The Tea Party Has Given Up On America

I believe I've finally figured out the Tea Party. This is the Party of the exasperated. These are the people who have decided that, whatever it takes, they no longer want to be the Nation's beasts of burden.

The Tea Party followers are exasperated at watching for decades as their hard-earned tax dollars just leak away. And that leak has turned into a flood. Every month we hear about a massive new waste of money. Years ago, we heard about how the military was requisitioning toilet seats (etc.) at 10 times retail. More recently, we heard about 9 billion dollars in Iraqi reconstruction money that just “disappeared”. There was the Savings and Loan bailout in the 1980s, followed by the Enron/Worldcom/etc. scandals, and then the massive Bush bank bailouts. There are the multi-billion dollar taxpayer funded subsidies that go to the filthy rich fossil fuel industry. There has been the monopolization of just about everything over the past 30 years. And there has been the outsourcing of American jobs that has practically led to the collapse of our manufacturing industry in America.

The Tea Party followers have every right to be exasperated. Especially when they hear about so many of the greedy among the rich who don't pay their fair share of taxes – or even no taxes at all!

But what bothers me about the Tea Party is it appears that they would just be happy with a bigger slice of the pie. It appears they have given up on ever really fixing our system. In a way, this is giving up on America.

What has confounded me most about the Tea Party is that they are more angry at poor Mexicans on Medicare than big wealthy corporations on Fedicare. But what I now realize is that they now see this as a pecking order. If the rich can oppress them, maybe they can oppress the poor.

Sorry Tea Party, the rich already oppress the poor too. You've been left out in the cold again. You won't get your tax breaks – or at least not any more that you already get from the Obama administration. You won't get any more individual freedom than you already have. No, just more corporate freedom (to take advantage of us). In fact, all you will really achieve will be a reduction in your tax money coming back to you. Expect massive spending cuts on social programs you might benefit from. Expect the privatization of your Social Security – with consequences similar to what happened to your 401Ks. Expect to be disappointed – again.

A vote for the (big money dependent) Independents is a vote to be even more of a beast-of-burden for the powers-that-be. The big money hasn't spent millions to manipulate the elections to give you a break. Which is why we have to (together) get the big money out of elections.