Saturday, April 25, 2009

Teabagging

First off, I must admit: I am a coffee drinker. Tea doesn't do it for me. That said, I like the whole tea party concept -- but I think it missed the boat. I think it was ignored. And I think I know why.

First off, it got no media coverage. Oh, sure, Fox News was there -- and almost seemed to be a sponsor. This probably drove the other media outlets away. Who wants to be seen covering someone else's event? Some will see this as the "awful liberal media" but I don't see it -- at least not at the moment. And I don't care if Fox was the only one covering you -- this is not a benefit. Fox News is divisive. Sure there may be a handful of pundits on Fox that occasionally spout a rational point of view, but they are so buried in over dramatization, fear promotion and pandering to the religious right that it gets lost in the shuffle. And the right so doesn't understand they are getting hoaxed -- that Fox News is a lefty's joke to make money off the right and funnel it to the left.

And, oh my god, shut Rick Perry up. I understand his message. And the right person can say it in a way that is a little more balanced. But this is Texas. And in Texas there is something extra special about the whole "Secede from the Union" thing. In Texas, there is a whole subculture of crazies that preach secession all the time. They don't need anyone pushing them. In Texas, secession brings out the confederate flag waving, monster truck driving, hood wearing lynch mob. These folks don't need a push. They are scary enough without the Gov standing up and giving them a shout out. Take your Rod Blagojevich hair and go back to the governor's mansion.

But most importantly, if this movement were to be effective, there needs to be a very loud criticism of the right. Yes, I said the right. We all know that the tea party folks hate the insane spending of the left. But they need to embrace the insanity of the spending of the right as well. Don't you sit there and defend Bush and criticize Obama when their spending and bailout plans are pretty much explicitly the same. Bush and Clinton got us into this mess with their idiotic financial policies. Obama's plan to get us out is right in line with the plans that got us here. To criticize one without bashing the other is a farce.

This needs to not be a left vs right or liberal vs conservative issue. This needs to be a reason vs irrationality issue. And it needs to be loud. And it can't just be something we do on "tax day." The protest needs to happen until the idiots in Washington step down. Right now, they're not even scared. Right now, the tea parties have been dismissed and ignored.

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