Go ahead and piss into the wind, Glenn Beck

While I initially died laughing when the tea baggers first started, well, "teabagging," this movement of disenchanted, disenfranchised self-styled alienated patriots has become a cause for concern. Glenn Greenwald pretty much summed it up thusly: this crowd defies category, other than a common hatred of Barack Obama, common allegiance to Glenn Beck and a common ignorance over what it is exactly that is making them so angry.

This is not a laughing matter; there is a very tangible and seething anger that unites these people. The department of Homeland security (though not Homeland Security Czarina Janet Napolitano herself) issued a report last week that right wing extremist groups may attempt to harness the discontent of returning veterans from the Iraq and Afghan wars, and may potentially pose a security threat. Veterans groups other than the Veterans of Foreign Wars condemned the report as paranoid heresy, but the VFW stated that DHS would be derelict in its duty if it did not assess all internal and external security threats. The DHS report cited Timothy McVeigh as a possible example of a domestic terrorist profile: ex combat veteran with a weak support network, disenchantment with the Government and vulnerable to suggestion by a influential and negative peer group.

These people, apart from being WalMart shoppers even though Beck disparages WalMart, are a class of mostly white, working or lower middle class people who have barely survived the post industrial era and possess no useful skills in the 21str century. On top of that, the capitalist system they have gone to war for, and defended in their hearts and minds has repeatedly given them the short end of the stick. They are no longer guaranteed the kind of life style that middle income americans have enjoyed. They don't like foreigners (the "Birthists" in this movement count Obama among these), particularly Mexicans who are darker skinned, speak a different language and take all the construction jobs from whites because they will work harder for less money. These teabaggers have probably lived beyond their means, taking on large mortgages and leveraging consumer debt on credit cards--debt which is traded on the open market and disproportionately acquired by the Chinese, the Saudis and others who are not exactly supportive of freedom and democracy, either here or in their own countries.

If this sounds like rambling that's because it most certainly is. These people are a pitiful and sad response to the challenges of a 21st century, where American power is seen to be in decline, and wolves are at our doorsteps in the form of foreign competition, energy prices, and the siren song of the Glenn Becks of the world who spew vitriolic propaganda but don't actually have a plan. It's ironic that these folks compare Obama to Hitler, because populism in the form of National Socialism came to power on the backs of disenfranchised populists. These are political refugees fleeing the realities of their own country. Pissing into the wind.