I gave a talk last night at the Cornell Club of New York City in Manhattan. The topic was the Tea Party Movement, and the thesis was:
Professor Jacobson will argue that the Tea Party movement has been among the most influential and most positive forces in American politics in a generation.
It was a hot topic and there was some hot discussion and argument afterwards. The crowd was about evenly split.
As part of the talk, I explored the many and varied smears of the Tea Party including false charges of racism, extremism and violence, topics explored here hundreds of times.
I showed two videos as part of the presentation. One was the often-featured Rick Santelli rant on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in February 2009, which often is credited with sparking the Tea Party Movement. It’s as if nothing has changed:
The second video was a classic anti-Tea Party rant by Janeane Garofolo. It’s as if nothing has changed:
A good time was had by all, I think. I know I did.
And I may have picked up a few new readers.
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……. And I may have picked up a few new readers.
As well you should : ))))))))
Kudos to you. Those were two provocative, pretty much perfect videos. I might have shown them out of historical order. Rick Santelli’s video shows him to be anything by a “limbic” brain driven truth denier. Rather he spoke the truth and people all knew it, hence the TEA party movement.
Great! You’re brave as well as knowledgeable. I blend among the others in the Ithaca Tea Party in which we protest on the last Saturday of each month on a busy street in Ithaca. We get everything from middle fingers to honks. What fun it is. But…I can’t imagine going in front of a group! Glad you’re there, professor.
Any videos of the debate????????
“It’s as if nothing has changed”
You got that right. Obama has really learned nothing since the “Great Debt Debate.”
Good on you, sir! It is also good to hear that the audience was about evenly split. I would have expected a much more left-leaning audience.
Kudos! It would be interesting to hear/see your presentation, if anyone videotaped it.
Also, what kind of questions did the leftists ask? And how were they framed? Were they typical loaded, fallacy-riddled, leftist-setups, or were there some valid, realistic, solid questions from the left-leaners?
And, did the audience clap at the end?! 😉
Thanks for going into the lion’s den! 🙂 I think you probably persuaded more people than you know — some just don’t want to admit they were wrong about the Tea Party. I wish we could have seen your portion of the dialog.
What were some of the points made by those that disagreed?
And a lot has changed… we just haven’t seen some of the results yet. (Elections of 2010 and Conservatism otherwise on the rise.)
I would love to hear the questions too.
Janeane Garofolo: classic case of psychological projection.
I was there, front row, Cornell Club! What a show. Partly class room, partly circus.
Janeane Garofalo;
A critical evaluation of her statements:
Accusation:
“The tea party is racist and hates a black man”
Her Proof of failed thinking leading to hate:
The conservatives have larger limbic brains than others who are not conservative. Large limbic brains push on the frontal lobes and thus restrict the ability to think.
My evaluation:
She is a neuro-scientist who has a deep background in brain science and has done or been exposed to empirical studies showing what she says it true.
She is genius! Oh wait…sorry…she is mostly known for acting and makes no claims to the science community. My mistake.
Her proof of racism:
The man in the white house is not Caucasian. People don’t like his socialistic approach. It is obviously about skin not politics or economics.
My evaluation:
Ms. Garofalo lumps all tea party people together based on an evaluation that sounds straight out of a “eugenics” scene in a WW2 movie with the limbic brain statements. These statements border on racist. I can’t wait to see Dr. Garofalo’s research…oops sorry, defaulting away from the obvious once again.
How she got on TV in the first place:
Ms. Garofalo is inflammatory at best, radically hateful at worst. These emotional levels are shown to cause “cognitive dissonance” that results in poor cognitive performance on aptitude tests. Perhaps she and all who get caught up in such rhetoric lose perspective as the studies on cognitive dissonance show.
She said the tea party does not understand what the tea party in Boston was about. How does she know anything about that or anything she says? Is she just acting?
I listened to Professor Jacobson speak at the Cornell Club last night and was disappointed in his presentation as he failed to present how the Tea Party will help resolve the issues that face our nation. Sure the concept of scaling back a big and intrusive government is a known factor of the Tea Party movement, but how is it to be accomplished? During the 90 minute talk and discussion I don’t recall one specific idea of where scaling back or cutting funds to an agency, policy, organization, etc. would help us down the path to resolving the issues our Nation faces.
Instead the professor focused mostly on negative media coverage and the political attacks mostly from those on the left of the political divide.
If the Tea Party is to be successful its speakers must address specifics to audiences such as last nights. I know in 90 minutes one would not be able to cover too many topics, but certainly one or two issues can be examined in depth.
AB100…I was there too and you spoke utter nonsense last night and now. The Presentation was “About the Tea Party” it was not about “The 20 Strategic steps for Tea Party Domination of the World”. This is what happens when the sole source of your news is The New York Times and the Today Show. Somehow you miss what is hidden in plain sight….the influence of Tea Party members on the Debt Ceiling debate, the Budget debate, repeated exposure of the lies and bias of the mainstream media and attempts to discredit and delegitimize the Tea Party through one disproven accusation after another (Hence Professor Jacobson’s examples). What you fail to grasp is that the Tea Party is composed of many, many, individuals acting in concert on a select handful of very specific issues that make their impact felt at the critical inflection points of policy setting and legislation. They threaten all establishment and machine politicians regardless of party.
You betray your liberal (or elitist) urban bonafides when you fail to give the tea party credit for driving the entire tax, spending and deficit discussion in the US while part of the republican caucus which controls only 1/2 of the legislative branch of government. Please pay attention and broaden your horizons by reading conservative blogs to see what your mainstream media sources are leaving out of your news. As a typical urbanite used to the world coming to your door you sit back comfortably in the luxuries of New York City and throw stones at the people in “flyover country” that are actually accomplishing things. Apparently you can’t approve of what is happening until you get a list of cuts and a plan gift-wrapped in terms you can understand….and yet somehow Tea Party members do understand and are able to move the ball down the field. There have been various budget and entitlement reform plans where Tea Party members have had significant input in addition to a bubbling stew of ideas for other cuts. I’m just curious AB…Do you think the US Post Office would be looking at streamlining its business if the Tea Party wasn’t in the background watching? We both know the answer.
Honestly, What is your point? The Ideas for cuts are all over the place by tea partiers. Do you object because they are not organized into a 5 year plan? And this is your critique of last night’s session?
I hope Professor Jacobson comes back to NYC repeatedly. His insights are fresh, his research is thorough and he does us all a service by making government, media and other organizations more transparent and accountable through writings on his Legal Insurrection blog.
BOOYAH!
Bravo! Would love to see a video of the talk.
So AB100 is a concern troll.
I never heard it put in this clever way but yes, I think that is an accurate description. Very concerned with what is going on with theTea Party and quite distressed that there was no widely disseminated Tea Party action plan with a checklist. Perceived conservative anarchy is very scary I guess? It is remarkable how confusing this movement is to certain people.