and so have others.

The Repubelicons have made it a point that they want to drown our government, (or at least waterboard it for a long time). Now, I don't like corporatist policies and the closeness of our government with big business and wealth, but there are the aspects of it that are important to us as the people.

It seems that they may be trying to prove a fictitious point by their behavior, (that is, without making any excuses here for the mindless and juvenile stunts). The gestalt they are generating is that government does not work and to prove that point they seem to be doing a fine job at obstructing it to an extreme. This creates a general aura of skepticism and cynicism amongst the voters who then feel more frustrated and mirror the, "nothing can be done about it" malaise that foments disgust.

So, yeah, that's kind of conspiracy theory, but it does reflect their agenda, since the idea is to move everything to the "private sector" by dismantling the commons, so to speak. In that case, they are the fox and the chicken coop, so maybe we should be more concerned that this is a tactic and not just madcap ineptitude--not to diminish those factors.

The Tea Party demonized government and attempted to "starve the beast" by asserting taxation is inherently a bad thing.

Since their precipitous decline in approval, it seems like the GOP has been doing everything bone-headed possible to demonize government by, as you say, "prov(ing) a fictitious point by their behavior."

It really does seem to be a concerted effort to de-legitimize the role of public governance. Scary shit!

and we can see some very ridiculous behavior that can be attributed to that.

However, back to the "conspiracy", their handlers are very shrewd, manipulative, wealthy, focused and have extremely intelligent and skilled people working for them in various groups.

If you look into the Koch Brothers and their intents and the kind of co-opting machine they have, that might be a good illustration. Was W. that bright? Does Scott Walker, et al, need to be anything more than a good player when the plans are produced?

The clowns playing in the field are useful. Useful idiots are played in a different way. That's showmanship.

not really a conspiracy but actuality and exactly what is happening .. the 64,000 dollar question is how do you stop the idiots.?

deprecate the use of the word, conspiracy. In the mainstream, the word is equated with whacky ideas especially when combined with "theory". Any two people can conspire to do something. There are real conspiracies and they are manifold, and there are a plethora of theories on the subject, some being viable, others being extreme and untenable.

So we could say, more accurately that there are subversive agendas that are carried out in less obvious ways. We could cite the old PNAC and, of course as ALEC, etc.

Well, how do you stop it? It may be a $64-million or billion dollar question. I think it is clear that money in politics, combined with a diverse array of overt and covert organizations funded by the perpetrators are important keys to the agenda, along with a complicit and owned mass media comprised of a handful of conglomerates.

Maybe knowing more about this and being aware of topics that are not carried into the mainstream as much can help?