These tea parties were an astroturf thing--all funded and promo'd by some pretty big corporate bigwigs and promoted via Fox News, so even if the folk that were actually out there protesting had legit gripes, they'll be drowned out by the focus that the corporate organizers want to be publicized.
Honestly, I don't believe this, or rather I don't think they're any more astroturfed than any typical liberal rally, protest or movement. I watched this thing pretty much spontaneously ignite over the internet. There were three or four spending protests that pretty much almost everyone ignored until Rick Santelli went bonkers on CNBC. It picked up steam from there, and there were dozens and dozens of protest rallies that no one, not even Fox News was covering, that led up to this. Fox News didn't even jump on the bandwagon until about a week ago - and I know this because my dad, who watches that stupid channel religiously suddenly started mentioning it. They came to the party, way, way late - which is why I hate them, because it makes it look like they're the one's pushing this whole thing.
Which is the underlying problem with the teabag protest--the people taking to the streets aren't pushing the same message the people on the news are.
Agreed. There was a lot more going on at those rallies than what the news was pushing. A lot of stuff was state specific, at least at the rally in Lansing, and from what I hear about the one in Sacramento as well.
I think the unclearness of the message is evidence that this wasn't astroturfed. If it were, there'd be a lot more coherency. As it was, it was pretty obvious, at least to me, that this was thrown together by people who were inexperienced at this kind of thing. You could tell by how unorganized everything was. Hell, I didn't even know that there were three other tea parties in the county I live in because they sprang up so quickly.
Me, I'd rather dump a trillion bucks into the economy than into a sand pit in the middle east where half of it will be looted before it even hits the ground. Preferably funneling the money into the industry that makes wooden spoons and pizza paddles, then lining up the banksters for one huge spanking machine.
I personally think both of those are terrible options. Taking money away from people who've been successful enough to make and invest it well and give it to the government - who by it's very nature is wasteful - is madness to me. It's just taking good money and tossing it after bad.
For example, 550 million dollars is being given to the Detroit Public Schools with no oversight. They are giving half a billion dollars to people who had to have their airport and their zoo taken away from them by the State of Michigan because they cannot manage to run them due to the bureaucracy and sheer corruption. The school system is so bad there that only 32% of the kids manage to graduate.
Money is not the problem here. Michigan teachers are some of the highest paid in the nation. The Detroit Public Schools spends $11,000 a year per student - and that's more than most of the other districts in the state. The problem is the teacher's union, the sheer corruption of the city, and the fact that even though the city residents are crying out for more charter schools, the state legislature won't raise the cap and allow more. The fix is in changing the policies, not tossing more money at this problem.
If I thought that the Detroit Public Schools would be turned around by dumping money on them, I'd say go for it, but really, it would be a hell of a lot more productive to pile all of that money up and set it on fire. Seriously. This is only going to make a fucked up situation much, much worse because this money is going to end up going directly to the corrupt bureaucrats that keep running that city into the ground. Those kids aren't going to benefit from one dime.
And this is just one example of wasteful spending. So I think the protesters have a very legitimate point to make.
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Date: 2009-04-16 11:17 pm (UTC)Honestly, I don't believe this, or rather I don't think they're any more astroturfed than any typical liberal rally, protest or movement. I watched this thing pretty much spontaneously ignite over the internet. There were three or four spending protests that pretty much almost everyone ignored until Rick Santelli went bonkers on CNBC. It picked up steam from there, and there were dozens and dozens of protest rallies that no one, not even Fox News was covering, that led up to this. Fox News didn't even jump on the bandwagon until about a week ago - and I know this because my dad, who watches that stupid channel religiously suddenly started mentioning it. They came to the party, way, way late - which is why I hate them, because it makes it look like they're the one's pushing this whole thing.
Which is the underlying problem with the teabag protest--the people taking to the streets aren't pushing the same message the people on the news are.
Agreed. There was a lot more going on at those rallies than what the news was pushing. A lot of stuff was state specific, at least at the rally in Lansing, and from what I hear about the one in Sacramento as well.
I think the unclearness of the message is evidence that this wasn't astroturfed. If it were, there'd be a lot more coherency. As it was, it was pretty obvious, at least to me, that this was thrown together by people who were inexperienced at this kind of thing. You could tell by how unorganized everything was. Hell, I didn't even know that there were three other tea parties in the county I live in because they sprang up so quickly.
Me, I'd rather dump a trillion bucks into the economy than into a sand pit in the middle east where half of it will be looted before it even hits the ground. Preferably funneling the money into the industry that makes wooden spoons and pizza paddles, then lining up the banksters for one huge spanking machine.
I personally think both of those are terrible options. Taking money away from people who've been successful enough to make and invest it well and give it to the government - who by it's very nature is wasteful - is madness to me. It's just taking good money and tossing it after bad.
For example, 550 million dollars is being given to the Detroit Public Schools with no oversight. They are giving half a billion dollars to people who had to have their airport and their zoo taken away from them by the State of Michigan because they cannot manage to run them due to the bureaucracy and sheer corruption. The school system is so bad there that only 32% of the kids manage to graduate.
Money is not the problem here. Michigan teachers are some of the highest paid in the nation. The Detroit Public Schools spends $11,000 a year per student - and that's more than most of the other districts in the state. The problem is the teacher's union, the sheer corruption of the city, and the fact that even though the city residents are crying out for more charter schools, the state legislature won't raise the cap and allow more. The fix is in changing the policies, not tossing more money at this problem.
If I thought that the Detroit Public Schools would be turned around by dumping money on them, I'd say go for it, but really, it would be a hell of a lot more productive to pile all of that money up and set it on fire. Seriously. This is only going to make a fucked up situation much, much worse because this money is going to end up going directly to the corrupt bureaucrats that keep running that city into the ground. Those kids aren't going to benefit from one dime.
And this is just one example of wasteful spending. So I think the protesters have a very legitimate point to make.