The Tea Party,
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13 April 2010
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To hear Sean Hannity tell, the Tea Party is a movement of Reagan-loving Republicans happy to vote for the party if they got just a
little more conservative. That's right, replacing the party who rammed the stimulus (sic) package down our throats in 2009 with the
party who rammed the bank bailouts down our throats in 2008 is the way to our salvation! Now let's go sing some hymns! Unfortunately,
many a Tea Partier may fall prey to the rationalization that Republicans are not AS BAD as Democrats unless the group starts fielding
candidates outside the the umbrella of either party.
Here in Lincoln, NE we're fighting a Keynesian boondoggle of our own, if not quite on the scale of Washington's. Lincoln is a college town and they love their sports here, so naturally the government sees a weak spot and does their best to exploit it. Even though Lincoln has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, the city has proposed to build a new arena to "create jobs". Of course, they will fund this project with higher taxes on restaurants and hotels and by issuing a bond - putting off the rest of the increased taxation until the current city council members and mayor are long out of office. Developers who stand to receive the contracts for the project are, of course, funding a pro-arena campaign touting the Keynesian benefits of building an arena with taxpayer funds. No one seems to notice that the family who went out to eat 20 times a year may only be able to afford to go out 19 due to the new taxes. If there a few thousands families like that, then one can imagine all the waitresses, cooks and restaurants that will affect. Or that when the bonds come due something will have to pay for them, which means raising property taxes since the city has more control over them than sales taxes, unless the predicted Keynesian growth ensues. PANEM ET CIRCENSES is what they used to call the welfare-warfare state in the days of Rome. Bread to guarantee the welfare of the poor and circuses to entertain them. The state's power increases by a false duality of statists where one side demands more bread and the other demands more circuses. Until they get into office... Bush was all for free markets until the banks got into trouble. Obama was against the wars abroad until he was in charge of them. The Republicans has so far been covert in organizing Tea Party events and Fox News opinionators have had a field day filling stadiums, with talk of "restoring" the Constitution, singing hymns, showing old Reagan speeches and selling "victory" in 2010. This is their strategy for absorbing the Tea Party. Of course, there are still real Tea Party events and the Democrats (who count Klansman Robert Bird among their number) are trying to cast the Tea Party as racist so there is no chance of the movement being absorbed by that party. As long as the name Tea Party remains, it will remind us of that Revolution a few centuries ago when Americans stood up to a tyrannical government by getting rid of it. Tonight I went to what I thought was a citizens' protest but was actually a highly choreographed showpiece to drive patriots toward the Republican party. Candidates were there to hand out information, and I went as a representative of No2Arena. Like many citizen groups focused on local issues No2Arena skews fairly geriatric providing endless fodder for arena proponents who say we're "just a bunch of old people who don't want to pony up their fair share". Now, you'd think that a citizens' protest against Keynesianism in Washington would allow opposition of Keynesianism here in Lincoln at least the chance to state our case, but this was not a citizens' protest. The program included hymns, old Reagan footage, messages from Fox News opinionators, more hymns, and a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. This was not a protest against the state but a lovefest for it!!! Needless to say, we were told by the organizers that we would not be allowed to hand out our stickers or pamphlets urging people to vote against the city's arena project. |