I clicked on a link from my Google homepage to a news article about the teabagger convention’s deciding it would put together an organizing strategy for national elections.
Generally speaking, I’m a marketing department’s worst nightmare: I ignore context, up to and including ads, banners, and in this case, even the website I was on. But as I read the article, I began to think that perhaps it was a bit clumsy for a news article linked from the front page of Google, the glaring apostrophe in it’s where it didn’t belong was a clue, so I glanced up at the top.
Foxnews.com. Oh. And then I got to the last sentence:
Don’t let anyone tell you this is not a big deal. If this gathering is unimportant and this movement is a mirage, why are it’s detractors so upset and it’s participants so upbeat?
Wow. Let me count the ways: second person direct address, editorializing (based on schoolyard logic, no less), and two incorrect it’s. The only thing missing is the phrase liberal media.
Honey, please.
Dismissing for a moment the grammatical issues, I actually HAVE seen a couple of interesting things on this front recently.
First, I’ve heard a story on NPR (National Proletariat Radio?) in the last two weeks about some of the Tea Party groups becoming harder to distinguish along party lines, as more and more traditional Democrats have been signing on. The documented reasons for their involvement in this reporting vast right wing conspiracy? Frustration with the entanglement of business interests, bailouts, and surging national debt. While I am certain that the preceding paragraph contains grammatical errors, I have no way of verifying if NPR’s story did.
The second interesting thing, possibly from the same story you mention above Dale, is the platform these baggers have been suggesting: “fiscal responsibility, upholding the constitution, and national security”. Strangely, they go on to say that candidates will be expected to adhere to the Republican party platform. This, of course, would eliminate all of the above except possibly (though certainly arguably) the national security one. Both parties are hopelessly beholden to various special interests to the point that both the constitution on and fiscal responsibility are notions of the past.
Here, let me help you.
Fiscal responsibility = privatize Social Security
Upholding the Constitution = gun rights, and only gun rights
National security = 24
See, it’s easy. Once you have the Secret Decoder Ring, you’re ready to Drink More Ovaltine and will see nothing “strange” about their adherence to the Republicans Party party platform.
Which is not to argue with your point about both parties being wholly owned subsidiaries of Big Pharma and Big Banks. But the teabaggers have no clue about changing any of that other than wearing their tinfoil hats and screaming about Obama=Hitler.
And finally, Sarah Palin. QED.
And furthermore, the post was a comment on Fox News’s pose as a legitimate journalistic endeavor, not a comment on the legitimacy [sic] of the teabagger movement.
However, my points re: said legitimacy stand.
Yes, I can see how the lines between Democrats and the teabaggers are blurring.
One day, Turff, you’re going to want to get that reflexive “a pox on both their houses” thing looked at.
I see little evidence of “legitimate jounalistic endeavor” at the national (or international) level these days. Agendas are worn proudly. To a degree, I find this preferable. I’d rather listen to NPR KNOWING they lean left, or Fox KNOWING they lean (topple?) right. At least that particular approach has a touch more integrity than Chris Matthews claiming to be a journalist.
If my pox is indeed malignant, I have no particular desire to have it healed. I find everything taking place in Washington these days to be essentially repugnant.