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March 23, 2010

Fox's Missing Adjective

Justin Katz

A quick observation from another article about RI House Speaker Gordon Fox (D, Providence):

Thirty eight years later, the new speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives is a bit more reserved in his choice of words — but not much — when he talks about gambling, taxes, public employee pensions and the difficulty every incumbent will have in a year when he acknowledges: "People are angry. They are hurting. They are scared, and they want to lash out."

Notice the phrase "lash out." That's an indiscriminate verb, an unthinking response. What's missing from everything that I've seen from Fox is any admission that those angry people have a point, that some of their complaints are valid and worth adjusting policy to answer.

Comments

It'd be a great quote to bring up at election time, after the Assembly session has closed. Assuming he does have an opponent, I'd think the common refrain would be to repeat his quote and then ask, "And Mr. Speaker, what have you done to help?" It should be a frequent and common question by November.

Posted by: Patrick at March 23, 2010 8:54 PM

Of course people should be angry! They've lost their jobs, their homes, their investment portfolios and IRA's, etc.

The more intelligent question is what they should be angry at - and that is where the tea partiers have it wrong! They still glorify the wars which created a lot of our debt, and they still stand behind Corporate America (in fact, they are financed by it!), who sucked all their money away at the Wall Street Casino.

Any fair look at the problems we are in will see that 70-90% of them are the result of the period from 2001-2008...which, coincidentally, was the Bush/Cheney/Neocon reign.

That is not a partisan statement. That is simply the truth. Unbridled spending on wars and tax cuts, combined with the complete destruction of the economy (good economy=more tax revenue) caused the anger.

It boggles my mind that the tea party, which is really the Republican Party (see poll today), cannot see that the things they support (war, corporate control of America) are the things most responsible for their anger.

Justin, maybe you can suggest how this can be driven home to those mobs? It was not black people and gay people that did it to them! No, not even immigrants....


Posted by: Stuart at March 24, 2010 10:18 AM

The libertarians who helped create the Tea Party are fleeing once they see how it's become perverted by corporations and demagogues.
As for the people who joined it because they felt disillusioned by Obama's lack of action, the Tea Party's behavior in Washington over the weekend reminded them why they supported Obama.
As for Fox..he's as big a tool of corporate lobbyists as anyone.

Posted by: rhody at March 24, 2010 10:54 AM

Where is the evidence that Libertarians are fleeing the Tea Party?

Put up, Rhody, or stand in shame for spreading another big lie.

Posted by: BobN at March 24, 2010 10:59 AM

>>Where is the evidence that Libertarians are fleeing the Tea Party

Perhaps the polling numbers that show 3/4 of them are pleased with the Republican party?

A libertarian who is pleased with the Bush/Cheney/Neocon/War party is NOT an libertarian in any way other than self labeling.

I know some REAL members of the local libertarian party, and here is some of their platform - see if you think it dovetails with tea partiers:

"The Libertarian Association condemns the Bush Administration's war of aggression against Iraq "
"We cannot long endure a huge underclass of people whose civil liberties and civil rights have been lost to the war on drugs. There should be a general pardon of all persons who were convicted of violating state laws defining nonviolent drug crimes"
"PEACE -Libertarians support non-intervention in the affairs of foreign nations. Our foreign wars should end; our armed forces should be brought home from around the world."

Those are not GOP values by any stretch of the imagination!
Rather, the GOP needs some additional members, so they are picking off the less educated libertarians with their "small government" BS (even though the GOP is for vastly expanded government, as we recently saw)

Posted by: Stuart at March 24, 2010 2:31 PM

Once again, the lying liberal states his highly debatable opinions as though they were facts. Who gave Stuart the authority to label who is a Libertarian, a Tea Party member, or a Republican? He certainly isn't a good candidate for that task since he doesn't seem to have had any contact with members of any of the three groups.

Posted by: BobN at March 24, 2010 9:27 PM

"the mobs"(Stuart)"the chattering class"(Schumer)Two examples of letist diddain for the people of this country.
particularly nauseatingfrom Schumer,who literally never held a job outside politics in his miserable un-American life.
Sheldon Whithouse has made it plain he will govern in what he sees as the best interests of the rabble despite what us hoi-polloi might believe.I hope he gets botulism from his next foi-gras on crackers.
I wonder if Stuart is one of our "progressive" state legislators.
Probably not,but one never knows,does one?

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