Read: “Tea party America”

Shortly after I finished my last post, one of you sent me this - which puts it all very well: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-stoller/tea-party-america_b_962093.html

Read the entire article, but some good excerpts:

“In Tea Party America the rich are strong. They work hard, earn good salaries and live relatively healthy lives. In Tea Party America the poor are weak. They are lazy, unemployed and uninsured. In Tea Party America, the poor can no longer expect government ‘handouts’ — unemployment insurance, Medicaid, food stamps and welfare. These are denied. In Tea Party America, the poor get what they deserve: to live hungry in squalid conditions and die a premature death.

“The explanatory rationale for 19th century Social Darwinism, of course, was so-called ‘scientific’ racism — the belief that whites were genetically superior to browns, yellows and blacks. Scholars of that era used this unsubstantiated idea to explain the technological and social superiority of 19th and early 20th century Europe. At the turn of the 20th century, scientific racism resonated strongly and clearly in a racially segregated America that was confronting unparalleled immigration from Asia and Southern and Eastern Europe. The prevailing theory of the time was that the mix of immigrants into American society would threaten the genetic purity of nation.

“In Tea Party America, the racist and anti-science ideological principles of Social Darwinism are being reaffirmed. Consider the widespread and disdainful display of Tea Party-Republican disrespect for President Obama. In Tea Party America, a black man as president is intolerably ‘unfit.’ Consider Rick Perry’s derisive dismissal of science and scientists. In Tea Party America, fundamentalism eclipses science, ignorance subverts knowledge, and intolerance replaces open-mindedness as we revert back to a cruel and unforgiving time in our history. In Tea Party America, the poor, the sick, and the disabled are all unfit.”