I ran across this story on CNN today. I couldn't help thinking we're really in deep trouble. There are a lot of disturbed people out there now in the minority, who didn't get their Republican politicians elected, who feel slighted by society. For a party dependent on authority figures, they have none. It's a movement of angry faux constitutional scholars pushing corporate personhood, cession, states rights and a solution in the form of armed citizenry ready to fight their neighbor over a difference of opinion.
It's a party of sore losers, chasing ghosts and myths, conspiracies and what if's. A party that sees the sky falling after 8 months under Democratic rule, but never bothered to say a thing the last 8 years when they thought nothing of warrantless wiretaps, a $2 trillion war of choice and unpaid for tax cuts for the wealthy (almost twice the price of health care reform) our children will have to pay for someday.
They are a minority party of supposed fiscal conservatives who would reform health care by requiring everyone to buy their own insurance, the most expensive kind devoid of group rates, and expand prohibitively expensive taxpayer funded high risk pools for the uninsurable. They complain that a public option will make health care too expensive by the time their children have to pay for it, never once realizing that that is exactly what will happen if nothing is done.
They're a group of "better Americans" who won't put up with a black president, as you'll see in the following article.
CNN: From the stage, Deborah Johns is the angry conscience of the tea party movement.
Winnemucca, Nevada: "Question everything your government is doing," she tells a crowd of about 100 from the bus's stage in the parking lot of the Winners casino in.
Little Rock, Arkansas: "Our men and women took an oath when they put on the uniform to defend and protect this country from enemies both foreign and domestic. I think we've got some domestic enemies in the White House."
Louisville, Kentucky: "The men and women in our military didn't fight and die for this country for a communist in the White House," she says, and the crowd erupts in a chant of "U-S-A, U-S-A!"
Mark Williams, a former talk radio host who now writes books and makes the rounds on cable TV chat shows is the showman of the bunch. His signature line when he gets the mic goes like this: "You can have our country when you pry it from our ... cold ... dead ... fingers!" Again the crowd erupts.
"Obamacare Condense Cream of Crap soup" reads a sign in Sparks, Nevada. In Dallas, Texas, a darker mood prevails. A homemade sign with "Obama Lies" features a bold, black swastika.
As the tour moves on, Nazi imagery becomes more prominent - Obama and Hitler adorn a sign reading "Hitler made great speeches, too."
No one on the tea party express seems concerned with the vocal fringe of the crowds that come with offensive signs -- besides Nazi imagery, a poster of Obama as an African witch doctor has become popular -- or the numerous conspiracy theories that float around most tea parties.
A woman in her 60s says, "I really don't want to be a guinea pig for the experiment they have with the population control." An Ohio woman argues with an Obama supporter: "He's going after our kids to try to indoctrinate them into a national defense army."
In Louisville, Kentucky, two young men in camouflage fatigues roamed the crowd trying to recruit new members for their militia called the Ohio Valley Freedom Fighters. They bear signs reading "AK-47s: today's pitchfork" and "Quit worrying. Start your militia training today."
In Jackson, Michigan, a young man didn't need a sign. He was carrying the real thing: A loaded AK-47 assault rifle and two loaded handguns. "I don't want a revolution. I don't want a civil war," he said. "But it is a possibility. It's there as an option, as a last resort."
No comments:
Post a Comment