"Palin, Bachmann to headline Tea Party Convention"

Palin, Bachmann to headline Tea Party Convention
This should be fun:

Tea Party Nation is pleased to announce the First National Tea Party Convention. The convention is aimed at bringing the Tea Party Movement together from around the nation for the purpose of networking and supporting the movements' multiple organizations principle goals. This event will be co-sponsored by other national groups that believe in a responsible and limited federal government that is responsive to all the people. National Taxpayers Union, American Majority, Smart Girl Politics, and SurgeUSA are just a few of the organizations contributing their talents and time to this convention.

Special Keynote Speaker for the event will be Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska (2006-2009) and 2008 Republican Vice Presidential Nominee.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1109/Palin_Bachmann_to_headline_Tea_Party_Convention.html

Palin's anti-intellectualism dangerous

Steve Haycox
comment

Published: November 27th, 2009 12:18 AM
Last Modified: November 27th, 2009 12:18 AM

A dangerous divide has been developing for some years in America, between those who are comfortable negotiating the wide array of knowledge and information sources now available, and those who are not. It is in many aspects a class divide, one side characterized by wealth, professional degrees, security and complacency, the other by shrinking incomes and high credit card debt, anxiety about the future, and anger at those in power.

One U.S. Senator, Jim Webb of Virginia, recently called this America's greatest present danger, more potent than our international entanglements, the financial crisis, health care, energy or environment. The "tea party" protests over health care and immigration policy are one manifestation of that divide. Another, related, is the current response to Sarah Palin.

Palin has become the champion of a new wave of populism. People attracted to her are outraged over federal bailouts for Wall Street bankers, resentful of benefits accorded illegal immigrants, incensed over the notion of federally funded abortions, and perhaps most disturbing, suspicious of education. A fairly consistent analysis of the Palin phenomenon concludes that she is the happy beneficiary of this protest coalition, having happened into her celebrity role by the accident of timing, a willing but passive instrument. But her willing embrace of the role of symbolic embodiment of protest makes her as much a generator as recipient of it.

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Throughout American history education has been understood as a pathway to economic advance, responsible citizenship and human fulfillment. But that assumption is subject to considerable challenge today. Yet it is still true that high school and college completion leads to higher lifetime earning. And the disadvantaged sense the truth that their powerlessness corresponds to their failure to understand government and other power structures. Thus, as Palin's populism encourages anti-intellectualism, it represents a significant disservice to the very people she purports to champion. It's a disservice that's a danger for them, and for American society.