Why I am Insulted

By now most of us acknowledge the fact that, however sincere many members of the Tea Party are, and regardless of however many small donations from small voters their candidates receive, the Tea Party is in fact funded by various corporate interests, like the Koch Brothers, often through various cut-outs or patriotically named foundations. Indeed, the whole Tea Party movement has been given significantly favorable reporting by all the corporate media, and one popular TV channel, Fox news, with one of its leading lights, Glen Beck, virtually issues marching orders laying out the agenda and issues for the Tea Party membership.

And what has this corporate money bought for itself, aside from the reality show creation of a boisterous, self-righteous revivalist mob (that pundits desperately treat like a valid political movement operating with a sensible political plan, in an attempt to give it credibility and respect)? The corporate money has bought the selection of several lunatic fringe candidates masquerading as formal Republican candidates—– for example, I  keep receiving fund-raising letters from Sharon Angle in Nevada, who plasters in bold letters across the envelope phrases like “I am the official Republican candidate to defeat Harry Reid.”  

Now that primary hunting season is over, and the corporate money has managed to crush many candidates of the Republican Establishment (to the shock of even such notables as Karl Rove himself), look for one Republican after another to swallow their distaste and fall in line to support these horror shows…. Mitch McConnell of the Senate Republican Campaign Committee has already sent the Delaware shock and awe candidate, O’Connell, money.  

Once the Republicans adjust to their new candidates, and they will, look for massive money to pour into the general election with the intent of convincing everyone that these Tea Party candidates are worthy—- they may be (in many cases) amateurs, but they are not Washington insiders, they are, one and all, Mr-Smith-Goes-to-Washington to fix the broken system; they are not, repeat not, radical; they are patriotic Americans, Change You Can Believe In, back to the Constitution, down with the deficit, blah, blah. It will be a tsunami of Madison Avenue propaganda selling us not a detergent like “Duz Does Everything” but candidates who are Everyman, Fixing a Broken System.

So we have nut case, low-information folks who hate government, seeking to run that government, people who believe that dinosaurs roamed Eden with Adam and Eve, that working human brains have been installed in mice, that the Earth was created in six days about 6,000 years ago, that the sooner we have Armageddon the sooner Christ will return to rule the world, that evolution is a lie, that climate change is a conspiracy, and so on endlessly. Our corporate and Wall Street oligarchs have every intention of cramming these fatuous candidates down our throats; they will seek to buy the election, installing in power these reality show candidates .

What does that say about the true opinions of those sponsoring the Tea Party? The oligarchs have mammoth contempt for our government in general when they foist such idiots on us as serious candidates for office in that government. The oligarchs also have great contempt for the American people as well, since they must believe that we will not notice how nutty and incompetent these candidates are, and at the same time they do not believe America deserves better. They believe that money will buy them what they want: a silly government for a silly constituency, which will distract us, the simpletons, from noticing what is really going on: the take-over of our democracy by the corporate oligarchs, and the stripping of the American middle class of their dignity, not to mention their wealth.  I recognize the contempt of the self-appointed elite for the American voters, and I return their contempt to them three-fold. I am insulted.