Redtree Times

Aaah, blue skies…

I’m trying to think good thoughts this morning.

I have to because my head might explode if I allow myself to focus on the idiocy of the people who are being led sheeplike in angry, violent-tinged protest against the recent healthcare bill and the government in general.  They are angry that something is being taken from them at this moment, that the misfortune of their current state of affairs has just risen with the election of Obama.

Folks, this has been going on a long time.  Dave Leonhardt wrote a very informative article in yesterday’s New York Times that talks about how this bill is the first step at stemming the inequality of wealth in this nation, saying:

Since 1980, median real household income has risen less than 15 percent. The only period of strong middle-class income growth during this time came in the mid- and late 1990s, which by coincidence was also the one time when taxes on the affluent were rising.

For most of the last three decades, tax rates for the wealthy have been falling, while their pretax pay has been rising rapidly. Real incomes at the 99.99th percentile have jumped more than 300 percent since 1980. At the 99th percentile — about $300,000 today — real pay has roughly doubled.

I think a lot of the anger of these current tea-party protestors is justified but greatly misdirected.  They are, for the most part, middle-class and they have seen their income remain stagnant and their buying power diminish over the last three decades.  Unfortunately, instead of examining the real reasons behind this dilemma and discovering where this transfer of wealth finally settled, they fall prey to the urgings of talking heads like Limbaugh , O’Reilly and Beck.  Like Dick Armey, who has made a cottage industry out of this type of incitement.  Men who profess to speak for America’s best interests but in fact are simply protecting their own interests, which are considerable.  The grab-what-you-can-and screw-everyone-else, take-from-the-middle-and-put-on-top attitude of the last thirty years have been very good to this particular group.  They have a lot to lose.  Not the tea-partiers.  They have already had what wealth they possessed slowly sapped from them.

The terrible thing here is that these put-upon people, the middle and lower class of this country, still often identify themselves with the wealthy, with the very people and corporations who have benefited most from the increasing inequity in wealth in this country.  They are ripe and ready for anyone who can direct their anger at any scapegoat besides the true culprits.  They eat up incendiary words and phrases put out by the punditry without really knowing the basis behind these words.  Socialism.  Fascism.  Nazism.  Hitler.  Stalin. Antichrist.

They are led to believe that their anger is the anger of all people and therefore justified.  Every action becomes justified by the uncivil actions of their  leaders and  the silence of their shepherds when the first brick is thrown or the first racial epithet yelled.

Where does this end?  Who knows…  Like most things, this movement will probably have unintended consequences.  Sometimes, when you try to prod a wild animal forward it’ll eventually turn on you.

Today,  I’m going back to thinking about blue skies…