From the outside this Tea Party 'movement' seems almost inexplicable. What in the world? - bizarre - unexplainable. But let's take a closer look. The average Tea-bagger is white, low to upper middle class, 60 or older, retired or soon to be, and angry. Imagine for a moment you are that person. Why might you be angry? And what would be in your self interest?
Well to start with the idea of seeing a black man in the role of commander in chief of our armed forces - armed forces that you very well may have served in - a black man in that role is not going to sit well with you. I mean this racial equality stuff is fine as long as your daughter doesn't bring a black man home or as long as a black man doesn't dare to assume a role of real authority. Do you remember the anger several of our southern republican leaders in the senate exhibited upon seeing pictures of Obama in the oval office shortly after he assumed the job? They pretended to be enraged that he dared to remove his suit jacket in the oval office and thus was desecrating that hallowed space - but what was really enraging them was that some uppity black man dared to sit there as if he were truly their equal or worthy. Remember how their public outrage immediately ceased when the media showed dozens of pictures of Bush senior, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush junior in their shirt sleeves in that same office, pictures that these same republican leaders had not seemed to have minded at the time - oops. Remember the outrage when it was learned that Obama was to go into our public schools and encourage our children to work hard? No black man was going into a predominately white school in Tennessee and hold himself up to be important and worthy of respect - oh no way - not to OUR children. And remember the Glen Beck rally attended by 100,000 - 300,000 predominately white people, many of them tea partiers? He chose his rally on the exact same day and exact same spot Martin Luther King gave his I have a dream speech. Accident? No - message - WE are taking back OUR country - and we're sending the black guy home with his tail tucked after we do.
Okay the Tea Party movement is fueled in part by racial hatred - but what else? Well how about greed.
These are retired or nearly retired white people, their children grown. They have no need to fund public schools - they've gotten what they needed out of them. They have lived for years in their predominately white neighborhoods and feel safe - no need to fully fund police. They have their medicare - no need for pesky expensive health insurance plans for the rest of us. They are approaching the end of their lives - they can comfortably deny or ignore global warming and environmental issues. They want to decrease or abolish taxes because they figure they don't need nor do they want to pay for public schools, police, infrastructure, or government oversight in these last few years of their lives.
And so energized by racial hatred, enticed by the idea of paying less taxes, and just plain lazy when it comes to informing themselves, they allow themselves to be manipulated by big money - be it foreign or domestic - and corporate interests. Who do they think is paying for all of this? Their political 'leaders' are almost all one issue charlatans willing to do the bidding of big money interests in exchange for power and wealth.
Racial hatred, greed/selfishness, ignorance and big money funding - without all four the Tea Party would be nowhere. How sad for this country that it appears to be somewhere.
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