Good to see the Right getting back to its good ol' Astroturf® roots. The Fox News tea parties managed to inspire a few people to set down the remote for an hour and a half to participate in a self-indulgent orgy of incoherence detached from any reality (which, as we know, has a liberal bias). Like the fact that 95% of them just got a tax cut, courtesy of Obama, if his budget passes.
But I guess if you're going to hold your little thingy on tax day, then you just have to moan about taxes, even if you did just have your rates cut. Did I say 95%? I was lowballing: how many of these types are making $200k?
OK, how many of the ones dressed up in blue-and-yellow satin George Washington suits with spittle running down their faces, ranting about fascism and communism and socialism? (Have I left anything out?)
Are these people even Americans? How many of them could tell you what a safety squeeze is? Or Marbury v. Madison? Fageddaboudit. They're Amurkins, doing what their TV has told them to do.
But don't blame this on the low end of the bell curve. Blame it on an ideology that takes no prisoners but the truth. The reporters -- people who in theory should know better -- who have played a shameful role as organizers and open advocates for this frat party (while denying all along that they are behind it), cannot see the simplest ironies of what they are doing. In California, they gather at the Sacramento State house in a muddle of anger, but against whom, they are a little confused. California is charging them more -- but their federal government, in the vast majority of cases, is asking less. No matter; it's all the same to them.
Speaking of California, but really à propos of nothing, here's a fabulous Diebenkorn, on the cusp of his move to abstract expressionism. Just something to help you stomach this unpleasant subject.
Salon's Mike Madden called it "Woodstock for Ayn Randers," which is so catchy that it's hard to resist. But of course, these people have no music at all, or love, or joy. This sad state probably springs from the desperation of their personal lives. And it's a desperation that's not so quiet, no matter what Thoreau says, but this isn't "most men" we're talking about. This is the left-hand end of the bell curve, where things get scrunched up and the only energy they have access to is the bawly and (at least verbally) brawly type. We should have some sympathy for these folks. They have nothing else.
Reason, indeed.
We didn't see much direct Randian talk going on, but the Who is John Galt? meme that's been floating around lately is really not these folks' cup of Salada. These are not the rugged individualist self-proclaimed hero types, but the safety-in-numbers crowd.
The heck with productivity. These types want revolution. Televised. In funny costumes. With their takeout burgers in little bags.
