Image from Huffington Post
Fair warning: this is a political rant.
Thirty days out from the midterm 2010 election, it’s beginning to look like class warfare.
When I used to think of a tea party, it was something little girls did on boring, rainy Saturdays. It was an Alice in Wonderland scenario, with Alice and the white rabbit and some of the other eccentric characters in Wonderland, sitting around, sipping tea. It wasn’t a bunch of almost exclusively white idiots convened by big money and corporate lobbyists who had convinced these people to rally against their own self interests.
You know the ones I mean. Last summer they stood around in the hot sun, with tea bags dangling from their silly hats, waving signs about NO to socialist health care and Obama’s socialist agenda, NO to bigger government and higher taxes. Yet, in their ranks were those shouting, Hands off my Medicare and Social Security!
They apparently didn’t realize that Medicare and Social Security are government programs. They apparently didn’t know that during the eight years of the Bush administration, government exploded in size. Bush brought us Homeland Security and the Transportation Safety Department. According to Wikipedia, DHS is the third largest department in the cabinet with more than 200,000 employees. The actual figure is probably much higher. The TSA supposedly has nearly 52,000 employees, but that figure seems low when you think about how many screeners there are at any single airport in the U.S. The TSA is enfolded within the Department of Homeland Security, which has a budget of nearly $43 billion. Yes, you read that figure correctly.
So where were these tea partiers when Bush was exploding the size of government and spending? Where were these tea partiers when we started two wars that have cost untold trillions and thousands of lives?
Now these fruitcakes have candidates:
So let’s start with Florida Marco Rubio, former speaker of the House of Representatives in Florida, attorney and son of Cuban immigrants. A Republican who has the support of tea partiers. He supports a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution, gun rights, and a repeal of the health care reform law. He opposes abortion rights and a path to legal residency for illegal immigrants. He initially opposed Arizona’s immigration law, but now supports it since it was changed to narrow the circumstances under which people could be asked for their papers.
It’s never entirely clear to me what these people mean by a balanced budget. When Bush took office, the budget had a surplus. W went on a spending spree and blew through that in a few years. So I’m assuming that Rubio, like his fellow “conservatives,” means he supports extending the tax cuts Bush implemented for the wealthiest 2 to 3 percent and cutting every social program that acts as a safety net for the most vulnerable people in our society – the poor, the sick, and the elderly.He’s running for the senate. Scary.
Then there’s Joe Miller, Mr. Five O’Clock Shadow from Alaska. Like Rubio, he supports a repeal of the new health care law and opposes abortion. Oh, and he also supports “limited government spending,” the code phrase for cutting social programs. You notice how no one ever really talks about cutting defense spending, which in the 2010 budget runs around $535 billion, and that probably doesn’t include black op programs. Good ole Joy also claims that Social Security “violates the mandates of the Constitution,” and that there should be no federal minimum wage.
Are we seeing the pattern of class warfare here? He’s running for the senate, too. Won’t be and Rubio be a pair up there on the senate floor?
Moving along. Christine O’Donnell, Sarah Palin clone. Looks like her. Talks dumb like Palin. Same hairstyle, same type of clothing, big white smile. Is basically clueless. Probably believes she can see the Pacific Ocean from her front porch. Lies about where she went to college, admitted on Bill Maher that she had dabbled in witchcraft. If she actually had, if she were a Wiccan, for instance, she would be far more interesting. Instead, she’s just embarrassing. She supports cuts to government spending (read: get rid of social programs, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security etc), lower taxes (especially for the top 2-3 percent of the wealthiest Americans) and, of course, a repeal of the health care reform law. She opposes the Recovery Act and abortion.
Rand Paul. Kentucky. Former eye doc. Son of Ron Paul. Opposes government bailouts of private businesses, a path to legal residency for illegal immigrants, legalized abortion and the new health care law. He supports lower taxes and a dramatic reduction in government spending. He thinks people below the age of 55 should have to work longer before they can retire and collect Social Security. Uh-huh. And he was endorsed by Sarah Palin. Enough said.
Sharron Angle, Nevada. When she smiles, I cringe. Supports gun rights, expanded veterans’ benefits, tighter border security, cuts to government spending and making the Bush tax cuts permanent. (Read: she wants her donors to remain rich and the rest of us to be reduced to peasants). Naturally, she opposes the new health care law and abortion. She has said she wants to shut down the Department of Education to help balance the budget and make education a local responsibility. Neat, huh? So your kids will have to attend private school, which will cost you a bundle, or you home school them. Endorsed by Sarah Palin. I think her platform should be called the Dumbing Down of America.
Where is the humanity in any of these candidates? How will more guns, a greater disparity between rich and poor, the repeal of the health care law (as watered down as it is) and abolishing Medicare and public schools help this country in any way?
Tonight we saw a story on the news that really underscores what this election is about. In Union City, Tennessee, a man hadn’t paid the $75 fee to the fire department for fire protection. He forgot to pay it.Never mind that he pays property taxes, which usually covers police and fire protection. So when his house caught fire, the fire trucks parked out front and watched his home burn. Is that what we’ve come to as a country? Have our hearts turned to stone? The man lost his home, his pets, everything because he’d forgotten to pay a $75 fee. That story is
here.
According to ThinkProgress, “there are currently
two competing visions of governance in the United States. One, the conservative vision, believes in the on-your-own society, and informs a policy agenda that primarily serves the well off and privileged sectors of the country. The other vision, the progressive one, believes in an American Dream that works for all people, regardless of their racial, religious, or economic background.
The conservative vision was on full display last week in Obion County, Tennessee.”