After many years of congressional gridlock I've come to a very dire conclusion based on observations, political/economic insight, third party opinion, and statistical inference. I give full credit to where they are due, but I must say making this point must bring about immediate change or we will fall not only as a nation but as a society to be mirrored throughout the developing world.
Before we dive into lala-land, I think a stark history lesson is in for all kossaks. The American principles of Liberal vs. Conservative ideology has existed since the revolution. Best example to point would be Ben Franklin's moderate (or by today's definition left-wing) ideology to John Adams (Right-wing) ideology. Both parties loved this country, but both had very different views on how government should be run. Where moderate principles involved the rights of all men as equal and free. Federalists (right-wing) required "power must be opposed to power", and even "ambition must be counteracted upon by an equal ambition". This tug-o-war has been played out so many times, people seem to think something new all of a sudden is happening with the current political climate.
But the one thing that kept either vision of government from taking over another has always been the people. The people have had the only power to decide their nations fate. As a representative government is in process, a nation elects men of great political will to lead them while they go on about their daily lives. Opinions rise and fall over time, and as MLK used to say the arch of history will always bend, it's just a matter of time.
What has happened over the last couple of years has been on a spiral lasting nearly 112 years. We again have to look at history to find of proof of this claim. We have to go back in time to Teddy Roosevelt, and the progressive republican caucus if the early 20th century. From increased regulations to protect consumer rights to trust busting of major conglomerates and anti-competitive cartels that controlled massive monopolies and allowed the first swath of Steel magnates, Oil barons, and Industrialists gain political power through the "power of the purse".
The parallels Mr. Obama faces today are so eerily similar in breath and width to the Progressive Movement, you of kind feel like being back in 1905 and re-experiencing American history all over again. Hell, Roosevelt even won the Nobel Prize too!
The sad thing of it is just like back then corporations themselves had enough power to destroy any politician that fought it, we see similar parallels like the Teapot dome scandal and Keystone XL, Tammany Hall and Citizens United. It even came to head when Roosevelt had to primary for the then Progressive Party within conservative Republican party ideals, he even said:
"to destroy this invisible Government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesman of the day. 'This country belongs to the people. Its resources, its business, its laws, its institutions, should be utilized, maintained, or altered in whatever manner will best promote the general interest.' This assertion is explicit..... ".
So when I see a "tea party" spouting out somewhat conservative ideals I shudder to think but know in my heart history seems to be repeating itself all over again. Because after Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson was an inevitable and steady decline in logical reasoning and great increase in graft, corruption, exploitation, and an immediate effect to where the United States stood as a global representative.
We can thank Coolidge a little bit on Harding and Hoover for the mess that was to come in later years, in the form of Isolationistic government and the ensuing Great Depression caused not just by an economic bubble perpetuated from blind due diligence when investing in corporations by the retail investor, but also having to pay for a compounding war debt (WWI, Spanish American war, Cuban American war, and Philippine Independence Movement), restriction on trade with other countries that resulted in isolationist tariffs, as well as the supply of money was restricted to when a debt ceiling for government was reached.
The worst case scenario played out when in October 1929, economic output was down, Unemployment was up, national debt was not being paid on time, money was in tight supply, and investors had all but dried up to buy American Bonds. As if the world really did end that day, we entered a period of depression so lasting and so deep that it pales in comparison to recessions we had so many times before the modern era.
Likening this to today's scenario again, nothing has really changed since republican (Right wing) ideals have affected the Modern American psyche in such a way that you have to think what was the point if we are back in square one all over again? We are in a protracted battle that has last for over a century, and there is no denying it modern messaging has not changed in those 100 years. The conservative vs. progressive ideal have yet to produce a clear winner for the path of the American future.
The Tea Party is not a new concept. The tea party is not a great movement of anything new. It is messaging of the haves using the have-nots to spew the same vitriol that has been vomited on this country for 100 years. The factional movement is a political tactic used by right wing hacks over and over again. But today we see the modern equivalency of what the Great Depression was back then. People who are afraid of change, afraid of what will happen in the future, of what it was like back in the day. People afraid of anything new, and mistrustful of something unfamiliar to what was once what they believe was freedom. New Laws, new regulations, new things that don't make sense, and rather than looking for a compromise or a engaged debate on the matters of fact, the best strategy that can be made is ignorance and division. The only thing new about this group is its supposed name. I go back to my first assertion of a 'sleeper cell', the tea party meets that definition to a T.
A clandestine cell structure is a method for organizing a group of people in such a way that it can more effectively resist penetration by an opposing organization. Depending on the group's philosophy, its operational area, the communications technologies available, and the nature of the mission, it can range from a strict hierarchy to an extremely distributed organization. A sleeper cell refers to a cell, or isolated grouping of sleeper agents that lies dormant until it receives orders or decides to act.
They in essence have been waiting for the signal all this time, on how to destroy the American Government, they have been waiting decades it seems like to finally pounce, all we are seeing is crazy.
What we have now is no longer a test of political will but of Terrorism in its acute definition of what happens when no one else is there to sound the alarms. The tea party has now achieved what Sinn Fein, Al Qaeda, Tamil Tigers, Maoist, FARQ, and many other groups have done in one form or another. But the tea party have got to take the cake in terms of breath and width for they involve something no one else seems to believe a political coup de tat of ideology, unlike any other in the history of the modern political era. From the official definition we have:
Traditional: the slowest to form, this reflects a principally indigenous insurgency, initially with limited goals. It is more secure than others, as it tends to grow from people with social, cultural or family ties. The insurgents resent a government that has failed to recognize tribal, racial, religious or linguistic groups "who perceive that the government has denied their rights and interests and work to establish or restore them. They seldom seek to overthrow the government or control the whole society; however, they frequently attempt to withdraw from government control through autonomy or semiautonomy." But if they become strong enough in a given area, they may change to the mass-oriented form.
Subversive: Usually driven by an organization that contains at least some of the governing elite, some being sympathizers already in place, and others who penetrate the government. It has a specific purpose, such as coercing voters, intimidating officials, and disrupting and discrediting the government. The Nazi rise to power, in the 1930s, is an example of subversion. Nazi members of parliament and street fighters were hardly clandestine, but the overall plan of the Nazi leadership to gain control of the nation was hidden. "A subversive insurgency is suited to a more permissive political environment which allows the insurgents to use both legal and illegal methods to accomplish their goals. Effective government resistance may convert this to a critical-cell model.
Critical-cell: Critical cell is useful when the political climate becomes less permissive than one that allowed shadow cells. While other cell types try to form intelligence cells within the government, this type sets up "shadow government" cells that can seize power once the system is destroyed both by external means and the internal subversion. This model fits the classic coup d'etat,[10] and often tries to minimize violence. Variants include the Sandinista takeover of an existing government weakened by external popular revolution. "Insurgents also seek to infiltrate the government's institutions, but their object is to destroy the system from within." Clandestine cells form inside the government. The group remains covert until the government is so weakened that the insurgency's superior organization seizes power.
Mass-oriented: where the subversive and covert-cell systems work from within the government, the mass-oriented builds a government completely outside the existing one, with the intention of replacing it. Such "insurgents patiently construct a base of passive and active political supporters. They have a well-developed ideology and carefully determine their objectives. They are highly organized and effectively use propaganda and guerrilla action to mobilize forces for a direct political challenge to the government." The revolution that produced the Peoples' Republic of China, the American Revolution, and the Shining Path insurgency in Peru are examples of the mass-oriented model. Once established, this type of insurgency is extremely difficult to defeat because of its great depth of organization.
History is somehow giving us a chance (a slim chance but a chance) to right the wrong caused by these insurgents, we have to take an initiative or face peril greater than any terrorist has ever done before.