Back in the warm days of July, it is reported Michele Bachmann termed us "a nation of slaves," or said that "Obama is making us a nation of slaves," and the frenzied zealots doubtlessly cheered.
Watch it on YouTube. See if they cheered.
It got very wide coverage, e.g., here, here, in Stillwater where the Bachmann McMansion homestead is sited (see, e.g., here and here) and even the Brits picked it up for headlining purposes. My favorite online publishing on that sloganeering demagoguery, because of the site's title and its value added imagery, is here, (source of this trenchant screenshot).
As news it's old - months old in today's times is old news - but the phrase has stuck with me. It has reverberated about my mind as if I had heard it - or something similar - before. The blog troll made the pieces come together. This is the historic instance of sloganeering demagoguery to which the Bachmann viewpoint seems inextricably tied - slaves, chains, all that troubling but suggestive imagery used to incite mob reaction:
Yes it is inflamatory, yes it is working a troubled and questioning proletariat mob into frenzy mode, but what else is the Tea Party movement after all? It only differs from Marxist mob incitement by being aimed at co-opting angry prols into voting against their interests and voting GOP in a current election, and not for an all time change in how the world works. Marx and Engles appear under the lens of history to have had different motives for their mob incitement, we were not there and can only read the learned books, but the identical motivation of inflaming mass passion to challenge governmen - indeed to ostensibly challenge world order, that is plain and simple in Tea Party things - as plain and simple as is Glen Beck.
So, nation of slaves - contemplating casting off your chains, etc.; ask first, how, really, are slavemasters treating slaves? Put another way ---
DO THE WORKERS AT BACHMANN -&- ASSOCIATES NOW HAVE HEALTHCARE COVERAGE OR ARE THEY STILL BEING EXPLOITED BEYOND SUCH A DECENCY?
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Had the blog troll not insistently kept calling me a marxist, (without knowing what one is, I admit I too have not read Marx), I expect my mind would never have been jogged to make the connection among mob-inciting demagoguing misuse of rhetoric and of a rhetorical opportunity. Thanks, troll. Once you see it, you wonder why you missed it previously. The Tea Party incitement truly is nothing but the organized sowing of rhetorical discord among distressed and exploited prols. What does that make Michele and Sarah? Especially so for Bachmann, if the private sector reality is seeing workers in the healthcare community still being left without private sector employer provided healthcare benefits by the Bachmanns, intent on maximizing profit? Clinic workers back in 2004 had no coverage. That fact was reported. Is it still so?