Shutdown: The Tea Party GOP are Useful Idiots for the Rich and Powerful. They are not "Suicide Bombers" or "Kamikazes"

A nice flourish in language and a bit of personality in one's writing are ever present temptations. And for a craft which can be dry and tedious, a writer should on occasion be allowed a bit of self-indulgence.

The government shutdown by the Tea Party neo Confederates is an easy target for rhetorical excess and pretty turns of phrase. Why? The visual of old white political cosplayers dressed up like zombie George Washington and Thomas Jefferson is absurd to begin with. Thus, there is a temptation to treat the Tea Party Republicans with the disdain they have earned.

However, the ability of a tyrannical minority to derail the governance of the world's only superpower is serious business. The 4th Estate should rise to the occasion by exposing the madness of the Tea Party GOP, as opposed to sinking down into the political muck and mire--aided by sloppy language and false equivalences about empirical reality--which birthed Right-wing populism.

The Tea Party GOP's shutdown of the United States government has been described by various news outlets, pundits, and politicians as "political hostage taking", a "kamikaze" or "suicide" mission, and as an act undertaken by "political terrorists" wearing "suicide vests".

It is true that the Tea Party is obsessed with trying to delegitimize the United States government and the country's first black president with appeals to violence, secession, and  a second civil war. The label of "political thugs" and "bullies" who are flirting with sedition is an accurate description of the Tea Party.

But, the appeals to the language of "political terrorism", "kamikazes", and "suicide vests" masks and hides more than it reveals.

Suicide bombing has historically been used by an occupied people who are fighting a long-term struggle against a dominant power in order to break the latter's will. Japanese kamikaze pilots (what is translated as "divine wind") during World War 2 were fighting what they saw as a noble and final effort to protect, in the spirit of their Samurai ancestors, their Emperor and country from American invasion and domination.

As detailed by the empirical work on the topic, those young men and women who don suicide vests are not sociopathic or mentally ill. They are rational, politically dedicated and highly disciplined. In many cases "suicide bombers" are willing to sacrifice themselves for a political cause to ensure that their families will be financially provided for, and they themselves elevated to the level of political heroes fighting a righteous liberation struggle.

The Tea Party GOP is none of those things. They are agents of the 1% who are doing the work of the corporateocracy. The Tea Party is funded by the Koch Brothers and is just one more example of how poor people and Right-wing populists have been duped by the rich into advancing a set of policies which hurt the Common Good.

Whatever one may think about political "terrorism" and suicide bombing as tactics, they are the weapons of weak. The Tea Party is an agent of the powerful and the rich, and an occupying force which is trying to dominate the American people and subvert the People's will.

When we call the Tea Party GOP suicide bombers or kamikazes their actions are given more respect than they deserve. The Tea Party is comprised of useful idiots who have found a way to derail the United States government. To call them anything else is to give a bunch of know-nothings more respect than they deserve.