Today is being called the second anniversary of the Tea Party movement in the US. The genesis of the movement actually began with a small taxpayer protest against the Democrat’s massive “Stimulus Bill” spending plan in Seattle, WA, on Feb. 16, 2009. They called it the “Porkulus Protest”. As it happens, conservative blogger Michelle Malkin actually referred to the Boston Tea Party when she posted about it on the day, although the name didn’t stick at the time. This was quickly followed by protests in Denver, Kansas, and a couple other cities, including New York.
It was on Feb. 19th, when Rick Santelli of CNBC made his on-air rant about how the country needed a new version of the Boston Tea Party that the name came to life. The impetus was already there nationwide, and word about the other protests had already spread like wildfire on the internet. And so a movement was born.
(UPDATE, Feb. 28: Paul Adams has done a report about the anniversary. It’s nearly good, but in the end the bias rears its ugly head. I discuss it in the comments below.)
Hundreds of protests large and small popped up individually all across the country. The BBC refused to mention any of it until reality forced them to acknowledge hundreds of thousands of people protesting on April 15. In case anyone has forgotten, or isn’t aware of how the BBC treated the movement and its participants, here’s a reminder. It’s no exaggeration to say that the movement was directly responsible for the Republican victories in November, and the current state of play in Congress.
With this background in mind, let’s look at the latest BBC article about the fiscal policy scene in the US.
Obama urges budget consensus to prevent ‘gridlock’
US President Barack Obama has urged Congress to find “common ground” over the budget to prevent a government shutdown.
Don’t expect any actual reporting, as this is just the BBC dutifully reproducing the White House talking points. Some may, of course, see this as a weakened President sitting on His hands, a substitute for leadership. Even the BBC News Online sub-editor understands this, and so makes sure to get in a word for the defense:
Although Mr Obama is empowered to propose a budget, it is up to the US Congress to pass it into law and then to distribute the funds.
Whew, that was close! A reader nearly thought He was weakened for a moment. Thank goodness it turns out that the office of the President never had the power to force things on Congress in the first place.
“Next week, Congress will focus on a short-term budget. For the sake of our people and our economy, we cannot allow gridlock to prevail,” Mr Obama said in his weekly radio address.
Naturally the BBC then has to spin the laughing-stock of a budget He actually proposed. Notice how they use His talking points again.
The president unveiled his proposed budget earlier this month and described the proposal as a “down payment” on future cuts to the US budget deficit.
He said the US had to live within its means and called for some reductions, but said “we can’t sacrifice our future” with drastic cuts.
No mention at all that it was a completely irresponsible budget proposal, and a deliberate defiance of the voters in November. Here’s a more honest point of view the BBC won’t let you hear.
But contrary to the call of Obama’s fiscal commission last December to reduce the deficit by $4 trillion by 2020 through deep spending cuts, elimination of scores of tax loopholes and major entitlement reform, Obama balanced his concern about fiscal discipline with a fresh round of spending on education and research, investments in infrastructure and high-speed wireless data network, and other programs he says are essential to the economic recovery and enhancing the country’s global competitive edge.
Sounds a lot like Labour-speak, no? No wonder the BBC supports Him to the bitter end. In fact, His budget adds more than $7 trillion to the deficit over the next decade. This is not fiscal responsibility by any stretch of the imagination. If He hadn’t given the finger to the voters like that, we wouldn’t be facing gridlock right now, and He wouldn’t have to call for togetherness like this. This situation is His own fault, but the BBC won’t tell you that. Instead, they’ve decided that – surprise! – blame lies elsewhere.
But Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, do not think the cuts go far enough in tackling the deficit.
Republicans put together an interim proposal to cut $4bn (£2.5bn) in federal spending on Friday as part of legislation to keep the government operating for two weeks past the deadline.
House Democrats have reportedly responded positively to the plan, according to CNN.
Neither party wants to be blamed for a government shutdown, but the Republicans say any plan will have to include cuts.
“Our goal as Republicans is to make sensible reductions in this spending and create a better environment for job growth, not to shut down the government,” Senator Rob Portman said in his party’s weekly address.
You’re meant to take away from this the idea that, no matter what happens, it’s going to be the Republicans’ fault, and that the President tried to stop them.
The BBC won’t spend a moment acknowledging the Tea Party movement’s anniversary, or what it has accomplished in spite of the vicious attacks from the media (including the BBC) and the Leftosphere. There’s much more to do, of course, and 2012 is still a long ways away. But whatever happens in future, don’t trust the BBC to inform you.
You’re absol.utely right that the BBC recognises its labour soul in Obama. The even scarier thing is that Obama and the democrats actually do copy the stupidity of Blair and Brown.
And some of the American networks think that the BBC is an example to be emulated.
The thing about the Tea Party is this. The tea party was a bloodless coup in American politics. Because of the Tea Party, the Democrats were not only swept from power in November but more importantly, the Democrats were swept from power at the regional level.
But think about this for a second. Right now we are seeing people being killed right across the Arab world because of their “political” revolutions YET not one single person was murdered during America’s political revolution last November.
There is not one country on the face of this planet where such a stunning change in politics could have occurred with a total lack of loss of life. And lets not kid ourselves here, November was unprecidented for politics anywhere in the world!
And what do we hear from al beeb. Yes thats right, crickets! 🙂
Regards
Mailman
Unfortunately, Mailman, the Union thugs and Democrats and far-Left activists are trying to prove you wrong. Not that the BBC would ever tell you. As for the Tea Party protests: No violence, no buildings stormed, no windows smashed, no vandalism, no fires in the streets, no fire extinguishers thrown from a rooftop. Neither Britain nor any country in Europe has been able to manage that.
Dear David,
As a boots on the ground esteemed cousin could you enlighten us as to the nature and exent of blue dog democrat involvement in and sympathy with the tea party and its aims and values?
The BBC is playing the angle that the tea party is purely republican fundamentalist right wing in nature and structure but the tea party movement does not spring from one source does it? I can fully understand the BBC tactics to present the tea party in a very particular light but it seems that there is more to the tea party than the BBC is willing to show.
Cassie, while the Blue Dogs did have some influence before, they lost more than half their members in November – only 23 are left out of 54. Most of them lost because they were Democrats, full stop, and had The Obamessiah/Pelosi/Franks albatross around their necks, regardless of their actual policy positions, including a couple who voted against ObamaCare. Even a couple of the Blue Dog leaders lost their seats. Evan Bayh, who tried to say he supported the Tea Party at one point, gave up entirely and retired.
Here’s a list of who lost, with a brief take on why. It’s from the very Left NPR, but it’s honest about the albatross issue. One interesting thing is that the very Left NPR actually mentioned the fact that white Democrats in the South had their representation reduced. It seems a bit odd to focus on that when the actual list shows more losses elsewhere, but the folks at NPR are the BBC’s fellow travelers, so it’s safe to ignore their interpretation of things like this.
Having said that, it looks like the Blue Dogs have a lot less influence now on the Party than they did before, as they have less than half the members now. But they do stand for the same fiscal responsibility, and some even stand for a few so-called Conservative issues. For example, that poor Congresswoman in AZ who was shot in the head was not only a fiscal Blue Dog but an advocate for gun owners’ rights. So it’s no surprise that she defeated a nobody Tea Party candidate (this is AZ, remember), although it was not an easy task for her.
Blue Dog Dem Dennis Cardoza’s page about the group’s position should give you a good idea where they’re still at. The problem is that, since it’s all party politics in the end, they have to walk a fine line between voting for what they think is right and not getting ostracized by the very far Left Dem leadership and powerbrokers. They seem to be mostly supporting the Republicans’ spending cuts, which is good. Too bad this doesn’t affect the Senate.
In the end, though, it’s pretty clear that fiscal responsibility is not an extremist position, despite how the BBC plays it. But since the BBC seems to hire exclusively far-Left activists and ideologues, they’re always going to see it that way. They also worked very hard to conflate fiscal conservatism with social conservative positions, no matter how many times Tea Party people told them on camera that they wanted nothing to do with social issues. That was a main pillar of the BBC’s Narrative.
One very important factor to remember is that a lot of Tea Party supporters (myself included) were and are Independents and Libertarians (like Rand Paul fans), and not supporters of any particular political party. Many of us have voted for different parties at different times, depending on the issues. Moreover, many had never been poltically active at all, ever, in their entire lives. And there was no existing organization putting together a bandwagon for people to jump on. There was no equivalent of St. Jon Stewart, for example. Contrary to how the media wanted you to think, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin jumped on the Tea Party bandwagon, and not the other way round. In Beck’s case, he was pretty late to the party, yet seemed to get a lot of the credit. In actual fact, it was a case of a large intersection between his socially conservative fans and Tea Party supporters. The Tea Party movement is truly the biggest tent of all. I hope it stays that way.
The BBC was very, very shy about discussing that element, even though it was a key to understanding the scene.
Sorry to ramble on. Hope this makes sense.
It makes perfect sense now you explained it David, what we lack in the MSM is exactly the thing you have provided to me. This is the depth and detail that is entirely absent from the BBC. We are presented with a false picture devoid of so many facts it has become a joke.
Many thanks for your wisdom.
Yours as ever
Cassie K.
It is no surprise that the BBC with its totalitarian mindset consistently chose to ignore what has been going on in the United States, and even when it did decide to report, plumped for the deliberate misrepresentation of Tea Party protestors (coming from huge, diverse sections of American society) as unhinged nutjobs.
What the BBC prefers is no alternative viewpoints, no debate, no explanation of what people are doing, and why they are doing it, no means of remonstrance and no agitation of public issues.
Just dead silence on the things it doesn’t want to report: the views of climate sceptics, the rising popularity of the Tea Party movement, our £trillion+ national debt, etc. That along with the the bullying and interruptions of of people the BBC doesn’t agree with.
Paul Ryan as new chairman of the budget committee presents the clearest philosophy of why Obama is failing to lead, why his “budget” is a pathetic attempt to kick the can down the road. Has thew BBC ever shown any footage of Ryan in full flow ? If not – why not ?
For any “balance” in its repoprting of the biggest fight going on in US poliotics, the BBC surely has a duty to present the Republican case properly.
And it should also report that it is independent voters who swung the election – that is, the Tea Party sentiments had support way outside the Republican Party.
At the state level, the push-back against excessive public spending and increasing public deficits and debt is currently focussed on states like Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey. As far as I can see, Governors of those states are attracting endless headlines in the US media. But again – this is not reflected in BBC “reporting”.
Epic fail by the BBC. Just like always.
Readers of this blog get a far better idea of WHAT IS REALLY HAPPENING IN THE US than the BBC provides – thanks to David Presier with others chipping in.
Visiting news-aggregation sites like HotAir or DailyCaller shows that half the articles and video clips are about budgeting at federal and state level. Like this new one :
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/02/27/public_unions__the_socialist_utopia_109046.html
Even the New York Times gets the Christie message :
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/magazine/27christie-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&pagewanted=all
Meanwhile the attempts by the unions to strong-arm the legislators continues. All the violence and extreme rhetoric that the BBC tried to smear the Tea Party with is actually on view daily among the union protests in Wisconsin and elsewhere – but not on view at the BBC :
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/02/27/quotes-of-the-day-609/
Here is the face of union tolerance of other ideas :
http://dailycaller.com/2011/02/25/angry-rallier-screams-about-uneducated-tea-party-video/
OT
Alan West gives a lesson on leadership
Worth watching.
Alan West is a BBC ‘peoples enemy’ an invisible person because the BBC cannot atack him and they cannot present his views or even admit he exists.
Alan West becomes just another non person in the long BBC list of non persons, the democrats have no answer to him and so guess what?Oh yes the BBC shares the very same view!
Alan West is the new weapon on the political battlefield and until the leftists at the BBC and their democreep allies have a counter measure workd out they will pretend he does not exist. You can bet the farm that the leftist smear merchants have been dirt digging and rooting through bins.
Alan West should be used like the tanks of WW1 to smash a hole right through the lefts trenches, a joy to watch indeed.
What is disgraceful is that we get more actual info and incisive analysis on what’s happening in US politics from David Preiser than we do from the BBC. If you explore further on the internet, you can see that DP is not only informing us concerning what’s being reported by the US media and non-mediated resources but he demonstrates a background knowledge of the subject which the BBC representatives appear to lack completely.
In the normal course of events, I would expect a US citizen to know more about the US than a foreigner (briefly) resident in the US. However, if that foreigner is paid generously to report what is happening and analyse the whys and wherefores of such happenings – and conspicuously and continuously fails to do so – then both the reporter and his employer are perpetrating something which is tantamount to a fraud on the listening/viewing public.
Now “fraud” is a serious word. However, a “fraud” is defined here
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/fraud.html
as “an act or course of deception, an intentional concealment, omission, or perversion of truth to [among other things] gain . . . . unfair advantage”. An “advantage” is defined as “any trait, feature or aspect that gives an individual, entity or any other thing a more favourable opportunity for success” and success is itself defined [partly] as “achieving an objective”. And what “objective” is the BBC pursuing in its reportage of events in the US? I would contend that the BBC’s objective in reporting US affairs is to portray Obama as the wonder of the age, his policies as as close to perfection in order to achieve a paradise on earth as is humanly possible and that both Obama and his policies are templates for political leadership and governmental policies for the UK.
As we can see from DP’s postings, BBC reportage lacks accuracy – and accuracy comprises finding and telling all the salient facts, not just the ones which the reporter favours. Further, the BBC analyses lack any notion of taking an accurate chronicle of events, melding it with a knowledge of the institutional and other aspects of what is being analysed and producing a clear (even if complex) explanation of the events chronicled.
Rather, the BBC has made up its corporate mind concerning the US political scene (briefly – Obama can do no wrong), and has, accordingly, recruited correspondents who are fully on message. The reporters then convey a lop-sided view of events to reflect that message (and undertake drive-by demonisation of any American individual or US organisation whose actions or words might conflict with that message). The BBC analysis of the reported “events” then seeks to “prove” the correctness of the message.
Unfortunately this behaviour is not restricted to the BBC’s reporting of the US. As we are informed daily on this site, matters on which the BBC is exercised receive the same treatment; namely inaccurate (and/or partial) reporting, ignorant or wilfully biased analysis, contempt for views contrary to the BBC mindset and (even when acknowledged) de haut en bas treatment of reasonable complaints (unless such complaints come from a favoured minority or pressure group). The BBC’s bias on the US, the Middle East, the EU, immigration, climate change, education, the “cuts” and so on poisons the wells of political debate and action in the UK. There is no cure. None of the major political parties will do anything. The appointment of Lord Patten as chairman of the BBC Trust is not just a tragedy – it’s the symptom of a greater tragedy.
David P. – I can only add to what others have said before me in this thread. Thanks for bringing the US news to us that the Beeb doesn’t want us to know about, or prefers to spin to its own flavour. You’re doing a fab job for us, mucho appeciato!
The BBC’s apparent dislike for the Tea Party goes beyond its politics.
The corporation’s news staff seems to have that typical public sector combination of fear and disdain for anything which isn’t ‘official’ and ‘approved’, just like they are with their quasi-govermental status and a fancily worded charter.
From their cosy world of government funding, gold plated pensions and realitively secure employment they simply don’t quite get the concept of people doing things off their own bat – in politics, business or any sphere of life for that matter.
Paul Adams does a mostly good job here. He admits that the Tea Party movement is truly grassroots. That in itself is a major improvement over previous BBC reporting. There are one or two problems, but mostly Adams tells it like it is, and even includes a couple of things which back up my statements in the main post.
One of the two real objections I have lies in this line:
But if Christian conservatism and judicial constructionism were on display here, it’s government spending, and the country’s mountainous debt that most concerned the audience and the summit’s organisers.
It’s not the Christian bit. That part actually backs up my claim in my reply above to Cassandra that the Tea Party movement is a truly big tent. The Christianists are there, but not only do they not control the agenda but actual worry that their concern about Christian values are being ignored. Not at all the picture the BBC painted for you in the past.
I don’t like how Adams snuck in the phrase “judicial constructionsim”. Where does that come from? It’s completely unrelated to anything else in his article, and just comes out of the blue. I know why he said it, though. He put that in because one of the main far-Left objections to the Tea Party platform is that the Constitution is still valid, despite the fact that, as JournoList founder Ezra Klein said, it’s really old. I can’t prove that Adams wrote the uncredited BBC News Online piece I’m complaining about in that post, but that sentiment is evident in the way he sneaks in the phrase about it here.
My other objection is to calling Ron Paul the “godfather” of the movement. He didn’t start it, wasn’t the inspiration for it, and is just another politician who jumped onthe bandwagon. Now, it’s true that his name was raised by people at Tea Party protests pretty early on in the game. There were even a few Libertarians shouting “End the Fed!” as well as his name at the second protest I attended in NYC. He also generally comes out on or near the top of polls for 2012.
So, while it’s very fair to say something about Paul being a leading polticial figure or similar, “godfather” has some false implications. There is no leader, no one person everyone looks up to. Not even Sarah Palin.
Aside from this, Adams gets a good grade for stating that the primary concern is actually fiscal responsibility. Unfortunately all that is taken away by this pathetic bit of bias:
With its patriotic fervour and biblical overtones, the Tea Party summit can all get a little overwhelming.
Unprofessional. This is his personal opinion, revealing his own distaste for patriotism and Christians who wear their faith on their sleeve. He would never dare say the same thing about an Islamic gathering, nor would he be permitted to do so by his bosses. This really ruins an otherwise reasonable piece, which in other ways is far superior to previous BBC reporting on the Tea Party movement, even addressing a couple of things I’ve been complaining about for ages. It’s a shame, really.
I just had to share this ironic set of Google Ads that appeared on the page with Paul Adams’ piece:
I wonder what happened to the astroturf coffee party 😀
It is clear that Obama’s political organisation Organising for America has been very active in shipping “protestors” to Wisconsin – all part of his “community organiser” rabblle-rousing style. Not only does the BBC hide the really nasty behaviour by a lot of the protestors, documented all over the web, but it hides Obama’s own involvement via his Organising for America apparatchiks.