by Brian McAfee

The Muskegon Tea Party has scheduled a rally in the Muskegon area for April 15, it is important to take a look at them and their Republican cohorts to see what they are up to and what they really seem to want. First, of course, in worshipful homage to the rich there was the tax cut for the rich, 1.8 billion from Michigan's new Republican and 700+ billion from from the new Tea Party lead U.S. House of Representatives in Washington. Who are the targets for the billions in cuts coming from the Right in congress both in Michigan and nationwide? Planned Parenthood, a program that provides cancer screening and birth control for poor women will be eliminated.

The WIC program (Women Infants and Children) is also slated for elimination. Head Start, the primary day care for poor families that provides a safe and learning environment for children of the working poor will also be removed if the Tea Party/Republican plans are implemented. School breakfast and lunch programs have always been targets and continue to be so from the Right but now with the dubious ethics of the Tea Party/Republicans now these programs to help poor children are also threatened. It should be noted, for your pondering and consideration, that while most of the Right is staunchly anti-abortion they often show little or no concern for poor children as exemplified in their attitudes towards these programs.

Massive cuts to the Medicare and Medicaid programs is also a goal of the Tea Party/Republicans. Health care in general has been an area of ongoing lies, deception and misrepresentation by Tea Party/Republicans and the blue dog Democrats. The "they want to kill grandmother" and limit access to health care and doctors argument pushed by the Right against what they call "Obamacare" is, in reality, more Applicable to the Health Insurance Industry, the real middle man between you and your doctor in America's capitalist driven health care system.

I feel Obama has already made too many concessions to the HMOs though with a couple of good checks ensuring more access to health care then there was before. The Tea Party/Republicans seem to want to strip away any positive changes Obama may have made and go all out for a HMO controlled and driven system.

The Tea Party/Republicans have also declared war on unions and collective bargaining, having a minimum wage and the middle class in general. All efforts seem to be geared for corporation owners, oil companies, eliminating food safety regulations and environmental regulations and safeguards for public health. The actions, attitudes and desires of the Tea Party/Republicans are, at its core, Social Darwinist/ survival of the fittest in nature. Charles Darwin himself would be disgusted in the attitudes and conduct of the current right in Ameica.

Other areas of concern are the Tea Party/Republican cuts in the Pell Grant which makes it possible for poor and middle class kids to go to college. Also one of the Rights perennial scapegoats continues to be immigrants, I think most immigrants are postive in and for America and much of the Tea party/Republican anti Immigrant attitude and stance is xenophobic and racist in nature.

As a man of the left I would like to mention we do have a saying that pertains to much of this, "people before profits", it appears the Tea Party/Republicans would be, based on their stated desires and actions "profits before people"

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I welcome any comments or suggestions for further study. - Brian brimac6@hotmail.com