As I was driving to yoga tonight, there seemed to be a lot of traffic at the corner of La Paz and Marguerite Parkway.  Whatever could it be, I wondered?  Then I remembered a few tweets about a Tea Party and an essay (with which I happen to agree) about the "Huh?" response I'm having to the whole concept of the nationwide "rebellion" against higher taxes.

In his op-ed piece in today's LA Times, Marc Cooper asks the important question up front:  "What, exactly, are the protesters protesting? The marginal tax rate rising 3% for millionaires?"  I would like to up the ante and ask where all this anger was when Bush was busily cutting taxes on millionaires (and billionaires), cutting programs for the lowest paid workers among our citizenry and building up the biggest deficit in history?

I understand in California (especially in Orange County) that there is the frustration of actual taxes going up (vehicle taxes, for example)...but again, my question is what are these folks protesting?  That ballot box budgeting (which they've consistently voted for in the past 10 years) ties the legislature's hands and makes it impossible to balance our budget due to "required spending?"

Yeah, we're a wreck economically but we (or the majority of we) are the ones who voted for this system.  Maybe we should recall ourselves instead of our governors.

Then there was the very amusing (and right on the button) piece by Jon Stewart on the Barackaphobia going on over at Fox "News" and generally throughout the right wing these days.  I know it will slow down my page's loading, but it's worth it to let you just click below and enjoy.

(Or if you're of the opposite political pole, perhaps it will provide you with a sense of how I felt watching the last 8 years.)

So...yeah...what Cooper and Stewart said.  This "Tea Party" belongs to the Mad Hatter's realm...not on the corner of La Paz and Marguerite.

 


Comments

Kenneth R. Morefield

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 08:57:04

Well, I don't think the point is to protest something but to protest. To say "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more."

Social policy, politics, even social relationships are founded less and less on reasoned participation or persuasion but on the theatrics of umbrage and on the claims of personal (or corporate injury).

The point of such protests is to (attempt to) position oneself as the aggrieved party, because that's what our culture mostly empowers; it certainly doesn't empower those with the most persuasive or reasoned rationale for their actions or suggestions for improvement.

 

Laura

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 14:32:59

I agree that the point was protest for protest's sake...which to me means there wasn't a point.

Where I don't agree is that our culture mostly empowers the aggrieved. I think we listen more to the aggrieved and try to accomodate differences...but the election of Obama indicates to me that we no longer are in the business of empowering the whiners, the people who paint lovely pictures of yesterday and want to return to them, to the screamers.

We elected someone who reasons, who mulls decisions, and who acts as he said he would act. Let's hope it trickles down.

 



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