wow so many ...

I'm an extreme boringist. We don't get much news coverage.

Whoa wait. You are/were in Madison? I'm about 5 blocks off of the capital, almost went but I had something to take care of.

You passing through or now live here?

UW Madison student.

No shit!!! I'm surprized you haven't been to the Escape Coffee gatherings Friday nights.

I may have possibly been to one really early in the year, but I'm not sure. I went to some coffee place somewhere farther away than I can walk to with a friend who picked me up.

Dude...we gotta connect.

I'm not that hard to spot walking around state street before/after classes if you're ever around, look for the 6'5" guy in a duster and leather bush hat.

You go man!

God bless you.

-Korkan

Oddly missing was the expected crowd of Anarchists...not one was seen.

Maybe they had trouble getting organized...

I watched Glen Beck today at the Alamo, and there were so many there, not just Republican. It was Democrat and Independant as well.

And it wasn't just about raising taxes, it was about the astronomical spending Obama is forcing upon future generations of Americans to figure out how to pay back.

never mind the 8 years of bush, that Obama has to clean up

Yeah that's it Obamaphile. Since he seems to be going back and talking about the past 8 years instead of coming up with solutions for getting us out of the mess you decided to jump on his bandwagon huh?

You do realise the credit and housing markets were faults of the Clinton years right? Oh wait that's right your a Bush hater so you wouldn't know that.

Easing of credit restrictions was a Clinton policy way back in 1994. But in your mind it would be Bush's fault for not changing it. But then if Bush did change it you would be hollering that it's hard for you to buy a new house.

If you look way back he's cleaning up after a 1994 administration.

Actually it all goes back to Reagon.

But since we can't speak at all of the great did no wrong god, reagon.


Yeah that's it Obamaphile. Since he seems to be going back and talking about the past 8 years instead of coming up with solutions for getting us out of the mess you decided to jump on his bandwagon huh?

Really, name ONE solution the republicans have come up with, besides being the party of NO!

.....waiting......



......Still waiting.......



can't think of one... because they have No ideas on how to get out of the mess they caused..

good day sir.

That's Ma'am to you jackass. Oh gee maybe greater restrictions on loans and mortgages that the democrats voted down. And I believe it was McCain that wanted to hold lenders accountable for bad loans. But no people like you wanted handouts instead of working for the dollar, and living within your means.

And you want me to say something bad about Reagon? Fine how about he gave weapons and such to the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets when we should have just let the USSR have it.

And we bartered arms to Iran when they held the American citizens hostage, when we should have just gone in there and kicked thier collective asses.

And Bush should have realised what the hell was going on in the first place and reversed the credit law put in place by Clinton.

You might want to stop watching Keith Olberman so much. He'll rot your brain so you won't be able to think for yourself, unless I'm too late.

I always pegged you as a Tea Bagger.

I lol'd.
Also: I listen to punk music,
does that make me an Anarchist?

I drove to Verona to work today. I'm a little surprised I didn't notice any change in traffic.

good for you Jim. hope you had a good time there today. I was at work so I missed the tea party tax protest out here in california. BTW, piss off anymore people with the ak-47 shirt? hehe

Nice sign.

Some douche on the radio =/= "the far left"

I wish I would've known about these beforehand.
It's such a shame that Obama isn't living up to the promises.

Shoulda woulda coulda...

I never trust politicians...aside from Ron Paul

How can you tell a politician is lying? His lips move.

You ..so realize, the taxes being protested were set in the books at best from last year, when Bush was president, and being that Obama's only been in office for 3 months now, nothing he's done has yet to affect you financially in one way or another, and more than likely won't anyway, right? (I mean, his budget was only approved 2 weeks ago).

You mean he had nothing to do with the bailout bill?

And nothing to do with the proposed trillions in spending that would require these taxes? No veto power that isn't being exercised?

The one that was started by Bush you mean? Or did Obama pass a second one and that's the one everyone is bitching about? Only bailout I know about was started the end of last year back when President Bush and Darth Vader were still in the White House. Uggh, if there's still a country around in 2012 I'll be able to pass a fair judgement on our current president. If we're not.... Oh well, I always knew the apocalypse was going to occur in my lifetime.

Oh Obama has no veto power. Got it.

Haha, yeah probably was better for him to just edit the damn thing.

Your sign is missing some massive ball sack.

Tons of libertarians there too. X3

man this whole "tea party" thing really has gathred some steam hasn't it?

Had I not been taxed to death I would have traveled down to the one in Atlanta.

As is my kitchen table is covered in tax forms, 1099s and everything else running an honest business and well when my accountant gets done screaming I will know how screwed I am.

Where the fuck is my bailout?

they had one in Atlanta? Fuck why do I always have to be gone from home when all the good stuff happens

Hey Rabbi, don't go all Cigar Skunk/Glen Beck on us. Not sure if you've heard, but this 'teabag party' business has been organized & promoted from the top down (ie, Washington lobbyists + the entire right-wing propaganda machine) and not the bottom up to get reg'lar folks all riled up that rich people might have to pay more taxes. It's 'funny' that after 8 years of Bush bankrupting the country, all of a sudden it's terrible that Obama (who wants to give the bottom 95% of the country a tax cut) is trying to clean up his mess.

One more point: when 1 or 2 left-wing people posted over-the-top comments on moveon.org's website, Limbaugh, O'Reilly etc. declared all of Move On a hate group. Well, I saw some very scary signs on display at some of those rallies on TV that by the same logic should allow me to call the whole teabag protest the equivalent of a Nazi rally (which I'm not gonna do because I don't believe the most extreme members of a group speak for the entire group).

BTW I'm an American too (I'll show you my passport if you want) and last time I looked I was a left-wing extremist....

Extremism in anything shows a lack of thought. It's so much easier to follow the dogma.

Dogma's a bitch, isn't she, I mean isn't it?

haha, hyper-partisanship is fail.

Tea Party on tax day? I'm afraid I never heard of this. I guess this is what I get for being a political ostrich: hiding my head in the sand, hoping I don't get bitten on the butt.

Good for you Jim! I went to the one in Phoenix. It's not about parties, but obviously some people are brainwashed into thinking you can only be on one side or another. It's not about Bush or Obama, because frankly, they both suck. It's about We The People, and keeping the American Constitution alive.

There are, like, no BLACK people in this photo...
NOW I'M Pissed!!!!!11111oneone1

>8C











(satire)

Actually a key note speaker was Paster Daniel King...King fired up the crowd into a cheering frenzy by accusing the Governor of being a crack-head.

As King called himself "An Uppity Black man who Thinks for himself", head of Milwaukee's "God Squad"

with Bibleman of coure?

xD

Yea, I was busy working to pay those taxes you were protesting...
But, I really wanted to go....
We need a clean slate... All of the, vote em out, Democrat, republican, vote em out!

Given a choice between tax and spend Democrats, and borrow and spend Republicans, I'll take the Democrats every time. But where's the political party that knows how to stop spending?

Left wing, right wing, it's all the same to me. Personally I don't give a damn about party. The way I see it, political parties are just a way to divide the people. It sickens me to know people will vote a moron in to office just because they don't like the other party.

The party lines need to be erased clean and, like said, we need a clean slate.

...and blue blood politicians need their asses kicked and drug through the dirt.

A story on the http://market-ticker.denninger.net/ forums that gave me hope. Two republican congress-critters had apparently invited themselves to speak at one of these tea-parties and said so on a local AM talk-show, when one of the regular readers of Denninger's ticker (Karl Denninger was one of the guys who suggested the tea party metaphor to protest Washington taking it's taxpayers for granted, before Fox News made it 'cool') called in and gave them an ear-full. They showed up and were welcome in the crowd, but neither one was allowed on stage.

Cool.

Been years since I was in Madtown.

I just wish we'd fix the goddamned medical system. We pay 2x more than any other nation. Does that mean we need nationalized health care, or a universal system? No, I just mean it's freaking broken and it needs to be fixed. Right now, since no insurance company will ever cover me and I don't qualify for government aid, because I actually WORK and refuse to be a leech, my best bet is to let the debts rack up over and over and then file bankruptcy once it becomes burdensome. We could save trillions in tax payer dollars over the long run, but we're just sitting on our asses.

You might have to pay for it, but at least your medical system is actually working.

Over here (UK), our Health Service is falling apart!

Not really. I have to use the ER for everything and wait until all of my medical conditions are so bad as to require emergency services. I cannot afford maintenance care.

Yeah, I'm the first to admit the Heath care system is seriously broken here. At times they work wonders, at times slow as glaciers.

When I slipped on ice and fell backwards against a sharp piece of curbing with my head, laying myself open, bleeding like a stuck pig, not to mention giving myself a serious concussion. I had to wait 4 hours in the ER before a real doctor saw me. All they did was clean me up, x-ray me and tell me to be careful and to return should I black out yet again.

Not even meds were given to me.

Yet when I had a ladder collapse on me, throwing me backwards , spine first on a gas regulator, I was rushed in via Ambulance and instantly saw a doctor, MRI'd and doped up to ease my pain. I had fractured my #1 and #2 Lumbar and they were honestly concerned my cord was possibly damaged, til due to a screaming bladder, I got off the table and walked to the bathroom.

Then I got yelled at.

Oh I can tell you why that happened.

One's a cut and a concussion, sort of quick (for the cut) and untreatable (for the TBI)injuries, there are no TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) Specialists as there is no actual treatment for it, it's one of those things that have stumped medicine for decades. There aren't really any techniques, or drugs or tests they can do to make you better, you just sort of 'are' when you have a TBI.


However, if you hurt your SPINE there are hundreds of spinal specialists. So they ran all those tests in hopes of being able to shop you off to them and bill your insurance (and you) more money.

The more tests they can run, the better, even if they are completely. One time I simply passed out, and they gave me an MRI AND a CAT scan almost instantly, even though all I did was sort of get woozy and fall down because I was dehydrated. They could have just looked at my piss instead of running a bazzillion tests that didn't tell them ANYTHING.

Yeah, and not to mention when the doctors don't have a clue what the problem really is, they seem to just say bs as a reason, and toss you generics you could have gotten off the shelf at a drug store. I've spent too much time in doctor's offices with family where we waited a long time to be seen and then the doctor's in for a few minutes, looks at the papers, says something, then leaves again. We might as well have sceduled the appointment with the damn nurse! And with a mother who is a nurse and works in a hospital, when she does want to talk about it, or can, I've heard just how screwed up the system can be or some of the crap that happens on their end. Thing is, she rarely talks about it, and usually says it's because she can't.

I thought that going to a Boston Tea Party made you a treasonous mutineer, not a right wing extremist.
Oh well. Something must have been lost in translation. :P

Hmm.. all those groups and not a single Rick Roll... LOL

if someone did a rick roll there they might be shot on sight :P

Right wing anarchists call themselves Libertarians, you should know that by now. i should know I used to be one, at least until I just gave up on party politics and we't non aligned, Though right now I'm more of a left leaning moderate then any thing else with a few "right" wing tendencies thrown into the mix. Besides a Libertarian is usually an upper class white guy who can't deal with the full realities of what anarchy really means.
Or to put it another way, potholes don't fix themselves

Buh Bye Dickhead!!

could you explain to me what this is about? i'm european...

Okay. After being in power since 1996 and bedding down with hardcore libertarians, the republican party (a generally conservative coalition - coalition building is done before the election in the United States) organized these in an effort to create a message. They don't currently have a coherent one because the coalition fractured after the failures of the last election made it clear their message was no longer bearing fruit. Saying something is true does not make it so, it turns out.

The problem is, bedding down with libertarians and complete de-regulation got us in the mess that required this amount of spending. Libertarians want none of the regulation, yet none of the consequences of that deregulation. What should have happened is all of these banks should have failed and been liquidated, dissolved into their constituent bits while the economy collapsed to the point we would get close to feudal-city-state government: theoretically, a libertarian wet-dream. But it's actually scarier than they expected, and a lot less profitable.

Most libertarians just want to keep all of their own money, but don't seem to grokk that their taxes go to pay for protecting their assets with a standing military. A standing army is expensive, and at its core is very socialist itself. You cross-train so anyone can replace anyone else, you get pay for taking extra risk, you have health care and housing and food benefits, you live in a communal enclave...

It's easy to dismiss all social services as socialist until folks realize there's some enlightened self-interest to having an educated populace, healthy people, civic protection, and so-on. It's all too easy to point a finger at whoever gets the money. But then, we might as well protest garbagemen for making a profit of just hauling away refuse.

And as ugly as it is, this is reaping the whirlwind for twelve years of a Frankenstein neo-conservative libertarian conservative-Christian coalition.

first part didnt' make much sense to me - but the second half did

still, i understand the whole reason the banking system did a belly-flop... and i agree that the overall healthiest thing for the economic system would have been to let the banks and whatnot die... its their own fault for setting up the whole sub-prime mortgage system in the first place.

i have american friends - one especially who's feeling the brunt of the this, having a great bit of trouble finding a job...

as per socialism: i live in denmark - we are socialist - social healthcare, homes for the elderly, free education (including university, i'll be getting a masters degree in a few years, no student loan debt) - plus we dont have a 2-party system... we have around 5 to 7 different parties in parliament, depending on election results. makes for a far greater level of differentiated representation.

but ya - reaping the whirlwind

The real funny thing is, is how "those people" seem to think that only groups like Acorn, NION, Code-Pink, and the anarchists at the G20 are the "Vox Populi." I think what baffles the "Pod People" even more is that there really can be such a thing as "peaceful, nonviolent, CIVILIZED civil-discord" without bricks being thrown, or riots wanting to lynch-mob corporate execs (though, some do deserve a serious bitch-slapping), or burning anything. I think they think that since they're not very sincere about their own cause, no one is, and can't except it. Keep fighting the good fight over there in the "pea-patch" over there Jim! As more us over here in Hawaii, I fear that the voices have fallen on deaf ears. Our legislature will most likely raise taxes, and raise the cost of living here. It already takes FOUR PEOPLE to be able to afford to rent a 2-bedroom apartment!

...So I don't need to imagine what life would be like when the Dems completely have their way. I already live it!

WOOT HAIL FELLOW RIGHT WING EXTREMIST!

I'm a war vet thats prolife, pro guns, pro state vs fed and pro tea party. lol I must be high on their list right?

Btw best sign I saw,:

I'll keep my money
I'll keep my rights
I'll keep my guns

You can keep the change.

When ten million people protested the war in Iraq without needing an entire network dedicated to promoting it, it was a 'focus group' to be ignored, and the hundreds of thousands of lost human lives were acceptable. With the full power of the right-wing wurlitzer pushing it nonstop and multiple Republican lobby shops setting up coordination websites ahead of time, less than one thirtieth that many people complained about their lowest-in-the-industrialized-world taxes and think that it's going to convince anyone who wasn't already on their side already? Nobody ever got swayed by Code Pink's street theater either, save to think they were making fools of themselves, too. Everyone's free to hold protest rallies and so on. They're just mostly an ineffective means of doing anything but letting off some steam and meeting people who already agree with you.

It might have been more effective if it hadn't been relentlessly promoted by partisan media; having the right-wing hosts and Fox spamming it while everyone else made mention of it and then waited to provide coverage until there was actually something to cover made sure it had a thick veneer of Republican activism, even if it drew in a few stragglers along the edges. It might have been more effective without the silly name and tremendously unfortunate choice by Fox early on to refer to the participants as 'teabaggers' and thereby invite everyone else to use that name. It might have been more effective if it wasn't taking place after the oh-so-vilified Democrats in the government hadn't just passed the largest middle-class tax CUT in the history of the country. It might have been more effective if the country wasn't riding near historic highs in satisfaction with the tax rate. And it might have been more effective if it didn't target a widely popular president on one of the issues where people give him his highest marks.

In any case, it's good you got to blow off some steam and feel for an afternoon like people agreed with you, recent election results notwithstanding.

"All that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing."

Just a thought:
If protesting against the war is, "doing nothing," they need to be doing more.

I am for peaceful assembly. Even if it's for something I disagree with fundamentally. Even the KKK has the right to peacefully assemble. The moment we begin to limit rights because we disagree with what they are saying or that it's just, "common sense that they're wrong" is the moment we lose those rights. (The only exception, of course, being inciting violence and so on.)

"Teabaggers" have a right to protest government spending if they want, and war protesters have a right to protest the war in Iraq, as long as neither of them incite violence. But if protesting is "doing nothing but letting off steam," then we are in a sad state of affairs with the proverbial boot raised precariously over our collective faces.

"If protesting against the war is, "doing nothing," they need to be doing more."

That's exactly the point. Democrats protested against Bush's war routinely, but it accomplished nothing. It wasn't until Democrats actually took that energy and concentrated it on winning elections rather than yelling in the streets that they actually began to accomplish goals.

So by all means, hold tea parties and convince each other that drawing as much as an estimated one-third of one percent of the number of people who voted in the last election (aggregated nonpartisan media estimates suggest between 250,000 and 300,000 total participants, versus about 100 million voters) is meaningful. It lets off steam and provides for a morale boost. And that's all.

I really think that protesting shouldn't be just "blowing off steam." How else are the people to bring about change when their elected representatives refuse to listen to their desires?

I am really not sure what to think of these tea parties. I won't use any strawman arguments and say everyone who is protesting is just retarded and they don't realize this is all good for them. Because that would be asinine. I refuse to tell people to just sit down, shut up and eat their soup and not ask what's in, and just insist that it's good for them. Many people are upset and protesting because of the stimulus bill is the same massive spending the George Bush began his term with. To disagree with and argue with myself, that's not to say that all government spending is bad. No, I think what people are most upset about is the fact that the Obama administration has promised transparency, and this stimulus package is anything but. People demanded to know where their money was going to be spent in the bill, and now they're being told that so much as -asking- where that money goes makes them an extremist. You can see how that would be insulting.

I disagree that protesting does "nothing." There are many historical instances of marches and movements of peacefully assembled protests that accomplished a great deal. I won't name them here because I'm certain if I do, people will use that as a strawman argument to say that I am comparing these protests with things of greater importance. If you want to know what I personally think about these tea parties, I wouldn't know. I simply am unsure if the new government spending is good or bad, as I do not know the entirety of the stimulus bill.

Hardly. If people were protesting 'lack of transparency' they would have been holding mostly signs that said 'We want transparency!' They were holding signs that said 'Obama is Hitler!' instead. People are upset because they fail to understand that the 'representation' part of 'taxation with representation' does not mean your personal views get promoted, only that you get your fair chance to advocate for them and convince people to vote for them. They are, to borrow a phrase, confusing 'tyranny' with 'losing.'

And yes, there are situations where street protests have wrought change. Spontaneous eruptions of popular anger that are a step away from riots, usually, but a few more peaceable ones. Massively promoted by partisan media and bringing little (not none, but little) interest outside of existing True Believers? Not so much. Same with the Code Pink demonstrations; they're street theater meant to grab some attention and get people in touch with others who agree, not actually achieve a goal.

The teabaggers didn't even have a coherent message; people were standing next to each other with signs reading "Down with the socialist fascist!" and not actually understanding the fundamental contradiction. A lot of extremely low-information people were there, along with a contingent of Randroids, moron 'birthers', and paranoiacs screaming about losing their rights (despite the fact that the only people who have in fact been denied their rights lately were California gays losing the right to marry - thanks to the right-wing types). I'm lumping the 'taxation is slavery' kooks in with the Randroids, even if it's not a perfect match.

Hm.

Thank you for giving your thoughtful perspective on this.

Having listened to both sides, I have come to the decision that I haven't much interest in this matter, and that either side has failed to sway me to care much more than I already do, or, more accurately, don't.

Don't take it personally, but I thought this was something much different than what was explained to me. It does remind me a little bit of the whiskey rebellion though.

""Down with the socialist fascist!" and not actually understanding the fundamental contradiction."

Um... actually, Fascism is a brand of Socialism. It differs from Communism in that industry is privately owned but is still controlled by the government, whereas in Communism the government controls And owns all industry.

Sweet! Always good to encounter a fellow "right wing extremist" ;) It's good to see photos from other Tea Parties, and nice to know I'm not the only person on FA who thinks differently.

Awesome! :D

No doubt about. Hang him.

The Teabagging Event must have been interesting.

Americans already pay the lowest taxes of any citizen of any developed country in the world, as far as I know. How much lower can they be, and still have a "nation" instead of an anarchic territory like Afghanistan, which effectively has no central government or public services?

The one helpful direction you might go in the effort to lower taxes is spend less on dominating the planet militarily. That costs a lot of bucks, and whatever profit is in it usually goes into the hands of the large corporations whose political donations call the shots in congress. Joe Six-Pack pays for it, his sons go into the marines to get shot at, and his job is downsized because everything but the defense industry has gone to China. Paying more attention to the actual well being of the nation may not only build America up again, but cut taxes.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth. And I'm not turning it over to the IRS without a protest march!

Woo! A fellow Madisonian! I haven't made my way downtown very much yet. I've only been living here for about 7 months now, probably about time I do that. I hear there's a lot to do, as long as you're over 21 anyway, which I'm not for another 4 months, but oh well.

I was born in madison, myself!

But now I see it as

GOP= We conviently found our morals that we stopped caring about years ago right after we lost two elections in a row

Dems= Credit everything that goes right on us Blame everything that goes wrong on Bush and the GOP.

You see the dems are parading about how membership in the GOP is going down without noticing how their numbers are going down as well.

Hopefully we will see more independents in congress and senate after 2010

hence why I think we need a good third party

As I understood, "Right wing Extremists" have nazi ideologies, or I got something wrong? Sorry for my mistake.

I think I can sum up both sides with some truth
tea party
prosteting Obama because of some questionable facts of theirs ($9 of the $10 trillion in debt is due to Bush, not Obama as they claim)
left wing
dismisses them outright and refuses to engage in any serious debate with them
however, the reason I dismiss the tea baggers is simple, they use facts, figures and words that simply is not true. That is why people just ignore them, because they didn't bother to do research on something as simple as tea bagging, why should we believe any facts they claim?

I...HATE....TEA BAGGERS!!