Joe Bageant: Tea Party just a media spectacle to distract us

[Speck Tater]

Run time: 06:17 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LD1qpZ6znU   Posted on YouTube: September 22, 2010 By YouTube Member: TheAlyonaShow Views on YouTube: 554   Posted on DU: September 24, 2010 By DU Member: Speck Tater Views on DU: 690

 
From Joe Bageant's site: "The Tea Party is a media spectacle to make working people believe they have power," Joe Bageant said during an interview on RT, a global television network based in Moscow, Russia.

On The Alyona Show, host Alyona Minkovski starts the interview by pointing out that 43 million Americans live below the poverty line. "For some reason," she says, "in this country, there's always been an assumption that the poor, or the underclass, are the non-white people that live in this country, and the fact that there has always been a white underclass has become taboo."

[DeSwiss]

1. Tell it like it is Joe!

K&R!!!

[teknomanzer]

2. Maybe most white people don't believe they are part of the underclass.

The main difference between the white underclass and the minority underclass is that for the most part minorities are acutely aware of their exploitation. Poor white folks are have been exploited also, but not just exclusively for their labor. Deep down inside maybe in the depths of their unconscious minds they KNOW they are being exploited somehow, someway - and that anger, that angst is also exploited for political purposes. Consciously they have bought into the idea propagated by the elite exploiting class that they are superior to minorities and have little in common with brown and black people; that they are the Real Americans and that they represent the authentic values of America. This is the ring in the nose with which they are pulled around with such ease. This false sense of pride and patriotism produces workers for dead end jobs at Walmart and cannon fodder for wars of economic conquest.

[RZM]

3. The anchor's comments at the beginning are ridiculous

'An assumption that the underclass is non-white' . . . who's exactly holding this assumption? Do they have a poll they can point to? I can only speak for myself, but I've been very familiar with the multiculturalism of the underclass my whole life. I'd be surprised if a single person I know said otherwise. I think many people would say the underclass is disproportionally non-white, but that's because it is. But there's plenty of 'underclassness' to go around and it hits just about every age and racial/ethnic group possible. Here in America, we see the underclass up close quite often and it's obvious to all that it includes many different groups.

Actually, I'd say this assumption is much more common outside the US, among people who don't have much direct knowledge of life here. RT is funded by the Kremlin and not surprisingly promotes biased and inaccurate views of the US, not the least their penchant for 9/11 conspiracies. The Russian state is fairly hostile to the US for historical, strategic, and domestic political reasons and the tone and content of RT reflects that. People here at DU routinely scrutinize the funding sources of our domestic media outlets and criticize accordingly. I hope people understand that similar scrutiny and analysis of RT likewise shows them for what they really are, which is a propaganda arm of the Russian state.

[HarveyDarkey]

4. K&R for Joe