Tea Baggers

There is a vitriolic hatred speading over the land.  A grotesque sludge that seeps in where intelligent discourse used to live.  It suffocates reason and compromise.  Nothing can be built up or improved upon; this monsterous aberration is good at only one thing, distruction.  It's arrogance is unchecked.   It lives in the darkest hearts and screams down differences of opinion with firey, senseless slogans and waves hate placards in the face of critical thinking. 

This is offensive on so many levels it almost leaves me speechless.  Almost.

Remember political tactics?  This is one of the most basic examples.  Your party is in tatters.  You were booted out of office; the last 8 years were your legacy.  What to do?  Dredge up the deepest fears of the country.  Exaggerate it.  Make it so threatening that to support an elected official who is your opponent spells doom.  And then point a finger at a sitting President and say, "this is all his fault".  Make sure you make it clear that he is not "your" President.  And then work like hell to make sure you torpedo every effort he makes to fix the mess you've made. 

Not everyone is fooled by you.  We recognize the language of those who are incapable of independent thought.  Here's a refresher course from Mark Fiore, who has received death threats after this was published. 

Spout hate till you are blue in the face and the poison drips from your chin.  The more obvious you are, the easier you are to spot....and ignore.  Once I identify you, I'll move on.  You are a waste of my time.

The tragedy here is that most of the Tea Baggers are legitimate protestors with a social conscience.  It is a sad fact of American politics that any nefarious politician (there are plenty around) would see this grass roots movement as a personal bandwagon full of PR soundbytes and race to get in front of it.  No movement of this size can exist without massive funding and the FreedomWorks Foundation is happy to step up to the plate.  These are the very folks the Tea Baggers are protesting.  Really, really big money, orchestrating from the wings.  Forbes, Bradley, Olin, Exxon, Mobile.  Serious, right wing money.  Behind the scenes, protecting their loopholes.

Let me introduce you to Barrack Obama, the President of the United States.  He is the light in the tunnel.  He can be recognized by his most obvious characteristic.

He is the grown up in the room.

Stick 'em Up!

You know, all this town needs is more water and

a better class of people.

Yeah, says the Dodge City resident.  People say that

about Hell too.

Wyatt Earp and his Buntline Special, a long handled revolver that could be used with a shoulder stock if necessary.

Wyatt Earp spent time in Dodge City, but he is forever linked with Tombstone, Arizona.  "The town too tough to die" is a former Wild West town that came into being during the silver rush when men followed the path West in search of the their fortunes.  Today it's hanging on by it's fingernails.  LIttle boys and girls no longer grow up thinking about cowboys or have starry eyed dreams of the West.  I doubt if many little people have heard of the OK Corral and the legendary gunfight.  And it is a legend.

Whats wrong with that?  We need heros who have a moral compass that can't be compromised.  A hero needs to stand up to greed and corruption whether in real life or in folklore.  So, Tombstone makes it simple.  There are good guys and bad guys.  You always know which is which.

And in this story, the good guy always wins.

These days, we all have to have a little hero in us to navigate this complicated world.  The bad guys wear white hats and tell us they are fighting to make our life better.  Maybe.  But more often, we find that they are really the bad guys and they are not our friends.  Tombstone has a simple answer for that too.

We could all use a better class of people.