Poor Newt. He and his minions at Fox spent weeks organizing a "spontaneous" tax day protest. They blew it again. The right has very quickly turned from a party in transition to the laughing stock of the nation. They tried the race card, the President knowing a minister, a college professor. Nobody bit. They tried socialism, and the facisism thing isn't working out that well either.
Sara Palin as the anti Hilary.
Michael Steel, the token Black.
Piyush "Bobby" Jindal the Hindu/dark Middle Eastener.
Nothing is working for them. The conservative numbers are shrinking as they begin to realize that working together is the way to make thing better for everyone. No more hate, discrimination, alienation or exclusion.
The Teabagging protests have brought the consrvatives to a new level. It was a chance to test the resolve of America's 21st Century anti-intellectual movement. We saw this during the 2008 election season, where fatuous myopia, paranoia and frothy-mouthed rage set in at McCain/Palin rallies. The most ironic is that they are protesting the Bush/Conservativs tax system. Calling it every name they can think of. Let me rephrase that. Every name the elite, rich, Fox opinion show hosts can broadcast.
My personal favorite was the call for term limits. As the Boston interviewer told one of the protesters, American have been imposing term limits since 2006. The American voters are fixing the problem.
Then there is this. Link
"They're doing everything they can to brainwash our public...This thing they're putting on our TVs," he says, presumably referring to digital cable converters, "it's a brainwash unit!"
As his speech winds down, he exhorts his listeners to get their kids "the hell out of college. They're brainwashing 'em!"
The anti-school message resonates with one woman.
"Burn the books!" she yells from off-camera. The surprised camera man asks if she's serious, and which books she'd burn. "The ones in college, the brainwashing books, like the evolution crap."
The sad fact is that there is simply no place for this type of wretched anti-intellectualism in America anymore. It can be expected from the margins, but it's troubling to see it embraced and validated by more mainstream entities. This movement represents the lost and left-behind. And, pitifully, it's a one-way street. It is not as though there are educated or "intellectual" people who crave ignorance and despise knowledge. Anti-intellectualism is a purely circumstantial outlook, whereas education or knowledge acquisition is indisputably a normative societal goal. Thus, it is no surprise that anti-intellectualism is promptly defenestrated as soon as alternative options become available. It is, in short, a last resort, knee-jerk reaction to abject desperation
The "teabaggers" want to lick President Obama. Fortunately they have a Dick Armey on thier side.
The anti-intellectual movement is very motivated to keep as much ignorance around as possible. I totally agree with you that there simply isn't room for it in America as our world becomes more complex all the time.
ReplyDeleteI do expect the whining to continue as the lost and left behind are shuffling down their one-way street but look forward to it becoming a fading hum in the background of progress.
Our most important weapon in this fight is education, something about which I am becoming more convinced of all the time.
Great post!
Truly a great post! One that I contemplated myself but chose not to go with on a cycling blog...but more power to you brother.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the idiots on Fox have any clue about the contemporary meaning of "tea-bagging" when used as a verb...I doubt it...then again, I bet Rush does!