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**KonaKane** · 08-01-2011, 01:32 PM

There are lots of things they don't teach you in school, or at least explain very well. One of them is pertaining to the Russian Revolution and the cell most powerfully behind it, the Bolsheviks. It's not until you make it to university, and embark upon a Russian Studies major, that you find out that revolutionary force was misnamed. In Russian "bolshevik" means "majority". But, in fact, they were the minority. A small, noisy and violence prone one. What they lacked in numbers, they made up for in decibel and vitriol.

Sound familiar?

No one can claim that the Bolsehviks and Tea Partiers share an ideology, but they certainly share tactics. When I started digging into the similarities, it made the hair on my arms stand up. So what made them blood brothers, of a sort?

Deceptive Branding.
Step one, call yourself something you are not, that appeals to the mass consciousness of your culture. The Bolsheviks, while an actual minority (outnumbered by the equally odd monikered "mensheviks" which means "minority"), brazenly called themselves so in order to plant the idea in the head of the Russian people that they were the mass mandate against the Czar. In a nation so oppressed by such a long running, brooding dominance of old world royalty and the Eastern Church, the idea of a mass unified voice against them was emboldening to the besieged peasantry. A peasantry only too eager to accept the lie, as the only possible chance to defeat the behemoth.

The Tea Party named itself after the American Revolutionaries who opposed taxation without representation. But seeing that we are actually paying taxes at the lowest rates since the 1950s, that branding is an obvious farce, targeting the tender underbelly of the patriotic American soul. Nothing about the modern Tea Party has anything to do with the forces that drove the original American Revolutionaries, and no amount of George Washington outfits in public will change that. It is simply a crass appeal to 18th century nationalism, something ingrained in the American mind from early on.

Get Your Underwriters In Line
Since neither the Bolsheivks nor the Tea Party were the true voice of the masses, they needed to be funded. I was shocked to find that Wallstreet may well have had a role in financing the Russian Revolution, for reasons that are beyond the scope of this thread. They are also very controversial. However, when you add in the odd alliance and deep friendship of American tycoon Armand Hammer with one Vladimir Ulyanov Lenin, the idea of financially backing a movement strangely at odds with the survival of the backer turns into a distinct possibility.

Enter the mysterious role of the Koch Brothers in the so called Tea Party movement. The more you unearth the tentacles of involvement from the Koch-topus, the more you see that the TP is not a grass roots movement at all, but a scheme hatched, bought and paid for by these two men. Why they would advance the power of an agenda that could well crash their revenue stream is beyond comprehension, but they must see something in it that the rest of us do not. Or are sheltered from the disastrous blowback of Tea Party ideas turning into real politik.

Save The Village By Destroying It
The Bolsheviks never denied, in fact proudly proclaimed, that they were set on destroying the entire standing order. "Tear it all down to build it all back up" was the motto. There was even a move at first, when the Bolsheviks consolidated power, to start the calendar year one on the date of the successful revolution. Even with all the talk about five year plans, the Bolsheviks weren't very concerned with the realtime consequences to the people of cataclysmic change and political/economic shift. 60 some odd years after the fall of the Czar, the bill came due and the whole brick shithouse fell in.

Tea Partiers have almost a gleeful anticipation of the failure of Washington leadership, and our system. They will trumpet the greatness of our constitution, but display an appalling lack of understanding of how it works, or care if it actually fails. Echoing the words of a neocon founding dickhead Grover Norquist, they are all too eager to take government and drown it in a bathtub, regardless of what that would actually mean to everyday working people in the USA. When you look at the reality, they are treasonous, anti-American ghouls who are ready to burn down the national house for their twisted idea of Americanism. Their half baked and misguided ideology is more important to them, than the country itself.

****

So what comes next? It really depends on how long this tea partying group of lunatics will be allowed to perpetrate their farce. Truth, as usual, is the best foil. But getting the truth out there, even with the internet at our fingertips, is proving extremely arduous and difficult. What hangs in the balance isn't merely our own egos, but the welfare of our hard built system. When can we get people to see that the Emperor wears no clothes?

**SeattleGirl** · 08-01-2011, 02:14 PM

Wow, Kona, those parallels are pretty scary! I hope to hell these traitors -- yes, traitors -- will be voted out next year. And I hope they don't do more damage before we can vote them out.

**KonaKane** · 08-01-2011, 02:17 PM

(08-01-2011 02:14 PM)SeattleGirl Wrote: Wow, Kona, those parallels are pretty scary! I hope to hell these traitors -- yes, traitors -- will be voted out next year. And I hope they don't do more damage before we can vote them out.

I hear ya. The thing that creeps me out the most is their ability to make so many Americans think they love this country when in fact they are gleefully pursuing it's destruction.

That is a PR first if ever I've seen one.

**Treestar** · 08-01-2011, 02:19 PM

Those are amazing parallels. And ironic since the tea party hates communists. Just shows how similar extremists are. The left wants the same kind of thing. Maybe we need some big island for them all to go live on and fight it out.

**Willinois** · 08-01-2011, 02:25 PM

I don't know if the comparison applies to the Bolsheviks in particular, but the tea party and Libertarians do remind me of Marxist ideologues. They're both sold on one big idea as the answer to all problems. For Marxists, the answer to every conceivable problem is a revolution of the proletariat to destroy the capitalist system. For the tea party libertarians the answer to every problem is cutting taxes and getting government out of the way. They both have their one big answer in search of a question.

No matter what issue you bring up, both groups will doggedly go back to their one big solution. It's as much a religion as an ideology.

**KonaKane** · 08-01-2011, 03:11 PM

(08-01-2011 02:25 PM)Willinois Wrote: ....

No matter what issue you bring up, both groups will doggedly go back to their one big solution. It's as much a religion as an ideology.

That pretty much says it all. It's a religion.

**johnhp** · 08-01-2011, 05:17 PM

(08-01-2011 02:25 PM)Willinois Wrote: I don't know if the comparison applies to the Bolsheviks in particular, but the tea party and Libertarians do remind me of Marxist ideologues. They're both sold on one big idea as the answer to all problems. For Marxists, the answer to every conceivable problem is a revolution of the proletariat to destroy the capitalist system.

i think it depends on the marxists, doesn't it?

**Willinois** · 08-01-2011, 05:56 PM

(08-01-2011 05:17 PM)johnhp Wrote:
(08-01-2011 02:25 PM)Willinois Wrote: I don't know if the comparison applies to the Bolsheviks in particular, but the tea party and Libertarians do remind me of Marxist ideologues. They're both sold on one big idea as the answer to all problems. For Marxists, the answer to every conceivable problem is a revolution of the proletariat to destroy the capitalist system.

i think it depends on the marxists, doesn't it?

Yes, which is why I include the qualifier of not knowing whether the same applies to Bolsheviks. I'm more certain that my comment applies to modern American Marxists who display many of the same qualities as Libertarians and born again evangelicals.

**johnhp** · 08-01-2011, 08:06 PM

(08-01-2011 05:56 PM)Willinois Wrote:
(08-01-2011 05:17 PM)johnhp Wrote:
(08-01-2011 02:25 PM)Willinois Wrote: I don't know if the comparison applies to the Bolsheviks in particular, but the tea party and Libertarians do remind me of Marxist ideologues. They're both sold on one big idea as the answer to all problems. For Marxists, the answer to every conceivable problem is a revolution of the proletariat to destroy the capitalist system.

i think it depends on the marxists, doesn't it?

Yes, which is why I include the qualifier of not knowing whether the same applies to Bolsheviks. I'm more certain that my comment applies to modern American Marxists who display many of the same qualities as Libertarians and born again evangelicals.

Actual Marxists or members of those niche parties?

**Willinois** · 08-02-2011, 04:03 PM

(08-01-2011 08:06 PM)johnhp Wrote: Actual Marxists or members of those niche parties?

Oh man. Is this where you tell me that my observations are invalid because American communists aren't really true Marxists? That kind of cop-out is what makes arguing politics with Marxists so tiring.

**KonaKane** · 08-02-2011, 04:39 PM

(08-02-2011 04:03 PM)Willinois Wrote: Oh man. Is this where you tell me that my observations are invalid because American communists aren't really true Marxists? That kind of cop-out is what makes arguing politics with Marxists so tiring.

Just about as tiring as trying to have a discussion on dialectic materialism, and getting into a fight about where Marx had his shirts cleaned, eh?

**johnhp** · 08-03-2011, 11:06 AM

(08-02-2011 04:03 PM)Willinois Wrote:
(08-01-2011 08:06 PM)johnhp Wrote: Actual Marxists or members of those niche parties?

Oh man. Is this where you tell me that my observations are invalid because American communists aren't really true Marxists? That kind of cop-out is what makes arguing politics with Marxists so tiring.

Actually, no. i was wondering if you were discussing members of these parties that are at the margins of protests, etc or the larger population of American marxists.

**johnhp** · 08-01-2011, 05:16 PM

i am going to have to take issue here for several reasons.

First, the Bolsheviks were not the minority. The name referred to a particular vote concerning party membership in the Russian Social Democratic Party and the eventual break in the party. The term majority was coined in relation to the winning of that vote and stuck. The later developments were what they were. Of course, it would be kind of odd for people to change the names of their parties with the changes in membership? Come on.

Second, Armand Hammer did not go to the USSR until 1921, a few years to late to bankroll the Russian Revolution.

Third, the Bolsheviks were absolutely concerned about building up the means of production. i think you are forgetting that they were for the first 4 years or so in a period of civil war.

i think you are overlooking the obvious precursors to the baggers: Know Nothings and Brown Shirts.

**KonaKane** · 08-01-2011, 05:29 PM

(08-01-2011 05:16 PM)johnhp Wrote: i am going to have to take issue here for several reasons.

First, the Bolsheviks were not the minority. The name referred to a particular vote concerning party membership in the Russian Social Democratic Party and the eventual break in the party. The term majority was coined in relation to the winning of that vote and stuck. The later developments were what they were. Of course, it would be kind of odd for people to change the names of their parties with the changes in membership? Come on.

That's disputed. There are some scholars who claim (my professor Leo Hecht, GMU, being one of them) that Bolshevik was used by that group for propaganda purposes when they were still small, for the obvious reasons. And we're talking waaaay before the provisional government.

Quote:Second, Armand Hammer did not go to the USSR until 1921, a few years to late to bankroll the Russian Revolution.

I never said he went to the USSR. He would often meet up with Vladimir Ulyanov in Switzerland.

Quote:Third, the Bolsheviks were absolutely concerned about building up the means of production. i think you are forgetting that they were for the first 4 years or so in a period of civil war.

Sure they were concerned about building it up - after they tore down every last vestige of the previous order. It's pretty radical to be wanting to start the calendar over with the date of the revolution.

Quote:i think you are overlooking the obvious precursors to the baggers: Know Nothings and Brown Shirts.

While you certainly may have a like parallel with the Sturmabteilungsmen, I fear you largely missed the point of the parellels I drew with the Bolsheviks. You got bogged down in ideology instead of tactics, which was my point.

**johnhp** · 08-01-2011, 08:28 PM

(08-01-2011 05:29 PM)KonaKane Wrote: That's disputed. There are some scholars who claim (my professor Leo Hecht, GMU, being one of them) that Bolshevik was used by that group for propaganda purposes when they were still small, for the obvious reasons. And we're talking waaaay before the provisional government.

[quote]

Yes. We are talking 1903 (the party congress held in both Brussels and London) and the Lenin-Martov conflict and the vote over party membership. They did not use the term before that point and they did win the majority in that vote.

[quote='KonaKane' pid='49109' dateline='1312241361']

I never said he went to the USSR. He would often meet up with Vladimir Ulyanov in Switzerland.

So, when Lenin lived in Switzerland he met with 16-19 year old Armand Hammer who was funding the future revolution? Was this during his period as an undergrad at Columbia College from which he graduated in 1919? The suggestion kind of begs credulity given his age at the time Lenin was in Switzerland.

(08-01-2011 05:29 PM)KonaKane Wrote: Sure they were concerned about building it up - after they tore down every last vestige of the previous order. It's pretty radical to be wanting to start the calendar over with the date of the revolution.

If accurate, not radical at all. How many different calendars are in use today (well over 20)? Hell, the Romans used to mark time in two different ways at the same time. But actually, what they adopted was the Gregorian Calendar, but they had to tinker with it because of the differences between it and the old Julian calendar and they wanted to add holidays for the revolution.

(08-01-2011 05:29 PM)KonaKane Wrote: While you certainly may have a like parallel with the Sturmabteilungsmen, I fear you largely missed the point of the parellels I drew with the Bolsheviks. You got bogged down in ideology instead of tactics, which was my point.

What i got bogged down in were the facts of the case.

**KonaKane** · (This post was last modified: 08-01-2011 08:54 PM by KonaKane.)

(08-01-2011 08:28 PM)johnhp Wrote: .....

What i got bogged down in were the facts of the case.

Or what you think were the facts of the case, which always makes for great conversation.

Armand Hammer was a young doctor when he first met Lenin in 1921. The point of there friendship was that it was not inconceivable that the Russian Revolution had some real financial help from strange bedfellows. You can read more here for your edumication...

http://www.jstor.org/pss/2496191

**johnhp** · 08-02-2011, 05:10 AM

(08-01-2011 08:52 PM)KonaKane Wrote:
(08-01-2011 08:28 PM)johnhp Wrote: .....

What i got bogged down in were the facts of the case.

Or what you think were the facts of the case, which always makes for great conversation.

Armand Hammer was a young doctor when he first met Lenin in 1921. The point of there friendship was that it was not inconceivable that the Russian Revolution had some real financial help from strange bedfellows. You can read more here for your edumication...

http://www.jstor.org/pss/2496191

Nice double step there. i mentioned that Hammer first went to Russia in 1921. You claimed that they had met before in Switzerland. Now you are asserting my claim as accurate. That is an odd approach to take, i think, when you want to question my take on the revolution and financing.

**KonaKane** · 08-02-2011, 01:04 PM

(08-02-2011 05:10 AM)johnhp Wrote: ....
Nice double step there. i mentioned that Hammer first went to Russia in 1921. You claimed that they had met before in Switzerland. Now you are asserting my claim as accurate. That is an odd approach to take, i think, when you want to question my take on the revolution and financing.

It sounds like you'd rather argue over minutiae than comprehend or discuss the point of my piece regarding tactics. Why don't you start a thread on your ego, and how winning is all important, and maybe some of us will join in? That's certainly not the intent of this one.

Da zdravstvuyet.

**johnhp** · 08-03-2011, 05:59 AM

(08-02-2011 01:04 PM)KonaKane Wrote:
(08-02-2011 05:10 AM)johnhp Wrote: ....
Nice double step there. i mentioned that Hammer first went to Russia in 1921. You claimed that they had met before in Switzerland. Now you are asserting my claim as accurate. That is an odd approach to take, i think, when you want to question my take on the revolution and financing.

It sounds like you'd rather argue over minutiae than comprehend or discuss the point of my piece regarding tactics. Why don't you start a thread on your ego, and how winning is all important, and maybe some of us will join in? That's certainly not the intent of this one.

Da zdravstvuyet.

i am sorry if this has upset you. It really isn't about ego. i really think you used a poor analogy. As for "minutiae" you were the one who rested your analogy with an appeal to historical reality. i cannot help it if you do not have the facts at hand, however, your need to make a personal attack instead of just admitting you did not have the facts at hand and moving on (because, hey, everyone makes mistakes) suggests that you are projecting here more than describing.

**Velleity** · 08-03-2011, 06:58 AM

(08-03-2011 05:59 AM)johnhp Wrote:
(08-02-2011 01:04 PM)KonaKane Wrote:
(08-02-2011 05:10 AM)johnhp Wrote: ....
Nice double step there. i mentioned that Hammer first went to Russia in 1921. You claimed that they had met before in Switzerland. Now you are asserting my claim as accurate. That is an odd approach to take, i think, when you want to question my take on the revolution and financing.

It sounds like you'd rather argue over minutiae than comprehend or discuss the point of my piece regarding tactics. Why don't you start a thread on your ego, and how winning is all important, and maybe some of us will join in? That's certainly not the intent of this one.

Da zdravstvuyet.

i am sorry if this has upset you. It really isn't about ego. i really think you used a poor analogy. As for "minutiae" you were the one who rested your analogy with an appeal to historical reality. i cannot help it if you do not have the facts at hand, however, your need to make a personal attack instead of just admitting you did not have the facts at hand and moving on (because, hey, everyone makes mistakes) suggests that you are projecting here more than describing.

It is too easy to have a pissing match on these boards. I think Kona made an interesting observation. All extreme, unyielding political propositions have something dysfunctional in common, IMHO. At the end of the day Hitler was not much different than Stalin, except Stalin killed a lot more people.

**johnhp** · 08-03-2011, 07:28 AM

(08-03-2011 06:58 AM)Velleity Wrote:
(08-03-2011 05:59 AM)johnhp Wrote:
(08-02-2011 01:04 PM)KonaKane Wrote:
(08-02-2011 05:10 AM)johnhp Wrote: ....
Nice double step there. i mentioned that Hammer first went to Russia in 1921. You claimed that they had met before in Switzerland. Now you are asserting my claim as accurate. That is an odd approach to take, i think, when you want to question my take on the revolution and financing.

It sounds like you'd rather argue over minutiae than comprehend or discuss the point of my piece regarding tactics. Why don't you start a thread on your ego, and how winning is all important, and maybe some of us will join in? That's certainly not the intent of this one.

Da zdravstvuyet.

i am sorry if this has upset you. It really isn't about ego. i really think you used a poor analogy. As for "minutiae" you were the one who rested your analogy with an appeal to historical reality. i cannot help it if you do not have the facts at hand, however, your need to make a personal attack instead of just admitting you did not have the facts at hand and moving on (because, hey, everyone makes mistakes) suggests that you are projecting here more than describing.

It is too easy to have a pissing match on these boards. I think Kona made an interesting observation. All extreme, unyielding political propositions have something dysfunctional in common, IMHO. At the end of the day Hitler was not much different than Stalin, except Stalin killed a lot more people.

i have no problem with anyone describing extremist authoritarian organizations as extremists in a general way. However, to suggest that it is possible to specifically identify similarities beyond this broad generalization and to make specific historical references, all of which are erroneous, it seems to me is grasping at straws. Pointing this out is not engaging in a pissing contest, it is just pointing out that the attempt to root the broad generalization in the way that was done is incorrect. And like i stated everyone makes mistakes.

It seems to me if the search is for likely historically similar groups, we can discuss the various nativist movements in our own country. They are much more appropriate because the nativist movements were all about not simply the rhetoric of and enthno-violence we are witnessing with the rise of the bagger movement but also the organization of working class people for promoting the politics of the wealthy.

**OptimistesMaddie** · 08-01-2011, 07:32 PM

Kona, that's it. That's what's been tugging at my memory.

The tactics are the same. These Teapartiers are also uneducated and ignorant. They believe everything is simple without understanding the repurcussions of certain decisions. To this day I do not believe they really understand what would have happened if the debt ceiling is not raised.

They are dangerous to Democracy.

**Sugarloaf** · 08-02-2011, 06:20 AM

When I saw the title of your thread KonaKane, I must admit to thinking, 'Oh my, this ought to be interesting, how can you possibly compare the two?' ... until I read it. All I can say now is WOW, great piece! The similarities in tactics are downright frightening. You nailed it.

Thank you for this. Thumbsup

**KonaKane** · 08-02-2011, 01:06 PM

(08-02-2011 06:20 AM)Sugarloaf Wrote: When I saw the title of your thread KonaKane, I must admit to thinking, 'Oh my, this ought to be interesting, how can you possibly compare the two?' ... until I read it. All I can say now is WOW, great piece! The similarities in tactics are downright frightening. You nailed it.

Thank you for this.

Thanks much, Sugarloaf. Believe me the more I got into it, the more startling the similarities were and showed me that ideologies and tactics certainly need not be linked.

**Velleity** · 08-02-2011, 03:09 PM

I am impressed with your knowledge here Kona, but I am also impressed with John's. I don't see why the debate should get personal. We're on an internet b.s. board so if someone has something to say, why not say it?

I've been thinking about this as I was running around today. I had some higher level history courses but did not get into Russia all that much. For one thing, and I do think this relates to tactics, Czarist Russia was a highly oppressive police state so it was important to have a small, secret, and subversive organization.

I don't believe that's the case here.

Also there was WWI, so you had the Germans delivering Lenin in a sealed boxcar not so much to support what Lenin wanted to do but rather in order to get Russia out of that clusterf*** of a war.

I don't believe we have anything close to that here either.

Not sure about Armand Hammer but in my classes, which were a long time ago now, my recollection is that he was mentioned pretty much in passing.

As for Marx, my history professors were of the opinion that Marx was eying Germany as the place where his revolution was to take place. They suggested that Marx despised Russians although I don't recall why, exactly. But they also taught me that Russia was backward and way behind in terms of the industrial revolution, and it was Marx's idea that the revolution was supposed to happen when the workers achieved a certain state that Russian workers had not yet achieved.

Anyway, while I understand where you're coming from and I certainly don't appreciate teabaggers and their tactics, I don't see much of a parallel. On the other hand comparing them to Bolsheviks is a stroke of genius AFAIAC. What could possibly piss them off more?

Big Grin

**johnhp** · 08-03-2011, 06:01 AM

(08-02-2011 03:09 PM)Velleity Wrote: What could possibly piss them off more?

Re-electing Obama.

**Cha** · 08-02-2011, 04:54 PM

And, we have a Pravda-like US media to aid and abett.

Thanks for this, Kona..I really didn't know what Bolsheviks were. The similarities are striking. Perhaps the Kochs are students of history?

**KonaKane** · 08-02-2011, 05:26 PM

Cha, the worst manipulators usually are. They know right what to pursue because it's worked so many times before.

**Velleity** · 08-03-2011, 07:18 AM

That said, I don't think Marx was necessarily an extreme. As I understand it, there have been only three examples of real Marxism. The only 1 that I recall is the Kibbutzim in Israel.

The Soviet Union was definitely not Marxist, as I understand it. Since the U.S. Communist Party was aligned with the Soviets I would have to say that in my limited knowledge of this it is fair to say that U.S. Communists are not Marxist either.

jtepera · 08-03-2012, 09:09 AM

Taxation at its lowest rate since the1950's?Difficult to measure but ok. I don't see how that suggests there is no need for promotion of no taxation without representation by groups like the Tea Party. But then again that's a Constitutional concept. Now I see why you're opposed to the TParty.

**jaxx** · 08-03-2012, 09:22 AM

(08-03-2012 09:09 AM)jtepera Wrote: Taxation at its lowest rate since the1950's?Difficult to measure but ok. I don't see how that suggests there is no need for promotion of no taxation without representation by groups like the Tea Party. But then again that's a Constitutional concept. Now I see why you're opposed to the TParty.

Hey thanks for digging up a year old thread to weigh in with tea party stuff. Sadly the tea party doesn't know the Constitution from a hole in the ground.

***azmouse*** · 08-03-2012, 09:58 AM

(08-03-2012 09:22 AM)jaxx Wrote:
(08-03-2012 09:09 AM)jtepera Wrote: Taxation at its lowest rate since the1950's?Difficult to measure but ok. I don't see how that suggests there is no need for promotion of no taxation without representation by groups like the Tea Party. But then again that's a Constitutional concept. Now I see why you're opposed to the TParty.

Hey thanks for digging up a year old thread to weigh in with tea party stuff. Sadly the tea party doesn't know the Constitution from a hole in the ground.

My guess is this is a hit-and-run poster who found this thread online somewhere and chose to respond to it not realizing it's from last year.

**pappy** · 08-03-2012, 10:16 AM

(08-03-2012 09:58 AM)azmouse Wrote:
(08-03-2012 09:22 AM)jaxx Wrote: Hey thanks for digging up a year old thread to weigh in with tea party stuff. Sadly the tea party doesn't know the Constitution from a hole in the ground.

My guess is this is a hit-and-run poster who found this thread online somewhere and chose to respond to it not realizing it's from last year.

Seems we have had a bunch of one hit wonders lately. Wouldn't be surprised to see another post within days with a link to a commercial site selling gizmos so cheap they are almost free, just pay for shipping and gouging.

**sandnsea** · 08-03-2012, 11:44 AM

(08-03-2012 10:16 AM)pappy Wrote:
(08-03-2012 09:58 AM)azmouse Wrote: My guess is this is a hit-and-run poster who found this thread online somewhere and chose to respond to it not realizing it's from last year.

Seems we have had a bunch of one hit wonders lately. Wouldn't be surprised to see another post within days with a link to a commercial site selling gizmos so cheap they are almost free, just pay for shipping and gouging.

That's a good sign - the one hit wonders, not the spam. It probably means we've been linked from some right wing sites with good traffic and are getting under their craw.

**pappy** · 08-03-2012, 09:23 AM

(08-03-2012 09:09 AM)jtepera Wrote: Taxation at its lowest rate since the1950's?Difficult to measure but ok. I don't see how that suggests there is no need for promotion of no taxation without representation by groups like the Tea Party. But then again that's a Constitutional concept. Now I see why you're opposed to the TParty.

Why would you say that having the lowest rate of taxation since the 1950's is hard to measure? Math has been around for centuries and taxation almost as long so I think both concepts can be fairly well understood by now.

Or maybe the math isn't at issue here. Perhaps it is the history that is hanging you up. If that is the case I suggest reading any history book that has not been approved by the Texas Board of Education because their approved history books are as devoid of history as their science books are of science.

**sandnsea** · 08-03-2012, 11:38 AM

(08-03-2012 09:09 AM)jtepera Wrote: Taxation at its lowest rate since the1950's?Difficult to measure but ok. I don't see how that suggests there is no need for promotion of no taxation without representation by groups like the Tea Party. But then again that's a Constitutional concept. Now I see why you're opposed to the TParty.

It's not difficult to measure the rates of taxation, perhaps you'd like to explain why you don't think it's possible.

More importantly, I'm fascinated with the Tea Party rants about representative government when, at the same time, ranting that we're a Republic not a Democracy, which is a representative form of government. There is actually a woman petitioning a city government south of me to send all measures to the ballot - and she promotes herself as an advocate of a representative government. Huh???

Most of us around here oppose the Tea Party because they don't know anything and want to instill new "policies" based on falsehoods about our government and Constitution.

**OptimistesMaddie** · 08-03-2012, 11:40 AM

that is starkly different from that era in time. The media....

The 4th estate has enabled the insanity to seep into the American population. The media has made it seem that this group is more powerful than they really are. Now that's the bad news, the good news is that the Tea Party reps and their henchman have been given so much exposure that they exposed the Koch brothers. We did not even know who the Koch brothers were before 4 years ago and Wisconsin Scotty Walker. The more the Koch machine gets exposed the more Americans recoil in horror, the moderate Republicans and independent thinkers have been pushed out of the Repug party. There are no more brains left, just insanity and ignorance.

I am sensing the American people have had enough, but I don't think we have seen the worst yet. My gut feeling says that the TeaPartiers are going to get very dangerous when they truely understand they are losing and they will lose big in Nov.

We need to understand this, they don't want to play within the rules that they are trying to destroy. The very rules that have made this country successful.