by Blake Seitz
In the early and mid-2000s, liberals and liberal organizations like MoveOn and Code Pink rallied against the Bush administration. They called Bush a war criminal and a fascist. In extreme cases (and on numerous occasions), they compared him to Adolf Hitler and expressed solidarity with, among other things, the Iraqi resistance (i.e. terrorist cells like Al-Qaeda) and domestic insurrectionists. They publically wished for failure abroad and revolt at home.
And they were championed for it.
The mainstream media showed few of the really inflammatory posters, and interviewed few of the really inflammatory protestors—those who wanted to ‘Smash the Jewish state’; who wanted to ‘Fight the rich, not their war’; and who claimed that soldiers who were ‘stupid enuff [sic] to join’ were ‘stupid enuff to die.’ Instead, these protests were championed as grassroots reactions to the failures of the Bush years. ‘Human progress’ had taken to the streets, indeed.
Fast forward to 2010. The Tea Party movement, of equal numbers—thus, representing a roughly proportionate number of Americans—is attacked from the Left as proto-fascist, bigoted, backwaters and racist. Their every motive is suspect, and their main motive, an antiestablishment disaffection brought about by decades of free-spending politicians, is rubbed out of the picture, in favor of throwing the spotlight on a minority of unsavory attendees.
Obviously, TV stations need to find a large viewership and keep it tuning in to make money. Scandal helps fuel ratings, so it makes sense that some Crazies on the Right should make their way into Tea Party coverage. But there exists a frustrating double-standard in American politics today, which says that Liberals can get away with things, and Conservatives cannot.
The Left prides itself on being inclusive and accepting of all of life’s diversities, while at the same time smearing their ideological opponents—reacting to their very valid (I would say commonsensical) ideas with nothing but contempt, sarcasm and often misinformation.
That’s a fact that deserves to be publicized.
