General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhere Are You Going, Teabag Nation?
Last edited Sun Sep 2, 2012, 08:20 PM - Edit history (1)
Whats your vision of the future? Is it to destroy the middle class? Is that what you really want? You claim to be patriots, but every solution that you endorse, to every problem, whether that problem is real, imaged or magnified beyond recognition makes things worse. From the Iraq War, to drug testing welfare recipients, to cutting social programs and fighting investments in infrastructure and education, to the demonization of teachers, to denying the science regarding evolution and climate change, you consistently do your part to weaken the middle class and drag our nation backward.
In order for problems to be addressed and solved, they first have to be acknowledged. And that needs to be done regardless of whether or not the reality involving said problem is uncomfortable. We should demand of every adult in the country that they react to difficult truths with at least as much dignity as we expect from the countrys eight year olds when they are told the truth about Santa Claus. This applies to all rejections of reality, but it is especially glaring regarding the environment and global warming. Your partys platform on Protecting the Environment is the essence of irony. First there is the tacit admission that regulations have worked: Efforts to reduce pollution, encourage recycling, educate the public, and avoid ecological degradation have been a success. Then an insistence that we move in a more corporate friendly direction, away from what worked in the past,
however, we need a dramatic change in the attitude of officials in Washington, a shift from a job-killing punitive mentality
Yes, as if bringing back the polluted air and water of the sixties and seventies will have no detrimental effects. No health related illnesses, no effects on agriculture and tourism, no effects on industry that survives because of pristine areas; and of course, doing the right thing by future generations and other less tangible results are irrelevant and rarely brought up by your side. We constantly hear the figures pulled out of the considerable ass of Rush Limbaugh and others like him that regulating carbon would kill jobs and cost billions. Because as Rep. Fred Upton has said, the EPA has
its foot firmly on the throat of our economic recovery. To call that sentiment manure would do a grave injustice to fertilizer. Fertilizer does some good. Those who dont believe in global warming, dont understand global warming. Because if you did understand it, you would accept its existence. It boils down to this, in very simple terms. No one is disputing that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. This has been established science for over one hundred and fifty years when John Tyndall discovered its properties. Add that to another fact that no one disputes: That we are emitting billions of metric tons of this greenhouse gas into the air annually. When millions of years of accumulated and sequestered carbon is thrown back into the atmosphere, it will have an effect. Period. Stop whining that you may be slightly inconvenienced and read some actual science on global warming. Then start talking about what we should do. In other words, act like an adult.
Chris Hayes made an obvious yet brilliant observation about the fact that we can no longer tax the rich in this country. We have reached a stage that mimics third world and developing countries that dont have the power to tax the rich and powerful. This goes to the heart of our investments in the future. If we dont put enough of a value on our future generations or our infrastructure to pay for them, we will certainly lose them. Were losing them already. Europe is decades ahead of us in infrastructure and our education system falls behind a little more every year. Its not a lack of money that is the problem; its a skewed priority list.
In the last few years, teabags and those that lead them have been scapegoating teachers and union members for bringing down the economy. Like drug testing welfare recipients which doesnt save the government money, it costs. Florida had a net loss of $45,780.00 when it tested 4,086 applicants - this has a lot to do with punishing someone else and nothing to do with helping the economy. Forty years ago the private sector jobs had benefits and pensions. Those were taken away from most and the middle class is the weaker for it. Now you see people in the public sector that have benefits and instead of demanding yours back, you demand the public sector loses theirs. Digging one step lower and the middle class takes another big hit. Will you only be satisfied when there is no more middle class? Because that is the direction we are going, and you teabags seem to be insisting on it.
To address the Iraq War. Brilliant! So glad that your side has taken moral and financial responsibility for that disaster. The people who saw clearly what was to come have been celebrated for their efforts and something like that will never happen again.
Sure.
Your movement has combined the close-mindedness and judgmentalism of social conservatism, with the sociopathic corporatism of Ayn Rand. The libertarians are half right. Who consenting adults sleep with is neither their neighbors nor the governments concern. (As long as its consenting adults, obviously.) Same with what an adult puts in his or her own body, as long as no one else gets hurt. Where all sane people agree, including the libertarians, is on the fact that one persons freedom ends where it infringes on anothers. If ones idea of fun is armed robbery, society has every right to stop that person from engaging in that activity. That is not victimless. Where libertarians are wrong, is in extending the freedom of the individual to corporations. By their own logic, crimes with victims should not be allowed. Well, corporate crimes are not victimless. Financial crimes can injure the entire world economy and pollution harms millions, both in their health and their pocketbook. So the teabags have managed to be self-righteous enough to stick their noses into peoples private lives, and remove themselves from their duty as citizens to rein in corporate malfeasance.
One can rightly put most of the culpability in the laps of the propagandists, that twisted symbiotic cabal consisting of the sociopaths in the media such as Limbaugh, Elders, all of Fox News, et al, the perfidious politicians like Ryan, Cantor and Inhofe, and the greedy, narcissistic, world class bescumbers that buy and sell talking heads and politicians like the average person buys clothes. But the propaganda gobblers, the teabaggers, are adults and cannot be let off the hook just because theyre slow thinkers.
The slow dismantling of the middle class, by taking away benefits and livable wages can only end up with a weak, small middle class, a very small ultra-wealthy and very powerful upper class and a large powerless lower class. You may have heard a lot of this before, but what you may not have heard is the name applied to those who fail to learn the obvious. Mumpsimus. (Look it up.) It fits.
punkin87
(350 posts)They deserve it!
And yes they do.
punkin87
(350 posts)Had to look up a couple of those words.
But that's good!
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,789 posts)patrice
(47,992 posts)Duchess St.Rollins
(74 posts)+1000!!!
20score
(4,769 posts)Much appreciated!
20score
(4,769 posts)Duchess St.Rollins
(74 posts)And I didn't even realize who you are until our friend pointed it out! I just loved the letter.
suede1
(892 posts)Good word BTW!
Hope you're doing well!
oldhippydude
(2,514 posts)well said
20score
(4,769 posts)And thanks!
abelenkpe
(9,933 posts)lovemydog
(11,833 posts)pushed for war against the wrong country, which cost us trillions. Endorsed tax cuts for the top 2%, which cost us trillions more.
Now say 'reduce the deficit.' Refuse to end the Bush tax cuts on the top 2%. Want to increase military spending & start more wars.
20score
(4,769 posts)punkin87
(350 posts)So, kick.
hbskifreak
(57 posts)And excellent use of the word "bescumbers" in a sentence; gold star for you. Thanks brutha for doin what you do.
-A
20score
(4,769 posts)Made my day!
20score
(4,769 posts)patrice
(47,992 posts)The 70s were a very interesting time. Nixon double-crossed the Unions.
http://books.google.com/books/about/Stayin_Alive.html?id=xz-EINoBGNcC
I know first hand how hostile Tea Party is to unions; they want to OWN Labor for their 1% masters.
20score
(4,769 posts)Well written!
20score
(4,769 posts)Flashmann
(2,140 posts)Honestly think they might absorb or grasp it?..Sorry...I don't
grasswire
(50,130 posts)You may not know that there is a right-wing web site where Tbags and assorted misfits gather to talk about what they see on DU. Sometimes they even make trouble for DU-ers in real life. They watch us all the time here; apparently not industrious enough to create their own content.
I check out their site once a week or so. If I see them comment on your rant, I will let you know.
20score
(4,769 posts)If you could PM a link or two, it would be greatly appreciated. Would love to see that.
suede1
(892 posts)Not getting the action to should be getting.
patrice
(47,992 posts)and counter-productive and hypocritical on all of the examples that you site, 20score.
Racism is the only thing that they actually care about. Here is their racist genealogy, researched by a gentleman who has studied racists and white supremacy all of his life: http://www.irehr.org/
Perhaps you have noticed, 20score, when someone isn't being honest and up front about their true agenda, they produce all kinds of crazy mixed-up ignorant contradictory bullshit, just like all of the stuff that you accurately ascribe to the Tea Party. All of that Tea Party chaos is the result of attempts to obscure their true identity: Racists.
20score
(4,769 posts)BarackTheVote
(938 posts)and thought, "there's some good stuff here!"
20score
(4,769 posts)My take.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)suede1
(892 posts)D