Via Chuckles, this from American Thinker – like it very much:
On Monday, MNBC’s Joe Scarborough explained:
All in all though, you look at what the Tea Party has done over the past three years. You look at how they have put the president on the defensive over health care, you look at what happened with the mid-term elections, you look at Scott Brown winning in Massachusetts taking Ted Kennedy’s seat. It’s undeniable. And the reason why the press doesn’t see it, the reason why Democratic candidates don’t see it, is there’s a huge cultural blind spot. If Occupy Wall Street, had done one-tenth of what the Tea Party did, my God they would be statues in Manhattan. (Morning Joe, October 22).
Further:
The media continues to overlook the greatest story never told in recent American history: a vast, unbridgeable chasm exists between Washington’s Political Aristocracy and Main Street America. A 2010 Rasmussen Poll revealed an inescapable truth: Main Street and the Political Class view things in polar opposite ways.
While 83% of mainstream voters were angry at the government’s current policies, 76% of those in the Political Class were not. Seventy percent (70%) of those in the mainstream thought the leaders of both political parties lack a good understanding of what is needed now, but 68% of Political Class voters disagreed.
In surveys since September 2009, those angry at the government have ranged from 66% to 75%. Those who are very angry have run from 33% to 46%.
In a later Rasmussen Poll, fifty-five percent (55%) of mainstream voters agreed with the following statement: “The gap between Americans who want to govern themselves and politicians who want to rule over them is now as big as the gap between the American colonies and England during the 18th Century.”
And as they point out, 95% of the political class, i.e. the politicians, reject that analysis.
Haiku makes the comment:
Replace “American” with “voters world-wide” and I think that you will be getting closer to the truth …
Amen to that.
Except that the Tea Party began as a grass roots organization, and was quickly funded, and then directed, by money from the Koch brothers. Think ‘brownshirts’ (from the 30′s, not ‘Firefly’).
Voice of Reason – Oh my god those evil Koch brothers? As opposed to George Soros, Goldman Sachs etc that have thrown gargantuan amounts of money at Obama et al..
For all I know the Koch brothers are the devil incarnate. But the Tea Party message is the only political agenda in the west that at the moment makes any sort of sense – Governments need to stop spending money they don’t have…
But that isn’t the message that the Tea Party actually sends. Our local group was headed by a gentleman who fought against funding a school system from which his company received funding for emergency broadcasts.
As for the Koch brothers, while they do some philanthropic work, most of their money is directed at altering the tax system in their favour, trying to prevent legitimate US citizens from voting, removing pollution controls, getting state governments to sell them government-owned mineral rights at pennies on the dollar, eliminating any and all pensions for ‘regular’ people, and the like. Not evil incarnate, but very short-sighted.
Surefire way to identify a leftist is when asking who is the individual bete noir, he says Koch Bros. Ask a centre-right and he says Soros. Ask a leftist who is the global bete noir and he says the banksters and the corporate global elite. Ask a centre-right and he says the banksters and the global socialist elite, including crony capitalists.
Ask what is a useless movement and the leftist will say Tea Party, as they were taken over by the corrupt money. Ask a centre-right and he’ll say Occupy, as they were funded by the corrupt money.
But there’s your problem – I’m not a leftist. As close as can be stated, I believe in personal freedom, personal responsibility, and fiscal caution.
The dreadful evil socialist Obamacare … which just might drag the USSA into first-world status as regards the health of its population.
Yeah.
Remember that our life expectancy is higher, & our infant mortality is lower than the USA’s & it costs less, even with NHS inefficiencies – and other (equally “socialist”) systems ( Germany, Norway, Singapore)are better than ours.} erm, err …..
My bet is it drags the USA into bankruptcy long before any healthcare improvements are felt.
Greg, you know full well a whole range of factors influence mortality rates including genetics, environmental factors, diet, tendency of the population to exercise, obesity, various drug use plus the ever present phenomena of young men “offing” each other. In various countries one can add famine, availability of clean water, various diseases, civil wars, murderous governments etc.
To suggest (as I believe you would concede you do) that NHS = long life maybe stretching a point somewhat.
Just the same, all the deradful” socilaist” countries like Singapore, that I named, & a lot of others have cheaper healthcare than the US AT PRESENT, and give better results.
I, as someone trained as an engineer, am judging by results.