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Tea Party, MoveOn activists find common ground

ravdin

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ravdin
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Oct 16, 2005
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Mark Meckler, a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, and Joan Blades, a co-founder of MoveOn, met with each other recently for a dialogue. Unsurprisingly to me, but perhaps surprisingly to some people, they rather hit it off and found they had a great deal of common ground.

http://citizens4selfgovernance.org/...-with-my-friend-the-co-founder-of-moveon-org/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joan-blades/post_4297_b_2473331.html

I think where they found common ground was their mutual distaste for the status quo perpetuated by the two party system, and for political elites on both sides of the aisle who are serving the very wealthy instead of you and me.

Some of the issues where they saw eye to eye included:

-Most of us wouldn't vote for trillion dollar deficits, but Congress continues to impose them on us year after year.
-The money we're spending on education isn't effective or focused on our kids.
-The criminal justice system is broken.
-The War On Drugs is an unmitigated failure, yet almost no politicians are willing to talk seriously about reform.
-Big corporations have too much influence on government regulation.
-The government imposes too much burdensome, nonproductive paperwork on businesses.
-Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act!

Nice work, you two. Keep the dialogue going!
 
ravdin said:
-Most of us wouldn't vote for trillion dollar deficits, but Congress continues to impose them on us year after year.
Click to expand...

But as soon as they propose cutting a program's budget, some percentage of "us" screams bloody murder. So that's a silly complaint. We impose the deficit on ourselves because we get the politicians we ask for.

I pretty much agree with the rest of it. Of course, as always, the devil is in the details.
 
The Central Scrutinizer said:
But as soon as they propose cutting a program's budget, some percentage of "us" screams bloody murder. So that's a silly complaint. We impose the deficit on ourselves because we get the politicians we ask for.

I pretty much agree with the rest of it. Of course, as always, the devil is in the details.
Click to expand...

You could say the same about the War On Drugs. We keep voting for politicians who tell us that we can achieve a drug free society if they are allowed to spend more of our money and take away more of our freedom- and then respond to failure by redoubling their efforts. In the end, we have the system we deserve.
 
I'd vote for a trillion dollar deficit if it will help improve things down the road.

But then I never supported either of these two political factions.
 
-Most of us wouldn't vote for trillion dollar deficits, but Congress continues to impose them on us year after year

The issue ISN'T that we spend the money or that we have a debt -It's HOW we spend the money. I haven't read it, but from what I understand there are multiple billions of dollars in the Sandy relief fund - which is a legit reason to go into debt - that go to Guam and some Midwest states. Now I was never that good at geography but I know Guam isn't anywhere near NJ. And this is BY the party of responsible spending and budget cuts.

-The government imposes too much burdensome, nonproductive paperwork on businesses.

Big giant cow chips! The bureaucracy maybe be too deep, because people are trying to defend their turf/job and yes it could be done better. But as a general rule, these kinds of statements by business and the right wing should be interpreted as

We're not allowed to take short cuts, steel and cheat enough from our customers, employees, the govt or the environment until definitively proven otherwise.
 
ravdin said:
Mark Meckler, a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, and Joan Blades, a co-founder of MoveOn, met with each other recently for a dialogue. Unsurprisingly to me, but perhaps surprisingly to some people, they rather hit it off and found they had a great deal of common ground.

http://citizens4selfgovernance.org/...-with-my-friend-the-co-founder-of-moveon-org/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joan-blades/post_4297_b_2473331.html

I think where they found common ground was their mutual distaste for the status quo perpetuated by the two party system, and for political elites on both sides of the aisle who are serving the very wealthy instead of you and me.

Some of the issues where they saw eye to eye included:

-Most of us wouldn't vote for trillion dollar deficits, but Congress continues to impose them on us year after year.
-The money we're spending on education isn't effective or focused on our kids.
-The criminal justice system is broken.
-The War On Drugs is an unmitigated failure, yet almost no politicians are willing to talk seriously about reform.
-Big corporations have too much influence on government regulation.
-The government imposes too much burdensome, nonproductive paperwork on businesses.
-Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act!

Nice work, you two. Keep the dialogue going!
Click to expand...
They say politics make strange bedfellows. Did they "get a room" or not? :cool:

Mostly, I find those points roughly aligned with how I feel. But they seem not to be able to start a major third party, so far.

Too bad.
 
I knew it. The political spectrum isn't a straight line continuum, it's a circle. Go too far in either direction, and you end up back the other way.
 
Nah. A circle jerk is done for the mutual gratification of all members in a reciprotory expectation. Politics ain't.
 
ravdin said:
-Most of us wouldn't vote for trillion dollar deficits, but Congress continues to impose them on us year after year.
Click to expand...

Of course the question is how do they go about solving it. The Tea Party has shown that its solution to trillion dollar deficits lies in adding as many abortion restricting laws to the books and stopping insurance payouts for people who have been reliably paying premiums for years.

MoveOn would doubtless do something just as stupid, I just don't know what.
 
I've been predicting something like this for several years amongst friends. The Denis Kucinich fringe and RonPaulers (not that this represents MoveOn and TeaParty) have more than a little in common, and it seems that both parties have a lot of dissension.

There is someplace to meet far beyond Left & Right.
 
stevea said:
I've been predicting something like this for several years amongst friends. The Denis Kucinich fringe and RonPaulers (not that this represents MoveOn and TeaParty) have more than a little in common, and it seems that both parties have a lot of dissension.

There is someplace to meet far beyond Left & Right.
Click to expand...

And where is that place, mentally?
There is a tiny sliver of space separating the political left and right in this country. Most of the population seem to exist in between the two on that tiny sliver.
Now you have two groups finding common ground to use your words "far beyond Left & Right".
OK, fine but where are they? The Tea Party is derided by all of the left and some of the right as loons, crackpots playing dress up, crazies wanting a revolution, etc. MoveOn.org is looked at the same (except the dress up part) by all of the right and some of the left.

Using casebro's political circle model, that would put the place these people are coming together on the extreme far side of the circle where they are all by themselves, unloved and unwanted. Small wonder they will make friends with whatever other loons wander into their la la land.
 
ravdin said:
Mark Meckler, a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, and Joan Blades, a co-founder of MoveOn, met with each other recently for a dialogue. Unsurprisingly to me, but perhaps surprisingly to some people, they rather hit it off and found they had a great deal of common ground.

-Most of us wouldn't vote for trillion dollar deficits, but Congress continues to impose them on us year after year.
Click to expand...

Most DO vote for just that. They voted for the people that are running the deficits, and continue to do so. This is not substantively different than voting for the deficit itself.

The key to repairing the political system is not to start listen to other self important political windbags who claim superiority just because they are "different" than the status quo.
Half the problem already is that we treat politics like a sporting event where the 'fans' have to support their 'team' no matter how large a group of losers their team are. That may be noble when it comes to supporting a losing sporting team but it is drooling idiocy when it comes to politics.
The key is to have an educated populace that understands the consequences of their decisions, both on those and people unlike them, and understands the consequences of their votes too.
 
i find it strange that the tea party says that they are against big corporations influence on government.
 
thaiboxerken said:
i find it strange that the tea party says that they are against big corporations influence on government.
Click to expand...

I don't. It's the Democrats and Republicans who are in favor of big corporations and big government working hand in hand.
 
Yeah, going back to Kucinich and Paul there was "common ground", but that only exists when no one brings up anti-discrimination laws, what they want education to actually be, healthcare, etc.

It's easy to get both sides to agree that something is "broken", but that doesn't mean they are on "common ground".
 
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