The Tea Party Is a Giant Political Starfish

[BridgeTheGap]

(While I find no common ground with the tea baggers, this is an interesing analogy of the phenomenon - btg)

As a starfish blindly ambles across the sea floor, its five arms grope independently of each other. Instead of being controlled by a central brain, each limb has its own compartmentalized nervous system that can communicate with the others. Capturing food, escaping from predators, and locating a mate are processes that rely on a fine balance of collaboration and independence. On account of its decentralized biology, argues National Journal’s Jonathan Rauch, a starfish is a fitting analogy for the Tea Party.

What Rauch is alluding to is a political tack called radical decentralization. He contends:

In American politics, radical decentralization has never been tried on so large a scale. Tea party activists believe that their hivelike, ‘organized but not organized’ (as one calls it) structure is their signal innovation and secret weapon, the key to outlasting and outmaneuvering traditional political organizations and interest groups. They intend to rewrite the rule book for political organizing, turning decades of established practice upside down. If they succeed, or even half succeed, the tea party's most important legacy may be organizational, not political.

One of the Tea Party’s greatest strengths is that it lacks a central figure who calls the shots for the entire movement. “The network is impervious to decapitation,” Rauch writes.

http://www.utne.com/Politics/tea-party-republican-political-starfish.aspx?utm_content=09.15.10+Politics&utm_campaign=Emerging+Ideas-Every+Day&utm_source=iPost&utm_medium=email

[Xipe Totec]

1. It's not a party; it's a mob. n/t

[Democrats_win]

5. It's the Koch brother's party. Instead of apologizing for Bush, they hate Obama.

It is morally reprehensible that these irresponsible buffoons utter one word about Obama without FIRST apologizing for the disastrous and treasonous Bush pResidency.

You remember, the president who stole the 2000 election, the idiot who did NOTHING to protect America (and ran like a coward to a hole in Nebraska) and the modern-day Benedict Arnold who shot America in the back by starting an elective war in Iraq while taking resources away from getting the 9/11 terrorists.

[Xipe Totec]

9. I'd love to see them get in fron of this mob to tell them what to do

They'd turn their guts to chitlins.

[secondwind]

2. Interesting....and scary, when you get right down to it. K&R

[BrklynLiberal]

3. Sadly, I think the Democratic party falls into that same category...

" Instead of being controlled by a central brain, each limb has its own compartmentalized nervous system that can communicate with the others. "

[Ozymanithrax]

4. Based on the book "The Starfish and the Spider"

The Srarfish and the Spider
The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom

I heard about that.

The problem is that the "leaderless" part isn't true. They are not leaderless.

[Warpy]

6. There are a few figures who think they're calling the shots

and to some extent, they are. First and foremost is Glen Beck, probably getting his orders from the Koch brothers, the evil twins providing most of the funding. Second is Jim DeMint, their would be king behind the curtain. Then there are the lesser luminaries like Sarah Palin, good for rabble rousing stump speeches here and there to call out the morons to vote but not offering much in the way of real leadership.

Right now the message is consistent enough to bespeak leaders behind the scenes coordinating much of it. Whether that continues to be the case remains to be seen, especially if their candidates all get a drubbing at the polls in November and/or people start to realize the old message of blaming the poor and black doesn't really make a lot of sense in this new Robber Baron age.

Mobs have a nasty habit of going in directions the instigators never intended and sometimes turning on those instigators and the teabaggers are a mob. It will be interesting to watch them over the next few years.

[liberal N proud]

7. That lack of central organization may also be what brings them down

All those tentacles going different directions may take them further apart from their initial goal of overthrowing the government.

[orwell]

8. Sounds like Al-Qaeda...

...angry, armed, and willing to destroy anything and anyone to achieve their aims.

Sorry, but this has always been the organizational structure of asymmetric warfare.