Tea Party Taxes

Across the country Tea parties to protest our Stimulus checks Americans are getting this year is happening today.  Many Republicans have come out over the last few weeks saying that on Tax Day, April 15th, 2009, they will protest the Stimulus package that the government has set aside for its American citizens to combat the tax money we have paid in bailouts to Wall Street and the American auto industry (we also got a stimulus check last year).  Their belief, as has been said on Fox News anyway, is that they are protesting big government telling us what to do. 

I haven’t seen this much propaganda since from a News network since . . .ever.  Over the years many news stations and anchors have become more opinionated.  We all understand that.  But when the news is not being shown at all, only biased opinions and color commentary to boost ratings and anger citizens, it’s time to put a stop to it.  The administration in the White House today is not the same as the administration before it.  They are trying to cut costs on a war that was leading us nowhere and still claiming American lives as well as those abroad.  They are trying to pull Americans out of debt to give us a new start in this land of opportunity.  They are trying to help educate our children and are more focused on helping Americans save money by developing an energy efficient country.  Why Rush Limbaugh wants them to fail so much at this is beyond me. 

I ask only those extremist people on the right at Fox news, would you rather see the country fail like Limbaugh does or help the government to help America to win back its own people and those abroad?  Why do you hate America? Why do you hate the government, those whom we have elected democratically, so much?  You say you have Freedom of Speech.  You do.  But when freedom of speech turns into hate speech and it makes absolutely no sense to want your own government to fail just because your side lost, that’s when there’s a problem.  And be honest, we all know that’s the truth.  It’s just nobody says it to your faces.  When Democrats or other Americans or other countries would ever put down the Bush administration, Repulicans, Fox and other citizens said, don’t say anything bad about him.  Why do you hate America?  He’s our president, don’t say anything against your own president.  Help America, support America.  Why can’t you support America?  Oh, I forgot, you have a double standard when it comes to freedom of speech.  Obama’s doing well, the Europeans like him, more than half of the country like him, but you attack Obama the man, not the administration. 

And what’s worse is that these protesting Republicans believe everything many of you on Fox news say.  Sadly, these protests will do nothing because the stimulus package is already set.  Some people have begun to receive theirs already.  Ill ask you this, if Bush was still in office or McCain and he had introduced this stimulus bill, would there be thousands of Republicans protesting it now?  Of course not.  Because Bush did introduce the stimulus bill.  We all got stimulus checks last year!  Bush introduced the bailout plan but no one bashes him for that.  He pushed it through the House and Congress but all extremist Republican citizens can talk about is how the Obama administration is giving people bailouts.  

I love that people can protest in this country and have freedom of speech.  I’ve protested myself a time or two.  But where were these protesters when the Bush administration spent 6 billion dollars on a war that has gone nowhere with no end in sight and no reason to start in the first place?  6 BILLION DOLLARS.  Where were these protesters when the Bush administration was taking us into so much debt that actually LED to our bailouts and put the economy at jeopardy?  Where were these protesters when the former vice president was ordering torture on prisoners?  Where were these protesters who are calling for a laughable impeachment of Obama because they simply don’t agree with his politics when George W. Bush lied to the American people about the conditions of the war?  Where were these protesters, who detest big government, when the Bush administration authorized illegal phone tapping on private citizens???  And finally, where were these protesters last year, when the Bush administration was still around, when Bush gave out the first stimulus checks?  Maybe they don’t remember that year because they liked the president then.  It seems that no matter what they did for 8 years, our once president George W. Bush and his administration was doing their best to serve America.  But after less than three months the Obama administration is ruining America?  No, but there are many people at Fox News who are feeding this tripe to uninformed citizens. 

Integrity has been compromised on this news channel.  The integrity of telling the full details of a story, listening and learning from your guests and keeping personal opinion at bay.  If you can’t do this, write a book.  But tell the news as it is, not as you want the people to think it is.  It was embarrassing to watch Sean Hannity yesterday with no one to counteract his “opinions” when talking about how the stimulus package was a bailout from the government he didn’t ask for.  He never asked for a handout when he was struggling and he doesn’t want one now.  Well, Mr. Hannity, President Obama ran on the platform that he would give America’s money back to us for the bailouts through these stimulus packages.  Did you forget to tell your watchers that this is what this money is?  Let me explain it to you.  Americans paid to bailout the auto industry and Wall Street.  The Obama administration helping us get some of that money back through the stimulus package.  I know, that’s just horrible.  

In the past few weeks there have been some other disturbing things said on Fox news about Obama being a tyrant which, in my opinion, put the most shame on the station yet.  I saw some of these things first while watching the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and then I turned to see what Fox News was actually saying.  Yes or no question, do you actually believe that Obama sat in a room somewhere with his council and said St. Patrick’s day should be called Potato Day?  Do you think that’s what he does in his spare time?  This was an actual question raised on Fox News and a guest determined  a few weeks ago that at his daughter’s school it is now called Potato Day because Obama made it so.  But last week there was too much “tyrant” talk for me to stomach.  Be honest.  He’s trying to do what he thinks is right for our country just as every president does or should do whether you agree with his policies or not.  You don’t agree.  That’s fine.  But to call our president a tyrant when his main agenda is peace for the world, getting people jobs and educating as many people as possible is just ridiculous and I can’t believe that you allow the people on your station, its guests and extreme leftists in general use the word tyrant so loosely.  As if you’re comparing him to Hitler.  That is not only telling of your anger at losing but of your ignorance in what your talk is doing to many impressionable American citizens. 

Were you suggesting that only now, in our 400 year history, that we have a president who is actually a tyrant and oppresses people because he is in love with power and power only?  Please, for your own soul’s sake, retract this argument and this word.  And be a beacon for American Republicans, not a disgrace.  The things you say are heard by people and they believe them if they’re not fully informed.  Get in your heart to do good rather than harm.  Help our country to come together, not to be torn part by hate.  When people protested the war, you claimed that people didn’t support the troops.  Propaganda has never been used so disgracefully in the media in my humble opinion.  To suggest that the people who are fought to bring our troops home and save their lives did not support the troops so that we would shut our mouths was the most ridiculous plot by a news station ever orchestrated and sadly it worked.  Again, this was something in which people did not support the administration on, but propagandist media tends to put words in people’s mouths. 

Fortunately there are a few balanced people on Fox News, like O’Reilly, who invites people to combat his own opinions on his own show. There are also those who aren’t balanced but have their own shows which don’t necessarily consist of real news but are based on opinion like O’Reilly.  Unfortunately those shows are the ones that those who lost the election like to sit and stew to and now they’re protesting getting their own money back from a bailout they didn’t agree with in the first place.  So have your tea parties, protest your heart out.  Exercise your freedoms which ironically is what your say has been taken away from you.  But wake up and realize that we have a new president and things will be different and that’s ok.  At least he’s not tapping your phone and allowing your brave soldiers to be taught how to torture other human beings.  You get an opportunity to change it in four years just like many Americans and those abroad had been screaming for the last four years.  But that’s only my opinion, right?