I have been watching bits and snatches of the “Tea Party Convention” on C-SPAN. My initial response is much the same as Gertrude Stein’s impression of Oakland: “There is no there there.” My suspicion is that this group may be but a neo-con/Establishment inspired effort to neutralize widespread popular disaffection with the political system; to attract attention away from a frontal critique of the state (e.g., Ron Paul, LRC, some Leftist commentators) and into a kind of mushy, make-believe “reform” movement reminiscent of Frank Chodorov’s observation concerning those who want “to clean up the whorehouse, but keep the business intact.” I have thus far heard no principled, fundamental assessment of the state from these tea-partyers, but only a lot of superficial jabber about “taking back America.”

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