Say what you will about him, but Old Man Jack Krier does have one consistent theme throughout his writings: blamelessness. It’s always someone else’s doings no matter the topic of the day. It makes you begin to wonder if it’s in the DNA of baby boomers, or just a really specific generational tick shared amongst a LOT of old people.
It’s also why I’m not surprised that the TEA party is predominantly old white people. Regardless of party, selfishness holds no real political party. But I’m fairly certain it’s a majority republican held ideal. Like the old adage “as a youngster I was democrat until I had something to lose then I became republican“.
What I cannot truly fathom is Mr. Krier’s staunchly held belief that things were better in the olden days. I’d honestly like to take the sepia colored glasses from his face, but I think there are superimposed in some sort of fever induced face/glasses melding. In a recent “column” (read: email forward) How wasteful the older generation Mr. Krier relates the tale of a little old lady being admonished by an probably young cashier that the older generation “did not care enough to save our environment”. This “column” then goes on to explain how things were in the olden times, before someone/something/probably the illegal’s dumped tons of trash in large piles, then called them landfills and walked away. How someone filled our rivers, oceans are air with manufacturing pollutants, which was probably fish poop and cow farts right? But oh no, back in the olden times people returned glass bottles to the stores, hung up clothes to dry and didn’t drive two blocks to get something.
It’s utter…to use olden time parlance…hogwash! How much of this attitude was actually dictated by the times and how much is actual mythical brainwashing? Before the mainstream use of plastics for bottling, wouldn’t it be prudent to return recyclable glass items? Especially since they were often BOUGHT BACK, you know that little cash value 5 cent/10 cent redemption on your bottles that resides there to this day? I have even bought milk in a glass container and had to pay a $5 deposit on the bottle, this was two weeks ago people? Am I now too doing my part in the whole “green thing”? Where’s my olden time medal of excellence in the face of political correctness/green police?
Cars have always been prohibitively expensive items. Not quite luxury items, but still every single person does not own a vehicle now, and more importantly didn’t in the past either. However, olden time cities are made predominantly for and cater to foot traffic. Compare New York City to Kansas City. You can bike or subway most places in the NYC without need for a car. Kansas City….well, not so much. It’s so spread out in KC that a car is a necessity to get to most business’s, and seeing as they’re cutting a lot of their mass transit budgets, doesn’t look to get any better. And biking? Forget about it! While there is an intuitive to get more back paths around town, it’s going to take a long while, and a lot of that is mostly just carving up existing not made for bike lane roads with a little “bike lane” paint.
Joining Mr. Krier on this TEA Party bandwagon is another old white man editor of newspapers Rolf Yunglas. In recent memory has been advocating that the TEA Party is just like the rest of us. Does anyone else get the feeling that “us” is inclusive? He talks about “some poll” (good journalism right there) that says that 51% of Americans think unfavorably of the TEA Party. He then goes on to explain that the TEA Party IS America, so why is it getting “co-equal” blame for the debt crisis theatre experience? Well, Mr. Yunglas, let me share something with you. You see, the TEA Party mistakenly believed that the soft head ambivalence of independents was actually a mandate to take part in a bigger regressive GOP agenda. Most of America, dare I say 49% or so, don’t give two shits about government until either tax time or election years. They don’t pay attention to the machinations going on in the beltway, and they sure a shit have no idea what their state assemblies are doing. So when the “other” party doesn’t get it done, they naturally just flip to the other side to see if that will work. Problem is, independents lack any fortitude to stick with a plan to see it through, that’s why it’s so appalling that many people just assume that one branch of government can somehow turn the tides of an economy in 18 months. It’s foolishness, and that foolishness leads to ever increasing poor decisions, and thus the TEA Party was given a small foothold in the House of Representatives.
Again, this wasn’t a mandate. But when that small group of small minded people took a chunk of the House hostage during the debt crisis theatre revue, they exposed themselves. Do you really think the GOP is going to let itself be burned alive by the likes of a “astro-turf” roots based corporate fueled “movement”? No sir! Naturally, they’re going to, pardon my analogy, throw that TEA Party nonsense overboard.
On top of this, it’s becoming ever so clear that the TEA Party has no real ideas, and the ones they do have are regressive and bad for the country. Also what may have worked two centuries ago with far less states and citizens cannot even begin to bridge the cap of a modern society made up of millions of people with various needs. It cannot fly in the face of the globalization this country fosters and it cannot turn it’s back on deals brokered in the past, regardless of party affiliation.
The idea to play chicken with our economy was a GOP idea. The TEA Party was sitting at that table, thumping along in time with the rest of the GOP Carnival side show band. I surely didn’t see any “left leaning socialist spend more tax more” liberals saying “Hey, lets just do nothing and see what happens,”. This wasn’t future debt that the beltway was fighting over, these were bills that we promised to pay, the money was already spoken for. The TEA Party and the right were ostensibly saying “Hey, don’t pay your bills…nothing’s going to happen,”. So the bottom of that argument not only looks insane, it paints a horrible picture to the independents that this “side” of the coin, doesn’t have the general best interests at heart. Therefore, they’re not so high up on these so called “patriots”.
If anything this could be a lesson to those of the TEA Party. As with most uninvolved participants to the game politic, they got had. To some of their credit, they realize this. At a recent Sarah Palin tour stop a fan asked her if she came to hock books or announce her candidacy. If she wasn’t going to run she needs to get out of the way. Good on you, Mr. Patriot.
Mr. Krier, Mr. Yunglas, and the rest of those right wing buffoons have a limited memory, or at least one for the truth. Sure, the olden times were full of simple things with simple people, but simple doesn’t mean stupid or unreasonable.
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