Tea Partiers Need to Listen to Actual Facts and Issues

Back in the Dubya/Rumsfeld years, I always thought that invading Iraq was their pre-determined outcome, and that they justified it with whatever convenient excuse they could find. The strategy for the Decider was decide first, then backfill with facts that fit. Facts that don't fit the strategy have to be attacked and discredited, so that's the Valerie Plame Wilson story, and when that doesn't work, say there are actually no weapons of mass destruction, then you immediately change the message of the right wing echo chamber and pretend you never said there were WMDs and that you don't know what that person is talking about. Now its the Obama years, and health care is this strange obssession for the Tea Party. Most of whom don't understand what the health care debate is about, and they say things like socialist guvmint is taking away my medicare, but they don't realize that medicare is a government program to begin with. They also mainly think that Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya, which is false. Are the Tea Partiers just manipulated masses like in Dostoyevsky's book "The Possessed" aka "Demons"? Have they been manipulated by Fox News and Rush Limbaugh to repeat what they hear mindlessly? We as educated liberals can't stop watching, like a car crash, like Sarah Palin, like WWE wrestling, like a horrible Kardashian show (oh, Bristol Palin has a show now, that is a combination of several car crashes, yikes). My take is that they have built up ideological frameworks over a certain amount of time. And what they hear, they try to fit into what they already know. When Obama was elected in 2008, they projected him onto the entire Federal Government, and so when they hear health care, they think Muslim from Kenya, and that's bad for America. So repeal Muslim from Kenya. Not that they've ever met any actual Muslims from Kenya, or even know where Kenya is on a map. It's just a racist image they have and it has nothing to do with the actual health care or insurance issue. Anything that Obama says or supports is seen the same way by these people. And Muslim Kenyans are probably very nice people, and diverse too, sort of like Christian Canadians, or any other religious and national groupings. Tea Partiers need to stop being racist and scared of diversity, and worried that their little fragile world view is going tocome crashing down when a small bit of reality intrudes. Calm down, it's OK. My message to them is, "Turn off the talk radio, listen to facts and issues, and stop thinking of the whole government as a Muslim Kenyan."

Wake Up Freak Out

I thought this was a pretty good animation, especially regarding tipping points and the type of social change we need (not just lightbulbs).

Wake Up, Freak Out - then Get a Grip from Leo Murray on Vimeo.

Maybe these guys will make a sequel that discusses Cap & Share.

Panetta shows he's no Rumsfeld

Here's a link to a speech from Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta, given in Washington D.C., Wednesday, May 02, 2012. Excerpts below: "As someone who grew up in Monterey, California, which as many of you know is world famous for its beautiful coastline and the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, I’ve had a life-long interest in protecting our nation’s precious resources... ...the area of climate change has a dramatic impact on national security: rising sea levels, to severe droughts, to the melting of the polar caps, to more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. ... a better, cleaner, and safer world for the future, in order to ensure that our children have that better life." I like to hear stuff like that, especially from the Secretary of Defense, someone who actually has billions of dollars at his disposal.