Tea and vitriol

Our friend myiq2xu has written a fine short piece on the tea party movement. His post owes much to this magnificent offering by Glenn Greenwald, who takes, as his subject, the decidedly un-magnificent Glenn Beck:

Ultimately, Beck himself is just a histrionic intellectual mess: willing to latch onto any hysterical accusations and conspiracy theories that provide some momentary benefit, no matter how contradictory they might be from one moment to the next. His fears, resentments and religious principles seem fixed, but not his political beliefs. Like the establishment leadership of both political parties, he has no core political principles or fixed, identifiable ideology.

Far more interesting than Beck himself is the increasingly futile effort to classify the protest movement to which he has connected himself. Here, too, confusion reigns. In part, this is due to the fact that these "tea party" and "9/12" protests are composed of factions with wildly divergent views about most everything. From paleoconservatives to Ron-Paul-libertarians to LaRouchians to Confederacy-loving, race-driven Southerners to Christianist social conservatives to single-issue fanatics (abortion, guns, gays) to standard Limbaugh-following, Bush-loving Republicans, these protests are an incoherent mishmash without any cohesive view other than: "Barack Obama is bad." There are unquestionably some highly noxious elements in these groups, but they are far from homogeneous. Many of these people despised the Bush-led GOP and many of them loved it.

myiq2xu goes on to note that, as diverse as the tea party rank-and-filers may be, their leadership consists of GOP activists.

But even at the top level of the movement, things are not so simple.

Not long ago, I received a mass emailing from none other than Richard Viguerie, the founder of modern conservative direct marketing. Of course, I want no part of any movement that bears Viguerie's taint. Even so, we should note that the man who helped to give us Ronald Reagan has established his dissatisfaction with the Republican party under George W. Bush. Today, Viguerie's admiration goes to Ron Paul.

The email in my inbox bears this return address: rav@conservativesbetrayed.com. Here's the message:

Conservative 'Funding Father' Richard Viguerie trains
Tea Party leaders to challenge incumbents

(Manassas, Virginia) Longtime conservative Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, provided training to about 120 Tea Party leaders at a seminar he held in conjunction with the group's march on Washington, D.C.

The seminar covered the following key topics:

* How to use new and alternative media ('under-the-radar' media) to challenge blue dog Democrats in primaries;

* How to get money, volunteers and members for your Tea Party;

* How to challenge big-government Republicans in primaries;

* How to challenge Massachusetts legislators who support changing their election law regarding Ted Kennedy's replacement; and

* How to bypass the mainstream media, and go directly into voters' homes with your message.

Viguerie also discussed the need for conservatives to stop playing the American version of the 'Brezhnev Doctrine.' Viguerie said, "For too long conservatives have conceded the Democratic Party to the liberals, and accepted that we would battle the left for control of the Republican Party. Tea Party activists are not wedded to working within the GOP, and they've demonstrated the effectiveness of not being beholden to one party or another."

(Emphasis added by me.) So there we have it: One of the tea party trainers confesses that he wants to transform both the Democratic and Republican parties. The rebellion's leadership is driven by ideology, not by partisanship.

My mind keeps going back to 1994, perhaps the most mysterious year of my adult political life.

By any rational standard, things were pretty good. Sure, we had problems -- always have had, always will have. But we had peace and prosperity. In 1994, the economic fundamentals were sound. Our armies did not march off on bloody adventures. Terrorism was in check. America was respected and revered.

Nevertheless, on a psychological level, a large section of the electorate acted as though the nation had suffered from either military invasion or total economic collapse. Everyone just knew that the country had gone to hell in a handbasket. The party changeover in Congress was but one symptom of the rampant paranoia.

Think back and you will remember.

A widespread rumor held that Soviet troops had gathered at the Mexican border, poised for invasion -- yes, Soviet troops, in 1994! We were told that the administration had placed secret markers throughout our suburbs to guide the invading forces. The long-dreaded Great Gun Round-Up was slated to occur "some time this year." Money would soon have no value; only gold would retain worth. Clinton had been recruited by either the CIA or the KGB or both. National sovereignty would soon end; Clinton planned to make the U.S. subservient to a one-world government.

Throughout the country, people were training in private armies. There was talk of seccession.

Rush Limbaugh, holding his thumb and forefinger an inch apart, said that the country was this close to rebellion. G. Gordon Liddy advised his listeners to go for "head shots" when shooting at federal officers.

You couldn't turn on the radio anywhere in the country, day or night, without feeling the waves of fear penetrate your mind and flesh. I'm not just talking about Rush Limbaugh: Every radio talker did his best to convince the populace that The End Was Nigh. Even in the smaller towns, lecturers warned of The Conspiracy to Kill Us All. The X-Files was on the air and in the air.

Although the atmosphere of generalized paranoia ultimately aided the GOP, the memes were bipartisan. Suddenly, and for the only time in history, the JFK assassination theorists received respectful play in the media. Pat Robertson, who had once told his audience "Thank God for the CIA," now promoted anti-Agency fear stories straight out of Covert Action Information Bulletin. 1994 was the heyday of the Roswell mythos. 1994 was the height of "Satanic panic." 1994 was the year of right-wing weirdness and left-wing weirdness and unclassifiable weirdness. All was fair, all was permitted, all was embraced -- as long as it contributed to the generalized sense of unease.

Those days are these days. 2009 is 1994.

And 1994 was 1973.

In the run up to the coup against the elected socialist leader Allende in Chile, the CIA used its Chilean media assets to create an exactly similar climate of fear. The yarns they spun were not always overtly political. The intent was to convince the populace that the framework of civilization had broken down -- that the ground had caved in and Hell's demons had come scampering out of the depths.

Lurid headlines screamed that unnamed parties had kidnapped innocent citizens, chopped them into pieces and scattered the body parts throughout Santiago. The "desquartezado" -- "The Quartered Man" -- became a figure of urban myth. Even more lurid news stories spoke of rampant cannibalism. Worse, the cannibals had a taste for the flesh of kidnapped children.

Those days are these days.

This is psy-war. We're being played.

Is the goal returning the Republicans to power? Or -- as the Viguerie letter suggests -- does the motive run deeper?