They Are Relentless. (And Kind of Hard to Stomach.) [View all]

[20score]

Every time one starts to feel generous and forgiving towards the
other side, the depraved and cruel people in the world do something
to stir up the anger and the cycle continues. At least that’s the
way it feels. In 2008 many people felt optimistic about the future
because we elected the ‘anti-Bush’ and it looked as though we were
going to move in a smarter and more compassionate direction as a
country. That was followed immediately by the people who supported
the illegal war, deregulation and deficit exploding tax cuts that
put the country on the road to depression, yelling and screaming,
throwing things at the ill and blaming everyone but themselves for
the problems they created. Now the country has moved in a more
progressive direction once again, followed immediately by the worst
of us, let’s call them Teabaggers for the time being, defending the
indefensible. Papa John’s pizza, owned by the obscenely rich, greedy
and ostentatious John Schnatter who has a turntable for his
limousines, a castle-like mansion, his own golf course and a moat-
like structure surrounding his castle. According to a Forbes study,
Schnatter could supply health care to his employees by adding a
nickel to the cost of his pizzas and not have to cut back at all on
his King Herod life style. He refuses. He’s not alone by any means.
The CEO of Wal-Mart, Michael Duke, makes more in an hour than many of
his employees make in a year. Those employees are paid such low
wages that taxpayers are forced to help feed them and pay for their
health care. The list goes on and on. This should be a cause for
outrage as it is not only morally reprehensible, but moronically
self-destructive. Yet these Teabaggers defend the practice with the
zeal and self-righteousness usually reserved for religious fanatics.

Teabaggers, or more accurately their ideological forebears, have
always been with us. And they have always been an anchor on society.
Freeing the slaves was followed quickly by the formation of the KKK
and Jim Crow laws. (Yes, the degrees are different, but the thought
processes behind the deeds are the same.) The Renaissance kicked the
already in progress Inquisition into high gear. Martin Luther King
preached peace and fairness and was killed for his efforts. There
have always been people willing to champion sadistic and ludicrous
causes, the monikers assigned to these people may change with the
times, but the desire to punish others, even if it means making
things worse for themselves, remains a constant. And while it may be
true that many of these people may not be technically stupid in the
conventional sense of the word, their actions and words are identical
to those with less brain power and the same ideals. It’s possible that some of the people suppressing the vote in the latest election were not bigots, but outside of their immediate circle of family and friends, who cares? Same results, no matter what their motives. The same goes for those now espousing policies that keep millions of working Americans in poverty. Are they stupid or evil ideologues? Again, who cares? The burden of proof should not be, and really cannot be, on the observer to ferret out what’s in the heart or head of a stranger. Whether one advocates destructive policies because of not understanding what is truly at issue, or because one’s beliefs and ideology prevent that understanding, is irrelevant. Practically, the results are the same.

Right now the four hundred richest people in the US control as much
wealth as the bottom one hundred and fifty million. On average, each
person in that top group has as much wealth as one hundred million, five
hundred thousand people in the bottom 50% of the country’s economy.
In 1960 the average CEO made as much as forty people in his employ.
Now, depending on the source used, the average CEO makes up to four
hundred times those in his or her employ. Add to that 92% of the wealth
from our current recovery has gone to 1% of the population. As the
richest have taken more and more of the country’s wealth, the middle
class is continuing to shrink. Forty years ago one blue collar job
could support a family of five, have two cars, health care, a yearly
vacation and a pension that allowed for a retirement at sixty-five.
That is now hard to accomplish with two incomes. The trend is
obvious and it doesn’t bode well for the country. No one looks at a
third-world country with a handful of obscenely wealthy people and
millions of poor with no middle class and says, “Wow, they are doing
great. Our county should emulate their success.” Millions of people
within our borders defending and supporting policies that push our
country toward a third-world country life-style, is far more
dangerous than a few score fanatics thousands of miles away.

One Teabagger on a Facebook thread about Michael Duke’s salary said, “So what. Nothing wrong with that. They should get better jobs…Go Occupy something.” One on the Papa John’s page suggested posting pictures of those fired ‘so we could laugh at them.’ The issue isn’t with one or two maggots, it’s about millions who feel helping fellow Americans, even an iota, is now somehow un-American. They have taken the ‘us versus them’ to an extreme and it needs to stop.

All over the US Teabaggers are backing billionaires over workers, no
matter how outrageous the take is for the billionaires or how
insignificant the dent is to their incomes, when even the smallest
concession would mean the difference between living in a small
apartment or living in a vehicle. They aren’t just being bad human
beings with no compassion, they are also being bad citizens of a
country they give constant lip service to loving - every chance they get.