thoughts on tea baggers

on august 23rd, jennifer holmes from the seattle area wrote an editorial in the seattle times entitled “why i am a tea party activist:”

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2012682245_guest23holmes.html?prmid=obinsite

i thought a lot about ms. holmes. i understand the frustration people are feeling nowadays. where is america going? what happened to our greatness? what happened to the middle class? her unease is understandable. but, unfortunately, she got it wrong.

“in an article in the august 30, 2010 issue of The New Yorker magazine, author jane mayer links the billionaire brothers david koch and charles koch, owners of koch industries, to tea party movement funding. mayer writes,
the anti-government fervor infusing the 2010 elections represents a political triumph for the kochs. by giving money to “educate,” fund, and organize tea party protesters, they have helped turn their private agenda into a mass movement. bruce bartlett, a conservative economist and a historian, who once worked at the national center for policy analysis, a dallas-based think tank that the kochs fund, said, “the problem with the whole libertarian movement is that it’s been all chiefs and no indians. there haven’t been any actual people, like voters, who give a crap about it. so the problem for the kochs has been trying to create a movement.” with the emergence of the tea party, he said, “everyone suddenly sees that for the first time there are indians out there—people who can provide real ideological power.” the kochs, he said, are “trying to shape and control and channel the populist uprising into their own policies.”

ms. holmes thinks that it’s “government control” that is the problem. unfortunately, she’s got it wrong. the problem is government control by the greedyt corporate america. it’s easy to believe the rhetoric of the tea party movement if you choose to not investigate on your own. with all the money being spent to steer your beliefs in one direction or another, one needs to be able to discern fact from fiction…. sometimes utilizing a sherlock holmesian mentality.
for example… are we americans “overtaxed?”

well, in comparison with the rest of the industrialized world – no. most other industrialized nations provide healthcare, social security, and yes… tax their citizenry. are they taxed more that we americans? yes. do they enjoy a better quality of life? most of them would say yes. not having to worry about paying for a prescription or losing their home because of medical bills would undoubtedly put them ahead of us.

more telling is the fact that the u.s ranks 24th in life expectancy… hardly anything to brag about. we rank 33rd in infant mortality. tell me ms. holmes, is this because of our government, per se, or because of the greedy corporate bastards that control our government?

it’s pitiful really, that folks like ms. holmes will protest the expiration of the tax cuts for the wealthy. put in perspective, someone making over $200,000 will pay $78,000 in taxes instead of $70,000. that means, if they are making $200,000 they will bring home $122,000 instead of $130,000. really? is that going to put them in the poor house? billionaires david and charles koch are going to have to pay a few extra bucks in taxes and we should feel sorry for them? oh, please ms. holmes! why is this a bad thing for you and the rest of the doomed american middle class?
in the ‘60’s, the average c.e.o. of an american company made 40 times what the average employee made. today the average chief executive officer of a standard & poor’s (s&p) 500 index company is paid, on average, $9.25 million. that’s over 250 times what the average american worker makes today! that should piss you off, ms. holmes! not the fact that you pay taxes to support social security, the u.s. military, college education for our youth, and our crumbling infrastructure. in effect, your shortsighted protest is all about promoting the increasing wealth of america’s richest, at the expense of america’s middle class.

ms. holmes and the rest of the tea party movement are about as enlightened and educated as the (now deceased) followers of jim jones and the people’s temple: proof that americans are easily brainwashed.