Mickey Walker – June 6, 2010
At 70 sometimes a tear gets in my eye. All the clarity of vision I had as a
youth seems to have been blurred in time. It’s an empty feeling sometimes not to be able to grasp what used to be sharp
and discernable at an earlier time. What once was a given and a known is now a puzzle, a paradox of words
and images and silent thoughts. Today these foggy images struggle and bounce about like mindless
floating helium balloons in the dark corners of the mind. Struggling, these thoughts rarely come
together to form a meaningful whole. In youth, meaning, true meaning, was not convoluted; always, it was
there at your beckon. But now, I
must scratch my head and think about what I really know. Of what’s real. And what’s not. Sometimes it gets rough
on these old neurons and synapses.
In the fresh naivety of my youth I knew things. No one had even heard of the word
SPIN. You just knew things that
were true. And those that were
false. You read your books, you
studied government, politics, and which candidate would be best for your own
pocketbook in terms of wages, prosperity, etc. Before I was born Herbert Hoover promised all Americans a
“Chicken in every pot.” He did not
deliver. The Great Depression
during his term as president nullified all promises. So when politicians fail to deliver in the 21st century, what do we know? That
they lied? Or were their
intentions good, but the times just nixed their best efforts? Most Americans nowadays think that
politicians lied so they could get elected and steal a lot of benefits for
themselves while using the voters as fodder to get there. The best spin, the best campaign ads
got them elected. The best
television spots somehow convinced voters all over this land that what you saw
on camera was real, and that which seemed probable was true after all. The Gipper was just as real in the
White House as he was on the Silver Screen. But which one was real? Yes.
So Republicans from Reagan on, began borrowing and spending
like the Big-Spending Democrats of the days of olde? Say what? Just
how could that be? And why, all of
a sudden did they change their very namesake ‘Conservative’ for a drunken
spendthrift policy of borrowing to finance the cancer of government that Reagan
promised to get off the backs of the people? I tell you it makes no sense. Is that Conservative? No, not in the old tradition of the GOP. How can you call yourself a conservative when you borrow and
spend Trillions on wars of occupation? Today we see Democrats supporting the same old policies of wiretapping
without court orders, borrowing and spending even more to keep the broken
system afloat with Band Aid Economics. Is that a fingerprint trademark of the Democratic Party? No. Anything but. Is
bailing out ‘Too Big to Fail’ corporations like AIG, Bear Stearns, City Bank,
and Goldman Sachs a famous trait of the Democratic Party? Does Goldman-Sachs need government
financial support so that they can continue to dupe the world with more
Derivatives worth even less than the paper they’re not written on? Is Karl Rove president of the AFL-CIO
Union?
Many Americans think the whole system of government,
worm-eaten by DC politicians, is hopelessly corrupt. Now government has become
the enemy that takes the bread from our mouths, our jobs from our country, and burns
the future of our posterity. So
cry the Tea Baggers in outrage against Obama and his policies they say are
reckless and irresponsible. But
you didn’t hear a peep from Limbaugh or Hannity when the 8 long years of
borrowing and spending under George W. Bush tacked on another 4 Trillion
dollars to our national debt. Curious, that.
Nowadays finding truth and meaning is like watching a dog
chasing his tail. Meaning, real
meaning, is still a mystery that may never materialize as full-blown
truth. The clouds of smoke are too
thick. Spin and fluff are the
order of the politicians’ day while they hope that you never notice that they
gave all government workers a raise last year while Social Security COLA for
millions of Americans was frozen. What
a blow to the trusting human heart.
One must have meaning, and we shall always seek it. It is as essential as the air we
breathe. We cannot abide the
inequities of government perks when Washington decides to cut the rest of us
off at the knees. So how does
government get the common working man to hold still while Uncle Sam picks our
pocket? Enter your friendly
neighborhood propaganda minister to tell us what to believe, what is truth, and
what is the correct and/or righteous path to follow. Big smoke and mirrors work wonders. Our apathy and sense of hopelessness
seems to work for them. It has
worked before so why not now?
“Some have relied on what they knew,
Others on simply being true,
What worked for them might work for you.”
Robert Frost, “Provide, Provide”
So how do we know the truth from dressed-up lies and
misinformation thanks to our friendly government propaganda minister? Or from partisan pukes who would lie to
their grandmother to achieve an advantage? Adolf Hitler knew the value of his propaganda minister,
Joseph Goebbels, who charted the course of Germany’s barbaric persecution and
killing of Jews. And who could
doubt Goebbels’ success in his justification for attacking and occupying
France? It worked over and over,
and Goebbels’ big lies, repeated over and over, worked in an even bigger way.
Let us move on to the recent Tea Party movement, and for the
sake of brevity, I will refer to them as Tea Baggers from here on out.
Recent election victories of late tell us that the newly-formed
Tea Party is alive and well. Americans
are getting wise to the corruption and stealing by our very government that is
supposed to serve the people. So
groups like the Tea Party, nee, Tea Baggers have formed to return fairness and
meaning to an America decimated by a heartless government. But what is the Tea Party and
what do Tea Baggers believe in?
It appears that the Tea Baggers are fed up with government
and high taxes. Under George W.
Bush our country went farther into debt by an additional 4 Trillion
dollars. Bush convinced Americans
that it was necessary to borrow and spend these 4 Trillion dollars over a
period of 8 years, that we needed to attack two countries, Iraq and
Afghanistan. We are still
financing those wars against whom? The Terrorists? Are they
still there, or have they moved across the border to Pakistan? What is real and what is not
anymore? Do we need the boots on
the ground in both countries right now? If so, why? Nothing makes
any sense unless you follow the money. Iraq did not have WMDs which Bush alleged in his scary State of the
Union speech about Iraq and mushroom clouds in American cities. My point to all the Tea Baggers is
simple: Where were you when Bush
was racking up another Trillion dollars of debt when he attacked Iraq and
Afghanistan? Where was the Tea
Bagger outrage then when you knew we were borrowing and spending America down
the toilet? Why did it take so
long for Americans to rise up in outrage about getting screwed by our
government which was truly and totally fiscally irresponsible under the whole 8
years of Bush rule? Who were the
winners? Certainly not the
American people for the gigantic debt we added. Certainly not the soldiers who fought bravely and died for us
in a mindless war. But somebody
made money. Guess who? Are the Tea Baggers outraged at Bush’s
8 years of irresponsible borrowing and spending? Why did it take so long? Why did the Tea Baggers organize after Obama became
president? Wasn’t the math more
onerous during the 8 years of Bush as compared to the 1 year of Obama?
Ron Paul’s son, Rand Paul, won the Senate runoff seat in
Kentucky instead of a traditional Republican. It is pregnant with meaning that Americans all over are
dissatisfied with the political machine (in both parties) that has us by the
throat in Washington. Republicans
and Democrats are losing to Tea Party candidates, and the old political parties
on both sides of the aisle are biting their fingernails. But what is the meaning of the
traditional and incumbent politicians losing elections to the Tea Party? And what is the Tea Party, Tea Baggers,
as they are sometimes called? And
is the Tea Bagger or Tea Party movement real or are the photo ops staged for
television paid for by big money?
Let us take a look at some of the biggest contributors to
the Tea Baggers, beginning with the Koch’s of Wichita, Kansas. Koch
family links to the Tea Bagger Movement
And you thought it was a grass roots movement all along,
applauded by the likes of America’s very own Caribou Barbie from Alaska. Funny how money trails always reveal
motives far beyond a tax protest from the common man. These billionaire contributors to the Tea Baggers went slap
to sleep for 8 whole years at the reckless borrowing and spending under
Bush. So why now does the big
money sponsor the Tea Baggers? Why
did the big money let the borrowing and spending slide under Bush for 8
years? And why now do the Tea
Baggers and their billionaire backer’s squeal like pigs when Obama borrows and
spends for one whole year? Why the
big squeal moratorium for 8 years of borrowing and spending under Bush? Can you say, ‘no-bid contracts?’ Or ‘crony corporate campaign
contributions?’ Or ‘$500 hammers?’