(Written by an American expat living in the European Union)
Have you ever wondered why Glenn Beck or other class warfare prophet like him isn't a mega media star in the European Union? Clearly there are conservative parties in every country throughout the European Union but why doesn't Beck's message resonate with them? That whole issue can be summed up in one word and that word is hate. The American Tea Party can't get a foothold in the European Union because theirs simply put is, a message of hate. The simple fact is unlike America, Europe has turned away from hatred and division and united in a unprecedented peaceful historical transition that doesn't allow for union busting, preaches tolerance and provides universal medical care, paid sick leave, paid maternity leave and paid annual leave for all workers. Even low wage workers receive these benefits as a human right. In doing so, they form a trading block and political union whose population and economy is larger than that of America and whose new united currency the Euro rivals the US dollar for prestige.
In the meantime, Tea Party dominated states like Wisconsin are rapidly forming an international point of view that says the Tea Party's agenda is in the process of building a permanent pariah state, whose union busting intent is to add to the 59 million Americans without health care, 132 million without dental, 60 million without paid sick leave and 40 million living on food stamps.
This is the Tea Party's new American dream. Welcome to Tea Party America.
Welcome to Glenn Beck's America and to the United States of Hate Radio.
Why is the Tea Party, Glenn Beck and American hate radio hell bent on adding to the ranks of the 59 million Americans without health insurance, 132 million without dental, 60 million without any paid sick leave and the 40 million on food stamps. Why does the Tea Party attract so many haters?
Spiegel - A Superpower in Decline: Is the American Dream Over?
"Full of Hatred: The Tea Party, that group of white, older voters who claim that they want their country back, is angry. Fox News host Glenn Beck, a recovering alcoholic who likens Obama to Adolf Hitler, is angry. Beck doesn't know what he wants to be -- maybe a politician, maybe president, maybe a preacher -- and he doesn't know what he wants to do either, or least he hasn't come up with any specific ideas or plans. But he is full of hatred."
http://www.spiegel.de/...
Glenn Beck and the echoes of Charles Coughlin
Paul Harris guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 2 February 2011 14.00 GMT
What do we learn from parallels drawn between a demagogic Catholic priest of the 1930s and the Fox News host?
His radio show drew millions of listeners. His global conspiracy theories outraged some, but drew many others to his paranoid rantings. He dubbed the American president a communist sympathiser and supported a grassroots conservative political movement aimed at overthrowing two-party politics. He made statements that horrified Jewish groups.
This is Glenn Beck, right?
It certainly sounds like the controversial Fox News star. After all, he lambasts Barack Obama as a dangerous Marxist; his pronouncements on Nazis have caused a coalition of 400 rabbis to advertise against him in the Wall Street Journal; and his penchant for anti-America conspiracy theories on everything from Fema to George Soros knows no bounds.
But it is not Beck. It is, in fact, a description of Father Charles Coughlin, the infamous rightwing "radio priest", whose broadcasts in the 1930s disturbingly echo those of Beck today. Indeed, some experts see Coughlin as a father figure to the extremist broadcasting Beck has honed so well. Many commentators on the left, including in Harper's Magazine and the Columbia Journalism Review, have drawn a parallel between our own troubled times with Beck and the tumultuous 1930s that saw the rise of fascism and Coughlin.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
In continuing our European perspective, the British newspaper the Guardian has also published that the Tea Party led union busting through the efforts of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker are such that he has threaten to call out the National Guard. This seems to be straight out of a chapter of the history book labor repression against good honest working class American families in Wisconsin.
Wisconsin's Tea Party takeover
Led by Governor Scott Walker, Republicans are using the midwest state as a testbed for radical right policies. It's not pretty
Paul Harris guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 February 2011 19.40 GMT
First up is an astonishing attack on unions. As part of spending cuts ostensibly aimed at digging Wisconsin out of a budgetary mess, Walker wants to brutally strip-mine state workers' benefits and pensions. He has also launched a full-frontal attack on the collective bargaining rights of 175,000 state and local employees, allowing workers instead to negotiate only over salary. It is a shocking attempt at union-busting that has caused outrage – and scores of demonstrations across the state.
Yet, in the face of that, Walker threatened to call out the state's national guard. But union-busting is only the beginning.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
Why balance the budget in Wisconsin on the backs of the American working class in the Tea Party led class warfare? Why not simply raise taxes on the rich?
Obviously Glenn Beck preaches against having the rich pay their fair share of the taxes and the Tea Party following seem to go along with that. Therefore this leaves no alternative except for the Tea Party faithful in an act of class warfare to support balancing the budget off the backs of the working class. (You got to love that old time religion). Whereas progressives think that the Tea Party faithful should get some new religion that balances the budget simply by asking the rich to pay their fair share of the taxes and that offers a European style social safety net as oppose to union busting wherein universal medical should be the center piece of any European style social safety net for the American working class.
PS: This is announcing the launch of a Kos group called Global Expats. If you're interested in joining please send me an email or follow the link.
My email is: democratsramshield@yahoo.com