CHAPMAN'S FIRST IMPRESSION WAS CORRECT
Steve Chapman in his September 16 Chicago Tribune op ed, "The tea party and the value of craziness", should have stopped after his first paragraph which concluded, "Any movement that doesn't firmly exclude Birchers, birthers and Islamophobes is not a movement for me". Unfortunately, he adds 14 more paragraphs praising the movement for its emphasis on fiscal responsibiliy.
Any close study of the movement would totally refute such extravagant praise. From a political standpoint, the Tea Party, ostensibly ordinary folks just trying to reign in excessive government, is a highly organized and sophisticated movement by wealthy conservative operatives to take back control of government from those vaguely progressive Obama Democrats. From former powerhouse GOP Senator Dick Armey to the fabulous billionaire Koch brothers to Fox News, the Tea Party is as slick and slimy as it gets. And while the middle age white folks parading with tea bag tasseled hats and ugly racist Obama caricatures grab the media attention, the puppet masters pulling the strings are well out of sight.
From a cultural standpoint, the tea party has no interest whatsoever reigning in deficit spending. They have two intertwining concerns: don't raise my taxes to help anybody or anything which is not in front on the nose on my face. This includes people of color, the jobless, the medically uninsured and our crumbling infrastructure, which has become a metaphor for our crumbling culture.
If they were really concerned about deficit spending they would be howling about the two unfunded trillion dollar drains on our economy; trillion dollar criminal wars and trillion dollar tax cuts for the wealthiest 2%. We hear not one word about these catastrophic expenditures because their anger and racism has been brilliantly manipulated and focused to demonize our first black President as a socialist, a Nazi, a radical and an illegitimate foreign born President. I personally interact with otherwise intelligent people who have these as core beliefs.
If the tea partyers had a motto it might be, to paraphrase what progressives said about the Tribune during the run up to World War II, "billions for the well off, but not 2 cents for the needy". Steve Chapman needs to read the tea leaves.
Any close study of the movement would totally refute such extravagant praise. From a political standpoint, the Tea Party, ostensibly ordinary folks just trying to reign in excessive government, is a highly organized and sophisticated movement by wealthy conservative operatives to take back control of government from those vaguely progressive Obama Democrats. From former powerhouse GOP Senator Dick Armey to the fabulous billionaire Koch brothers to Fox News, the Tea Party is as slick and slimy as it gets. And while the middle age white folks parading with tea bag tasseled hats and ugly racist Obama caricatures grab the media attention, the puppet masters pulling the strings are well out of sight.
From a cultural standpoint, the tea party has no interest whatsoever reigning in deficit spending. They have two intertwining concerns: don't raise my taxes to help anybody or anything which is not in front on the nose on my face. This includes people of color, the jobless, the medically uninsured and our crumbling infrastructure, which has become a metaphor for our crumbling culture.
If they were really concerned about deficit spending they would be howling about the two unfunded trillion dollar drains on our economy; trillion dollar criminal wars and trillion dollar tax cuts for the wealthiest 2%. We hear not one word about these catastrophic expenditures because their anger and racism has been brilliantly manipulated and focused to demonize our first black President as a socialist, a Nazi, a radical and an illegitimate foreign born President. I personally interact with otherwise intelligent people who have these as core beliefs.
If the tea partyers had a motto it might be, to paraphrase what progressives said about the Tribune during the run up to World War II, "billions for the well off, but not 2 cents for the needy". Steve Chapman needs to read the tea leaves.
posted by Walt Zlotow at 8:19 AM
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