One would think that the “tea parties” that were promoted and sponsored by Fox News and FreedomWorks and the Heritage Foundation were gigantically successful if you were only to watch Fox News. And of course because Fox is part of News Corp., Rupert Murdoch’s alien empire of failing news organizations, the number of other media outlets carrying the Fox-promoted parties was substantial.
But here are the facts. From what could be seen on television, very few–if any–of these “parties” had more than 500 people. Even the one in Washington D.C. seemed to have fewer than 500 people. They were being addressed by two people with megaphones, standing in the middle of a crowd who clearly could not have heard their voices had there been a group any larger than that. So if they were all that size or less in some cases, there were less than 25,000 people, in total, across the country, no matter what Fox propaganda would like you to think. That’s number one.
Number two…the people seemed confused about why they were there, or maybe anywhere. Some were crying out for “liberty” which makes no sense at all…some for tax relief which they are already being given. Others were demanding apparently that they be able to carry guns. One man wore a gun in a holster. Others were urging citizens to beware of some kind of latent Nazism…a placard with Hitler, and then on the same sign, a placard of Lenin, so Communism? So we are going to be a totalitarian fascist state or an egalitarian revolutionary state, but we can’t–apparently–decide which. Either way a menacing President Obama was portrayed in the middle of the two.
The one common thread is of course President Obama. Not since Bill Clinton ended deficits, paid down some of our national debt, began to solidify Social Security and gave us the longest stretch of peacetime economic growth in our history…longer even than the post-WWII economies have so many people on the Right seemed to really get out and hate the President. The signs were so racial and disgusting one would think that Obama was Abraham Lincoln incarnate.
None of these people knew what in the wide world of sports they were talking about. They had no idea what Obama’s tax or stimulus policy was. They had not an inkling about the loans that have been made–mostly thus far by Republicans–that will be repaid and in some cases are already being repaid to the government by the financial institutions. None seemed to understand that without the kind of stimulus…and the tax cut that they are receiving…the economy would surely tank…costing tens of millions more their jobs, probably theirs.
Many seemed to have the impression that the President was not born in Hawaii despite the fact that Hawaiian authorities produced his birth documents to the press some time ago and simply will not drag it out again for every Fox News reporter who does not believe the major newspapers or other television networks. For some reason, however, it is interesting that the Republican Party has never done one single thing to try to disqualify him on that point. Could it be that they have…the facts?
Either Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are having an affair and too busy to rail against the Grand Old Party for total and complete negligence…which that would be…or these nuts with the signs are just that…nuts. Of course Fox News, never ones to be bothered by the truth, continue to lie to all these poor, bigoted slobs who are only too eager to have someone give them cover for their racial attitudes.
Some people were complaining about the burden of taxes and the stimulus to help their fellow citizens. Others complained about the financial executives getting too much money. Hello! Talk to Republicans about that…as George W. Bush said to wealthy financiers…”I call you my base.” The bizarre idea that President Obama, who calls for tax increases for those who make over $250,000 in order to help the rest of society is some kind of a dictator whose allies are the rich is unfathomable.
Especially when the people doing the name calling are those same Republicans who are STILL advocating for tax breaks for the rich…who have had two major tax cuts already under the Bush Administration.Let’s be clear. Part of the Republican solution to the looming Depression is more tax breaks for the rich. But of course if idiots come out with signs to stir up trouble to try to get their own tax breaks reinstated, Fox will continue to follow a strategy that works…at least on fools.
George W. Bush’s tax cuts gave millionaires who were paying 39%, and who would have paid 70% under Eisenhower another $43,000 tax cut…on every million. So the CEO of a healthcare company–they average over $12 milion annually–had tax rebates coming back to him or her of $516,000. That is the amount of the tax break, not the taxes. And of course the amount that they paid was only one fifth of what they made.
So you can see President Obama is not asking people who have made $60,000,000 in income over the last five years under Bush to go broke. He is just looking for a little fairness. He want to bring more resources in this Depression to bear on the problems of these venal, ignorant bigoted bunch of slobs and gun owners and Right Wing nitwits. He wants to bring some relief to these same citizens who paraded around at “tea parties” making even bigger fools of themselves complaining that our President doesn’t care about them or their imagined problems.
He does. Although there is clearly no reason why he should.