The Country was Fine 'til the Start of '09!

[africanadian]

(First of all, I want to be recognized for the brilliant poetry of that headline. )

Seriously, though, in the five years I've been observing the rise of the Tea Party in your country, one question has persisted in my mind, a question which nobody---and I mean not one damn person---in that "movement" has been able to answer:

Where were they?

When George W. Bush was turning the surplus Clinton left him into the biggest debts and deficits in American history, where were they? Maybe my Canuck ass was too busy watching the Stanley Cup playoffs during the demonstrations against the Bush Administration's profligate spending.

When John Ashcroft was putting your constitution through the shredder, where were they? I swear I never saw one of these Tea Party Patriots shouting "Tyranny!" as their right were being stripped in the wake off 9/11.

Speaking of which, where were they when their government was spoonfeeding your country bullshit about the "immanent threat" posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq? Where were they when the claims of Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz/etc were starkly demonstrated to be untrue?

During the eight years that the U.S. government was siphoning their money to the rich, sending their sons and daughters to die for no good reason, curtailing the LIBERTIES they've been screaming themselves hoarse over since 20/01/09, bending and breaking every law it didn't like, and lying about the whole fucking mess, WHERE WERE THEY???

You know, and I know, and anyone not willfully blind knows the answer.

In fact, it's as simple as black and white, isn't it?

[Autumn]

1. They were there. They are "patriots and republicans".

Partisan little bastards. It's fine when done by a republican but the Democrat is always evil.

[africanadian]

4. I think it goes beyond "Democrat"

Sure, they hated Bill Clinton, but it seems to me the brain aneurisms only started once there was a black man in the White House.

[dsc]

5. Oh yea there were no brain aneurisms under Clinton at all

He never had a famous preacher making tapes calling him a murderer, no wait, he did that was Jerry Fallwell. He didn't have a congressional committee chair commission watermelons to be shot to prove his wife hired a killer to kill her lover, no wait, that happened too that was Dan Burton. He didn't get impeached over a blow job, no wait, that was the US House in 99.

[Autumn]

7. I think some people are bound and determined that it be racism.

They tend to ignore what doesn't fit that or they are just too young to remember.

[africanadian]

14. Yeah, no racism HERE

And these are from one website.

[Autumn]

19. Yes that is racism. Out and out racism and those are hate sites

This IMO is motivated far more by hatred, ignorance and fear than racism and being pushed by certain groups. Koch anyone? I remember seeing vile pics of Hillary and Bill at similar hate sites. The tea party is a group of ignorant republican who swallow fox swill and when Clinton as in office was saying horrible things but they weren't called the tea party then . This tea party is bankrolled by a fucking group who is playing them to rip them off. The next Democratic President, no matter the race or the gender is going to get the same thing.
Yes you are right, there is racism directed at our President, but this crap did not start in 2009.

Those are disgusting pictures.

Posting privileges revoked Adam R

[Autumn]

6. Most of the crap they said about Bill Clinton was way out there.

Murdering people, dealing drugs, raping women, so on and so forth. I disagree with you on the brain aneurysms only starting once there was a black man in the White House. Wait for it if Hillary decides to run, not only will it be brain aneurysms exploding on the republican side it will be on ours too.

[Cali_Democrat]

8. Correct

Welcome to DU

[africanadian]

16. Thanks!

[Prophet 451]

22. That neglects something very important

And that is that towards the end of the Clinton era and all through DimSon's reign, the divide between the mainstream right and the whacko right was pretty much destroyed. Yes, I'm sure Obama's ethnicity adds some fire to it and I'm sure there are a certain number of anti-Obama protestors who are just straight-up racist but I honestly think that the crazies had taken over prior to Obama and would have been similarly vile to any Democratic president. Remember, the Teabaggers loved Herman Cain because he was on their side. They'd embrace Jack the Ripper if he had an (R) after his name. Racism is certainly in the mix, no doubt about that, but I genuinely think the majority of it is entirely about their side against our side.

[hfojvt]

2. actually no it is not

although that is a favorite for us.

Trouble is, the "record deficits" of Bush have been dwarfed by those of Obama. And as bad as the economy was under Bush, it has been worse under Obama.

Of course, both of those are the result of the BUSH recession of 2008 and fiscal year 2009 goes from October 2008 to September 2009 but people remain unaware of that as they blame the 2009 deficit on Obama.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024400678

[frazzled]

9. That is wholly incorrect

Deficits under Obama have SHRUNK, not grown, as you state. Let's even take a conservative (small c) source, the business magazine Forbes, to set the facts straight. (The article is from a year ago.)

Bloomberg News is out with a new poll that reveals an amazing piece of data.

Here is the question that was asked in the survey-

“Let’s turn to the federal budget deficit. This is the amount the government spends that is more than the amount it takes in from taxes and other revenue. Is it your sense that this year the deficit is getting bigger or getting smaller, or is it staying about the same as last year?”

The results?

(a) Sixty-two percent of Americans believe the deficit is getting bigger this year,

(b) twenty-eight percent believe the deficit will remain about the same; and

(c) six percent believe the deficit will shrink

What is the right answer?

If you guessed (c) in the belief that the deficit has shrunk this year, you are one of the six percent who got the answer correct.

The facts?

Over the first four years of the Obama presidency, the deficit shrunk by a total of $300 billion dollars. That is not the national debt- it is the amount of money we spend each year relative to the amount we take in. And while this improving deficit picture is not what those who believe in a balanced budget would be looking for, it is a shrinking deficit just the same.

Find this difficult to believe?

According to the latest CBO report,

“Compared to the size of the economy, the deficit in 2013 is much lower than in 2009, when Obama took office. The deficit will be 5.3 percent of gross domestic product this year, nearly half the 10.1 percent of GDP in 2009.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2013/02/27/the-best-kept-secret-in-american-politics-federal-budget-deficits-are-actually-shrinking/

And no, the economy is not worse under Obama than under Bush. Compare January 2009 with January 2015 by all measures. It was on the brink of another Great Depression then; it's far from that now.

[hfojvt]

25. it is not at all incorrect

sorry

Deficits by yr http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_deficit

2005 - $318 billion
2006 - $248 billion
2007 - $161 billion
2008 - $458 billion

Obama became President in 2009

2009 - $1,413 billion
2010 - $1,294 billion
2011 - $1,300 billion
2012 - $1,087 billion
2013 - $680 billion

Sure, like the link says, fiscal year 2009 is really part of the Bush presidency, but it sure LOOKS like part of the Obama Presidency, and there would be no point in protesting THAT Bush deficit in December 2008 - the man was already out the door.

So like I said - the Obama deficits dwarf the Bush deficits. $1.3 trillion is much much bigger than $400 billion, and Obama has three, count 'em three, deficits over $1 trillion!!!

As I said also, though, ALL of those deficits are the fault of the BUSH recession.

But thanks to that recession, the economy simply IS, and has been, worse under Obama than it was under Bush. Bush inherited a strong Clinton economy, Obama inherited an almost dead Bush economy.

Still, unemployment rate by year

Bush's term
2001 - 4.7%
2002 - 5.8%
2003 - 6.0%
2004 - 5.5%
2005 - 5.1%
2006 - 4.6%
2007 - 4.6%
2008 - 5.8%

Obama's term
2009 - 9.3%
2010 - 9.6%
2011 - 8.9%
2012 - 8.1%
2013 - 7.4%

Not to mention that during Bush's terms, the labor force was 66% of the population and now it is only 63%. Sure, the wheels came off at the end of Bush's tenure, and Obama has had to deal with that, but clearly the economy WAS better for most of Bush's terms than it has been for Obama's.

That's why I keep pounding away with the message of my link - the bad economy is because of Bush (and Republicans). http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024400678

[Mariana]

27. FY2009 should be put down to Bush

since it began before Obama was even elected.

[jmowreader]

17. The record deficits of Obama were his first act of veritas

You may not be aware of this, but Bush ran the two biggest expenses of his administration - the wars - as off-budget expenditures. If any private sector company would have done this it would be called accounting fraud and anyone who knew it was happening but did nothing to stop it would be sent to prison. Obama put the wars back on the books as soon as he knew of this fraud.

And then he halved the deficit.

[Mariana]

28. Exactly. All of Bush's "official" deficit numbers were lies. nt.

[oldandhappy]

3. For me it goes back to the screaming town halls in '07 and '08.

Nasty folk.

[africanadian]

21. You mean '09 and '10, right?

I honestly didn't see any coverage of such before Obama was elected.

[chuckstevens]

10. It's VERY Simple!

Last edited Sat Mar 15, 2014, 02:54 PM - Edit history (1)

Billionaires created these "astroturf" grassroots organizations (aka Tea Party Groups) which gave racist who loath the idea that a black man is the president of the USA an outlet to rage. They know they can't come right out and say that don't want a Black president, so they wail about "wanting their country back" and how "the government" is the root of all their troubles.

These fools don't even realize that they have been duped into supporting policies that fuck them over economically. Play on racism and ignorance and you'd be surprised what you can accomplish!

[africanadian]

15. a-fucking-men!

[Jim Lane]

11. Not "as simple as black and white". You can't omit green.

Right-wing money in huge quantities made the difference in creating and sustaining the Tea Party. We often mention the Koch brothers as the archetype, but there were others, too.

Certainly racism is one factor that makes it easier for the money to have its intended effect. My guess, however, is that we would have seen substantially the same kind of thing if the presidency had passed to a straight white Christian male Democrat.

[Rex]

12. Yeah you ask some of the libertarians why they did not protest under Bush

and all they can say is 'er uh duh'...and that is because they are nothing more than totally confused Republicans! I've said it before and I'll say it again a thousand times over - show me one of the supposed Tea Party Libertarians and I will introduce you to one very VERY confused Republicans.

Basically the Tea Party is where the super idiots in the GOP went after learning that the neocons and paliocons were far FAR smarter then they will ever be! Don't believe me? JUST look at the Tea Parties two poster children;

[Autumn]

20. Fuck. Drinking a schlitz beer???

Fucking lowlifes.

[seveneyes]

30. A Schlitz beer, a Crossman Air Rifle and a photoshopped nutcase

Stop the presses and look out for chemtrails.

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. Where were they?

They have been in the US like forever, part of the culture actually.

Their dads were part of the Larouche movement.

Their grandparents were part of other movements.

Hell, a hundred and fifty + years ago, they were ... republicans. (When the party emerged in 1854 there were some elements of conspiratorial thought)

Now what do the Larouche types and Tea Party types have in common? The two movements were funded by the Kochs.

It is far more complex than just racism. Hell, it is not just limited to the RWNJ either, classic distrust of government, book learning and regulations span the spectrum.

[spanone]

18. k&r...

[Prophet 451]

23. They claim they were just as disgusted at Bush

It's a lie, of course, a face-saving justification for their entirely partisan loathing of any and all things Democratic, liberal, progressive or just to the left of Genghis Khan. But they claim it all the same, just as they claim the left was as vile to Bush as they are to Obama (we weren't) and, via the human mind's ability to reconstruct it's own memories, they even believe it.

[Jamaal510]

24. That's what

I've been dying to know, too. Where were the 'Baggers before January 20, 2009? And not only that, but since they care so much about protecting "freedom", how come they have been the main people who are trying to curb voting rights in poor/minority neighborhoods and make it more inconvenient for women to obtain contraceptives? Do neither of those two examples count as individual freedoms? Yet they instead want to give as many criminals and mentally-unstable people as possible the right to shoot up places.
The Tea Party has a sick, twisted view of the word "freedom", and a sick, twisted view of how a country should be governed. As you pointed out, they scream about the deficit (despite it going down under the current administration), but were virtually incognito from 2000 to 2008 as it actually rose and got out of control. It's all politics.

[GreenEyedLefty]

26. I've come to the conclusion that people who irrationally *hate* Obama are racist.

I've had many people tell me that they hate him but can't put their finger on why... I mean, I couldn't stand GWB but that had more to do with sending our young people into a meat grinder by invading sovereign countries and lying out his ass about it. Obama hasn't done anything even close that that level of egregiousness to draw the level of hatred that he has. The economy is slowly improving, the wars are drawing to a close, he is either straight up centrist or even a tad to the right of center on some issues... what's not to like?

Obama haters aren't fooling me.

[rurallib]

29. My theory is they are the grandchild of the Dixiecrats through the

John Birch Society and the Southern Strategy with kind of an incestual relationship to their close cousin, the evangelical christianist.