Jim Kunstler: Teaparty Convention Marks Slide into "Weimar America"

[ShamelessHussy]

By James Howard Kunstler for ClusterFuck Nation

Future historians who try to chart the unraveling of the USA's political tapestry might point to two events of the past week. The obvious first one was the Tea Party convention at Nashville. It was held not accidentally at the ridiculous Opryland Hotel and resort in the city's outer suburban asteroid belt, right next to the circumferential freeway, and next door to the defunct (1997) Opryland USA theme park, an attraction based on the cute idea that Tennessee rubes were too dumb to spell the word opera -- so the symbolism was perfect.

Behind the incoherent cargo of conflicting complaints that makes up Tea Party doctrine -- like "keeping the government's hands off our medicare!" -- stands the more basic dissolution of the Sunbelt's miracle economy, along with the pain and bewilderment of the southern peckerwood political nexus that rose out of the dust after World War Two to build the suburban nirvana of universal air-conditioning, happy motoring, Jesus tub-thumping, over-eating, and Friday night football that defined Sunbelt culture. They sense now that history is about to thrust them back into the okra patch, with the hookworms and the chiggers, as the economy whirls down the drain, and the car dealerships close up, and the idle production homebuilders succumb to methedrine addiction, and the price of Reba McEntire tickets exceeds their dwindling resources, and they are none too happy about any of that.

Of course this Sunbelt political culture has tentacles and outposts all over the USA, wherever a few generations of laboring folk enjoyed debt-fueled parabolic rises in living standards during the cheap oil decades, and now find themselves in foreclosure hell, indentured to the very WalMarts that they welcomed with open arms (and allowed to destroy their local businesses) -- and, of course, it's yet another paradox that these are the same folk who will still defend the big box masters to their deaths. The America they stand for is a weird contradictory mish-mash of Confederate nostalgia, hyper-individualism that really owes allegiance to nothing, racial enmity, religious paranoia, and potemkin patriotism -- especially involving anything in the constitution that allows them to wriggle out of obligations to the public interest at the same time that they get to push other groups of people around.

The Tea Party people are the corn-pone Nazis I have been warning you about. They are gathering strength in numbers as President Obama and congress fritter away their remaining legitimacy in a manner of governance that more and more resembles an endless Chinese Fire Drill. The delusional craziness of the Tea Partyists exists in direct proportion to the wimpy deceit of the government, especially in matters of money and statistics reporting. Our political leaders are resorting to wholesale deceit because the truth of our situation -- comprehensive bankruptcy -- is too painful to dwell on and for the most part they are too chicken too state it.

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http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Archives2010/KunstlerFeb08.html

[GliderGuider]

1. "potemkin patriotism", "corn-pone Nazis" - whew!

Kunstler in full cry! I love it.

[Doctor_J]

2. We've been discussing this all day

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x516401

Please check before you post

[Tace]

4. ShamelessHussy Apparently Wrote A More Attractive Headline, Though

: )

[southernyankeebelle]

3. Please don't put us all in that same barrel. I consider my family lower middle

class. My husband spent 21 yrs in the military and both my husband and I are military brats. We have lived in many countries and across this great country. Yes we live in TN. We moved here to take care of my in-laws. Stayed on after the both died. Make no mistake we are both social democratics in a sea of redneck republicans.

[groovedaddy]

5. The Tea Party Last Time

MORE than 100,000 angry citizens united in the nation’s capital to take their country back: back from the tax collector and the political and financial elites, back from bureaucrats and backroom wheelers and dealers and, more elusively and alarmingly, back from those who, well, were not like them.

These weren’t the incensed Americans who helped elect Scott Brown in the Massachusetts Senate race and who rallied around conservative candidates in the Illinois primary on Tuesday; this scene didn’t take place at the Tea Party demonstration in Washington last year. These protesters were gathered in France a half-century ago: Last week was the 55th anniversary of the mass demonstration in Paris of the Poujadist movement, a phenomenon that bears a close resemblance to our own Tea Party. For a brief moment, the movement threatened the very foundations of the French Republic. A comparison between France then and America now may be instructive.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/opinion/03zaretsky.html?th&emc=th

[spandexfantastic]

6. kunstler is the man prophet

although take him with some Morton's at times.

[Mopar151]

7. sounds like he needs some lemon zest

And simple suryp - he's runnin' pretty bitter today. Sounds like he's havin' a Naderist snob attack, too.