TEA PARTY Remedial Education: Your Voter’s Guide From HELL

Countdown’s Keith Olbermann slammed the Tea Party candidates, peeling the scab off their political “Constitutionalism,”  “big government,” and “family values” platitudes to expose the breadth of Tea Party extremism on issue after bedrock issue of critical importance to the American people.

Keith’s slam of the Tea Party is a PSA (public service announcement) to the American people, a warning of a disastrous cave-in just as we’re pulling ourselves out of the economic hole Republicans plunged us into. Large majorities of Americans vehemently disagree with the Tea Party but, literally, do not know it because they are largely unaware of where Tea Party candidates stand.

Case in point: ending Social Security as we know it with privatization schemes to hand trillions of the people’s retirement funds to gambling “investment” bankers in a massive transfer of wealth from Main Street to Wall Street. Had President George W. Bush’s privatization scheme worked — his biggest regret was that it failed — the people’s retirement and social safety net would have been decimated in Bush’s economic meltdown. A recent New York Times poll shows:

• 54 to 42 percent of respondents oppose raising the Social Security retirement age; and

• 71 to 23 percent of respondents oppose reducing Social Security retirement benefits for future retirees.

With regard to the supposedly wildly unpopular healthcare bill — the one Republicans derisively call “Obamacare” and the Bush tax cuts:

• 46 to 28 percent of respondents think the Democratic Party is more likely to improve the healthcare system. Eleven percent of respondents said neither party;

• 45 to 41 percent of respondents believe Congress should not repeal the healthcare law; and

• 48 to 41 percent of respondents believe letting the Bush tax cuts expire for people making more than $250,000 is a “good idea.”

Which of the following programs would you be willing to cut to reduce government spending?

National security – 29
NO CUTS – 26
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Healthcare – 25
Social security & Medicare - 13
Education – 7

Is reducing government spending the single most important issue, or is it important but so are other issues, or not important?

Important but so are others – 66
Single most important – 21
Not important – 9

Finally, as one common refrain among Tea Party supporters is this country is in an irreversible tailspin, and those in talk show terrorist Glenn Beck’s thrall are literally terrified, scared to death about our future, this is what the REAL AMERICA believes:

• The current economic downturn is temporary – 68

• The current economic downturn is permanent and the country won’t recover – 28

Conclusion: (1) the TEA PARTY is NOT America; (2) The issues TEA PARTY candidates have been hammering — privatization of Social Security, Medicare cuts, repeal of healthcare, elimination of the Department of Education, massive cuts in government spending, keeping the Bush tax cuts for millionaires, and this fear ginned up by domestic terrorists GLENN BECK and PORKULUS RUSH LIMBAUGH that our best days are behind us — are DECISIVELY rejected by SOLID MAJORITIES of the American people.

This last figure, measuring Americans’ optimism in full economic recovery, in my view, is a snapshot of REAL AMERICANS — US — versus THEM — the TEABAGGERS, America’s REAL ILLEGAL ALIENS, a crop of un-American TRAITORS, European mid-20th Century-style fascists who represent no more than 28 percent of the population.

Keith quoted a passage, a scene from one of the greatest films ever made: Inherit the Wind. Its tragic message is that, as a nation, we continue to relitigate issues of science and separation of church and state, as the pull of fundamentalism and the Christian Right continues to wage a relentless war against science, education, history, and the emancipation of young minds through knowledge and truth. Here is the scene, dominated by the incomparable Spencer Tracy, who plays the role of legendary attorney Clarence Darrow (for science and evolution) versus the equally iconic William Jennings Bryan (for the Bible) played by Fredric March:

If you haven’t already, rent this movie ... It’s highly recommended. And here is a snippet of the nightmare vision the Tea Party plans for our nation:

Get out there and VOTE, people. Let’s STAND TALL and defend our democracy against the fascist hordes and plutocrats. VOTING is our civic duty. This year it’s more important than ever.