Don’t Drink The Tea!

The most recent instance of Internet-enabled political activism would have to be the tea bag protesters. This controversial group has been all over the Internet and the mainstream news and is hardly considered a sub-culture of which Kahn and Kellner speak. Many in this group represent political and religious-militant, extremist organizations and their sympathizers. Although these groups no longer make up a majority in the U.S. many non-the-less still consider their views mainstream.  Although this movement was sparked by Obama’s health-care debate, it is obviously about much more.

In addition to spreading vitriol over the Internet, these extremists have been on every major news network including CNN and MSNBC, as well as the right-wing propaganda machine: the Fox channel.  It is clear by their rhetoric and hatred that their fears revolve around progressive issues and attitudes in general (especially those that counter their religious, conservative, right-wing agenda). Comments such as: “we need to reload”, on T.V. and on the Internet by various politicians is reckless and irresponsible.

It is just another elitist scare tactic to perpetuate anti-Obama, anti-gay marriage, anti-abortion, and anti-healthcare rhetoric by extremists that do not fully understand the issues. The outrage from the protestors on the Internet is even more vicious than that shown on T.V.  There are hate sites on the web dedicated to dehumanizing all progressive thinking Americans as God hating murderers. Some depict racial cartoons of Obama and promote gay-bashing as well as Nazi symbolism. Last I checked this was a free country: a democratic republic and not a theocracy.

This fact seems to be lost, forgotten or ignored by the teabag protestors. Last night on MSNBC Rachael Maddow reported on this growing trend of religious extremism in the U.S. (referring to teabag protestors). Finally, someone in the media is calling it what it is! MSN’s Keith Olberman recently commented on a New York Times article, which claims that the tea baggers are mostly wealthier conservatives that are out of touch with main stream views and majority opinion in the U.S., because they already have theirs (so to speak) and don’t want theirs taxes going up.

An Internet article commented on the NY Times pole saying: “So this core of Tea Party activists that Faux “News” celebrates and relentlessly tries to characterize as a popular uprising, when in reality 18% of Americans support the Tea Party Movement and a core of only 4% are active participants”.< http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/4/15/0648/12754>. The NY Times poll also says that these white, educated activists think that their taxes are fair, however they don’t trust having a black president, and do not think that Sarah Palin has the qualifications to be president. It also says that most of them are over age 45 and support Medicare and Social Security, yet they are rallying for smaller government. So it is not about fear of socialism. It is about the changing demographic in the U.S. By 2025 whites will be a minority in the U.S. while Islam continues to grow in popularity.

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