Sunday, February 28, 2010

Continuing Thoughts on the Tea Party

I started writing this post back in February, after reading this New York Times article on the Tea Party. What with two months going by and the Health Care Reform Bill being passed, a lot has changed, but I'll blame my tardiness on getting an actual job. Happy to say I'm now working as a software engineer for BetterOffLine, which has taken a good deal of my free time.

However, now to finish this post and be able to clear this copy of the NY Times that has been sitting on my desk for two months.

I thought several things when reading this article; generally along the lines of agreeing with the noble seeming premises that these people start with and wondering how it is that they turn to the voices in America I hate the most. Yes, I'm concerned with the increasing power in the hands of the wealthy, and the retreat of Constitutional protections in the War on Terror, but the direction these groups are taking baffles me. I am a very strong leftist, and generally opposed to the Republican party, but I can at times see where Republicans are coming from. But anyone who holds Glenn Beck up as an idol is nothing but a raving nut-job.

To some extent this is nothing but another spasm of right-wing extremism, where general anger at the recession and, *gasp*, having a black president, are masquerading as a desire to protect the constitution, but I am left to ask, where are the irrational, angry movements on the left?

This is like some messed up 60's where there is only the John Birch society and no SDS nor Yippies. Shortly after reading said article, I happily came across this Coffee Party movement, which gave me slight hope for more balance with the political radicals, but the Coffee Party seems, as of yet, to be far too reasonable and low-impact.

I suppose I'm just disappointed, as a kid who grew up reading Illuminatus and having what I assume to be a romanticized view of the 60s. If there was such a mirror image Tea Party movement, I wouldn't support it, but I still wish it were there. There is a lack of balance in political insanity these days.