POT AT THE TEA PARTY

A lot of earnest verbiage has gone into analyzing the so-called "tea
party," most of it fatuous and overwrought. The Democrats are expected
to quake at the prospect of losing many current incumbents to this
motley rabble of angry voters.

The tea party's inchoate anti-government sentiments do play into the
hands of corporate oligarchs, who stand to benefit from whatever
political influence the tea party's "agenda" may have in Washington.
This is why, of course, the GOP spin machine plays them up for all
they're worth. And this is why the left smells a whiff of fascism in
the political air.

Still, the tea-party phenomenon will likely dissipate after November's
elections, in which the Dems will probably comfortably prevail. What
local commentator Paul Danish likes to call the "marijuana party" is
actually larger than the tea party and better represents the generally
progressive inclinations of most Americans, especially the younger
generations.

In truth, the over-hyped tea party "movement" is rather shallow and
largely media-driven. It's manipulated by cynical GOP operatives, who
are so desperate to be relevant that they resort to exploiting these
naive populists, just as they did the now dispirited Evangelical movement.

The tea partyers aren't fascists themselves; they're simply dupes of
the very system they say they oppose.

Cord MacGuire

Boulder