Happy Tax Day

Some thoughts on tea partying by a fellow with a snappy first name:

http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/04/14/americas-peasant-mentality/

Although I suspect Mr. Taibbi would disagree with me on a number of things, he is right on the money here. Questions of class must never be allowed to be a part of the national debate. After all, here in America, everybody is exactly as rich or poor as they deserve to be. So populist outrage must be directed, not at the people toppled the system, but at the people protesting them. Of course.

Let's say I give you two choices: (1) I will personally give you a hundred dollars, or (2) I will give a hundred dollars to someone else, who by the way already has a lot more money than you, and hopefully out of the kindness of his heart, some of that money will pass to you. Which do you choose? For millions of people, apparently the answer is (2). Why?

The only explanation I can think of is that most Americans are scared to death of being poor, scared to death to admit they are poor. So they keep running up the credit card debt, out of some delusion that someday they will wake up and magically be one of the small minority of people that far-right tax policy (let's call it what it is) actually favors. That's the American Dream, I guess. Of course the reality is that it never happens. On the contrary, these people are infinitely more likely to wake up and realize that their homes are magically in foreclosure.

Why the fear of poverty? Well, maybe because poor people are the cause of all our nation's problems. Remember the welfare queens? Remember minorities buying houses they couldn't afford, causing this whole economic crisis? If not, you should definitely watch more cable news. You are highly uninformed.

Did you notice that I said "poor" but then basically went straight to "minority?" Well, they're the same thing, right? Let's go over the bread and butter right-wing talking points: crime (tough on it / scared to death of it, especially gangs); immigration (keep 'em out, send 'em back); drugs (the worst thing ever, unless they're pharmaceutical, in which case, go crazy!). Who is the stereotypical enemy on all of these issues? (oh wait, I thought of another one, Affirmative Action) Poor and just incidentally not white.

And using "poor" as code for "not white" has the additional advantage of convincing poor white people that they're not poor. So any pre-existing racial prejudice gets channeled into "class resentment," despite the fact that they're members of the same class. It's military strategy 101, the ol' divide and conquer. And it has been effective, from the Southern Strategy to the Willie Horton ads. Somehow, instead of directing anger at the extremely rich people who moved jobs overseas or made it possible for people to receive loans that were impossible to pay off, anger is directed at the impoverished foreigners who took the jobs or now-impoverished citizens who took the loans.

But I digress. Enjoy tax day; like a good citizen, I have already spent my return.