Are you an intellectual snob, and turn your nose up and close your mind and ears when it comes to Sarah Palin?

Do you think that we, us Democrats and Liberals, should not give her the time of day, because that somehow justifies her existence?

She’s had her five minutes of fame, you say, and don’t give her credence by continually talking about her and making her relevant.

NEWSFLASH

Sarah Palin is relevant, with her thousands of followers lining up and even spending the night for her arrival at bookstores or Costco’s for her book signings.

Democrats and Liberals, and yes, even Republicans laugh at her, but she has thousands of followers and believers and we should not brush her off as fluff.

Yes, she is fluff, but not to her followers, and her followers are the teabaggers.

Teabaggers are folks, young and mainly old, that are disenfranchised by the system that gives our money to Wall Street instead of Main Street.

Teabaggers are the gun toting, right-to-lifers, but more, they are regular, middle class Americans that are angry.

Aren’t we all angry?

Is it fair for the entitled, the elite to reap such benefits from the government, while the rest of us suffer and struggle?

Yes, Sarah is one of them, but like Ronald Reagan, she has folks fooled in thinking that she is a maverick, and more in line with common Americans that are just trying to get by when it comes to our government.

She portrays the anti-thesis of our elected officials and Supreme Court that are on the side of the rich and corporations.

Are we so much different than the teabaggers when it comes to everyday life?

Yes, they are racists, or so the media makes it appear.

Yes, they are anti-choice, or so the media makes it appear.

Yes, they hate homosexuals, or so the media makes it appear.

Yes, they are against powerful women, yet they support Sarah Palin, who is a wife and mother and powerful in her own right.

We’re not that far apart when it comes to the things Sarah Palin appears to stand for when it comes to her followers.

We have more in common than differences, and that’s a hard pill to swallow.

We Democrats and Liberals do have an elitist attitude, whereby we shun those who follow and admire Sarah, and urge Sarah to ‘Run, Sarah, Run.’

But when it comes down to the basics, we have more in common with her followers than we like to admit.

Oh, yes, she’s a liar, and has her followers fooled, but we should listen to those who follow her, not for their love of Sarah, but for what they are saying.

We all agree that the rich among us are getting the government handouts, while we pay.

We, the working class, have seen our wages stagnate, while corporations have never seen such profits.

We, the working class, see our benefits fly out the window due to greed, while we struggle to pay for health insurance.

We, the working class, see our country’s deficits grow for wars, while we slave away to make ends meet.

We really have no differences of opinion when it comes to the teabaggers and Sarah Palin followers.

That’s what people are angry about – it’s the disconnect between Washington DC and we the people.

We, who are Democrats and Liberals and we know the MSM sucks big time and favors the corporations, but we are not as smart as we think.

They are playing us, too, with the divisiveness, in leading us Democrats and Liberals to believe it’s all about race or a woman’s choice, or gay marriage.

We are all being played.

Stop and take a minute to listen to the people.

We are not as divided as the government or the MSM makes us out to be.

We have more in common with the teabaggers than is portrayed, and it’s time for us all to unite and stand against the corporations.

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javaz
I am a retired aerospace engineer, happily married for over twenty-four years. My hobbies include blogging on PPOV, reading mystery/romance novels, playing guitar, learning the piano and writing. My husband and I love to travel in our camper/trailer, and have visited 45 states, besides having lived in France for 2 years and seeing most of Europe. "Today is the first day of the rest of your life? Well, that's true of every day but one - the day you die." American Beauty "All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure." Mark Twain "A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar." Mark Twain

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TheRarestPatriot
Member

I must submit this as well:
Before there were Democrats and Republicans…
Before there were Socialists and Fascists and Communists…
There were people…trying to make there way in life.
The things we ALL rail against are:

Injustice
Poverty
Inequality
Selfishness
Hubris, greed, corruption, etc.
Betrayal
…and the like…

These things have nothing to do with political affiliation or even education…Yet we’ve been taught that. Divide and conquer…still at work today….

TheRarestPatriot
Member

I think that, at end of the day, most of us realize there is a serious problem growing in our Republic. Most of us feel as though there is nothing one person can do to stem the tide of corruption, hubris and cannibalistic capitalism; not to mention the political chaos. We Libs feel that education somehow insulates us and our opinions from the great unwashed and that is what creates this class-gulf. Many without higher education see US as THEM, typically because it’s the educated peoples that take advantage of and harm, them. I’m not suggesting this is factual where WE are concerned, yet the even HIGHER educated than WE need to create this gulf as a buffer. And they have perfected and perpetuate this strategy. For any of us to start pointing fingers at this president or that president (or Representative) is simply playground behavior of ignorant children. We all know this, but revert to this ideology because it’s easy. Until all of us can agree that the common enemy is the enemy of ALL of us, there will be no real change….only generation after generation fearing and loathing fellow Americans (Dems,Repubs,Indeps, etc, etc) and not the true enemy of the people. The government knows that as long as they keep us all at each other’s throats…we won’t all march for them.

nellie
Member

I don’t think “the people” have a common enemy. And I’m not really sure who “the people” are in your scenario.

Teabaggers, to me, are an angry group of people who are being very dishonest about why they’re angry. It’s difficult to address grievances when we don’t know what they really are. If they were able to articulate clearly what they see as the problem, then maybe there would be room for a conversation. Until then, it’s useless to try to deal with their “issues.”

As far as education goes, I don’t see it as the divider that you describe. Education gives people understanding of the way their world works — when it’s done correctly. I agree that people who are well educated are able to take advantage of the system for their own selfish purposes — and selfish people will do that. The well educated also take advantage of the system to provide for others who have not been as fortunate. In the form of public schools, safety nets, grants, scholarships, food banks — any number of services that help people get on the road to being better educated and doing a better job of providing for themselves. Well educated people have been making this country better since it started. Along with people who have no education. Good people tend to do good things — whether they are well educated or have no education.

TheRarestPatriot
Member

Well Nellie, the ‘people’ I refer to are us. We the people….citizens of the Republic. Sadly, you were able to simplify and demonstrate my point perfectly by including descriptive qualifiers such as ‘they’ and ‘they’re’, etc….If a citizen is unable to attend college, decides not to attend college or thinks that there is a national/global conspiracy to create a Socialistic America, doesn’t make them a ‘they’, it simply means these citizens have differing ideas than other citizens. Feelings cannot…ever…be ‘wrong’. No more than Liberal feelings are ‘correct’. Or educated people’s opinions hold more value. I assure you that the very poor in this nations can teach ALL of us a thing or two about survival and hard times. You see, hard times rarely effect the very poor because they are perpetually poor. My point was that until we drop this culture-snobbery…nothing is accomplished. I am not defending ignorance, nor am I elevating degree holders to prophet level. (as I know plenty of college attenders that have a difficult time remembering basic algebra) We are a nation of humans with dreams, aspirations and needs. We are a collective force. We should not be a divided citizenry. We DO have more in common than most of us will ever know.

Khirad
Member

I totally get what you’re saying. And, what I notice on HP alot, is people (including me – but usually for ulterior reasons) attack people who haven’t gone to college, or are sincer but not wel-informed. Granted, I’ve been burned by some sneaky, disingenuous trolls taking advantage of my good nature, but I still hold that we need more Democrats – and this is what Clinton was so great at, Biden to a lesser extent – that can speak their language. What really irks me about the Teabag movement is the way they’ve usurped this message, and how ass-backwards they get their positions (No socialized medicine – don’t take away my Medicare). And how they’ve taken an anxiety and resentments we all feel, hijacked it, and woven it in with Birther and abolish taxes hogwash.

AdLib
Admin

Planet Talk is beginning now, please join us!

Click here to go there now:

http://planetpov.com/live-events/vox-populi/

Kalima
Admin

Just for the record, I can’t post a comment there, so see you later.

KevenSeven
Member

I’ve met the teabaggers. They are deranged hate mongering racist assholes.

nellie
Member

keven, I gotta say, I love your unabashed talk — especially when I agree with it.

Beachchick
Guest
Beachchick

Thank you. They are thugs.

PatsyT
Member

Javez,
I’m glad you put this out there. Progressives should not be afraid to look at the mechanics of that “bagger movement”.
The baggers are getting the wrong buttons pushed by the wrong people.
Progressives see the hate and fear being ginned up on that side and can get dismissive about some of these issues like banking/CEO pay etc
Could this discord be helping out the banking lobbyist?

nellie
Member

When they put away the signs showing our president with a bone through his nose… maybe then I’ll pay attention to them.

Pepe Lepew
Member

I posted a link that photo one time for a troll who insisted there was no racism going on at the teabagger parties and they continued to insist that that image was not racist. I was incredulous. I said, “If you genuinely don’t see the racism in that image than it is a complete and utter waste of my time to talk to you.”

nellie
Member

You know, that might have been true whether he saw racism in the photo or not. 🙂

KQµårk 死神
Member

The bottom line with Sarah Palin and teabaggers is that they are trying to divide America even more. Obama has been reaching his hand out since he’s been president and for his efforts he’s been called a terrorist, Hitler and a Socialist. Sure I want to get the country back together but it’s the teabaggers that want to maintain the cold civil war. When you talk about joining with these people and finding common ground they have to be willing to join you which I just don’t see right now.

Corgi Lover
Guest

I believe the true “Teabaggers” are the now visible element of the worst of America, they have a sizeable racist attitude, which of course they deny, they don’t like any religion other than “regular” Christianity, they certainly have no belief that anyone different than themselves is acceptable, especially in sexual orientation, and they have no concept of how the government works or what it is doing for them, nor do they want to know.

I know both “ordinary” conservatives and Teabaggers, and the Teabaggers make me want to sleep lightly and mantain my 2nd Amendment rights in order to feel safe from them.

choicelady
Member

Hey – watch that “regular” Christianity stuff! In fact they are newbies – their point of view is quite recent. However, they are absolutely NO different form the people who accused men and women of witchcraft in Salem in the 1960s. Why? Same reason – the independent province of MA had suddenly become a colony under an alien governor. The autonomy they had cherished was gone. How to explain, since British sailors brought STDs, gambling, prostitutes, etc., how their lives had deteriorated? Well, witchcraft was a serious belief of the time. Today it’s feminists, abortion rights people, pro-GLBTQ equality. As the colonists could not bring themselves to blame the King, so today’s people cannot bring themselves to blame the free market. So in both cases – scapegoats. Fill in the blank on who that should be.

I find Sarah, in her best Mom and Wife mode, quite charming and pretty. I think she’s a beast of a human being, but she DOES make people think, as W did, that she’d be a public leader you could sit down and have a drink with. Of course, the people you CAN do that with you really don’t want running the country, but it’s important to think you’re heard. I do think Obama has that capacity – to hear us – but when scapegoating gets in the way, we can’t see our best salvation might come from someone different from us rather than identical to us, at least superficially. Sarah would sell out each and every supporter. Obama won’t. But we’re not yet intelligent enough in this crowd to understand that.

Maybe time will reveal the truth. We will have to see. But we do need to understand not Sarah – but the angst among those who love her. That’s important.

KQµårk 死神
Member

Great historical analogy with the Salem witch trials. Most people don’t realize that another thing that spawned the Salem witch trials were bad harvests just like the bad economy is spurring on these teabaggers.

bito
Member

I have been around politics awhile. My first national campaign was for JFK. I have never seen governing this uncivil. It has always been adversarial, which it should be.
But now it is very uncivil!

Edit: during the civil rights fights, yes, it did get bad.

choicelady
Member

I’m the same vintage, bitohistory. I agree. I think to understand where we are, we all do need to read Jeff Sharlet’s “The Family” because I believe in my bones that they were behind JFK, MLK,Jr., and RFK to name but a few. That’s certainly not IN the book – but it would explain a whole lot of things. These people want the Sarah’s of the world because they can manipulate her, because by focusing on the small ideological hot button issues she keeps us OFF the big ones such as the imperialist raping and pillaging of developing nations – and our own. She’s their perfect foil.

We do need to understand what people who are on the thin edge see IN her, too. It’s the hope that government would be your friend. She is not the answer, but she appears to be. Read “It Can’t Happen Here” by Sinclair Lewis. Demogogues have always been the working person’s best buddy. At the start…

She’s a dangerous person, but I do think she’s venal enough that most people get her selfishness pretty quickly. She cares nothing for her citizens, only for herself, and you can’t keep that hidden forever.

I hope.

KQµårk 死神
Member

Exactly it’s the volume of incivility that is the problem. You can’t solve problems with both sides shouting each other down.

Also you have to separate what was going on with the very uncivil reaction to the civil rights movement in segments of the country and the large scale incivility we are dealing with today.

KevenSeven
Member

How many times did Sarah451 say she was happy to be speaking in “real America”?

Fuck her.

choicelady
Member

I loved Sarah Vowell’s comment about that when she noted, as one living in NY City, that if NY was America enough for bin Laden, it should be America enough for Palin.

Can’t say it better.

Khirad
Member

Damn straight.

Tom_Joad
Member

Javaz: Thank you for composing such a provocative article, but I must insist that my Universe is very different than that of SP and her minions. As for the teabaggers, they stand only for their particular brand of selfishness.

Kalima
Admin

javaz, I understand what you are saying but believe the level of “anger” you describe has been manufactured by a load of nutters who know that they are slipping and have no new ideas or policies to run on.

They remind me of a crowd at a lynching who find power in others screaming for blood. Take them aside and ask them why and they don’t have the answer, they only gain their strength when they scream in a group. Remember that “Empty vessels make the most sound” when they see that they can’t win, they will run out of steam and turn their endless hate to something else. People will tire of their hate.

Since the beginning of time there have been the rich, the very rich and the poor and unless the increase in taxes is upheld, I can’t see this changing any time soon. Bush made a whole lot of fat, rich cats, richer. I hope that soon they will feel a dent in their pocket books, for some it won’t hurt them too much. Need to cut the loopholes and make them pay what they owe to the rest of you.

AdLib
Admin

First, bravo javaz for such a challenging article and POV!

I would go as far as to say superficially there may be similarities between Progressives and Teabaggers but they are not sincere similarities.

There are clear racist tones and images behind much of the hatred they have for Obama and “government”. The “birther” and “Nigerian” and “Muslim” labels most seem to apply to Obama are obvious in what they mean.

I notice that when a white Republican was president, they had no problem with the President’s power or government.

Their distrust of the MSM is in fact a narrow-minded lockstep allegiance to Fox News/Rush Limbaugh and the right wing propaganda machine, anything else is hated “left-wing” media.

They despise science and intellectuals, thus their celebration of Bush and Palin.

They bring guns to town hall meetings and scream in them to disrupt the political process.

Yes. most seem to be poorly educated, low income people who are older and believe that the “American Dream” society promised them was a lie. However, unlike progressives, they don’t blame the real culprits, the corporations who have gamed the system against all of us, they blame black people, minorities, liberals and other scapegoats as programmed by their sources of right winged brain washing. But if they’re so ignorant they really think gays getting married is why their marriage is bad, they are incapable of reasoning their way out of their ignorance.

The vicious circle here is that if they were smart enough not to believe the bullshit, they wouldn’t believe such things in the first place and would be aligned with us.

Many of them are indeed bitter and hateful because their party and those they follow in the media like Beck and Hannity and Rush, whip them into blind hatred of those trying to improve this society.

They vote against their best interests, they are often homophobes too.

They are nothing like Progressives, if you dig beneath the surface of their so-called “issues”, so I have to disagree that there are any substantial amount of principles we share.

As for whether Palin is relevant, she is relevant in the inner struggle of the GOP and to their potential to swing much farther right. She and teabaggers do have an effect on social issues but mainly to polarize the majority against themselves.

So I do agree on her being relevant in a number of ways but she is irrelevant to moving this nation forward and the interests of the majority of Americans.

She is a birther, a teabagger, a racist, opposes women (she forced raped women to pay for their own police rape kits), is a war monger who wants to bomb Iraq, is poorly educated, believes in exorcism and demons possessing people, I could go on and on.

Such people are to be rejected and decimated in public opinion so they will never have the power they crave. They are beneath contempt and need to be exposed for the greedy, egocentric opportunists they are.

Such cynical people, like Bush, run patronizingly as populists then once in office, carve up the treasure of the nation amongst themselves and their cronies.

I will do my best to always be an adversary of Palin and the Teabaggers who offer nothing to this nation but division, hatred and intolerance.

Simply because there are lots of ignorant people following her or Bush or L. Ron Hubbard, I don’t see that alone as justification to embrace them.

VegasBabe
Member

WELL SAID ADLIB! Gosh I wish I had your brains!! She is a boil on life and there is NO tolerating her in ANY circumstance.

KQµårk 死神
Member

The thought provoking nature of the article is not lost on me either. I appreciate the new ideas even if I don’t agree with them. I think the problem with teabaggers is you can’t take old conservative ideas even if you intentions are populist and make them work.

nonose
Member
nonose

Very well said. Thank you.

bito
Member

There is a problem with the left. One is the left is in leadership. That makes a much easier target. Leadership includes making proposals that become targets. It is so much easier to say “you are wrong” than actually doing the heavy lifting.
Second, the right has much more enthusiasm. Again yelling “you lie”, is so much easier than trying to find solutions.
Third, Fear. The rights’ trump card! People want what they have known. Not what may be better for them but they have their comfort zone.
Fourth. the left can be lazy. The right gets out and demonstrates. Lefties blog. The right Gets Out The Vote! GOTV!!!
Examples are the contests in Virgina and New Jersey.
And what is it with the RC Bishops

Good post j’avaz

VegasBabe
Member

Ok, I didn’t read it all, I apologize in all sincerity. Once you suggested she WAS relevant, I could go no further. You may be accurate, but in MY WORLD, she is not only irrelevant, but undesired. I am a snob I readily admit. I would NEVAH EVAH vote for a presidential candidate who had nothing but a BA degree? Fuggedaboutit. I wanna see Juris Doctorate at the very least. And her voice alone makes my skin get creepy. She MAY have thousands of supporters, I don’t doubt you. But there are MILLIONS and MILLIONS of Americans who are still asking the question of McCain, WTF? I’d bet serious loot on that.