[Peace-discuss] Chomsky: We shouldn't ridicule Tea Party Protesters (but what are they saying?)

[Stuart Levy]

On Sat, Apr 17, 2010 at 09:55:52PM -0500, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWs6g3L3fkU&feature=player_embedded

Right.  We shouldn't simply ridicule them ("point and laugh").
But neither should we give them a pass when they spout nonsense.

With all the fooferaw about catching the Mayor doing that,
nobody here has talked about any other topic that came up at
Thursday's Champaign Tea Party.  Did no one from this list attend?

For that matter, neither did the well-illustrated Daily Illini article.
It mentions their "conservative" points of view and their support of "patriotism".
It quotes an organizer as explaining that the Tea Party is not a party
and doesn't intend to align with one, but will take good ideas from
whoever has them.  OK fine.

It has one platform sentence: they support fiscal transparency,
political accountability, and reducing spending.   The first two are
apple pie -- supporting them conveys no information.  The last might,
but as always the question is, what kind of spending would they like to reduce?
And what do they ("they") see the role of goverment to be?

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