Tuesday, October 26, 2010

A Few Good Questions

Ralph Nader has a few questions he would like to ask of teabaggers. Good luck on that, Ralph. They are excellent questions, but try getting these people to answer moderately-detailed questions on policy, or to explain inconsistencies, or whatever. They can't and they won't. Teabaggin's all about visceral, feel good identity politics.  Not that some won't try, mind you. They are happy to talk, but they mostly want to attack, accuse, and smear, all while acting out their tribalist instincts; they don't want to be challenged.  This is true for the candidates by and large, but I think especially so for the fist-pumping, gun-toting, sign-waving crowds who have an awfully hard time getting their facts straight. There I go again, talking like a Democrat, fussing over facts and evidence.

Have you noticed how the teabagger signs (which you can easily google) are almost entirely directed against government, especially liberal government policies, such as health care reform, stimulus spending, unemployment benefits? Yeah, right, just the things that benefit the middle class. More to the point, notice the absence of any anger or venom directed at the real culprits; Wall Street, the bankers, the corporations that outsource, and all the other assorted motherfuckers that put the economy in the ditch and lined their pockets with our tax dollars? Not a word about how health insurance companies have been raising rates and denying coverage. They have almost nothing to say about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the monstrously expensive government contracts for the defense industry that has profited so greatly.

The teabaggers are, in the main, angry, but ill-informed. Check that, I am mincing words. I should say they don't know what the fuck they are talking about. They actually believe that President Obama has raised their taxes, just one example of how they get so much ass-backwards. And that is because their Republican handlers keep saying it. They are being played by the Republican Party which has fed them prime talking points that benefit the wealthy and powerful.

Can teabaggers really be this misinformed? Can they really not see whose jerking their chain?  Matt Taibbi thinks so. He wrote at length recently about the astonishing willingness of teabaggers to believe ridiculous horseshit.  Have an eye-opening read about your fellow Americans.

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