Despite their rampant unpopularity a mere two years ago, Republicans swept into offices all around the country during midterm elections two years ago. They masterfully used fear and loathing as a tool to control the populace and manipulate them into voting against their own economic self interest, since the Republican Party has always been one to favor Wall Street, fat cats and the super rich. They're crowing about the will of the American people despite the fact that the TEA Party helped a great deal to boost their cause and they represent a small minority of extremists who just happen to have a very loud megaphone thanks to 24 hour cable TV and Sarah Palin's "Mama Grizzlies", who mostly lost their elections this time. Oddly enough, the TEA Party makes the mainstream Republicans very nervous and they are doing their best to distance themselves from that faction because so many of them are wacko extremists who espouse very unpopular ideas like getting rid of Social Security and Medicare, eternal sacred cows of the Federal Government. And yet these very people helped to push the country in a rightward swing this election, and here the Republican party wants to repudiate them and distance themselves from the very people who propelled them to victory. Of course, it turns out that the TEA Party was really a sham and not the grassroots movement that it purported to be. It, in fact, was funded by a bunch of billionaires and corporations in a shameless effort to push the government aside and create a corporate plutocracy, which, for all intents and purposes, we've already become. So these folks who thought they were a grassroots thing were being cleverly manipulated like a bunch of puppets by a handful of super rich people and companies to act against their own economic self interest. They kept crying that they "wanted their country back", and were all about restoring lost freedoms, when in point of fact they lost more freedom during the Bush administration than they did during the two years of the Obama administration. But of course, they aren't seeing that and are instead making outrageous comments about, for example, "ObamaCare", it being some sort of government funded mandate that puts us all on some sort of government run health care program instead of allowing us to keep our own doctors, hospitals and health care practitioners. They've all been drinking the TEA Party tea instead of learning the facts.
I was listening to the concession speech of Sharon Angle, a TEA Party favorite who was running to unseat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada. Fortunately, he won to keep his seat, but when Ms. Angle conceded, she said, "This was never about me, it's about you," in essence, using the same quote that Obama has used when he campaigns. He said, over and over again, in his Presidential campaign, "This isn't about me, it's about you!" And another slogan of Obama's that got co-opted by TEA Partiers and Republicans was "Fired Up! Ready to Go!" It just slays me that these people hate Obama so much as to want to take him down and replace him with one of their own, but they shamelessly use his slogans in their own campaigns. I suspect that they are secretly jealous of how many people got involved in his campaign and the fact that he won by a landslide and inspired the most people ever to come out and vote. The Republicans have never had someone as popular as Obama, save for maybe Reagan, and even then, he didn't inspire the waves of voters that Obama did. They're stealing a page right out of the Obama playbook in hopes of inspiring the same kind of enthusiasm that he generated, but I don't think it will work. Their views are far too extreme for the mainstream, so much so that even the Republican Party is repudiating the very TEA Party that propelled them to victory this midterm election cycle. They want anyone BUT Sarah Palin to run for President and they are steering clear of a lot of TEA Party candidates because they are such nutjobs. The TEA Party isn't the grassroots organization that folks think it is. In point of fact, it's a corporate funded group backed by billionaires the Koch Brothers, who run an energy company. So these TEA Partiers are nothing more than corporate shills who think that they are fighting to preserve their freedoms that they perceive have been taken away from them when in fact they are being cleverly manipulated by some super rich billionaires. They;re nothing more than puppets whose strings are being pulled and who aren't smart enough to realize it. I keep hearing what a well educated group they are, and educated they may be, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are smart. Given the kinds of candidates that the TEA Party has been backing, they are a pretty extremist bunch who don't make a lot of sense and who don't even deserve to be elected local dog catcher. Now, some of what the TEA Party is complaining about, the budget deficit, I can understand and appreciate. Yes, DO get rid of wasteful government spending. Go through the budget line by line and get rid of programs that don't work or are inefficient and either streamline them or get rid of them altogether. Trim the pork fat out of budgets. Sure, legislators like to "bring home the bacon" to their districts, and some of it is justifiable, but a whole lot of it is nonsense that can either be gotten rid of or funded in an alternative manner. There's a whole lot of fat that can be trimmed off of the federal budget but it will take fiscal discipline to do it. Trouble is, every time a President or legislators promise to trim the budget, they don't and end up adding more to the deficit. However, to his credit, President Clinton left a budget surplus that sadly, Dubya squandered and deepened the deficit by 27.1% to where the current budget deficit is a whopping 83.4% of GDP. That's unsustainable in the long term and must be dealt with. So the newly empowered GOP is on notice: either you do as you promised and get the economy back on a roll again and work to trim the pork fat out of the federal budget (but not on the backs of necessary programs), or you're outta here. And don't refuse to work with the President as you've said. This is no time to play political games. There's a country in a world of hurt over lost jobs and a foundering economy. GOP, I'm calling you out. Play nice or you're gone, baby, gone. Work for the people who sent you to Washington, not corporate shills, high rollers, special interests and fat cats. America needs government that works, not government that is bogged down in political reindeer games. Remember, the President is still in charge. And America's watching.
Despite their rampant unpopularity a mere two years ago, Republicans swept into offices all around the country during midterm elections two years ago. They masterfully used fear and loathing as a tool to control the populace and manipulate them into voting against their own economic self interest, since the Republican Party has always been one to favor Wall Street, fat cats and the super rich. They're crowing about the will of the American people despite the fact that the TEA Party helped a great deal to boost their cause and they represent a small minority of extremists who just happen to have a very loud megaphone thanks to 24 hour cable TV and Sarah Palin's "Mama Grizzlies", who mostly lost their elections this time. Oddly enough, the TEA Party makes the mainstream Republicans very nervous and they are doing their best to distance themselves from that faction because so many of them are wacko extremists who espouse very unpopular ideas like getting rid of Social Security and Medicare, eternal sacred cows of the Federal Government. And yet these very people helped to push the country in a rightward swing this election, and here the Republican party wants to repudiate them and distance themselves from the very people who propelled them to victory. Of course, it turns out that the TEA Party was really a sham and not the grassroots movement that it purported to be. It, in fact, was funded by a bunch of billionaires and corporations in a shameless effort to push the government aside and create a corporate plutocracy, which, for all intents and purposes, we've already become. So these folks who thought they were a grassroots thing were being cleverly manipulated like a bunch of puppets by a handful of super rich people and companies to act against their own economic self interest. They kept crying that they "wanted their country back", and were all about restoring lost freedoms, when in point of fact they lost more freedom during the Bush administration than they did during the two years of the Obama administration. But of course, they aren't seeing that and are instead making outrageous comments about, for example, "ObamaCare", it being some sort of government funded mandate that puts us all on some sort of government run health care program instead of allowing us to keep our own doctors, hospitals and health care practitioners. They've all been drinking the TEA Party tea instead of learning the facts.
1 comment:
I found your mention of the Koch brothers very interesting. Your've nailed their role (and others like them on the head). I get to see on of their smelly money making refineries every time I head north on highway 52 to the Twin Cities. Their father, as you may know, was an original John Birch Society funder. In those days their views were considered wacko. Now their embedded in the millions by the fruits of their cable and AM radios minions. Yuk!!!
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