Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Teabaggers and Progressives

Commentary By Ron Beasley



As I have said here before I am actually encouraged by the teabagger movement.  I think they have more in common with progressives than either realize and may be another Frankenstein moment for the Republicans.  Here is the latest example.



Tea Partiers Slam Citizens United Ruling

Some Tea Partiers are expressing vocal opposition to the Supreme Court's recent ruling
striking down the ban on corporate political spending -- a stance that
puts them at odds with the Republican Party and the broader
conservative movement.

Just hours after the court ruled last month, RNC chair Michael Steele praised the decision, calling it "an important step in the direction of restoring the First Amendment rights" of corporations.

But some Tea Partiers don't agree. Shane Brooks, a Texas-based Tea Party activist, told TPMmuckraker in an email:

This decision basically gives the multinational corporations owned by
foreign entities [the right] to pour unlimited funds into the pockets
of corrupt corporate backed politicians to attack everything this
country stands for. We might as well be able to vote for Disney or the
SEIU as President of the United States of America.




The teapartiers recognize that the real enemy of the people is corporatocracy.  The movement may have been created by the Dick Armey oligarchs but it is a movement that progressives can and should hijack. 



Posted by at

3 comments:

  1. M. BouffantFebruary 3, 2010 at 3:46 PM

    I wish, but I think the TP movement has a little too much nativist & racist baggage to carry, & we don't want to help them w/ it.
    Most of the 'baggers who are worried about the SCOTUS decision (as indicated in the quote above) probably would be fine w/ defense or oil corporations "having a greater say," but Disney (Objectively "pro-gay," y'know.) or a union exercising influence is wrong to them.
    We'll see, though.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ron BeasleyFebruary 3, 2010 at 3:55 PM

    M. Bouffant
    I will agree that there is a racist element to the TB movement but I still believe that their primary concern is their jobs going overseas and the bailout for the bankster oligarchs. If Obama had taken a more progressive path on these issues he could have overcome some of the racism. Instead he continued the Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush policies.

    ReplyDelete
  3. HyperIonFebruary 4, 2010 at 5:04 AM

    IMO Alito needs to immediately phone Shane Brooks and tell him that his stmt about "the multinational corporations owned by foreign entities" is not true.

    ReplyDelete

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