Today’s NY Times raises some interesting questions about the connections
or lack thereof between the big bourgeoisie (pardon me for a little
Marxist jargon) and the Tea Party faction of the House of
Representatives that has thrown the government into a crisis. Despite
the reputation of the Tea Party for being free market fundamentalists,
the masters of the marketplace find them rather inconvenient:
As the government shutdown grinds toward a potential debt default, some
of the country’s most influential business executives have come to a
conclusion all but unthinkable a few years ago: Their voices are
carrying little weight with the House majority that their millions of
dollars in campaign contributions helped build and sustain.
Their frustration has grown so intense in recent days that several
trade association officials warned in interviews on Wednesday that they
were considering helping wage primary campaigns against Republican
lawmakers who had worked to engineer the political standoff in Washington.
Such an effort would thrust Washington’s traditionally cautious and
pragmatic business lobby into open warfare with the Tea Party faction,
which has grown in influence since the 2010 election and won a series of
skirmishes with the Republican establishment in the last two years.
“We are looking at ways to counter the rise of an ideological brand of
conservatism that, for lack of a better word, is more anti-establishment
than it has been in the past,” said David French, the top lobbyist at
the National Retail Federation. “We have come to the conclusion that
sitting on the sidelines is not good enough.”
I probably listen to a lot more AM rightwing talk radio shows than the
average socialist. Recently I discovered that there’s now a Fox radio
station in NY at 970 on the dial that competes with WABC, the home of
Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. At 10pm there’s a Christian
fundamentalist named Steve Deace who broadcasts out of Des Moines, Iowa.
His motto is “Fear God. Tell the Truth. Make Money.” I can barely listen
to him (or any of these characters) for more than 10 minutes but it
helps me take the pulse of the ultraright.
Deace is fond of using the word “ruling class”, a term that he obviously
knows was coined by the revolutionary movement. He uses it primarily to
refer to the Republican Party establishment such as in this Politico
article:
Not since Reagan has a nonestablishment presidential candidate had the
comprehensive worldview and charisma capable of coalescing enough of the
conservative/libertarian base to defeat the Republican ruling class in a
national primary.
full:
http://louisproyect.org/2013/10/10/when-the-puppet-talks-back-to-the-puppeteer/
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