[Peace-discuss] ron paul, teabaggers, and some of their best friends

Tue May 4 16:54:29 CDT 2010

The only way to get ANY folks out of the woodwork to protest the US's imperialist wars is to reinstate the draft. How 'bout we [peace activists] start a rumor that that's in the works and see what happens? Add that to blogs and picket signs, get talk radio hosts ranting about it. Worth a try :-) 
 -- Jenifer
--- On Mon, 5/3/10, Ricky Baldwin <baldwinricky at yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Ricky Baldwin <baldwinricky at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] ron paul, teabaggers, and some of their best friends
To: "E.Wayne Johnson" <ewj at pigs.ag>
Cc: "Peace Discuss" <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Date: Monday, May 3, 2010, 11:06 AM

Wayne, I assume you are referring here to the "tea party" as the rebellion?  I think there's an element of that, but it's dragged so far out of that orbit by the weight of its racism and Know-Nothingism, homophobia and fear of socialism, and miscellaneous rightwing conspiracy theories, that it's more likely to push national policy away from anything that might help working people than accomplish anything good and decent.

Is the government run by elites and does it tax lower income people too much?  Of course on both counts.  But the fact that these particular "masses" come out of the woodwork to protest against health care reform, and not imperialist wars is very telling.

The depressing fact is, there are many things wrong with the health care changes -- no being single-payer just for starters -- but those are not the reasons the
 tea-baggers were riled.  And it's not really taxes, either.  They're happy to pay for the largest military budget in world history, for more police and prisons.  And most people, tea-baggers or not, are happy about government-funded libraries, streets, fire departments, etc.

People object to taxes to pay for things they don't like, and for many of these folks, the things they don't like are infamous: welfare (now including half-assed health care reform), and integrated public schools that won't teach things like gods creating universes in 7 days and dinosaurs walking around with people and hell as a real place where Jesus will send boys who like boys or girls who fancy girls or even if you follow all the rules but you don't like it.

I think your description below is pretty apt in this regard, for some of the angry white folks who've been amassing lately, but not for everybody.  There happen to be many, many working
 people and unemployed workers in this country who couldn't care less who you sleep with, what color you are, or what religion you have if any.  I've had my light turned off with some of them, and I've eaten meals with many of theme here in town.  I attended a rally with thousands of them in Springfield a couple weeks ago.

Do they trust the government?  No more than anyone else.  But they also understand that the government is an important part of the economy, not separate from it, and that certain government policies can help people who need help in ways they most of us can't afford to do out of our own individual pockets - people without health care, for example.

We never get what we really want, of course.  Even if we in the anti-war movement finally manage to get all the foreign troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan, which is a big if, you can bet there will be a downside to the way it's done - scorched
 earth, leaving cronies and puppets in power, taking national treasures with the departing troops, corporate control of resources, warlords swoop in and massacre people, etc?  So, if these things happen will we agree with the angry white guys who come out in protest that the anti-war movement is caused these things?

Oh, they'll find their effete peace advocates, the overeducated, etc.  They might even blame Hillary Clinton, that old hawk.  Stranger things have happened in our lifetimes.  And some of them will be sincere.  I know returning vets who valued the help they felt they were doing the people in Iraq.  The class tensions in this country are real, whether between the Hillaries and the "masses" or between unions and John McCain with his 10 houses.  In the French Revolution many people believed Marie Antoinette was a witch with three breasts.  In the English Civil War some of the "masses" believed the
 Catholics were coming to make them give birth to babies with mouths in their stomachs and arms on their heads, and so on.  

Legitimate class grievances just don't make people right about other things:
 ...who 
want to teach queer-ism and candy-ass Hillary-ism in their schools.  Again 
I think that Sarah comes off as being as fake as a 3 -dollar bill clinton but 
many of those people think that Sarah is like them.  Hillary is not like 
them.  Obama is not like them,  Obama is not only black but he's a 
mulatto and an uppity one at that.

These people dont generally have good 
information.  They arent violent by nature but if they had the full 
scoop, then the elite bastards had sure enough better buy handguns.

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