There is no need for me to add a lot of commentary to the library of bloggery already on line about the "tax and spend protest" Tea Parties taking place around the country later today. From the Daily Kos to Michelle Malkin, posts, schedules, analysis and buffoonery abound.What I am appalled about this early morning is the left's astonishingly coordinated misinformation campaign against the Tea Party movement.
I genuinely don't know if the Tea Parties will be a rousing success or just fizzle out and die. I know I'm not attending one and I'll likely skip Fox News wall to wall coverage. But I do understand both the motives and the message behind these protests.
And, if I'm smart enough to understand this groundswell of protest, I'm quite positive my fellow liberals understand it too. So why are they all pretending (or at least the so-called progressives are pretending) to completely misunderstand what is happening? Is it denial? Is it a misinformation campaign? Is it, as some conservatives argue, fear of the common man? Or are they all just plain stupid?
Virtually all of the stupidity, or denial, or misinformation is wrapped up in Paul Krugman's rambling, nearly incoherent, monument to fear column in Sunday's New York Times. Krugman starts off with the totally incorrect premise that the Tea Parties are fake protests carefully orchestrated by the Republican Party. What a frakking joke (homage to Battlestar Galactica). The incompetent Republicans are so screwed up they can't even organize their party's national committee, let alone a nationwide, massive protest.
But Krugman goes rapidly down hill from there.
I'm going to end my short commentary here and direct you to all immediately go over to Mary's magnificent FREEDOM EDEN blog and read her two brilliant rants: Krugman: Tea Parties Forever and Eugene Kane and Tea Parties
My advice to my fellow liberals is to focus on reality. People are upset and genuinely concerned about our exploding national debt. First, we should also be concerned about an unsustainable national debt. Second, lying about the nature and purpose of these protests hardly helps our cause and actually denies us the opportunity to argue the economics and the issues behind the President Economic plan.
3 comments:
Thank you, Wizard, for your levelheaded commentary. It's very refreshing and gives me hope that it's possible to bridge the political divides in our country.
I think too many on the Left are reacting to the Tea Parties in a knee-jerk fashion. Rather than focusing on the reality of the protests and actually listening and engaging, they are attacking the demonstrations and demonstrators in a very dishonest, demeaning manner.
Disagree, but don't degrade.
Mary, you hit on several excellent points. The 'civil' in civil discourse appears to be absent. Perhaps examining an idea or opinion based upon its own merits is frowned upon for the much easier, smear the messenger.
Was there an element of orchestration here? Yes (Fox News's promotions alone suffice). Was there a lunatic fringe element to the protests? Yes again (there are in virtually every movement - Louis Farrakhan in the civil rights movement, for example). But the way that MSNBC (in particular) denigrated/stereotyped en masse the people involved in these events was unconscionable. I really think that they have to start medicating Olbermann, personally, find the jerk a rubber-room, something!!
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