Tea Party - Live Free or Die?
By louisehartmann
A new billboard in downtown Mason City, Iowa features our President Obama, flanked by photos of Hitler and Lenin. The billboard headlines “Radical leaders prey on the fearful and naive.” Last fall that billboard said “Obama-Nation, Live Free or Die” with the Communist symbol of a hammer and sickle. It's brought to you by the North Iowa Tea Party. Iowa state Tea Party coordinator John White says, “everything Obama has done is ‘lock-step’ with what Hitler did in his day.” The Tea Party was initially created, funded, and promoted by operators and funders like Dick Army and David Koch. But by appealing to the worst in people, by basing their pitch on "no" and fear and paranoia, Dick Armey and his rich buddies have created a mobster. The Tea Partiers now appear to just be the most extreme right-wingers of the current crop of Republicans, trying to repackage themselves as patriotic instead of the bigots and racists some have shown themselves to be. Conservatives like William F. Buckley and Barry Goldwater wouldn’t even recognize these creatures from the darkside. In 1996, observing the post-Reagan swing of the Republican party to the hard reich, true conservative Barry Goldwater, just two years before his death, told Bob Dole, "We're the new liberals of the Republican party. Can you imagine that?" With the 1998 death of Barry Goldwater, the fate of the Modern Republican Party was sealed. They've become total and incoherent shills of billionaires and transnational monopolies. And, tragically, they seem to be taking some Democrats and much of this once-great country with them
Comments
#2
The tea bagger leaders are actually admirers of nazis and other fascist regime, and by labeling Obama and his corporate and banker friendly administration as such only further confuses the "patriots" from seeing the fact that they are the demise of America due to their gullibility.
#3
Why are liberal-minded people surprised that the country is moving farther and farther to the right? Information (and by consequence, truth) is a commodity. He who controls the commodity, controls the "truth."
Premise #1: Nearly all of the information we use to form our opinions about public policy comes to us via some form of news media (radio, internet, television). This information has already been filtered, processed, and packaged. Essentially, you get someone else's interpretation of a "news" event.
Premise #2: Nearly every forum for distributing information runs with the same goal in mind: to make a profit (even this one). Thus, money impacts (directly or indirectly) the presentation of news. The larger the news outlet, the greater the impact of financial pressures.
Conclusion: The ultimate source of information is whomever is paying the bills.
We live in a highly caffeinated, internet-speed society. Most people don't want to spend two hours a day investigating the ultimate veracity of "news." If you package something the right way to the right people, they will accept it.
That's how the conservative right can persuade people--the same people who should logically be their sworn enemies--that they actually represent them. Why do you think corporations like Verizon and Proctor & Gamble spend BILLIONS of dollars a year on advertising? Because it's effective!!
#4
Those douche baggers are showered with ignorance. But, what do you expect when schools and teachers are not supported by communities any longer and when most of those tea partiers watch Faux News?
#5
Ditto!!! Well stated. Greed has no conscience.
#6
What you are clueless about is this......
The Reich-Wingers that Louise Hartmann is taling about are doing and saying DESPICABLE actions/thoughts.
However, Liberals almost never do or say despicable things.
The actions of Bush/Cheney and their administration were HORRID, while the actions of the Obama Administration are much milder and decent (though far from perfect).
I suspect that you are a "shill". If not, then you need to do some serious soul-searching and become politically educated and more decent in what you believe.
#7
The real issues aren't given coverage in the media. So when liberals take on real issues of our time, they are convieniently portrayed as fringe out-of-touch wackos.
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I am finding it rather difficult distingushing you and your rhetoric with the people you are describing above. It is just a different form of name calling and fearmongering, but maybe that is what gets ratings. As I told Bill Press at his book signing, "You may want to look in the mirror when you are screaming about the Right and the Tea Party". When the left was running around calling Bush and Cheney the "Devil" and "Murderers" I heard nothing about "Toning it down" from Progressive talk. And now we have the ultimate in hyprocracy with the NAACP calling Tea Partiers racist while members of their own group are calling for killing white people. My point is to throw away this garbage on both sides and discuss legitimate policy issues.
Hope you can help by "Toning down" your rhetoric.