BigDaddyCool

Now lest any of you think that I am just another “liberal blogger’ who does nothing more then bash Conservative Republicans all the time (which in light of recent posts some of you might think) let me just clear something up for the record:

I am neither a Liberal Democrat nor am I a Conservative Republican. Although at various points of my life I have belonged to both political parties, I do not now consider myself to be affiliated with either. I consider myself to be a Moderate Independent – Moderate because I sometimes come down on the left and sometimes come down on the right depending on the issue, but mostly because I come down on the side of good, clean, old fashioned common sense. I know that lately I have been writing about how Conservative Republican Politicians have been mucking up the waters of economic recovery by blaming it all on the working-class people who can get this country out of this mess if only Republicans in Congress and more than a few Governors would get out of our way. I really haven’t found a topic on which I could disagree with someone who can be termed as ‘Liberal” in their way of thinking…

…until now.

For those of you who did not see Janeane Garofalo’s appearance on “Countdown with Kieth Olbermann” last night I provided the segment with her appearance above. To say that I think that Janeane took a huge swing and missed a big, fat pitch over the middle spectacularly while corkscrewing herself into the ground like Wile E. Coyote would be an understatement.

Janeane, love you, love your work, I just think that you have totally missed the mark here when it comes to the motivations of the “Teabaggers“. I seriously do not believe that race is the only factor leading them to dump teabags into harbors and rivers and eat pork sandwiches. I believe that it is only one factor that is leading some of them down this bridge to nowhere. There are so many other factors that are entwined in their motivations that I can’t even begin to list them all.

But that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to try…

The Bank Bailouts – Now the bailout of the banks was where this all started. The banking institutions that were “too big to fail” needed $780 billion in order to keep from going under and taking everybody else with them. The Bush Administration gladly handed it over – with no strings attached and no oversight into how the money was spent!!!That had disaster written all over it. Only later did we find out that some of that bailout money – our tax dollars – was used to send executives on junkets to spas in California, pay for a new corporate jet, re-decorate a CEO’s office, name a ballpark, and give millions of dollars in bonuses to lamebrains who make the Three Stooges look like Captains of Industry. To say that this pissed us off is an understatement. It made us question whether or not there should be any further bailouts, which leads us to…

The Auto Bailouts- As if it weren’t bad enough that we had to give money to the banks, then we had GM, Ford and Chrysler going to Congress on their knees. Only instead of getting what they needed they got the shaft, and then they got shown the door, and then they got blamed for the whole economic mess by Republicans in the South who had Japanese and German car manufacturers in their state in an effort to destroy Detroit. What they didn’t count on was the fact that if Detroit went down they would take Japan and Germany down with them. Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen – they all depend on American parts manufacturers but the foreign companies are not enough to keep the parts companies in business. If Detroit went then the parts manufacturers would go with them, and then the foreign cars would soon follow suit. The Republicans in Congress attacked the unions for not working with the Big 3 to solve the crisis when in fact they were doing everything they could, but it didn’t matter because they kept repeating the lie that the UAW was giving anything back and that the autoworkers were greedy. As far as they were concerned organized labor was the real culprit for the crisis, which brings us to our next factor…

“Joe the Plumber” and “The Great Tax Lie”  – I don’t know if JTP was a plant at an Obama rally or not, but if he was I have to admit it was a semi-brilliant strategy.

JTP talked with then Candidate Obama about his plan to roll back tax rates for those making less then $250,000 a year. The McCain Campaign turned it around into a lie that it was a tax increase for everyone in the country, and that this was another example of why a “Tax and Spend Democrat” was not fit to be Commander-in Chief. Yeah right, as if eight years of “Tax and Spend and Welch on the Debt” was any better. Then the lie was started that if Obama were elected that he would take from those who were successful and give it to those who were not, as if he were going to be making withdrawals from ATM’s all over the country and millions of good, decent, hard-working people would see their bank balances mysteriously dropping. This gave rise to the “Obama is a Socialist who will take your Guns away from you” lie which in the end led to the death of three policemen in Pittsburgh and it also led to…

The Palin/Bachman Tag Team- Two women campaigning for office, two women whose cheese had slipped off of their cracker.

In Gov. Palin’s case it was the same “family values” message that we had heard so many times before and had fallen flat on it’s face, but that message was lost when Bristol turned up pregnant and the economy went into the tank. Once the economy went sour no one much cared about “family values” anymore because “family values” were not going to pay the mortgage – jobs were. The people wanted to hear how a McCain/Palin Administration was going to lead them out of this economic wilderness, so what did they give us? A page out of the Karl Rove playbook, that’s what! Gov. Palin accused then Sen. Obama of “palling around with terrorists” which solicited some in the crowds to call for Sen. Obama’s death, and alienated voters who were still undecided and made their minds up for them to vote for Sen. Obama. Meanwhile “back at the ranch”, Rep. Bachman went on “Hardball” and questioned Sen. Obama’s patriotism, as well as the patriotism of some members of Congress because they were not of the same mindset as Neo-Conservatives, and called for an investigation of these individuals. She almost lost her seat in Congress over that little “McCartyist” stunt, yet managed to sqweek out a narrow victory come November. But still, there are those people out there who feel that anyone who does not think as they do is their enemy, weather their enemy realizes it or not. The rants of Gov. Palin and Rep. Bachman on the campaign trail and on Cable T.V. were just a warm-up act for…

Rick Santelli- Oh I just looooove talking about Rick Santelli!!!

His rant on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange was seen by many (myself included) as an attack on those who had lost their jobs through no fault of their own and who were having trouble getting new ones. His saying that “Real Americans” did not want to have to subsidize “losers” was a direct slap in the face to all of us who are unemployed, underemployed and underutilized. However this was also an indication of how some attitudes were becoming more prevalent towards the unemployed and people who were struggling. In his rant Santelli said that he was going to start organizing a “tea party in July” at Lake Michigan.

I wonder if this is where FOX News got the idea to promote all of the “tea parties” that they could? Anyway…

Santelli noted that the guys behind him during his rant were of the mind that people shouldn’t “buy their way into prosperity.” Well how about earning their way into prosperity Rick? That would be OK wouldn’t it? Well in order for that to happen, people need jobs, and right now the only way that some people are going to be able to get jobs is through…

The Stimulus Package- You remember, the Stimulus Package that every Republican up on Capitol Hill hates because it has too much job creation and not enough tax cuts for the rich? So the Republicans up on the Hill tried to convince their constituents that the stimulus plan was another “Socialist plot” to take their money through increased taxes and give it to those who don’t have it through tax breaks. They managed to convince some people out there that all of the Infrastructure projects and the effort to create more jobs so that the economy can improve was nothing more than “wasteful spending”. As if someone being able to earn a paycheck so that they can keep their home is considered “wasteful”. Unfortunately this also manages to convince the choir that a job is a “handout” and that job creation is “Socialism,” never mind the “handout” that the choir was getting from their bosses every other week. But what they really needed was a louder voice to bring it all home and to cement the “Teabagger agenda,” and so they turned to…

Boss Hogg- Known to most people as Rush Limbaugh.

Now Boss Hogg is famous for saying that he wanted President Obama to fail, and then when he started getting flak for it he tried to backtrack by saying that he wanted the country to succeed, he just wanted Liberalism to fail. Sorry Boss Hogg, the door was open and that horse got out to be seen by all the townfolk, it’s a little late to get him back into the barn now. What Boss Hogg was going for is for the economy to get worse, more people lose their jobs and their homes, President Obama gets blamed and then the Republicans who got us into this mess in the first place will be elected back into office. That way things will be made better for the Rich, the middle-class gets screwed and we all end up living on the street eating cake while they live it up on the upper levels of society, living in the Great Cloud City.

Yeah, I know, it’s an exaggeration but you get the idea.

However, there are signs that the economy is beginning to turn itself around. Wells Fargo announced record profits for the first quarter of this year, and the other day another bank announced the same so there is some hope there. It may take a while but it’s starting to happen. Which brings me to the next motive for the “Teabaggers“…

They are jealous- They can’t stand the fact that it’s a Democrat in the Oval Office who is getting credit for the turnaround that is starting, and not a Republican. I think that for some of them they are only happy when everyone else is miserable under a Republican President. That way they are able to blame us for the fact that we can’t get a job by saying that we are lazy, worthless deadbeats who no one would want to hire anyway, instead of blaming it on the fact that the jobs are going away and that there are very few jobs to be had. But right now, they can’t blame us for this. Oh sure they’ve tried, but now that they are the ones who are being laid-off and are having trouble finding a decent-paying job their arguements kind of fall flat. Their argument especially fall flat when this economy does not discriminate against anyone due to political affiliation. This economy has hurt Democrats, Republicans, Independants, Reformers, Green Party Members, and Libertarians with equal fervor.

So the only thing that they actually have is to try to convince everyone in the country that they are in the right is that jobs are “handouts”, job creation is “Socialism”, the President only has guts when Somali teen-agers are involved, the President might not even be a native-born American (as if Hawaii is not really a state) and that he is going to take every-one’s guns away from them and let criminals run rampant in the streets shooting anyone that they want.

Sorry Janeane, race is soooooooooo far down on that list. In fact, race doesn’t even make mine. The “Teabaggers” have so many other motivations to spur themselves on that I don’t even think race has entered into the equation.