Chris Hedges: The Tinder of Revolutionary Movements

I believe "Tea Party" right now has as many definitions as the term "racist". It's all in the mind of the person wishes to denigrate another. I myself began my foray in being a Ron Paul libertarian by first espousing the Tea Party. I became aware of the dire straits in which the country found itself, saw that the Tea Party wanted limited government (a far cry from the gigantic despotic state we find ourselves) and then went to Tea Party rallies. As tiime went on I saw the Tea Party co-opted by mainstream repubs and no longer identify myself as a "tea-partier". But the original Tea Party, the "tea-baggers" as CNN called them, was not then the co-opted movement it is today. I still believe that most people who identify themselves with the Tea Party are libertarians who work too hard and long to get to read enough to understand the problem. Therefore if I denigrate someone I believe will ultimately be responsive to my arguments I lose a "convert", as it were. The tea-partiers I know talk libertarian talk, not "conservative" talk and certainly not "proto-fascist" talk. Just stop labeling people in a derogatory manner because it takes a hell of a bigger argument to convinice someone of what you believe when you have call them a "fascist".

Stopped listening when he labelled the Tea Party a "proto-fascist" movement.