by Kevin Carson, c4ss.org, 3 May 2010
Medea Benjamin of Code Pink reports an informal survey she conducted of Tea Partiers at a Tax Day rally. The survey included six questions on foreign policy, including ending the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, cutting the military budget, and closing overseas military bases. Attendees split 70-30 in favor of an activist foreign policy. Even asking the question got Code Pink called “communists, leftists and idiots.”
“One woman spat at me and shouted, ‘Don’t you know that Muslims are trying to take over the world? If it weren’t for our military fighting in Afghanistan you wouldn’t be standing here asking those stupid questions.’ Another woman got so hysterical about the question on aid to Israel that she tore up the survey.”
Jim Bovard, in a newspaper op-ed piece, threw out this gauntlet: “Many ‘tea party’ activists staunchly oppose big government, except when it is warring, wiretapping, or waterboarding. A movement that started out denouncing government power apparently has no beef with some of the worst abuses of modern times.” Aside from support for wiretapping and waterboarding, common sentiments expressed by Tea Partiers included demands that Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions be thwarted and that the tide of “illegal aliens” be stemmed. One woman carried a sign reading “Proud to be a Military SUPERPOWER.”
This last was apparently a riff on the Palin-Obama controversy over his statement that, “like it or not,” we are a military superpower.