By Daniel Nardini
I have to ask myself if the Tea Party is descending into some kind of extreme right wing downward spiral. When I visited the Tea Party website, I saw U.S. President Barack Obama giving a speech while in the background there is an American flag with a hammer and sickle emblem in place of the 50 stars. It was an obvious and crude attempt at portraying Obama as some kind of “Communist” or at least a dangerous left wing radical. And the headline that went with it was “we’ve got your back,” supposedly uttered by Communist Party U.S.A. Chairperson Sam Webb. Webb never said that phrase. What Webb said was that the Communist Party will work with other left wing and progressive organizations in an attempt to keep the U.S. Congress from becoming entirely Republican.
This might look as if the Communist Party is trying to save Obama’s political buns. It is more of an attempt to stop the Republican Party and its Tea Party and other right wing allies from taking over the U.S, Congress and then passing all kinds of extremist legislation. I read what Sam Webb wrote, and the way the Tea Party interpreted it was that Obama and the “left” are on the verge of a “coup.” Nothing is further from the truth. Obama is many things, but he is NOT a Communist. He clearly believes in the capitalist system, and he would in fact be totally undermining his own position if he did anything in the interests of the Communist Party. There is a real possibility that the Democrats might lose the U.S. Senate to the Republicans, but that has yet to be confirmed by congressional elections to be held later this year.
There is no question that the Communist Party U.S.A., like so many left wing groups, have seen their numbers grow and in some cases grow significantly because of the generally poor state of the U.S. economy and also because of the Occupy Wall Street movement. For the Communist Party, the Occupy Wall Street movement has been a windfall. However, this does not mean that they now have the numbers they had in the Great Depression of the 1930’s (back then their membership was estimated to be 75,000) to foment significant change, and hence the means to be able to help Obama or for that matter anyone else. With an estimated membership of 2,000 today, I seriously doubt that the Communist Party can muster much in the way of votes to overturn the Republicans and their Tea Party allies.
But then propaganda is the art of deception—creating a “threat” to try and paint enough of a bleak picture so that the forces-that-be can bring about a radical change. And the Tea Party, like the Communist Party, seems radical enough. I personally see it as one extremist movement trying to demonize another extremist movement.
Communist Cause for Obama?
By Daniel Nardini
I have to ask myself if the Tea Party is descending into some kind of extreme right wing downward spiral. When I visited the Tea Party website, I saw U.S. President Barack Obama giving a speech while in the background there is an American flag with a hammer and sickle emblem in place of the 50 stars. It was an obvious and crude attempt at portraying Obama as some kind of “Communist” or at least a dangerous left wing radical. And the headline that went with it was “we’ve got your back,” supposedly uttered by Communist Party U.S.A. Chairperson Sam Webb. Webb never said that phrase. What Webb said was that the Communist Party will work with other left wing and progressive organizations in an attempt to keep the U.S. Congress from becoming entirely Republican.
This might look as if the Communist Party is trying to save Obama’s political buns. It is more of an attempt to stop the Republican Party and its Tea Party and other right wing allies from taking over the U.S, Congress and then passing all kinds of extremist legislation. I read what Sam Webb wrote, and the way the Tea Party interpreted it was that Obama and the “left” are on the verge of a “coup.” Nothing is further from the truth. Obama is many things, but he is NOT a Communist. He clearly believes in the capitalist system, and he would in fact be totally undermining his own position if he did anything in the interests of the Communist Party. There is a real possibility that the Democrats might lose the U.S. Senate to the Republicans, but that has yet to be confirmed by congressional elections to be held later this year.
There is no question that the Communist Party U.S.A., like so many left wing groups, have seen their numbers grow and in some cases grow significantly because of the generally poor state of the U.S. economy and also because of the Occupy Wall Street movement. For the Communist Party, the Occupy Wall Street movement has been a windfall. However, this does not mean that they now have the numbers they had in the Great Depression of the 1930’s (back then their membership was estimated to be 75,000) to foment significant change, and hence the means to be able to help Obama or for that matter anyone else. With an estimated membership of 2,000 today, I seriously doubt that the Communist Party can muster much in the way of votes to overturn the Republicans and their Tea Party allies.
But then propaganda is the art of deception—creating a “threat” to try and paint enough of a bleak picture so that the forces-that-be can bring about a radical change. And the Tea Party, like the Communist Party, seems radical enough. I personally see it as one extremist movement trying to demonize another extremist movement.