'Meanness' and 'hatefulness' are cover words. Meant to lend some sort of moral (pseudo)justification to muzzling opposition. 'Racism' isn't succeeding in that regard so the left is working other angles.
No, by "meanness" I am not talking about muzzling of opposition or anything else of the sort. I am talking about the fact that America has become a very mean place, much more so at the end of this decade than in the 90's.
There is evidence of this everywhere- the vitriol spewed by popular talk show hosts, the lack of dignity or respect in national discussions and most distressingly the lack of compassion for those that are on hard times. In short, your once great nation is in the sad process of imploding, and rather than wake up and realize what the real problems are folks are turning to scapegoats, blaming the disadvantaged and marginalized as the problem when the reality couldn't be further to the truth.
Let's look at this little humdinger;
-Public education and social programs are getting their budget slashed everywhere (those kids don't need to learn and granny can eat cat food, right!)
-national infrastructure overall is decaying
-economy is still in the gutter, real unemployment is creeping up on 20% but yet massive multi-billion bailouts went to the banks while joe blow got peanuts
-60% of your energy is imported, U.S hit it's peak oil production almost 40 years ago and has been declining ever since. Even if you turn up all the offshore oil rigs you can, there is no way in hell you could ever hit the production peak in 1970/71, but only temporarily delay the inevitable.
-In spite of record deficits and budget-slashery, the U.S defense budget this year is a record whopping 838 billion (over a trillion if you count in things like the budget for nukes, military aid to other countries which are covered by other departments like DOE, state, etc)
And yet, for having the highest defense budget in the world the U.S is not officially at war with anyone.
So there are all these huge problems facing the U.S. And the tea partyers are one hundred percent correct to be mad as hell, at least they've clued in to the fact that things are going down shit creek without a paddle.
Saddly, while they are right to be angry, and have correctly deduced that something is indeed rotten in the state of denmark, that anger is being very skillfully channeled away from the real perpetrators.
Let's see the tea-partyers demand that BP have all it's assets in the U.S stripped (monetary and otherwise) for it's crime that has now closed off more than 30% of U.S waters in the gulf.
Let's see the tea-partyers demand a real energy solution, instead of the "drill baby, drill!" mantra that will only delay the inevitable
Let's see the tea-partyers call a spade a spade and denounce both the democrat and republican party as the complete sham they are and form a third party not beholden to the special interests like the defense lobby, healthcare and big banks which are slowly bleeding your country dry.
If that happens, I'll open up a chapter myself!