Tea Part-(i)ers

Way below is a recent comment I left on Prometheus6 in response to New Yorker article, The Rise of the Tea Party Movement. First though, I should give some explanation.

I've come to realize as of late a couple of things:

1. I do spend maybe too much energy commenting on other blogs.

My health being what it is, I can't afford not being discriminate in how I spend my energy. The thing is, righting something of scholarship takes just an inordinate amount of energy. Starting with deciding what I'm going to right about and keeping everything straight in my head. I mean, sometimes, by the time I've finished thinking out my thoughts on one issue, I've actually gone through 2 or 3 issues. Now granted, I can usually manage to remember what thought prompted another, and I can follow my logic from one argument to the next. But it can be like trying to stretch out a slinky; and as soon as I try to blog, the slinky recoils and I get slapped in the face. Because I'm trying to choose between a number of topics that're all intertwined and can all be gotten at from different angles.

In my last original post, you saw what happens when I'm not at my best health-wise and try to blog: I get slapped and forget either a topic or an angle. I mean, the poverty rate in black America is a double whammy, and I better say why before I forget again:

• A higher poverty rate equals more crime. Because of racism, the crime of a few is impugned to us all.
• It's also the case that our higher rate of poverty means fewer resources with which to lift ourselves out of poverty. (And given the fact that affirmative action never meant quotas, only opportunity, we've done an amazing job of lifting ourselves up by our "bootstraps.") So we're not all getting out at the rate anyone would like to see, and the rate of poverty lingers.
• Due to racist stereotypes, opportunities continue to be restricted making it all the harder to get out of poverty.

Whew! Glad I got that out the way!

So you see, keeping everything together can be difficult. Choosing a topic can be difficult. Some days I don't feel like linking every single assertion someone may question. That said:

     2. Being that a topic is provided and commenting doesn't always require linking, I've written some bang-up comments!

So from time to time, especially if a comment was rather lengthy, instead of writing a whole post from scratch, I'll post, and maybe refine but mostly post, some of my better comments.

This particular comment is a topic I've been thinking through, so it's all good! That said, ladies and gentlemen, me doing me:

I read the article.

Okay, so even if they do have lots of corporate funding, they should be taken seriously. Most of them are sincerely anxious and don't carry the Obama=Hitler signs. Got it. Sure, I'll continue to roll my eyes and snicker at the TV; but, strategically, Dems should take them seriously. Fine. Great. Whatever.

Here's where I stand by my previous assertion:

1 - It's not that previous administrations didn't listen to them, it's that previous administrations manipulated them into demanding the very policies that have gotten us where we are today. Is that the fault of this administration?

2 - They can't see that they're being manipulated? Is that anybody's fault but their own? Don't get me wrong. Though I was an Obama volunteer, I'm not quite sure he was ever everything I wanted. I just supported him because I felt his style would help shift the political conversation whereas Hillary Clinton would've pissed off more people faster, and Edwards had already lost in 2004. And was off the ballot by the time he got to my state, but thank goodness he didn't get elected or appointed to anything.

I don't feel any more informed about then than I do prior to reading all 8 pages of a wonderfully written but not greatly substantive article. What is it that they want? Freedom? Okay. What does that mean? In what ways are they not "free." Apparently, the freedom to give charity to whomever the like without being forced by the govt. So, I guess that means lower taxes - and how is that any different what they got with Reagan and both Bush? Lower taxes, asked and given. I can assume that they also want smaller government - and how is that any different from what they've gotten from Republicans? Smaller government means deregulation means derivatives means Goldmann Sachs gets sacked. My problem with TARP is that more strings weren't attached. I also felt that if money were given to mortgage owners, eventually, it would get to the banks. I had no problem with propping up the banks.
But they did and do. At the same time, I'm guessing the small business owners are upset that more lending isn't coming through. I empathize. How much lending would've happened had the banks crashed? They're upset about losing jobs. How many more would've been lost had the banks crashed?

As far as Dems listening, however many Obama supporters they picked up (allegedly), the vastly overwhelming majority of them didn't support Obama in the first place. So you don't get to cry the April after an election about not being heard if you voted for the people who lost. Sorry. That's not how Democracy works. Well . . . you got the right to cry, I just got the right to tell you to tell you to suck up it!

It's like, so much of what they ask for, they've already gotten and it didn't work. Not with Reagan, or HW or W or any of their heroes now. If they're savvy enough to have found each other and memorized whatever supposed problem pg 59 of HR 3600 has, why aren't they savvy enough to remember what really happened in the 80s or at least look it up.

Social conservatives won't be happy until the country is a Christian theocracy. So, you know, whatever with them. I'm just waiting for them to decide that any ejaculation that can not end in life should be illegal, including but not limited to male masturbation. After all, aren't all those sperm with their wiggly tails potential human life? Bumper sticker: "Keep it in your pants. We mean it."

They cheered Rick Santelli with is demands that DC not subsidize the "losers'" mortgages. But now, they demand a bailout for regular Americans. What? Huh? Come again?

Finally, here's what makes them racist:

When black people march to be heard, they want us to get over it. They accuse Al and Jesse of race baiting. They're still convinced ACORN is corrupt and O'Keefe is a hero. Meanwhile, they're doing the very thing, or rather, their corporate funders are doing what ACORN does: organize communities of people for a joint cause.

I mean really, South Boston still upset about the busing decisions in the 70s? But black people should just "get over it?"

And to add insult to injury, the national unemployment rate is 10%, but for whites, it's just 9%. "Just" would be insulting on my part except that the unemployment rate is 17% in Black America. They're coming out of a deep recession while we're still in a depression. They're just now getting a little taste of what's been in our America for the past decade, and get themselves into such an uproar that they can't think straight? The use our crime rate to justify racism, but when they start experiencing some of what we have to deal with, they come to presidential town halls unarmed "this time?"

Oh, but wait. Ben McGrath says not everyone in the movement carries those crazy, racist signs and since the crazy one are the outliers, we should treat the entire group as though they're crazy. My bad.   I forgot.