“We can change the world
Rearrange the world
It’s dying -
to get better” - Graham Nash
One single, solitary individual with absolutely no connections, no political pull and an extremely limited number of hair follicles (okay, this is irrelevant, but I needed a third thing for pacing and rhythm) trying to start a nation-wide and hopefully, influential political movement – just how out of control is the sense of self-worth and self-regard of nycityman?! Well, in this era of exploding social media when cats getting tickled and homeless people boxing tournaments reap thousands, if not millions, of views and followers, why not give something positive a shot? Impossible, you retort? Well, nothing's impossible I have found, for when my chin is on the ground, I pick myself up, dust myself off, start all over again (maybe that wasn’t me but rather Fred Astaire.) So, as a natural outgrowth of “… and several butcher’s aprons” I proudly and egotistical announce a further expansion of the sticking of my nose into other people’s business, and the proselytizing of my know-it-all political opinions, with the HUMANitea PARTY MOVEMENT (look at those caps, this must be important.) Simply stated, our goal is to bring rationality, humanity and compassion to political discourse and policy, and to counter the corporate agenda of the Tea Party. We are the anti-Tea Party. My motivation for such an endeavor – the recent depressing and chillingly positive, almost giddy, audience reactions at the recent GOP debates to the concept of the deaths of fellow American citizens - or perhaps I’m just desperately trying anything to elevate myself to such a position of power that no woman would ever consider spurning my advances again – you decide.
At present, HUMANitea PARTY MOVEMENT exists on but a Facebook page, but soon we hope to grow and expand to other media as well. In the meanwhile, the link to the page is attached in this posting and will permanently be in the list of links on the right side of the blog. Below is the HUMANitea Manifesto as published on Facebook.
I can’t do anything alone so, seriously I implore you, if you find anything to your liking here, please join the movement and share with like-minded companions. Much obliged, “we can change the world.”
HUMANitea PARTY MOVEMENT Manifesto
Putting rationality, compassion, humanity, equality and tolerance back into the political discourse and placing people above corporations - the Humanitea Party is a true, genuine grassroots political movement, and an answer to the corporate created and corporate financed, faux grassroots movement that is the Tea Party. We promote true traditional American values of freedom and fairness and acceptance of all, and not the anti-minority, anti-poor, anti-immigrant, anti-working class interests that the Tea Party, its corporate overlords and the rest of the Extreme Right endorse as their form of American values. A primary goal is to counter the Tea Party - to counter the influence, to counter the falsehoods, to counter the big business agenda. We must oppose the negative, verbally violent, anti-American rhetoric of their movement which inevitably creates the type of atmosphere that leads to the joyous and jubilant reactions to executions and uninsured dying that we recently witnessed at GOP debates. Built on a foundation of lies and deception, the Tea Party uses the suffering working class to unwittingly further the power, wealth and influence of the affluent and the business interests - all masked by the flag and the cross, and disguised as a movement for the benefit of the middle class.
“We can change the world, rearrange the world, it’s dying - to get better.” We may indeed be capable of changing the world, but in order to do so - where now we are few, we need to be many. As individuals we are powerless, but as an assemblage of individuals, we are empowered. Thanks to technology - thanks to Facebook, thanks to Twitter, thanks to emails, Skyping, texting, smart phones, tablets, thanks to every little wonder of the world wide web - anybody and everybody can have a voice now - how one chooses to use that voice is of supreme importance. You can have a voice and just make a calculated and caustic cacophony like the Tea Party or you can have a voice and with it affect your country and society in constructive ways - and that is the foundation of, and the reason for, the existence of the Humanitea Party. This is a movement for progressive, positive change, Humanitea believes in science, history, facts - supports enrichment, education and enlightenment in any and all its forms. This page should be a place for a civil and intelligent exchange of ideas - never juvenile name-calling or hate speak - a forum to discuss issues, policies and candidates; and of equal importance, whenever possible, an environment to attempt to right wrongs, to correct injustices, to defend the defenseless. I encourage everyone to post on here whenever made aware of political or social issues, inequities or injustices they feel need be addressed.
Please join me and do so swiftly, we’ve only got until the 2012 election to turn this tide of intolerance, this fear of knowledge and facts, this disregard for science and history, this lack of human kindness, compassion or charity, this taking from the poor to give to the rich that has been embraced by so many in American politics and now infiltrates the Republican Party, muting its more moderate members. Humanity must always play a principal part of the political process and the needs of people must always remain absolute.
www.facebook.com/pages/HUMANitea-PARTY-MOVEMENT/237144423004966
So, answer me this, honestly. If you want a Nation that is fair to and accepts all, as well as one that is anti-big business, how do you expect to pay for all that and encourage growth that will produce jobs?
ReplyDeleteYour theory that the Tea Party is based on lies and deception is dead wrong. While not a Tea Party member myself (I'm more of an Independent), the Tea Party was founded to carry out to the letter our Constitution. Perhaps it would behoove you to post a copy of the Constitution on your Facebook book, or even here.
It's an interesting debate but let's start off on the correct foundation. I half expect you next to tell me you are one of the protesters marching at Wall Street this week.
Life isn't fair. Life isn't all inclusive. You have to work for what you want. It shouldn't be handed to you, free.
To Be continued.............
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ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment, and obviously I'm in pretty strong disagreement, but as I have previously written, I state nothing as fact that I have not first researched and that I cannot back-up.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I don't believe that I explicitly said I was anti-big business, but what I am against is big business getting all the benefits - the tax breaks (if like GE they even pay taxes at all), the loop holes, the subsidies - while the middle class pays higher tax rates than either corporations or the wealthy (just ask Warren Buffet), and those very same corporations layoff American workers, sending their jobs overseas. As far as big business getting these government breaks because they're job producers, the entire history of the Bush administration and the current economic environment in which we are mired has shown that rather than use their windfalls to invest and create jobs, they cut jobs and take that money as obscene profit and to pay ludicrously high salaries and bonuses to CEOs and other high-ranking executives. We need to give those breaks to small businesses, the real economic engine and job creators. Please note that I didn't claim government as job creators.
Regarding my comments about the deceptive nature of the Tea Party, I can point to this article from the NY Times, (one among many, obviously) which collaborates my stating that the Tea Party is a corporate tool using the working class to do their bidding and forward their agenda. "There’s just one element missing from these snapshots of America’s ostensibly spontaneous and leaderless populist uprising: the sugar daddies who are bankrolling it, and have been doing so since well before the “death panel” warm-up acts of last summer. Three heavy hitters rule. You’ve heard of one of them, Rupert Murdoch. The other two, the brothers David and Charles Koch... Their self-interested and at times radical agendas, like Murdoch’s, go well beyond, and sometimes counter to, the interests of those who serve as spear carriers in the political pageants hawked on Fox News."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29rich.html
Primarily I believe in government of the people, by the people and for the people - not of the corporations, etc., as the Tea Party puppet masters promote; and as such, as the government and the people are theoretically one, and it's the people's money that funds the government, the government's first priority should be seeing to the health, safety and welfare of its people. No one in this country should be without food or shelter or health care. No true American should ever either encourage or cheer letting a fellow citizen die due to lack of health insurance. I agree life isn't fair. When the top 1% of income earners get 20% of the nation’s wealth, and when their assistants and secretaries pay higher tax rates than they do (Buffet reference again) - we're heading toward a combination of an oligarchy and a plutocracy and away from either a democracy (which we've never been) or a republic and that is certainly neither constitutional nor any semblance of what our founders intended.
Thanks again for weighing in, and although we clearly represent extremely different ends of the political spectrum, both here and on the HUMAMitea page, I want discussion and not necessarily just in agreement. By the way, as I've stated in a previous comments, although a proud liberal, I understand and respect conservatism - true Goldwater/Buckley-type conservatism, and neither the Tea Party nor the Cheney Neo-cons are actually true conservatives.
I'll let someone else chime in here before answering your comment. It's an important dialogue and good for you to participate in the process - that's 99% of the battle! My largest complaint about Obama is that he's woefully indifferent. Give me a candidate who is passionate.
ReplyDeleteWe may have reached a point of agreement, but I think he's finally showing some more fire now as he's promoting the American Jobs Act and finally pushing back against the GOP.
ReplyDeletehow can you call Obama indifferent when he has so far: staved off an even more dire economic crisis, brought the troops out of Iraq, begun troop drawdown in Afghanistan, passed a healthcare plan that benefits all of us, improved our foreign policy to use soft power - not American lives and treasure - to overthrow a dictator's regime (Libya) and enacted countless other policy changes to improve our quality of life. what news organizations are you listening to? never mind, I think I can guess.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/
Well techmom, it's all in how you perceive what's he's done so far. Healthcare that benefits all of us? HARDLY! Like everything else Obama wants, it's stick the wealthy for higher insurance rates so they can pay for those who don't have and will be forced to get insurance.
ReplyDeleteI don't singularly watch Fox, if that's what you assume. I read everything I can get my hands on, pro and con, and then, and only then, do I make my educated opinions on Obama's plans.
He's most definitely indifferent...worst,to his own base - leaning farther and farther to the middle to stave off an utter trouncing in 2012. He can't make up his mind about business - he wants to punish those who fly corporate jets but has the CEO of GE sit next to Michelle at his last speech - GE not paying much in taxes!
Take Solyndra: He fast-tracked lending them money so he could look good Going Green and what - poof.
I don't have a candidate yet that appeals to me but I am in the camp more and more people I know belong to: Anyone But Obama. Don't forget, in 2008, Obama got elected because the mantra was Anything but a Republican.
NYCMan and TechMom: this is a PERFECT example of how Obama is BEYOND indifferent to business:
ReplyDeleteSouth Carolina Boeing factory turns sour for Obama
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/64199.html#ixzz1YnYKtuou
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/64199.html
The left and the right/Democrats and Republicans are not even speaking the same language. As I see it we are increasingly falling into fact based v faith based realities. I don't mean reason vs religion. It's that Republicans take certain things as accepted like the "liberal media"; that 'what's good for corporations is therefore good for America', that 'government is always inefficient and is never the answer', and the less overtly voiced opinion that 'people receiving government assistance are lazy and don't deserve it'. We even have a republican candidate who doesn't think citizens need to pay taxes: that - "it's your money" thing. Perhaps it's because they were taught these things by their parents and they have heard them so many times.
ReplyDeleteThis sort of thinking is just rationalization for their selfish disregard for people less fortunate than them, either in their physical or mental health, or in terms of access to opportunities.
In contrast, generally, dems deal in facts. Like the fact that trickle down economics was discredited back in The Reagan years, and continuing in the current era of exceedingly low effective tax rates. We find arguments that contain references or statistics backing up opinions to be far more persuasive. We like examples. We don't form conclusions about a health care bill based on e-mail chains or out of context innuendos; we look up the provisions.
These are my generalizations, based on my sphere of contacts and information, but that's where trends come from. Progressives listen to arguments and try to be open minded - less ideological - less extreme. More willing to compromise. Hopefully we are less likely to vote for people just because they "look presidential". We want our candidates to think, to know what they're talking about and yes - (gasp!) to be smart. Knowledge is the foundation for forming well advised decisions and policy. If the current Republican party was a brand they would be the National Enquirer, the Democrats would be more like the Atlantic. Less Gilligan and more Professor.
Some Wm. F. Buckley republicans lately don't recognize the party anymore. When a party stops representing you it is time to make a change. Which is what is happening: dwindling demographics of people identifying themselves as Republican - more than 5% loss in the past 10 years in all of these groups: college grads, 18 - 29 yr olds, 50 - 64 yr olds, Midwest, East, West, all income groups up to $75,00/yr, singles, marrieds, males, females.
Democrats don't need to misrepresent issues to get voter support. When people are told the details of Obama's recent budget proposal, for example, including raising taxes on the rich, they (66-70%) support it.
Democrats, lots of us, work for corporations. We do buy into American ideals of working hard for what we have, we are capitalists. We just also believe in sensible regulation, fair taxation and helping out those who need it.
I happen to think those are sensible positions. But I guess for some that makes me a socialist, or that I'm for class warfare.
Anyway, there are, I'm sure, still moderate Republicans out there, let's hope they can counter some of these extremists.
I am glad to see that politico reference, thanks. it's always good to get opposing views and perspectives.
ReplyDeleteHopefully I'll be posting something new shortly so we can move on to other issues, very likely it will be a piece about Michele Bachmann. I've got to get something out before she drops from the race. But first, I just want to thank you both for your intelligent and thoughtful comments, for me that's what makes the effort of doing a blog worthwhile. And, as I've stated previously, I'm wholly in favor of the expression of various points of view as long as everyone remains civil and respectful,as you both have. Now, I'm sure it comes as no surprise that I'm much more in agreement with techmom than EOS, and I suppose our point of views, where the twain may very likely never meet, arise from our experiences and upbringing. I believe we live under a class system and always will. In my case, I grew up in a lower middle class family where money went to necessities, and luxuries were pretty much non-existent. I was lucky enough to attend an excellent university primarily thanks to grants, scholarships and government assistance, or Socialism, as the Right would label it. Even today, while gainfully employed with a good career, anything I own or have gained is all thanks to my own labor, my progenitors were not in any position to bestow anything onto any of their offspring. Our differences in political opinion and ideology, I believe, are simply a matter of perspective. EOS, I regularly read and enjoy your blog, but for me it's somewhat of an opportunity to see how the other half lives. You once posted how you were finally experiencing the travails of the recession because your township was no longer trimming the lawn edges - compare this to the fact that the African American community is affected by the recession with 17% unemployment. Additionally, in one of our prior exchanges to this specific posting you said, "Life isn't fair. Life isn't all inclusive. You have to work for what you want. It shouldn't be handed to you, free" to some extent, I agree, yet on your own blog you bemoaned the idea that you might have to go to work in order to afford health insurance under "Obamacare." If I'm mistaken or overstepping or misunderstood your points, I sincerely apologize, but the point I'm trying to make is that to some extent we will always be a divided society and country with different perspectives, different needs and different wants due to the style in which we are accustomed to living.
ReplyDeleteOk, I'm in on any move to smoke out, expose or otherwise defeat the Tea Party candidates. And of course we need a more civil, respectful discourse on what to do with our country and the economy. And I'm no bleeding heart liberal - been a registered Republican since 1970. But this is over the top. Their religion and their goal to weave their particular religion into our mundane government operations, they don't believe in evolution and instead would teach "creationism" in our schools as if it's actually science, they don't believe in global warming in the face of overwhelming scinece, their obsession with gays and lesbians as if it's some big crisis(most of the gays and lesbians I know are actually pretty good citizens), their blind allegiance to big business and the super wealthy, their stated objective to eliminate the EPA and on and on. Their circus like debates where they cheer the guy who executed the most inmates. I don't think these people can think for themselves and just run with what someone told them when it's convenient - Michelle Bachman and the vaccine issue for example. So where does a fiscal concervative, socially responsible republican go? Why, to the other side of course. The Tea Party is right about one thing though - Washington is broken and needs to be fixed. It's what they say they would do and how they would do it that is the problem. Too bad we didn't have a third party emerge with the same passion but a much more sensible agenda. I voted for Obama and am still glad I did. He didn't create the mess with the economy - just tried to keep the bus from going over the cliff. He isn't perfect and his initiatives aren't perfect either. But here is the question, if McCain and Palin had been in office, would there have even been a banking reform law for example? Or would we have just bailed them out, paid them their bonus and let the banks go with their promise that they will behave better in the furure? Yeah, things are still a mess but they could have been so much worse. So this old timey Republican applauds you blog and looks forward to more.
ReplyDeleteRe: Obama's supposed indifference to business, doesn't the revitalization of the American auto industry make an impression on the Rs?
ReplyDelete