Who's Counter-Protesting Now?

Protests! Meetings! Raised voices! Speeches! Signs! And, on the other side, Establishment types huffing and puffing, and talking about things like "civility" and "dialogue". Ah yes -- how we miss the 1960s. Except that we don't, because I'm talking about 2009, and the strange things that happen when certain members of the middle class finally -- finally!! -- wake up to the fact that the country has been taken away from them (assuming they ever had it -- but we're talking perceptions here, not reality), and the people who were, for years, shivering in the cold with their picket signs are now nattily attired, groomed, tanned, and... in charge. Gosh, you'd almost think human behavior was based less on ideas per se than on whose ideas are dominant at any given time. People who would not have dreamed of joining a protest demonstration just a year ago are now shouting and gesticulating in front of news cameras... and people who have been part of a scruffy mob on and off for 40-odd years are now sitting grimly in TV studios expressing -- sotto voce -- profound regret that the quality of public discourse has deteriorated so dreadfully just since Obama took office.

And lest you think that my point is going to be that "it's about time!" -- think again. These groups deserve each other. It goes without saying that the liberals who are now in charge of transforming the US into a people's republic deserve all the harassment they get... but the "tea partiers" are not off the hook either. Where were they when all the "entitlements", so beloved of the AARP, were made into iron-clad law? Where were they when Nixon completely cut the dollar loose from any reliable form of backing? Where were they when we invaded Afghanistan, and then Iraq? Where were they when the Neocon/Evangelical/arms makers/Israeli cabal took over our foreign policy? And why are they, by and large, still sending their kids to public schools, and allowing themselves to be exploited by the legal and medical establishments? Huh? Huh? No, I don't have any sympathy for these people -- they are, in the words of Howard Cosell, "too little, too late". Now, the next generation -- that's a different story. They might actually be able to come up with something. They might be capable of acting on principle, and not just when their wallets begin to hurt. But to this current crew, I say -- if you don't like it, just go down to Texas and camp out at George Bush's ranch. I'm sure he or his wife will provide you with some nice, cool lemonade to soothe the pain of your exile.