. Historians may wish to take a special look at a personal essay by Sara Evans on the decline of her parents, Claude and Mackie. You can buy Final Acts by going to the above link, or you can click here.

Then There Is Social Death: One of the best pieces I have ever read, ever, about conservatives in the closet is Joanne Wypijewski's "Hey, Sailor" (The Nation, April 5 2010). In "Carnal Knowledge," a column that does not appear frequently enough, Wypijewski puts the Eric Massa Ticklegate scandal in a broader cultural perspective. Here's the thing: you might not be able to get it unless you subscribe, but so what? For only $18.00 you can get the online edition for a year, and you can actually get a free, four week trial subscription if spending $18.00 for a left wing pig in a polk is not your kind of thing. But actually? To get Katha Pollitt, Eric Alterman, Patricia Williams, Eric Foner, Richard Kim, Greg Grandin, Calvin Trillin's political satire in verse, and all the news you need to read mainstream sources critically? It's a bargain.

And you get access to fabulous cover art like the one featured at the top of this post.

Killing Two Birds With One Stone: Tea Party Candidate Solves Social Problems, Shoots Self In Foot

Tea Party social welfare program?

In case you were wondering why we haven't solved the problem of how to get cheap food on the table without large numbers of undocumented workers who will work under substandard conditions for no money, it's because wussy liberals won't bring back the chain gang.

Okay, Jack Davis, who wants to run for the vacant seat in New York's 26th congressional district didn't quite say that.  But this is what the Tea Party candidate did say, according to reporter Jerry Zremski, as he was being screened by the GOP in that state:

that Latino farm workers [should] be deported -- and that African-Americans from the inner city [could] be bused to farm country to pick the crops.

Several sources who were in the Feb. 20 endorsement interview with Davis confirmed his comments, which echo those he made to the Tonawanda News in 2008, when he said: "We have a huge unemployment problem with black youth in our cities. Put them on buses, take them out there [to the farms] and pay them a decent wage; they will work."

Since Davis has been articulating such views publicly for at least two years, so the shock being expressed by the New York Republican Party leadership means little else than that they aren't doing their homework.

"I was thunderstruck," said Amherst GOP Chairman Marshall Wood. "Maybe in 1860 that might have been seen by some as an appropriate comment, but not now."


Davis spokesman W. Curtis Ellis acknowledged that Davis' comments "may not be politically correct and ... may not be racially correct."

Yes, Mr. Ellis, we can start there.  Davis's comments are also really st00pid.  One wonders how far the Tea Party tolerance for come one, come all freedom of expression will extend in the next election cycle if upstate New York Republicans (who are about as conservative as God makes 'em and not your normal bastions of political correctness) are running for the hills on this one.

Hat Tip.