[Peace-discuss] Spiked on teapartiers

[C. G. Estabrook]

What this article misses is how much the administration/Democrats/liberals WANT 
the teapartiers as opponents.  They can then claim that (all) those who oppose 
them are violent cranks and - the ultimate liberal smear - RACISTS.

With enemies like that, who needs friends among the electorate?  It has no where 
else to go.  --CGE


 From <http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/8775/>:


...the liberal media has depicted the Tea Party as a collection of cranks, 
proto-fascists and racists. The favored approach was to mock. Rachel Maddow, the 
MSNBC commentator, referred to ‘tea tantrums’. Somewhat bizarrely, the 
liberal-left resorted to sexually derogatory language, calling the movement 
‘tea-baggers’ – this even became mainstream, with CNN’s Anderson Cooper adopting 
the term as a convention. Most of all, gatherings of protesters were seen as 
dark and dangerous gatherings of violent, racist people. Reports of Tea-Partiers 
carrying guns or a sole person shouting a racial epithet were claimed to 
represent the entire movement...

...it remains to be seen whether liberals will give up their preoccupation with 
the Tea Party, and their prejudices about its members. For example, a few days 
after Tax Day and the Times poll, on 19 April, former president Bill Clinton 
gave a clear hint that he thought anti-government protesters like the Tea Party 
were potentially violent. 19 April was the anniversary of the 1995 Oklahoma City 
bombing, and Clinton used the occasion to warn that the Tea Party types could 
lead to a repeat...

...Rather than put a positive case for government, liberals attack those who 
call for a limited role for the state. And that attack takes the form of 
claiming that anyone who protests against the expanding role of government is a 
half-step away from being ‘delirious’ or ‘unhinged’, from committing an act of 
mass violence. It seems that liberals need the Tea Party as a bogeyman, because 
of their own lack of confidence about solving the major economic and social 
problems that exist today.

It’s clear that the Tea Party expresses more of a general discontent than a 
specific counter-ideology or alternative policy strategy. Yet this discontent 
with politics is shared by a wider group than the Tea-Partiers. In mocking and 
vilifying the Tea Party, and not putting forward a positive case, Democrats at 
best ignore the underlying discontent, and at worst exacerbate it. They may not 
have the last laugh.


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