So Confused

[forsyth]

I really don't get the whole Tea Party thing. Two exceedingly expensive wars, torture, holding people, including American citizens without trial, not a peep.

Then, President Obama keeps the big banks from suffering from their own mistakes without punishing the CEOs or managers who still rake in huge salaries, rescues American car companies from decades of their own mistakes, and enacts a health care reform plan nearly identical to the one proposed by the Republicans in 1993, and enacted by Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Rommney in Mass. and suddenly SOCIALISM!

Seriously? Socialism? You're freaked out now because the government is trying to ensure people can afford health insurance, and isn't even nationalizing anything, and this is scary scary socialism? Not upset because we're still holding people without trials or evidence, not upset because the government is claiming the right to assassinate Americans who happen to be where a missile falls on people that might be terrorists, not upset because the guys who bet more money than exists in the world that house prices would never go down are still in charge. No, they're upset because of SOCIALISM.

I'm willing to bet these people have never met an actual socialist in their entire lives.

The government subsidizing poorish people buying insurance from private companies is socialism and scary and bad, but wars, torture, thousands of dead civilians, drug warriors killing pets on midnight raids on innocent people, and on and on and on is okey dokey.

... What the fuck happened to my country? Like Bruce says, "It's gonna be a long walk home."

Comments

Re: For Serious?

[forsythferret.livejournal.com]

These tea partiers who are speaking out about "fiscal responsibility for future generations"? Where were they, say, when George W. Bush created a giant tax cut for his rich buddies and took the government's balance sheet back into the red? Or when he spent billions invading Afghanistan and let Osama Bin Laden get away, then decided to spend many more billions invading Iraq for WMDs that were never there? Where was their pickets and concern for "fiscal responsibility" then?

If they're concerned about the Constitution, where were they during the Bush administration's "Free Speech Zones", the Drug War's illegal searches and seizures, the Bush administration's kidnapping, torture, lies, and holding people for years without trials or evidence? Where were their concerns for small government when the Bush administration decided that wiretapping and reading emails without warrants were a-okay?

Why are they riled up about a health insurance reform plan nearly identical to the one Republicans put out in 1993? Nearly identical to the one Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney signed in Massachusetts? How did it go from being the Republican alternative to the Clinton overhaul to being OMG SOCIALISM!!!

I read that article. How, exactly, was the health care reform bill a "constitutional crisis" as the one guy called it? Because the majority passed legislation? For a "grassroots" movement, the Tea Party sure has a lot of lobbyists and think tanks doing the organizing and funding.

Here's the lyrics I posted, with a direct quote about the meaning of the song: ""In that particular song a guy comes back to his town and recognizes nothing and is recognized by nothing," Springsteen told The New York Times' A. O. Scott. "The singer in 'Long Walk Home,' that's his experience. His world has changed. The things that he thought he knew, the people who he thought he knew, whose ideals he had something in common with, are like strangers. The world that he knew feels totally alien. I think that's what's happened in this country in the past six years.""

Especially this part:
"You know that flag flying over the courthouse
Means certain things are set in stone
Who we are, what we'll do and what we won't"

For the flag, or for any of the other symbols of our country to mean anything, we have to live up to the ideals we talk about. If we want people to respect us and treat us as the good guys, the first step is to BE the good guys.

Of the "Big-Brother"-ey things that Obama's done, I haven't heard the Tea Parties protesting about him continuing the Bush administration's use of Gitmo, where hundreds of people have been held for years, and almost no-one has had any evidence brought to give a reason to imprison them for the six or more years many of them have been held there. Or continued use of drone strikes in Pakistan. Missiles fired from R/C planes, at people who might be terrorists, or might be wedding parties, or any of the other gatherings of innocent civilians we've bombed. Continuing what Bush started.

Have they said anything about stuff like the idiotic proposal to strip American citizenship from people accused of terrorism. Not even convicted, just accused. Where are the Tea Partiers protesting against this violation of one of the founding values of American law, presumption of innocence?

What has the Obama administration actually DONE to make claims like "...if he's back for four more after this, im sure I will be dead for even saying so."?

The Tea Partiers don't speak for the whole country, or the whole people. Obama was elected 53% to 46%, about 7%. George W. Bush in 2004 got 50.7% vs 48.3%, about 2.4%. In 2000, Bush got 47.9% to 48.4%, -0.5%. As for concern with people who disagree, or not caring what people or the country think, don't get me started.

So where were the Tea Partiers during the whole Bush administration? How did a Republican health care plan become SOCIALISM in less than 20 years?