Joe Conason: Lies of the Tea Party

[marmar]

from truthdig:



Lies of the Tea Party
Posted on Sep 29, 2010

By Joe Conason


For Americans still suffering from persistent unemployment, falling incomes and rising inequality, politicians of either party probably generate little enthusiasm. Yet although political ennui is understandable, the disaffection and demoralization of Democrats have created a dangerous political vacuum that is being filled with misleading data, urban legends and outright lies.

Indeed, the entire tea party movement was founded on false assumptions about the economic program that probably saved the country from a second Great Depression.

The nascent protests that came to be known as the tea party began as angry populist rants against the Troubled Asset Recovery Program (TARP), that notorious “bailout” of drowning banks and insurance companies, and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the “stimulus program.”

Red-faced traders and furious housewives joined forces against what they wrongly called “socialism,” warning that our freedom was endangered, and that the nation might soon perish under burgeoning inflation and draconian regulation. They grew even more frantic when the Obama administration directed hundreds of billions of dollars in TARP funds toward the auto industry in loans and shares—more socialism!

The real reason behind the irritation of the traders and their spokesmen on cable television was simple enough. The government had restricted their usual obscene bonuses in recognition of the fact that they had been saved by taxpayer funds from their own gross misconduct—and should not be rewarded for surviving on the teat. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/lies_of_the_tea_party_20100929/

[COLGATE4]

1. I still insist that, at the core of Teabagger's anger is the proposition

that they cannot accept the fact that "there's a n----r in the White House". The rest is just window dressing.