Are Ralph Nader and Noam Chomsky still hanging with the teabaggers?

[NNN0LHI]

Because if they are they both have some explaining to do for encouraging them. What were they thinking?

Don

[cali]

1. I don't think either hung with the teabaggers- that's why they were both

so terribly wrong about them.

[ixion]

2. So anyone who doesn't see the world the way you do is a teabagger

Got it.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Here's Chomsky on Tea Party protesters, from December:

"I'm basically judging by what I see and read about them, listening to talk radio, but my strong impression is these are people with very real grievances, the grievances are justified, they've been shafted for over 30 years. They give the impression of being hard-working, serious people who think they've been doing everything right - they've been doing what you're taught you're supposed to do. They're God-fearing, hard-working, gun-carrying patriotic Americans - what are they doing wrong? How come their lives are so crummy?

How come, if you open this week's copy of BusinessWeek, the main business journal, the front page story, which has something like 'Wall Street vs. America', and then when you read the story, it's a blistering expose of how the bankers and lawyers and background economists have sold snake-oil trickery to unsuspecting municipalities, people and so on, which had all kinds of devious devices in it, which they're now exploiting to crush education, transportation, decent homes, basically just crush people when they have money pouring out of their pockets and they don't know what to do with it. That's a reason to be upset, and people feel it in their lives.

So I think it's completely wrong to ridicule them. I mean, maybe the answers they - I wouldn't even ridicule the answers. For example, the other day I just happened to be listening to Rush Limbaugh, interviewing Sarah Palin. It's easy to make fun of what they were saying, but I presume they're sincere, like if Limbaugh asks a question "what do you think about this junk science that the elitist liberals are trying to foist on us about global warming just in order to take away our jobs?", and Sarah Palin says "just use common sense, and look out the window - do you see palm trees?" OK, I mean it's not just ridiculous, it's a death sentence for the species, but there's no point approaching people and saying that.

People have genuine grievances, and they're not getting answers. The answers they are getting are not only crazy, but extremely dangerous, so the right response is to ask ourselves why are we failing to organize these people.

...

Because we have not succeeded in unifying people. It's our fault. If we can't ... take, say, health insurance. Most people believe it's just a right - the idea that health care should be determined by wealth, not need, is so profoundly immoral, that I'm sure that if you approach people are talk about it, they'll agree. There is an ideology that has been drilled into people by 50 years of intense propaganda, by the business classes ..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWs6g3L3fkU

and then he goes into how Reagan was very pro-business and interventionist - I'm not going to transcribe it all. So, yes, Chomsky has been saying the protesters should be listened to. He thinks they will see the light if someone sits down with them and properly explains health care. I doubt they've been listening to him, however.

[nxylas]

5. A little naive, perhaps, but there's a kernel of truth in there

The Republicans are masters at taking people's very real anger and directing it at the wrong targets: liberals, Democrats, immigrants and the mythical "welfare queen in her Cadillac".

[The_Commonist]

7. Well, I think Chomsky is partly right here...

The teabaggers are, for the most part, people who have worked hard for the "American Dream" and have been getting screwed over for a long time now.

The only problem is that they aren't smart enough to figure out who's been screwing them.
They misdirect their anger, because they actually believe what they have been told by Fox.

[Roland99]

9. and that they don't *want* to know anything different.

In order for them to understand who's really at fault (the people they've been listening to their entire lives) is a threat to their entire self. It's a very traumatic experience to meet the devil and realize the devil is yourself (or your idols). Many people can't or won't face that so they continue living their life in blissful, willful ignorance.

[Echo In Light]

11. To be fair, your postulation is applicable to a majority of Americans

[Roland99]

12. So very true. Is there a Clarisse for every Guy Montag out there? doubt it.

some people are just unreachable.

[DBoon]

10. It isn't "not smart enough"

it's willful ignorance

The mobs of the dispossessed who supported European fascist movements had some real grievances as well. That didn't make them any less dangerous.

[Roland99]

8. Chomsky makes a very good point.

Ridiculing them only pushes them further and further to the edge.

But, there are plenty of them that will never listen to reason no matter how plainly it can be explained. They fall back to their bible and their guns and crank up the AM radio.


There's only one way to describe them:



Willful ignorance.

[saltpoint]

3. The tea baggers strike me as a small angry mob of subliterates.

Nader and Chomsky are learned men with (by all evidence) sky-high IQs.

I have a natural bias in favor of people who do the homework and against people who don't.

[Mr Rabble]

6. Don- you are way off base here.

If you think that Chomsky is somehow in line with teabaggers, you have probably not read much of his work.

[Bluenorthwest]

13. Not a very persceptive person, are you?

If you can confuse Chomsky with Tea Baggers, you have issues. I mean, you do understand that oh, let's say, Barack Obama agrees with the baggers that Barney Frank and I should not have rights equal to the Baggers. He agrees with them, and he says his reasons are the same as theirs, the faith they have in common teaches them to be prejudiced against gay people.
Shall we therefore say that Obama is hanging with the teabaggers? Maybe. He agrees with them in all but lexicon in their treatment of Frank. If it came to a debate on equality, Obama would be standing with the tea Party, not with me, Barney, Rachel, etc. He agrees with them. Hangs with them.
Is this really how you wish to set the bar, Don? Because the fact is the fact. Chomsky agrees with them on nothing. Obama agrees with them on basic issues of human equality. Wanna play? I got the quotes ready.
Chomsky says he'd have voted for the daft reform, holding his nose, but voting yes. How teabag of him. Obama, he has voted against equal rights many times in many forms, cast the vote with the teabag. Obama voted with the GOP on the Teri Schaivo case.

[QC]

17. It's the rule now: anyone who disagrees with Obama must be trashed.

It's disgustingly freeperish, but there you have it.

[tiny elvis]

14. you are fully partisan

which is more than acceptable here, but it causes you to make enemies of persons unapproved by your chosen authorities
since your party is corporate controlled and the nature of corporate control is to conceal motives and misdirect,
you are gently guided by your authorities to fear anti corporate speech and repeat misdirected calumnies against the speakers
the passive aggressive accusations in the form of questions, implying a foregone consensus, is a personal choice in style,
but an impersonal sales pitch, framing, some other nice word for propaganda

[Better Believe It]

15. A recent poll indicated that 16% of so-called tea baggers considered themselves liberal Democrats!

[Better Believe It]

16. It's let's swiftboat Nader and Chomsky time! Nader and Chomsky are right-wing fascists!

Is it true they now have Nazi tatoos on their right arms?

What were they thinking?

[fascisthunter]

18. oh brother