Tea Party

Well i hope that i am not the only one that didn't know what the tea party was. I had asked my step dad what the Tea party was and all he could say was " they are just a bunch of psychos." lol and i would say i would have to agree. Just like i hate Glenn Beck, im not a big fan of Tea party either. i'm not the type of person that is interested in finding out whats going on in the world, but i do find it interesting how the people think. in fact, i think people that are in the tea party are crazy and selfish. The signs " BARACK HUSSEIN HITLER GO BACK ToO KENYA" and " gangster government," mentioned in Prologue by Zernike, made me giggle a little bit, not the good giggle, but it just shocked me that people feel that way.These people are just trying to spread themselves like a virus. I feel like they arent looking at the situations correctly and just making a fool of themselves. Of course, most of the people in the Tea party are "crancky old conservatives hung up on abortion and gay marriage, now upset that a black man they didnt think was a citizen was living in the white house." (219) because they are selfish. why not better the world?..yes im sure in some cases its not fair, but wouldnt it benefit us all in the long run?..

"Tea Partiers tended to believe that they had done all the right things in life...They believed was embracing policies that favored the poor...Government had taken control of their lives and they wanted it back." (222) once again selfish. The Tea Partiers kept saying that its rewarding the losers. according to USA today three out of Ten pepole are supporters of the Tea Party. Some of them dont even understand it, " i dont really understand it, but i like what thye stand for, They just support everything in looking for." I think they should find out what they actually do represent ( not that i know much either) before actually making a decision in where you stand.

Another idiot that we just cant get enough off is Beck, to me he just seems to whine and whine all the time. in This is America a quote by Beck, " I just love my country, and i fear of it. and it seems like the voices of our leaders and special interests and the media, they're surrounding us, it sounds intimidating." "pull away the curtain, y'ull realize that there isnt anybody there, its just a few people that are just pressing the buttons and their voices are actually really weak. the truth is, they dont surround us. we surround them. this is OUR country.".. can you say DRAMATIC. yes this is our country but from what i know so far, everything that has been done is for the better. We havent seen no drastic changes, but will benefit us in the long run. an article on the Washington Post, according to the Tea Partiers, "it has been proven that it can motivate voters and gets them to the polls." well, lets hope that people do vote but they vote right and for the right reasons.

My understand of the Tea party is still not very clear but so far all of the people involved in it seem to be people that arent really for change but against everything that effects them and their lives.

Here's some shit. Eat up!

From what I have gathered from the Zernike reading, a talk with my mom, a Wikipedia article, and the CBS- NYT poll results, the contradictions of the Tea Party are seemingly some of the most confusing pieces of subject matter I have attempted to wrap my head around. The Tea Party, as Wikipedia defined it, is an American political movement that has sponsored protests and supported candidates since 2009. So there’s the when. The Tea Party’s platform is apparently explicitly populist and is essentially recognized as conservative and libertarian. A Gallup poll reported that approximately 80% of Tea Party activists consider themselves Republican. The CBS-NYT poll data showed that 66% of Tea Partiers voted always or usually Republican, and 25% of them voted equally amongst Democratic and Republican, so the percentages are fairly similar between the Gallup and New York Times polls. There’s the who. These generally conservative/libertarian people have contributed to a movement that has no central leadership, but is composed of a loose affiliation of national and local groups that determine their own platforms and agendas, with caucuses in the House of Representatives and the Senate of the US. What allures members of the Tea Party is its endorsement in reduced government spending, lower taxes, a reduction of the national debt and federal budget deficit, as well as adherence to an originalist interpretation of the US Constitution. Seriously, America? I think you all just want a reason to bitch, and you aren’t willing to pay more taxes because, God damn it, you really want that boat house in Nantucket.

For kicks and giggles, I had a talk with my mom asking her about what she knew about the Tea Party. She told me that it was about how Obama wants to raise taxes for US citizens that have an income of at least $200,000/year, and that the Republicans are very against this. She said that the ‘T’, ‘E’, and ‘A’ stood for some acronym about taxes. (Thanks, Mom. Real helpful.) Based on this knowledge, you can imagine that confusion still ensued. So upon taking in all of my other sources, I construed enough data to give me at least a general idea of what this is all about. I see how the Tea Party movement became popular with such strong leaders who are able to rile up crowds and sway audiences to essentially scream out their windows at the top of their lungs, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” In the Prologue of the Zernike reading, crowd leaders were described as enthusiastic, angry, and convincing in shouting very strong statements. Howard Beale is much the same in his role in ‘Network’; he is definitely angry, convincing to many, and persuasive with his audience to act a certain way. Regardless of whether anybody truly understands what Howard is saying, they eat that shit up. The same could be said of certain Tea Partiers because noted later in the Prologue, Ms. Jodine White, prime Tea Partier example, admitted to thinking that her beliefs contradicted the very essence of what she affiliated herself with in the Tea Party. I do not doubt the power of the Tea Party; it actually started out in the mere hundreds, and grew to a whopping 25% of the country in a matter of a couple years. This movement demonstrates the power of a human voice. It seems a little brainwashing to me because people are blindly joining the Tea Party because strong political figures are for it, the activists have a convincing voice, people want to feel like they’re a part of something powerful, and they are constantly encouraged to gather more followers like cults are going out of style. So my conclusion has come to this: People don’t know their shit. I don’t know my shit. My mom doesn’t know her shit. America doesn’t know its shit. Lord, help us all.

Tea Party? More like a white wine party...

So going into this assignment I tried to keep my min as open as possible. This was hard considering I had yet to do much research into this so called "Tea Party" yet I had many friends from both my home in California and here in Minneapolis spouting out a multitude of ideas about the rising group. Some positive, some negative, I'm sure you can guess which state the majority of each came from. Anyways... as I started into the Zernike article I was blown away by how much it reminded me of Adorno's excerpt from The Psychological Techniques of Martin Luther Thomas's Radio Addresses. It was almost if Adorno was actually writing about the organizers of the Tea Party. One of the clearest links was when Zernike was talking about Glen Beck's role in spreading awareness of the party and helping other to become involved. To gain the trust of these people, quoting Vernike, Beck with his, "just-between us style, his openness about his struggles with addiction, and his sneering at elites resonated with a lot of Americans who felt they had no voice." This perfectly describes part of what Adorno referred to as the "Emotional Release Devise" in which the speaker is "consciously and empathetically emotional as a part of his technique." So what about these two relations is important? Hello! Do we really want a group that is spouting off their political propaganda, I mean, political views in what Adorno describes as a fascist leadership manner? No thank you.

So putting these disturbing similarities aside, I decided to look a little deeper and try and find out, from the horses mouth, so to speak, what this Tea Party is claiming they are all about. The first thing I noticed is there are quite a few people who have claimed to have started the Tea Party. Why would anyone trust in a party who isn't even clear on who started it? Whatever, moving on. I finally decided upon a webpage about the Tea Party, teaparty.org. What I found amusing about this site was its simplicity. It gave a brief statement about their core values, my favorite of which being that "Gun Ownership is Sacred" and "Traditional Family Values Are Encouraged." Aside from that, all you could really do on the page was sign up to be part of the Tea Party or donate money. Wow, so not impressed, even I, who severely lacks in computer skills, could have come up with something more then that.

Even looking to other publications such as Newsweek, all that can really be ascertained is that "they want change!" Just like Network's Howard Beale ranting, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" the people of the Tea Party claim to be fed up with the government. What's really interesting though is they don't really seem to have a solid plan for all these changes they want to make, mostly they are just full of vague ideas. As put by Newsweek's Daniel Stone, "one of the movement’s biggest snags has been its inability to articulate concrete changes it would make to Washington and the federal government." I mean, as we can see by the New York Times/CNN poles, most of the country would like some sort of change involving the government. Most people have finally realized what a critical time our government is in and that the decisions made effect us all. But, is going back to a grass roots, small government really the best solution? According to a surprisingly/scary number of people, yes, that is the way to go. I on the other hand remain unconvinced.

Is the Tea Party the truth??

The Tea Party is a very confusing movement.You thinks the people are there protesting and wanting to be heard because to them the gov. isn’t doing their “job” but then again the whole movement isn’t really too clear. They are a bunch of people marching around to do what? Are their voices reducing the government spending, lower taxes and the national debt and federal budget? (Wikipedia) or are they mainly just a bunch of people opposing the gov. as Zernike says the Tea Party is powerful with numbers. The more people there are the faster the “goal” can be reached. What is their goal? In the article I found it interesting to find that they said the Tea Party was actually a “fake and manufactured interest group. Puppets of the Republican party” now, if that’s the case the whole point of what they stand for would be nonexistent. The rights their fighting for would be all based on a lie that in fact shady things are going on. Hidden agenda perhaps! Just like in the Network where Howard got killed off by his own team, when they wanted him he was there and when they had no use for him he got disposed. Who would expect they were behind his killing. The same could be for the Tea Party they say one thing and then another. They say they have a variety kind of people and encourage everyone to participate, but then again their trying to attack Obama and saying he isn’t a citizen and doesn’t belong in the white house. Very contradicting with their main belief! Instead focusing on the main issues at hand, their trying to represent themselves one way but then again being very hateful and spiteful. Which makes me think what really going on? That made me think of the video we watched thursday of what is real? We can’t believe everything the TV feeds us can’t believe everything we see or hear. Because anything could have been altered which makes you think, what is the actual truth over any matter?

Primary source: http://www.teapartypatriots.org/ http://www.theteaparty.net/
Secondary source: http://teapartypatriots.ning.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement
http://www.teapartyexpress.org/

What is the Tea Party?

Before reading Zernike I unfortunately didn’t know much about the Tea Party movement and what the motives of this group were. After reading Zernike I was able to develop a personal perception and opinion towards the Tea Party. Jennifer Turner Stefano, a woman who unintentionally attended a rally on Tax Day in April of 2008 shared her personally beliefs in Zernike’s article, Boiling mad. At this rally, the scene shocked Jennifer, but at the same time she was also energized by the amount of energy and motivation of the voters and was propelled to learn more. In the past she said that she “was struggling to find leaders she could embrace (31).” Like others she had her opinions and her positive and negative feelings towards the candidates of the elections, but she was never actually fully satisfied with either of the sides. I can make a personal connection to her because in the past I have never really been able to stick to one candidate and put forth 100% percent commitment to them and their beliefs.

The Tea Party is a movement for people to express their committed national support to their interpretations of the Constitution and to the success and failures of the government. According to the Tea Party Patriots the Tea Party’s core principles are “fiscal responsibility constitutional limited governments, and free markets.” They provide support, reason, evidence, and a solution to the agendas and policies of primarily Republican candidates.

The poll regarding the approval or disapproval of Barack Obama in the New York Times/CBS News Poll of Tea Party Supporters stated that out of all respondents, 50 approved, and the other 40 disapproved. These numbers are almost even with each other, which also go to show how voters have a hard time picking one side or another. Because there isn’t a large margin between the results proves that there is an even confusion of the people, rather than having a strict belief on one side or the other.

The Tea Party

I first want to make this clear: I don’t believe that anyone has any clear or definite answers regarding the Tea Party. That being said, I do think that the recession has had a great deal to do with the rise of the Tea Party because of the amount of disillusionment that many people have felt losing jobs, financial security, homes and facing a declining standard of living. There is no question of the influence that the Tea Party has had on politics and the media in the United States as of late: according to the Hoffington Post, they are even launching their own print media as a “conservative-insurgent response to the ‘lamestream’ media,” (Tea Party to Launch New Magazine at CPAC, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/09/tea-party-review-magazine-cpac-launch_n_820980.html). Tea Party supporters may not have been directly influenced by economic hardship (only 6% report being out of work in the CBS-NYT survey) but this does not mean that the recession has not affected people’s distrust in politicians and general disillusionment and fear.

It really struck me reading the story in Zernike (starts on page 30) of a woman who was a disillusioned voter and stumbled upon a Tea Party rally and felt automatically attracted, she felt at home. “She was struggling to find leaders she could embrace,” (Zernike 31). I think that the recession has been largely responsible for the great percentage of Americans who feel they cannot trust politicians and blame them for the economic problems this country has been facing. I see the Tea Party as being almost a support group for disillusioned Americans who feel they have nowhere else to turn. I think it is

My primary source is my (future) father-in-law who is an avid supporter of the Tea Party. He is personally very distraught with the “direction that the country” has gone in for the last 12 years. He is angry with the system and with inequalities that he sees but doesn’t really have answers. The Tea Party speaks to him because the Tea Party is very solutions based: they provide direct solutions to complicated problems. They also provide a direction for his anger and disillusionment: its the liberals, the illegal immigrants, large government, unions, black people, the welfare state.

I see a number of connections with the Tea Party and Howard Beale in Network. Howard Beale was someone who voiced what the population was feeling- anger. “Given a choice to describe themselves as ‘dissatisfied but not angry,’ 53 percent opted for ‘angry’- angry about health care, about government spending, about government ‘not representing the people,” (Zernike 7). Yelling out your window that “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” is a way to not only feel like you are part of something, but that you have agency to do something about your anger. I feel that the Tea Party allows people to voice their anger and disappointment and feel that they have more agency within government and their own lives.

Seeing Red

Tea Party rhetoric is full of "normal" people and "ordinary" citizens. At the bottom of a Tea Party website, www.teapartypatriots.org, is a link to "Regular Folks United: The Bully Pulpit for Regular Folks". Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, is championed as a 'sort of everywoman'-- an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that according to her supporters, her ordinariness is part of her appeal (http://www.ajc.com/). Another Tea Party site, www.teaparty.org, lists as one of their 'non-negotiable core beliefs' that "Political Offices [be] Available to Average Citizens". That same website also proclaims that "the Tea Party is the voice of the true owners of the United States, WE THE PEOPLE."
And who are the People, exactly?
Well, if the People are the Tea Party, then according to the CBS-NYT survey data, the People are predominantly white, Protestant or Catholic, at least 45 years old, and earning a total family income of at least $60,000 per year. If you compare the Tea Party respondents' numbers with the data from the Census Bureau (from 2009, just one year later than the CBS-NYT data), you will find that although most Americans do identify as white (65.1%) and are relatively wealthy (median family income of $52,029), there are still significant social groups not included in the Tea Party movement. Nationally, 12.9% of people identify as black (as compared with 3% of Tea Party respondents), 15.8% identify as Hispanic or Latino (as compared with 1%), and 4.6% identify as Asian (as compared with 1%). In addition, in 2008 13.2% of the American people were living below the poverty level, which was $14,000 for a family of two. Only 5% of polled Tea Party supporters reported a total family income below $15,000.
The persistent belief of Tea Party supporters that they represent 'The American People' illustrates the potency of the American imperialist narrative, and the blindness of many white Americans to their own privilege (and their blindness to the existence and needs of other races). "Teabaggers" in general seem unaware of how much their ideals contradict each other. Teaparty.org's "About" page claims that the "Tea Party dream includes all who possess a strong belief in the foundational Judaic/Christian values embedded in our great founding documents....[T]he responsibility of our beloved nation is entrenched within the hearts of true American Patriots from all walks of life, every race, religion and national origin". Obviously, not every religion operates according to "Judaic/Christian values". The Tea Party rhetoric wants to be 'accurately' American (following all popular American myths, such as the American melting pot), but doesn't bother to critically engage with -- or even acknowledge -- the diverse interests and histories which have formed those narratives. Tea Party supporters (as far as I can tell) blindly and enthusiastically regurgitate all of the American myths fed to them through high school textbooks and Time Magazine, and because they take those myths to be good, equate them with their own interests (which naturally must be good).

Zernike's charming young revolutionaries, actually seemingly well-read, are irrelevant if the policies engendered by the Tea Party movement are based on Glenn Beck's "logic" and leftover anti-Communist paranoia from the baby boomers. The Howard Beale comparison is almost too obvious -- these people are mad, and they want to scream about it. The only difference is that they don't even need a leader; their leader is "American" rhetoric.
All of the YouTube videos I watched of the Tea Party demonstrators showed, overwhelmingly, people who were angry because they had been fed a few lines by Fox News and Sarah Palin. They were riled up over "Obamacare" and didn't even know the details of the plan. They marched with signs raging against "czars" and didn't even know what function czars performed in government. Teaparty.org's founder Dale Robertson writes that he "knew the Tea Party concept was far superior, because it removed all the obstacles of party lines, without the baggage of confused issues and only focused on a few talking points." Indeed. Is this the revolutionary politics of the proudly mediocre Americans? -- ignore those confusing issues, and take the talking points to heart?

Hoodwinked

When Ben said our next blog post was about the Tea Party, I thought he meant the Boston one, which since this movement is a spin off of it -- i guess i was close enough. lol I have learned all kinds of new things in this class already. I am not ashamed that I didn't know about this already, just like I wasn't ashamed to not know who Glenn Beck was. Because I have tried to avoid anything to do with politics my whole life. I just can't bring myself to care. My philosophy has always been, that eventually things have a way of working itself out. I know a lot of people disagree with me, probably a lot of you, but at least in my life so far, my philosophy has held true. If I spent all my time thinking about politics, or other big world issues, I would not be the happy go lucky person I am. I choose not to worry, or fret over these issues because I do not believe I have the ability to change what is going [supposed] to happen.

A group of people who do believe they have that ability are the people that make up the Tea Party Movement. They have been described as; "an authentic popular movement, brought on by anger over the economy and distrust of government--at all levels, and in BOTH parties." "an American political movement that has sponsored protests and supported candidates since 2009. Its platform is explicitly populist and is generally recognized as CONSERVATIVE and LIBERTARIAN." I think its important to point out that while a majority of the people in the movement are republican, it does not mean all of them are. They describes themselves as, "a grassroots movement that calls awareness to any issue that challenges the security, sovereignty, or domestic tranquility of our beloved nation, the United States of America." A majority of the issues I saw that they stood against were Obama and the economy. Which makes sense to me. If I decided to start to care about politics, I could easily see myself as a part of this "Tea Party" A few things that stuck with me, from our reading, when Grimes is quoted in response to things that are untrue::: "You can have all the facts, but if you don't trust the mind-set or the value system of the people involved, you can't even look at the facts anymore. This made a lot of sense to me. I have never been a fan of Obama. And from reading the poll, I found out that a lot of people who took the survey just generally don't like him, other top reasons being the health reform or that they didn't know. I don't have very good reasons as to WHY, but a lot of it comes from the fact that I believe he is a charmer, and spends entirely too much time talking. Not enough doing. And my daddy told me never to trust a man that was good with words - they're dangerous. But that's just my perspective -- from no research.

Grimes makes a good point, without the trust - facts don't exist as far as they are concerned. Carender said, "I feel like it was just running right over me and I didn't have any say in it at all..." I feel like this statement is the reason a majority of the people in the Tea Party joined the movement in the first place. They were frustrated and wanted to DO something about it. They were ready to be HEARD.

I also agreed with the themes of the Tea Party as said by Glenn Beck, "that Democrats and Republicans alike were to blame. That free markets just needed room to work. And that it was the American people, not the elites in Washington, who knew how to confront the crisis." The second one plays very nicely into my philosophy on life. Give it some space, don't hover- IT WILL WORK ITSELF OUT. So as I may not be ready to spend my free time at a rally or protest, I think what the people of this movement are doing, is good.

As Jennifer Stefano put it, "No one was representing me-- not the Republicans, not the Democrats.... Nobody cared about people like me, at all" and later said of the Tea Party: "this is where I belong." I thought this was important. This movement, I believe, is for those who don't feel like they've been represented accurately. Who don't agree with either side, right or left, anymore- the conservative liberals have found a group to belong to. People that "are as mad as hell and don't want to take this anymore" - as Howard Beale from the network said. Howard encouraged people not to just lay down and take it anymore, but to get up out of their chairs, and do something about it. Much like what the people of the movement are doing.

Sources: Washington Post, Tea Party Website, Zernicke, and myself :)

Tea Party

If you’d asked me a week ago about the Tea Party, I, as a good liberal, would have said that I thought that they were crazy and that I hated them. But if you’d asked me why I felt that way, I would have been in trouble. I don’t think that I really knew why they were ‘bad;’ I thought that they were extremist Republicans, headed by Sarah Palin. I’m from a liberal neighborhood in Chicago (Bucktown/Wicker Park for anyone familiar), a city that basically worships Obama. I remember one time, about a year ago, where I was walking down the street by my house, and there were these people playing gospel music, holding signs of Obama with a Hitler mustache, and screaming about how he should be impeached and killed; their signs also said something about the Tea Party. My first reaction was to wonder how long it would take them to get killed, standing where they were standing and saying what they were saying. But also, I think that’s the image that has stuck in my mind about the Tea Party.

After reading Zernike and doing other research, it’s clear that my impression of the Tea Party wasn’t totally accurate. I was shocked when, looking at the CBS/NYT Tea Party survey, I saw that 47% of Tea Partiers thought that Sarah Palin would not make an effective president (with 40% thinking that she would, and 13% being undecided). The Tea Party doesn’t actually seem to have any leaders; its members are the leaders. This goes a step beyond Adorno’s “Human Interest” technique. The leader doesn’t even have to feign interest in his followers; the movement is all about the followers, and what they want for themselves and their families. So clearly the movement isn’t just a group of people following and supporting Sarah Palin. But then what is it? It was really hard for me to find unbiased articles, though that makes sense when you think about it. It’s a hugely important current issue, so it’s going to hard for people to separate their opinions from the facts. One of the best sources that I found was actually the Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement): it lists the important issues for the tea party, without much bias seeming to seep in. The Tea Party “endorses reduced government spending, lower taxes, reduction of the national debt and federal budget deficit, and adherence to an originalist interpretation of the United States Constitution.” That actually makes a lot of sense, and those are platforms that, at least in theory, I can mostly agree with.

But then I look at videos of the Tea Party supporters (such as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUPMjC9mq5Y), and all of my understanding of/sympathy with the movement leaves just as quickly as it came. To me, there’s no way around the fact that these people are nuts. I don’t understand how a logical platform gets warped into these crazy ideas that these people hold. As Zernike says, “every time you thought you could put the movement in a box, you encountered something that didn’t fit” (page 11 of Boiling Mad). And since the ‘followers’ seem to be the ‘leaders’ of the Tea Party, I guess their crazy rallies really are the face of the movement. And if that’s true, it’s a movement that I’m not going to ever be able to even sort of support.

WTH Tea Party Movement

I am embarrassed to say that this is the first time that I am really hearing about The Tea Party Movement. I'm sure I have heard it mentioned, however I did not pay attention to what it was. However, after reading Zernike I was still confused to what the Tea Party Movement was really all about. At times in the article it seemed like they didn't even know.

The Tea Party Movement's official website (www.theteaparty.net) says their mission is that they "must return the United States to the States and the people as spelled out in the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Constitution was written by our founders to limit the powers of the federal government, instead, giving the power to the people and the States." However, from Zernike's article I got a total different impression, and one that I found more valid. It seemed that members of the Tea Party Movement were just "angry" In Zernike, they are angry about health care, about government spending, and about the misrepresentation of the people. They put on protests and are constantly trying to get people to join the movement.

However, the people that join this "movement" are typically "white, disproportionately older than the general public, more likely to describe themselves as fairly or very well off." It is more likely for members to make a family income over $100,000. These members typically oppose gay marriage and abortion. I feel like the times are changing and this "movement" group is stuck in the past. They are a group of pessimist old people who are well off. Of course they are opposed Obama. I think their anger toward the recession they are irrationally taking out on Obama. People who would not join this group would be democratic, youthful, open minded people. People who are hopeful in this country would not find the need to join a group that attempts to find a flaw in every policy. In the CBS/ New Yorker polls a question asks "Do you think the economy is getting better, getting worse, or staying the same?" 14 Tea Party Supporters said better while 33 All respondents said better. This shows how pessimistic the Tea Party Supporters are. I hate to say it, but my grandparents fit the profile of a Tea Party member. When they talk about Obama I cannot help but laugh. It seems irrational and ridiculous when a rich 78 year old says he "will be moving to Mexico is Obama is elected... and it's not because he is black." umm okay grandpa unnecessary to point out but whatever you're old.

People join this group to release their anger. They believe they are making a difference. They also join for confusion of what they are actually supporting. An example would be Jodine White, a sixty-two year old, who joined the tea party movement. She wanted a smaller government, however, she relies on social security and will eventually need Medicare. Therefore, she is contradicting what she is supporting. How and why would someone support something that is attempting to end something that they rely on. Because of the way and of who is telling them what they support is the reason why many of these members become mixed up. Whether these influences are coming from being a Republican, a Christian, or a Glenn Beck fan.

Glenn Beck's 9/12 project reminds me of Beale from Network. When Beale tells the TV audience to send telegrams to the white house about the middle east they get thousands by the hour. This relates to Glenn Beck's program of "The 9/12 Project" where people were encouraged to watch in viewing parties. He tells people the values they should follow to get people back to the unity we felt right after 9/11. Stephen Colbert mocks Glenn Beck n the Huffington Post by saying, "The 9/12 project is not for families directly affected by 9/11, just people building their careers on it."

Something's Brewing... too bad tea is steeped

I made a slightly shocking realization this weekend – I could be a member of the Tea Party, if I was angry enough, disliked the government more, and really hated both political parties in some way. And yeah, it’d probably help if I was actually Conservative. That aside, the Tea Party and I agree at least on a few things – the economy sucks, Congress isn’t perfect, I’d really rather not live in George Orwell’s 1984, thank you very much. But the degree to which we feel Congress is having issues and how we express it is where we strongly diverge. At least that's what I believed until I heard exactly what some Tea Party members were saying.

The video of the Tea Party rally in DC that Jordan sent to us (thanks for that, by the way) really interested me. I’ve heard (from Fox News) how peaceful the protests are and there’s no littering and no threatening. So I’ll admit that I was a bit shocked to see the piles of garbage, the passive-aggressive signs (“Keep pushing us and find out what happens”) and rhetoric that I would expect more from the Westboro Baptist Church, including one man saying, “9/11 was our warning” and calling for people to repent (quick blurb about Westboro Baptist Church: they’re the organization that protests military funerals and believe 9/11 occurred because we allow for homosexuality to exist in our country). One man in the video even claimed that the Bible “deciphered in its content” expresses that Barak Obama’s name means Anti-Christ. But just because a few people at a rally have some crazy ideas doesn’t mean they actually have that much in common with extreme groups like Westboro, or that they’re typical members of the Tea Party. To quote Zernike, “…this fringe did not define the Tea Party.” This is just one representation, and they didn’t talk to everyone there. Maybe it’s just a fluke a lot people with odd opinions were more prominent.

So to get another perspective, I found this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1CLPhz0DHM. I was especially interested to watch it after hearing (and getting pissed off at) the 9/12 rally about how most abortions are done on black women and thereafter noticing that everyone who interviewed seemed to belong to the category of “white American.” The members of this rally appeared more diverse and also had better comebacks to the questions presented (perhaps because it was made by supporters, perhaps not). The rally itself even seemed different – a calmer tone, a more welcoming atmosphere, somewhat less insulting signs. This seemed more like the Tea Party Glenn Beck has been promoting – and the one that is supposed to be the majority. But again, this was made by supporters; it could have been staged. Plus it didn’t help that the last guy said he didn’t even belong to the Tea Party.

And because I wasn’t yet satisfied, I had to drag in Sarah Palin and watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH8YABbht_I. There’s a lot of interesting stuff here, but I’m only going to focus on parts of it, otherwise this post will never end. Palin made some beautifully Hegelian comments about Egypt (about who’s side we should be on) and also makes some interesting political moves regarding Bush. Judge Napolitano, the host of the show, opened by saying we should take a cue from Egypt and not let big government control us, as it has in the past with the USA PATRIOT Act (fun fact: did you know that that’s actually an acronym for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism?” Blame my roommate, Sarah, for knowing that little gem). Palin goes on to echo this, saying we should move away from Bush’s form of government (as he signed the PATRIOT Act) which is interesting, considering when Democrats said Obama was inheriting a lot of issues from Bush, Republicans tended to say that it wasn’t Bush’s fault but the Democratic Congress in the last two years of Bush’s term. So now Republicans want to blame Bush? I’m a bit lost.

Palin got me interested in seeing what other politicians think of the Tea Party (especially since two prominent Republicans, probably running for President, are from Minnesota – Michelle Bachman and Tim Pawlenty). This article from the LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cpac-20110213,0,4410538.story) shows how members of the GOP are trying to appeal to Tea Partiers. But if the Tea Partiers are as angry at Congress and the government as polls say they are, will this do any good? Maybe. Though the stats from the CBS-NYT poll show that 96% of Tea Party members disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job, only a slight majority disapprove of representatives from their district (49% vs 40%). Maybe it’s easier to hate a public official you have no personal connection with – it’s easy to blame Congress in general but maybe not so easy if you’ve actually met a representative in person. But the polls from the general public showed similar results; so maybe it’s not such a Tea Party specific sentiment. Palin, however, believes having Tea Partiers in Congress is a major step forward to appeal to the desires of people who are dissatisfied with the way our country is being run. Yet having the Republicans go Tea Party seems to make this more complicated – aren’t the Partiers supposed to be pissed at both Reps and Dems? If I were a Tea Partier, I’d be pissed if the Congress suddenly started trying to curry favor with me. If I distrust the government, why would I trust them just because they started trying to agree with me? Besides, what exactly do they support? Zernike mentioned how some Partiers want to avoid social issues like abortion, while according the LA Times, some delegates are upset that these issues are being down-played.

Finally, I ended up at a Tea Party website (http://www.summit11.org/) where a friendly-sounding woman on a video tried to convince attend Tea Party Summit in Phoenix (the video for this summit is on the left-hand side of the page, if you’re interested). Out of everything I found, I think this video freaked me out the most. By attending this summit I would be able to “write the first pages of a new chapter of American History” (oh, hai Hegel) and spend time in a town that was “born in the ruins of a former civilization” (they pair this with a clip of a Navajo dancer. I screamed when I watched this bit). Promoted as a movement for ordinary people, I thought it was interesting that the video advertised all the fancy resorts and spas that one could visit while attending the summit, so during the day you can worry about fiscal responsibility then head off for a nice luxury massage afterwards. Yeah, makes perfect sense…The kindly-voiced woman continues to condemn big government but mentions a reform plan that will last for decades. “We shook up the establishment in just two years – imagine what we can do in forty!” she says at the end. That sounds kind of… well, big government-y.

I can see why Beck likes the Tea Party – it’s a lot like him. In the words of Ardorno, about Thomas: “… Thomas uses the vagueness of his image of himself to leave room for any kind of fantasy on the part of the audience. He presents himself as a kind of empty frame which can be filled out by the most contradictory conceptions on the part of his listeners.” The Tea Party, though they have a strong basic opinions, seems to be expressed in a numerous different ways, so much so that when I watched the Tea Partiers and the Anti-Tea Partiers one after the other, if it hadn’t been for the sound, I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference between the two. If people who hate government health care and people who support Medicaid are part of the same movement, then exactly how does one define what the Tea Party does? Each rally and politician’s opinion adds a different dynamic and with no sound platform for the Party. One person could easily jump in, run with a basic idea that the Party supports and ultimately become its voice, completely redefining it. I mean, there's enough contradiction between people in the same rally, I feel like it'd be easy for anyone to step in and say, "Yeah, awesome, the government sucks right now. I only agree with about 10% of you, but that's cool." If that happens, what becomes of the Tea Party then? Will expand our political parties for the better? Or will it become like the 3^rd Reich?

Yeah, Godwin’s Law, I know. Sue me.

Manipulative and racist

What is the Tea Party? "Reforming all political parties and government so that the core principles of our founding fathers become...the foundation upon which America stands (theteaparty.net)." Who's in it? Some people I know are from Zernike's book, Rick Santelli, a financial news commemtator; Keli Carender, 29 yr. old woman; Michelle Malkin, conservative blogger; and Glenn Beck of course. The ones who aren't in this party will be President Obama, me, and anyone who disagrees with the party. Why join it? Well, if you agree with what the party claims it is doing on their website, which is: to limit federal government, promote individual freedom, personal responsibility, free market, and returning power to the states and the people. This as I have stated answers the question of what they want out of this party. As to what they get out of this party is to have a label put on them as a participant of the Tea Party. Hows does it work? You mean like joining the party? As easy as going to their website and giving them your name and address. What power does it have? They have as much power as the number of people they have. They use this power by organizing in protest rallies. Who's in charge? Well, the people of it would sure like to believe they are in charge of it.

Besides having answered all of the questions for the sake of the assignment and my own understanding of the Tea Party, I believe that a majority of the participants know just as little as I do right now. They have a clear outlined goal of what their party stands for on their website of course, but as seen on one of the youtube clips, sent by Jordan, called "9.12 DC TEA PARTY - MARCH FOOTAGE WITH INTERVIEWS", I couldn't help but find it extremely offensive. They literally called Obama a communist, fascist, etc. As part of the assignment, we are to make sense of what the tea party is right? I make sense of it that it is a party of racism. Towards the beginning of the clip, a white male stands and shouts, "35 percent of abortions by black American women-they only make 12 percent of the population." If his comment were to tie in the abortions to the health care plan then, what of the 65 percent? Are they committed by white females? Note that tea partiers are angry at the Obama health care and so it would only be 35 percent, not even half as much as the other 65 to cover the health costs of the minority blacks. I watched the clip twice too and did not see a single race other than white as far as I could see into the background of the clip. I was expecting maybe an Asian person at least right? But no, all white and mostly middle aged and older. Another guy had said, "His mother was white, so he's not African American but he's going that way because that's phase off for him." What? How rude and racist is that? If I were Obama, I would be like, "So just because I have a white parent, I have to be white and not black?"

On the other hand, I would believe that the Tea Party is utilizing some of the techniques that Adorno describes in his book about the psychological techniques of Martin Luther Thomas. The Lone wolf one came to mind not in the definition that Adorno gave, but in the sense that since the Tea party does not side with either the Democrats or the Republicans, the Tea party makes people feel like the lone wolf where they were ignored by both parties and had no one to turn to; they were alone, by themselves in this all along. Another tactic is the human interest one. The tea party appealing to people who work hard and deserve to keep what they make instead of throwing it at the health care for someone else who couldn't afford it.

And finally, gathering from the poll results from the Tea Party survey, I just think that a majority of the participants just don't like Obama in general. Maybe because he is black, or maybe for a more complex reason. The number three question asked, regardless of your opinion, what do you like least about Obama.19 people don't like him in general. Question number 12 asked what the opinion of the surveyee was and 84 of tea party supporters were not favorable about Obama.

My opinion and in trying to make sense of the Tea Party is that it is 1) manipulative according to my source of Adorno in utilizing psychological techniques to draw in supporters 2) is racist and prejudiced according to the primary source from a youtube clip with tea party supporters calling Obama Hitler, a fascist, and all other names and for the fact that almost if not all of supporters of that party are whites.

SOURCES: ZERNIKE, POLL DATA, ADORNO, primary source: youtube clip; secondary source: tea party website, I consider it a secondary source because I don't know who runs this website, and it could be a number of people and not specifically to the tea party.

Is the so called "Tea Party" really in favor of supporting the nation or is it PERSONAL?

For starters, in my opinion, most of the Tea party supporters are a bunch of hypocrites. I Zernike's article it explicitly states that most of the Tea Party supporters are and I quote " fairly or very well off." The article also states that the supporters are just puppets of the Republican party who are puppets for private interest organizations who finance their campaigns. All of the sources including Zernike have the same definition of the Tea Party in common; An American political movement that hosts marches and protests in favor of less federal government control, and lower taxes. What I found interesting however in Zernikes article is that it claims that most of the Tea Party supporters are white conservatives. On the other hand, the Tea Party website declines this statement and they indicate that their followers are diverse which I find hard to believe. At the end of Zernike's article, she states that the Tea Party was not created solely because Obama took office and his actions ever since, but because " The Tea Party went ot he heart of conflicts that had bedeviled Americans for over two hundred years and reflected anxities that Americans had been expressing for generations. So according to Zernike, the Tea Party idea was basically a time bomb that exploded on Obama. The tea party supporters hope to minimize government control and get their voices heard by government. According to the Tea Party website, the way they work is basically based off of "peaceful protest" which in my opinion is so untrue because I don't see how comparing Hitler to Obama is peaceful protest. I was listening to the radio early this morning and people were protesting and actually threatening President Obama with Murder. I quote " he is a Kenyan Muslim and should either go back to kenya or we'll shop off his legs." Honestly, when things go that far, I don't see how that is peaceful IN ANYWAY POSSIBLE. Unfortunately, the Tea party holds a great power; a power of voice. When they get their anger out and make false statements to the public, it angers people. The way things are going so far, it seems like the tea party is in charge because they are gaining followers exponentially. Finally, the second half of my title is "or is it personal." In my opinion, White, conservatives cannot stand the fact that the President of the United States is African American; even before Obama took office, people were trying their best to eliminate him from the running; first they came up with that "he's a Muslim" crap, then the Pastor, etc. That is just my opinion, I know it sounds crazy, but it's my opinion.

Primary Source: http://www.theteaparty.net/

Secondary Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement

Secondary Source: Zernike article

Secondary Source: K-Talk 100.3

Posting assignment #3 (due Sunday 2/13, 11:59 P.M.): Anyone for tea?

For the last four weeks, we have been building a theory of what history is and how it works.  Next week, we will take all of the theory we've been building and use it to try to understand one of the most important and difficult case studies in contemporary America:  the Tea Party movement.  On Tuesday we'll read from a secondary source, Kate Zernike's book Boiling Mad:  Inside Tea Party America, the first significant piece of history to be written about the Tea Party (and considerably more even-handed than Milbank's book on Beck).  On Thursday we'll read from a primary source, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, one of the texts most often read and quoted by Tea Party activists.

To begin our study, I will ask you in this post to do another Rankean search-and-synthesize project -- similar to what we did with Loughner, only this time it's harder, because it's less focused and more open-ended:  here, it's not just "why" that's up for debate, but also "what," "who," "where," and "how".  ("When" seems fairly well established, although Zernike might beg to differ.)  Obviously, I'm not asking you to solve all these problems for good in a 300-word blog post.  But I am asking you to:

1)  Read Zernike carefully.  Note connections to...well, pretty much everything we've studied so far.

2)  Look through the data I sent out via email, from the CBS/New York Times poll of Tea Party members.  Again, keep note of the information you find most important, and most relevant to Zernike and the stuff that's come before (especially last week's material).

3)  Find at least two sources of your own on the Tea Party -- including (at least) one primary source and (at least) one secondary source -- which help you build your understanding of the Tea Party, either by confirming or by contradicting the stuff you learned from Zernike, the poll data, and Network / Weber / Adorno.

4)  Write a post, of usual length (minimum ~300 words), in which you bring these sources together -- (a) Zernike, (b) the poll data, (c) your two sources, and (d) at least one thing from Network or Weber or Adorno -- to start making some sense of the Tea Party.  This is not easy.  There are no clear answers.  This history is still being written.  Here are some questions to think about (feel no need to address them all):  What, exactly, IS the Tea Party?  Who is in it?  Who isn't?  Why have people chosen to join?  What do people want out of it?  What are people getting out of it?  How does it work?  What kind of power does it have?  How does it use that power?  Who is in charge?  As always, when doing Rankean history, make sure you make strong arguments for your position and defend your arguments with evidence from your primary and secondary sources.

Have fun -- as someone who's spent a lot of time with this stuff and still feels like he can barely wrap his head around it, I'm really excited to see what you find!

Jordan's Protocol 2/10

We started class today like usual, by condensing the room. Everyone moved out the extra chairs and pushed their desks forward to give it a better feel. Ben then threw a large garbage bag into the middle of the circle, after staring at it for a few seconds we all realized it was our work that had been taken off the walls. The very nice janitor Wayne saved our precious archives after speaking with Ben in the hallway on Tuesday afternoon. Ben was very glad Wayne found our work in the garbage because without it we would have lost our entire historical archive, “Without that random chance event all of our archive would have been lost and history would have looked a lot different!” Ben exclaimed.

On the topic of changing history we turned our attention to the controversy in Egypt, and how their history was about to change. A newly released article state that Mubarak was going to step down soon, possibly even tonight. We then brought up the article that Ben sent us overnight. This article talked about the economy and less about the protesters, this shift in storyline happened over the weekend. The journalists are no longer talking about the protests but more so about how the protests are now affecting the economy in Egypt. It is quite interesting to see how fast the focus can change on a story like this.

After covering the breaking news we moved on to a couple administrative things. Ben has gotten all caught up on grading and we will get emails with our grades and some comments later on today or possibly tomorrow. Along with our grades we Ben also added some comments to the end of the email, the comments aren’t going to be sent along with every grade we get but for the first few we will so we know how to improve our writings. The blog comment grades will not be sent out in an email, basically if you did it you get the point and if you didn’t do it then you get a zero. The blog assignment for this weekend will be up tonight and it will be regarding the tea party. Ben is going to send us some quantitative sources (stats on the tea party) and we will have to find a couple sources of our own to answer the questions Ben posts. The last administrative thing is that the reading for next Thursday is NOT in the course packet or from any of our books, we will get it by next Tuesday either in class or via email.

Now that all of that was taken care of, it was time for peer editing. We got into groups of 2 or 3 and exchanged letters with each other. After reading the rubric over (to refresh our minds of the criteria) we read our group members writing. After thoroughly reading through the writing we graded the papers on the rubric we received and made a few constructive comments on what they could improve on. Once we finished the peer editing in our groups we looked at a few examples from others in the class and the class commented on them. The first paper we looked at was Ahmed’s letter that was written to a friend of his. The information in the letter was fantastic and all the connections were smooth but the only concern the class had was whether or not he had his audience in mind when he was writing. Ben pointed out that you want to keep your writing personal, if your friend likes sports then relate a theory from class to sports. If they enjoy music relate it to music but make sure you make some sort of personal connection between your audience and the theory you have picked from the class. Next we looked at Sophie’s paper, which in contrast to Ahmed’s was very personal and focused on her audience (her mother). Sophie’s paper was a good example of how you can make all kinds of connections in your life; it does not necessarily need to be a current event in the news.

With the peer editing out of the way we moved onto the next part of the class. For the last 20 minutes of class we watched a video of Dinah Shore interviewing the producer of the movie “Network”. The producer had a very interesting take on his movie and on all television networks. The thing that stood out the most was that the director doesn’t believe anything that he sees on TV. He watches it purely for entertainment purposes because everything that is put on shows is edited and shortened to make a line or a speech sound more appealing. After watching this Ben asked us if we could make any connection from that interview and the things we have been studying in class. Brittany said that she thought the point that the producer brought up was very Hegelian, the news only shows the important parts just like in history. It is a selection process. Marika then commented that she understands why they do that because the true things aren’t necessarily entertaining which brings us back to a point the producer brought up. Networks are making shows and clips that sell, its about the money and economics not about the truth.

On the topic of truth, we talked for the last couple minutes of class about charismatic truth and bureaucratic truth. The concept that Ben wanted to get us thinking about was the Garbage Can Model. This model comes from sociology and talks about how ideas don’t come from rational linear thinking but instead from building on your peers ideas until you reach the best. An example from Network is when the producers are trying to figure out what to do with Howard Biel. They don’t just flat out say “We could kill him” but they all brainstorm ideas and come up with ones that are better than the previous one until finally they reach the conclusion of killing him. This model happens all throughout history, just think about it.

FOR TUESDAY READ ZERNIKE, IT IS AN EASY READ AND IT TIES EVERYTHING WE HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT IN CLASS TOGETHER.

Hallie's Protocol 2/10

2/10 Reading History

-Attendance

-Ben’s posters got taken, Wayne saved them, we now have an archive!

-Egypt

- Ahmed: military stepping in, Mubarak most likely stepping down

- Ben: military becoming instrument of change

- Most news coming from Associated Press, same articles throughout country

-Grades for blog posts, difficultations, protocols, etc.

-Blog assignment: tea party. Find primary sources, etc. Other housekeeping stuff…

-Letters to our mothers

-With a partner, editing and peer reviewing

-Ahmed read his aloud for the class

-Content terrific, how can it be communicated to a specific person better?

-Sophie read her email aloud for the class

-Make sure that writing is tied to theory from the class

-Dinah Shore interviews the writer of “Network”

-Dinah Shore loves the movie!

-“How to preserve yourself in a world that doesn’t really live anymore”

-Went out to make a great movie, not exactly to prove a point

-Dehumanization, and addressing this within the movie

-Dinah Shore tries hard to be funny

-Deals with how the news operation is manipulated

-Only responsibility is to stockholders, only about money

-Television has power that transcends anything else in the world today

-“Execution of the Week”

-When is human life more important than the dollar?

-Discussion of interview

-Brittney: Hegelian in the sense that it only puts in the “important stuff”, edited

-Martika: TV is just watched for entertainment, why watch it if its boring?

-Ben: “Non-agentive conspiracy” (Chomsky), media monopolization

-Garbage can model of organizational thinking

-It’s not a rational linear thinking that brings about an event, it is a building of ideas over a period of time

-“The Origins of the Final Solution” (Browning)

Rachel's Protocol- 2/8

Class today started with a viewing of a youtube clip titled Glenn Beck Crying on-air. This clip was basically a lot of liberal smart ass's making fun of Glenn Beck for 'fake crying'.

While discussing the video Kate shared that she watched a TV show this weekend called Off The Map. This show was about a man who was delusional on pain killers. It was found out that this man was a Nazi. The man had been asking to die however the nurse would not let that happen since she wanted him to get justice. Ben says he was a living artifact. He himself is history. Ben then told how the worse thing to say in Yiddish is 'may his name be blotted out.' Many Jews have said this about hitler, but of course to a historian it would be unthinkable to exclude hitler from history.

Going back to the video we watched, Ben asked, "Did anyone think about Glenn Beck when reading Thomas?" Before discussing the reading, however, we discussed Adorno. Adorno was a student of Weber. He was a mix of Christian and Jewish. He left Germany during the war to avoid being killed. Adorno is a big old Marxist. Adorno is not the traditional Hegelian, has his own twist. He is a traditional way of thinking. He takes Hegel puts it in his head and turns it up straight. Then he comes up with ideas.

The walls in the room were clear. Ben was pissed to say the least. Ben sarcastically said, "best learning environment are blank walls". Even the latin class started posting writings on the walls. But Ben said the thugs were sent in to clear the walls. Ben says he is just fighting the establishment.

Adorno also wrote the course of German history. We looked at the passage from Adorno at the beginning of Thomas on page 3. The passage was "In America where, unlike Germany, the idea of democracy has a great tradition and a strong emotional appeal, it would be highly impractical for any fascist leader to attack democracy itself, as Nazi propagandas freely did." The idea of democracy was not considered the best idea, as it is in America. As Germany put together their own democracy they made Article 48 that says in the event of a state of emergency the ruler has the power to suspend the constitution and gain all power. Hitler was elected democratically. Then became a dictator by calling a state of emergency. Ben shared an Adorno quote that said "the state has a monopoly on use of legitimate force". So who has the state of monopoly to basically do whatever they want and get away with it. An example would be the police. If a police punches someone he can claim he had a reason and has enough credibility from his career; same as how police are allowed to carry guns around anywhere.

Ben shared a link that Sophie had sent him to the class. The link showed a book by Martin Luther Thomas titled Soviet Tendencies in America.

Britney said that she related Adorno's article on Thomas was similar to Milbank's article on Beck. On page 24 of Adorno we looked at the quote that read "the deliberate fiction of personal closeness, warmth, and intimacy." We related this quote back to the video we opened class with. Beck is seen crying. He is attempting to make the audience believe him. We also related this to a quote on page 7 of Adorno.

Carrie brought a quote to the classes attention. On page 6 of Adorno, "He is consciously and emphatically emotional as part of his technique." This quote is really important and brought us to a new keyword. Our new keyword is dialectic which is basically the idea that a thing in history has part of itself and opposite of itself in the same phenomenon. An example of this would be the thesis and anti-thesis are in dialectic and will both produce the synthesis. Adorno's thesis s capitalism produces antithesis which is the working class, and the synthesis would be revolution.

Naturally we figure people cannot be rationally irrational, however history is full of this. Glenn Beck puts vapor under his eyes to make him cry. He would be an example of rationally irrational. Britney brings us back to Howard Beale. Is Howard Beale like Glenn Beck? All news people such as John Stewart or Glenn Beck are related to Howard Beale. They are all saying "I am mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore" An upcoming reading will relate to this check out page 229 in course packet. How is Glenn Beck and Howard Beale different. Alyssa shared that Glenn Beck does this cause its what he always does. Howard Beale was fired, lost his wife, etc. Glenn Beck is more conscious of his actions.

We all moved to an activity where we stood up in a circle. We imaged the circle was a target and we stood on the target to see how much we all understood the readings. However, everyone was on the same page and only took one step in the circle. Then Ben had us see who we first connected eye contact with and that we have not really talked to before. As we got into partners I was partnered with Alyssa. In partners we discussed our reactions to Network; then chose a passage from Adorno and Weber that related to Network.

When we went back to big group discussion, Emily shared that what she remembered from Network was how Howard was overtaken by the World Spirit and woke up to hearing spirits talking. We watched the clip in class. After Howard is taken over by the world spirit he then faints when the world spirit leaves him. Mandy related this scene back to page 15 of Adorno "Messenger Device". Britney points out that that the person gives the message but they are not the ones that hold the ideas. Ben states that it is somewhat religious and relates to how God speaks through prophets. Mandy was curious about this scene. She didn't understand why it randomly cut to the scene of him dreaming with the world spirit. Ben says he thought it was more than just bad editing. It appears that this scene helps show how Howard is less like Glenn Beck.

Carrie related Howard to Beck. Howard tells the audience to yell and do things such as Beck he leads by bad example. We looked at a passage on page 7 of Adorno. Ben took it a step farther. Once you do something bad it leads to even worse things. Once you do something that is not MN nice you can do other things that are also not MN nice such as nazism. It leads to the questions oh how did people do this? After the holocaust people all have to wonder how did it get this horrible especially in an advanced country. Adorno tries to answer these questions.

Going back to the bedroom world spirit scene, we questioned if Beale was nuts or had the spirit. Diane said maybe he had the spirit. The thing that is important is that the audience and Beale think he has the spirit in him. Beale is speaking Hegelian language. He is speaking the language of the world spirit. Jordan shared a quote from Weber page 1113. If you are the master than you are not ordinary. There has to be something special about you. This is talking about the leader. The idea is Charismatic leader vs the bureaucratic leader. These are two new keywords and the definitions will be given on Thursday.

Howard Beale's antithesis was Arthur Jensen, when he brings Beale into this office and plays the world spirit. He says to Beale, "I can sell anything Mr. Beale. Let's see if I can sell something to you." Then he plays the world spirit to change Beale's idea of the world spirit.

We are leaving out questions on if dialectic is true or not since you cannot prove that its not true. Once a person has Hegel or Ranke so deeply embedded they take that understanding and use it to manipulate people. There will be more discussion on this on Thursday.

So for Thursday there are no new readings, however you should review the readings based on discussion. We will get a good definition of new keywords charismatic and bureaucratic. We will also talk big time about the economics.

First draft of external writing is due on Thursday. First thing to notice is that this is not an academic writing. Second thing is that we do not want to separate explanation and argument. Bring in the hard copy to peer edit.

Marika's Protocol 2/8

Ben started class at 11:15am with a video clip of “fake crying.” where Glen Beck tells about following a story of a kidnapped girl and “TYT” tries to decide if he’s faking or if its legitimate.

-Ben took attendance, noticing that A LOT of the class was absent.

-Thoughts about sources and how they’re gathered
*
*
*
*

RANDOM: Man reveals he was a natzi on a show called “Off the Map” and will be prosecuted


All historians want to preserve the memories; which is not always in the interest of everyone else. Jewish people say “may his name be blotted out” about Hitler.

similrities between Adorno and. Adorno was jewish and catholic. Adorno talked about various things such as music and Sociology. He left Germany, went to California and moved back after the war. Adorno wanted to flee the Natzi’s because he was a Marxist. Not a supporter of Stallin. Adorno was working in Hegels tradition.

--NOTICE: The walls were cleared.

(Informal context Boggle) Weber- Not a hegelian in a traditional sense, but definitely studied the course of German history.

Off topic again.... After the 2nd war ended Germany established a shaky government. Adorno p.3 “In america..... highly impractical for any leader.....” Democracy was not part of a German Democracy. Lots of people didn’t want to take on this new government, it wasn’t very stable.

-Write Protocols in Narrative form from now on-

Ben: Article 48: in state of emergency the prez. of Germany has the right to suspend the laws and rule by decree. Hitler was elected. burning was blamed on communist (staged) and Hitler declared a state of emergency and became “in charge” Weber supported article 48

Brittany: Glen Beck had a parrallel to M.L. Thomas.

Ben: Interesting thing about MLT- We know very little about him

-Ben shows booklet written by M.L.T

Ben: anything you noticed in clip of Glen Beck?

Alyssa: Human interest trick compared to Beck’s clip...

Mandy: P. 7 “Showing emotions will make them want to follow”

Ben reads excerpt from page 7

Carrie: “consciously and empatheticly emotional as part of his technique”

Ben gives background/Keyword on Hegel: “DIALECTIC” the idea that a thing in history has both itself and its opposite often as part of the same phenomenon. ex: thesis and anti thesis in dialectic relation to eachother often caused by the same thing. Thesis produces anti thesis and the dialectic conflict between them makes the synthesis.

BEN: “you can’t be rationally irrational, but history is full of these, history works on it. Glen puts vapors under his eyes to make him cry easier- consciously irrational.

Ben: “if discussion is working we can just talk today”... “Is howard beil a glen beck/MLT(martin luther thomas? just putting it on for show?” Every media person compares themselves to Biel. “Turn to Z in course packet p. 228/229--- “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore scene recalled”

Ben: “This is our first piece of fiction, when we deal with fiction, we deal with mythologies” To what extent is H.B. a Glen Beck or MLT?

Alyssa: Glen Beck seems more conscious of what he’s doing. H.B. seems as if he’s having an actual mental breakdown.

Ben: other thoughts?- none

Ben: “Stand up and grad the things you have and need to write with. Imagine that the circle is a target and the bulls eye in the middle represents I completely understand and the outside shows you didn’t understand at all. Place yourself on the target. Everyone is at about the same place.” I’m now changing my plans, make eye contact with someone in the circle you’ve never talked to before. people who haven’t found anyone raise your hand, pick one of them and go stand with the person you’ve found.” Find a place to sit/stand. Take 5 min to 1. talk about rxn to network after you saw it. 2. then see if you can find one moment if Weber and one in MLT that help you make sense of the rxn you saw.

Reactions to film: -- NETWORK: *Ahmed and Jordan* ...jordan: reminded her a lot of glen beck. Ahmed: reminded him of Hitler, because everyone knew Hitler was crazy but they went along with his plans anyway, just like in the movie. Jordan: they were sick of the regular routine and wanted something different which is what he offered. Weber atricle... “in order to live up to their mission.... occupational family life” p.182 in other words you can’t be “Average” to live up to expectations. also like Hegel, once you hit your aim, you’re done. Ben interjected: comparing superbowl/football Ahmed: comparing sports to Hegel- After you reach your full potential you’re done (Brett Favre)

***Ben: 1 Minute left in discussion***

Ben: “lets rejoin the circle” “What did you talk about?”

Emily: “Howard overtaken by the world spirit, he woke up in the night and it seemed like someone was speaking to him”

Ben: lets review the scene- (plays scene)

Emily: World spirit told him what to do

Ben: “every single time he faints ! Yea... so what about that ? The world spirit- Mandy go ahead”

Mandy: p. 15 Brittany: He’s not actually the one with the ideas, he’s just delivering the message

Ben: comparing him to a prophet, in the sense that god doesn’t speak to people directly but has agents that do it for him. “Speak more on the cut”

Mandy: I was confused on the scene, it didn’t make sense till he went back and explained about his dream. whoever edited it may have done in on accident

Ben: it was totally intentional, these guys know what they’re doing.

Ben: Adorno- once you do things that aren’t so nice, you can easily progress. How did a country that appeared to be advanced (Germany) become that way?

Mandy: Minnesota Nice history???

Ben: We will talk about creation myths next week. without this scene, I think its possible you could have read him as a MLT (Martin Luther Thomas) to keep his job. The scene we watched shows that its more complicated than that. Either he’s going nuts or he’s in viewed with a spirit.

***Last 10 min WEBER***

Jordan: p. 182 (reads same quote from above) “I think it means to be the “master” you can’t be an ordinary person, there has to be something special about you.

Ben: the question is to what extent is that true/staged?

Brittany: they have to be able to relate to thers but possess qualities they don’t have.

Charasmatic Leader vs. Bureaucratic Leader

Ben: charasmatic?

Carrie: At the end of the movie they wanted to kill him... compared to Hegel, the world spirit has left him, and his followers abandon him.

BEN: Moral made hitler and destroyed him. once you have Hegel and Ranke embedded, then opportunist come and take that common sense understanding and they use it to manipulate people. We’re at a knee joint in the course.

Couple of things in the last 2 minutes

BEN:“for thursday: no new readings, review old readings... 2 major points 1. define charamatic vs. bureaucratic and why it matters.... Adorno was a student of Weber... 2nd lets talk about the economics think about all the stuff adorno keeps talking about and looka at what weber says.
Also 1st draft due on Thursday: this is not academic writing, don’t need 2 seperate sections (argument and why its important). Have trust that I am not dumb, and I will see it.” TAKE CARE.

Jordan's Protocol 2/3

We began class today by watching about 10 minutes of High Hitler, while we watched Ben told us to try and find a connection between the movie and Hegel. The movie used a lot of different sources to show that Hitler was a meth addict.

After we watched the movie we moved to a large group discussion about the connections we saw.

· Hallie began by saying the movie was a way of breaking down Hitler into a real person. In a way they were taking the world spirit out of Hitler.

· Lindsey then mentioned that Hitler never met the doctor that provided him wit the drugs until after we was in rule, so before then the world spirit must have been with him. Elissa added to that by saying before the drugs Hitler was already thinking about and plotting out his plan so the it wasn’t just the drugs.

· Hitler was a man who was in the right place at the right time who got the opportunity to become a major leader.

· Another point brought up was the movies connection with Clarke who said that if others things in a person’s life would not have occurred then maybe they would not have done what they did. Is that what High Hitler is doing? Making excuses for the things that Hitler did, it is taking the blame off Hitler.

After that discussion we moved onto Kate and Paige’s difficultation on the Waz reading Taking down the Fort. They started by passing out note cards to everyone. On one side we wrote how we felt after reading the article. After everyone finished we formed two circles that faced each other, and did a “speed dating” like activity. We talked with the person across from us about our reactions to the article, then after a minute we switched to another person. After sharing with three people we went back to the large group to discuss. Some of the common thoughts that were:

· Nobody knew about the concentration camps at Fort Snelling before reading this article, and most people were very shocked by what was being hidden from them.

· A big debate that was brought up in the article and in class too was whether or not the fort should be torn down, renovated or left alone.

o One point of view was to keep the fort up because there is still other significant history that took place there. Although if they keep it up they need to portray what actually happened much better.

o Brittany said that she thinks it should be torn down because it would only be fair.

Next Paige read us an article from the Fort Snelling website that talked about the history of the Fort. When she was done reading they asked us to turn our note cards over and write down a quote or an idea from the reading that we feel should be added to the websites history article. Once we all wrote down our ideas we broke up into three groups to come up with one idea.

My group debated whether or not the fort should be torn down. We decided that if it were to be kept up, it needs to be majorly remodeled to better portray the history of the Fort and that there should not be any more birthday parties held there. And if the site is not remodeled a Holocaust Museum should be created to commemorate the Dakotas.

After a few minutes all the groups shared the idea they came up with.

· Group one said that if anything the facts portrayed at the Fort need to be more accurate to what actually happened. Also since it was a place of genocide there should be some sort of memorial.

· Group two said that they could see why the Dakota people were so upset and since it affected them so much their perspective should be included in the history.

Once we all finished sharing our ideas, Kate and Paige let us know that they would be sending an email to a woman at Fort Snelling with containing the ideas we just came up with. They would let her know that we think it is important to add those ideas to the website’s history of Fort Snelling.

We ended class talked about Hitler, of course.
We talked discussed the fact that you can’t really tell both sides without one side being unsatisfied with the results. An example from the Waz article is that we only know the American perspective on the history of the Fort and nothing about the Dakota Perspective.
We then moved on to discuss if this concentration camp was comparable to Nazi concentration camps? And if we make a memorial for this concentration camp in American then don’t we have to make one for everyone? Where do you stop? In order to keep the past in the present we must put the effort into keeping it up.

The next point was that when you are the victor it is really hard to tell the whole truth but on the flip side when you are not the victor it is very easy to tell every gruesome detail about how it actually happened.

Reminder: Screening of the Network is tonight! It starts at 7:00pm and goes until about 9:30, it will be help in room 275 of Nicholson Hall.

Kate's Protocol - Febuary 1st

At the beginning of the class, Ben went over our first external writing assignment. We received the handout which can also be found in the e-mail he sent us yesterday. The rough draft is due a week from tomorrow in a hard copy, and the final paper (e-mail) is due Thursday the 7th.

We also played context boggle. Some interesting facts about Hegel where that…
-He was one of the creators of German Idealism, which was a motive thought coming out of the enlightenment. Meaning the world is moving towards an ideal.
-He had a son with the land lady. His son, Charles Hegel, introduced the book “The Philosophy of History.”
-He only published four books in his lifetime.
-He also saw Napoleon once and called him, “the world spirit on horseback.”
-He was fluent in Latin and German.
-He developed the concept of mind and spirit.
- Majorly influenced Marx.
-His book was a composition of his students lecture notes.

After context boggle we got into four different groups and discussed some key words from the reading.

Group 1- Focused on the idea that everyone is going in their own separate direction, but everyone is “controlled” by a higher world-spirit.
-Movement in many different directions, opposed to just one arrow. The arrows represented Hegel's ideas/thought process.

Group A-They talked about Heroic men (Alexander, Napoleon, and Caesar) and the idea that the world spirit influences these men. They used the quote, "Must trample on many an innocent flower" to describe the idea that great men don’t care who they have to hurt in order to get where they are going.

Great N- The main idea was that we are moving towards the present/Universal history. They also had the idea that the world is moving in one direction and at the end of history is freedom and truth.

Some other important notes…

-Truth plays itself out through history.
-Ben ended the class talking about the “invisible hand.” This concept was developed by Adam Smith. It deals with modern capitalism and the idea that human beings are led by an invisible hand.

Marika's Protocol 2/1

Ben opened the class by taking attendance and passed out the 1st writing assignment. He told us to read the protocols because they are supplemental to our own notes. He then asked if there were questions on the writing assignment, there were none.

We will be doing 2 kinds of writing in this class: External, and Internal. Example of (informal) internal writing: Blog Post Example of (formal) external writing: writing assignments. Formal writing in this class does not entail 5b paragraph essays or other specific writing rules. All assignments will have their own specific form, and be designed for a specific audience. We will never write in 5 paragraph essay form.

*Correction to assignment: its dues Thursday the 17th, not that Friday

1st writing assignment rough draft is due a week from Thursday (hard copy) in class. It will be graded by check mark, not points. Ben will make sure you've done the assignment and the length is appropriate.

The 1st writing assignment will be an email to your m/other and you must cc or bcc Ben... Ben told the story behind cc and bcc in class. you are required to email it to someone else to make sure you're not "BS-ing the assignment.

-Blog grading will be emailed later this week.

Ben asked if anyone could repeat everyones name in the class. No one volunteered, then Ben successfully named everyone.

Ben complimented the class on their Hegel posts.

We played context boggle- Heidi won
interesting Hegel facts: his last words "...and he didn't understand me", developed the concept of mind and spirit, his book is a combination of lecture notes/protocols

Ben passed out the group blog post. We were given 10-15 min in a group to make sense of the keywords Ben gave us, and figure out how they in Hegels History. we were given paper to create a visual to teach the class what we learned.

My group talked about the past being Oriental, Greek, and Roman world, and the Future/Ultimate goal being Germany. We talked about how Hegel said Africa had no history and how he wanted to unite everyone with his ideas.

Group 3 presented 1st: They provided the idea that the history of Africa was peaceful, and Africa was able expand/extract as needed. Ben talked about how African history is neglected in schools. Then we discussed how thesis and antithesis lead to the end of history, which causes peace.

Group 2 presented 2nd: They talked about the "heroes" Alexander, Napoleon, Caesar. "The will of the world historical individual is not h is own" meaning the world spirit "impregnates" these men and one it is done with them, they are done/empty. "must trample on many an innocent flower."

Group 1 presented last: The talked about the world spirit. There are future consequences/connections that humans aren't aware of. There visual was arrows on a random path. The arrows represented Hegel's ideas/thought process. supposedly not knowing the "world spirit" was helping him move the world forward. The invisible hand (Adam Smith) -humans led by invisible hand to help all.

We didn't get to watch Hitler, will do so next class and continue discussion on Hegel.

Wanted: World ruler position available-full time-must be willing to be overthrown for the good of history

I left class today feeling like we hadn't discussed what we found thoroughly enough. And sure, I could wait until Thursday, but we have a blog so we might as well use it. The biggest question I have in my head now is:
We have sort of processed the information thinking that Hegel was wrong. We had this opinion going into reading that it would be difficult and outdated. So my question is this; is what Hegel is saying REALLY outdated?
Each of our groups today portrayed a part of the diagram that Ben put on the board; the first group laid out the foundation for the timeline of history, while the other groups WERE the thesis and antithesis-thesis being the individual rulers (who, by the way, all have things in common), and the antithesis being the groups who opposed those rulers and made changes and took history in a different direction (ultimately toward the End of History). I think it's obvious that Hitler is our present day Alexander the Great, Julius Caeser, and Napoleon. We briefly said that the progression has an east-west orientation, but I find it to be more south-north. In any case, Hegel shows this progression toward freedom and truth through conflict, because conflict is the antithesis. The only way history changes is through conflict, and without change the End of History isn't attainable. Back to Hitler-what he did was unimaginable, but it DID change the course of history. I feel like it was an aid in striving for changing social interactions between people (i.e. gender, race, sexuality, religion, etc.). So I think another important question is, who is it that is going to take up Hitler, Napoleon, Caeser, and Alexander's role as the thesis? And for that matter, what exactly is the criteria for someone to fit this position? Glenn Beck might say Obama. And for that matter, we've had and still have people who may be considered heartless rulers...so why aren't they remembered like these 4 are?
Just some thoughts. :)