Thursday, April 15, 2010

Let's get the "Tea Party" to "Trade Places"


"Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated" the New York Times headline screams across the April 14, 2010 front page of the Politics section.


I find that statement startlingly surprising. Who could have possibly guessed--let alone designed a poll to determine--that people bitching about the current administration would be "Republican, white, male, married and older than 45. They hold more conservative views on a range of issues than Republicans generally. They are also more likely to describe themselves as "very conservative” and President Obama as “very liberal.” "

Do you remember the 1983 movie "Trading Places" with Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy? If not, do some research. We'll come back to this.

These are people whom I view as having the "most entitled" attitude of anyone on the planet. Whether Daddy paid for their education and gave them a job after graduation, or they did it by hard work, they don't want anyone else to be successful. In other words, they don't want anyone climbing up the ladder behind them. In fact, the Times article states that this movement came to light about a year ago to protest the economic stimulus package, oppose Democrats' efforts on the "economy, environment and health care," and to throw out members of the Republican party who are not, well, Republican enough.

The other day I heard a woman from some obscure (because I personally had not heard of it!) organization of right-wing women (presumably the wives of the Tea Party members) claiming on public radio that "it is the entitlement [programs] that will bankrupt this country." She obviously has never taken a look at the actual federal budget(see pie chart above), because when confronted by a caller who asked about the huge defense spending portion of the budget, she simply scoffed. "Scoffing," I have found, is largely a conservative response/sound/noise/attitude. If you want to see how the federal budget is cut up, there are a number of resources; War Resisters League http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm and True Majority (their pie chart in this article) http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm are my two favorites. (Of course they are liberal resources!)

I'm seriously tired of politics and politicians and entitlement attitudes and out-of-control budgets in a government entity (take Pentagon 101) that could not pass an audit because a) they have never been accountable and their books are fiction, and b) any ethical auditor attempting justice would disappear from the face of the earth.

So I'm proposing this. Anyone who has more than a million dollars in any kind of liquid form (in other words, the money is NOT his employees' pension) will be ordered to Trade Places with a person who is living at or below the poverty level in this country. They will do this for a minimum of one year. At the end of that time, if they have not been enlightened, they're doomed to repeat the year.

Now that you've done your homework, you should know about "Trading Places." Filthy rich and unethical Wall Street tycoons Randolph and Mortimer Duke make a bet. Randolph believes that if they make their brilliant white protege, Louis Winthorpe, III (Aykroyd) trade places with panhandling streetwise Billy Ray Valentine (Murphy), they can also reverse their lots in life, their attitudes and their own "people" will turn on them. "Louis" becomes "Louie" to a hooker; "Billy Ray" becomes "William" as he dons a suit and tie and turns into the Dukes' black protege.

Lots of twists and turns and interesting events and developments as Winthorpe and Valentine re-develop and the plan works out much differently than the Dukes had planned. The bottom line is this: Even though Louis and Billy Ray start from very different backgrounds, they do change, but they eventually realize they've been screwed with, resent it and become allies against the machine. (Oh, quit whining about my ruining the ending! If you've not watched this 27-year-old movie at this point, you deserve to have the plot exposed!) Sounds cliché, but it's a great story with great actors, very funny, and has a great moral.

Walk in the other guy's shoes. Perhaps then the politics will make way for the real work we need to do...together...without the entitlements.

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