Taxes are lower for 98% of working families, the Governments putting more of it’s spending on the books (more honest). The deficits are hugh but if you are concerned about that you might look into two hugely wasteful wars that are accomplishing nothing. I think you have to say that we have to stop doing things we are not willing to pay for, whenever some bill passes it should also encompass how it will be funded. What is Tea Bag Party protesting? They make no sense.

Robin,

It’s a worry because “astroturf” is not used here to convey a sense of uselessness to the notion that ordinary employed and unemployed people should not organize and confront bad governmental policies or two utterly useless corporate misadventures barely cloaked as “wars,” but “astroturf” because this is a false pretense. The “tea parties” are backed by the same capitalist interests and lobbyists who, in turn, are backed by the corporations. Even their main organ , Fox News, is a fake news network, totally racist and unprofessional.

One possible organization of ordinary people would be one that actually draws on the true history of the very ordinary people that makes up the wide swath of the American people. This would require people to read and remember and reflect on the true history of this large nation. Howard Zinn (RIP), in the quote below, talks about this “new” kind of organization:

“To do all that, in the complex conditions of control in the United States, would require combining the energy of all previous movements in American history-of labor insurgents, black rebels, Native Americans, women, young people-along with the new energy of an angry middle class. People would need to begin to transform their immediate environments-the workplace, the family, the school, the community-by a series of struggles against absentee authority, to give control of these places to the people who live and work there. ”

This must be a channeling of anger, fearlessness, and resolve.

Robin,

I’m afraid that as a socialist my view of the relationship of government to the people is not in lieu of personal liberties. In addition, I believe in the cultivation and activation of those same aspects which you cite as ” people motivated by kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, equanimity, forbearance, discernment, self restraint, generosity, honesty, and so on. ” as the ultimate change agent.

What I see, however, is an awful lot of history that has those parties calling for smaller government when that means that it does ‘a lot’ (bigger) for the working people, the destitute, the sick, and the elderly. When it does ‘a lot’ (bigger) for the business class, then it is not attacked as being too large. There are, of course, exceptions like Ron Paul’s calling Reagan a failure, but Im not seeing much of it.