“If the Tea Party wins, America loses”

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

"Fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding. And soon, your Honor, with banners flying and with drums beating we'll be marching backward, backward through the glorious ages of that 16th century when bigots burned  the man who dared bring enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind!" – Spencer Tracy as Col. Harry Drummond in "Inherit The Wind."

Keith Olbermann in a Special Comment made the closing argument to the jury as to why the Tea-Publicans are a backwards looking lot who are a threat to the long-cherished traditions and values of our democratic Republic and a threat to the future of this country.

Transcript Olbermann: If the Tea Party wins, America loses (excerpt):

You are willing to let these people run this country? This is the America you want? This is the America you are willing to permit? These are the kinds of cranks, menaces, mercenaries and authoritarians you will turn this country over to?

If you sit there next Tuesday and let this happen, whose fault will that be? Not really theirs. They are taught that freedom is to be seized and rationed. They can sleep at night having advanced themselves and their puppeteers and to hell with everybody else.

They see the greatness of America not in its people but in its corporations. They see the success of America not in hard work but in business swindles. They see the worthiness of America not in its quality of life but in its quality of investing. They see the future of America not in progress, but in revolution to establish a theocracy for white males, with dissent caged and individuality suppressed.

They see America not for what is, nor what it can be. They see delusions, specters, fantasies; they see communists under every bed and a gun in every hand. They see tax breaks for the rich and delayed retirement for everyone else. They fight the redistribution of wealth not because they oppose redistribution, but because their sole purpose is to protect wealth and keep it where they think it belongs – in the bank accounts of the wealthy.

They want to make the world safe for Bernie Madoff. But you know better. If you sit there next Tuesday – if you sit there tomorrow, and the rest of this week – and you let this cataclysm unfold, you have enabled this.

It is one thing to be attacked by those who would destroy America from without. It is a worse thing to be attacked by those who would destroy America from within.

But it is the worst thing to sit back and let it happen, to not find the time and the means to convince just one other sane voter to put aside the disappointment of the last two years and look to the future and vote.  Because the disappointment of the last two years will be the "good old days" in a Tea Party America.

This is the week in which the Three Card Monte dealers hope to take over the government —the candidates who want their own way, who will say anything to make palatable their real identities as agents of regression, repression, and corporate sovereignty. They are here, they have energized the self-serving and the greedy and the proudly ill-informed.

The commentary ends with the words of Nedrick Young and Harold Jacob Smith from the screenplay for the movie "Inherit The Wind."

The angered judge replies, "I hope counsel does not mean to imply that this court is bigoted." The attorney mutters, "Well, your honor has the right to hope." The Judge warns, "I have the right to do more than that." The attorney explodes: "You have the power to do more than that."

And YOU have the power to do more than that.