Tea-party delusion

A recent CNN poll on who really makes up the "tea bagger" movement found, unsurprisingly, that the majority of self-identified tea-baggers were white, older, rural and financially well-off men who protest government supports for other Americans.

These tea-baggers themselves are the generation that received high levels of government supports: from subsidized college educations back when public universities and colleges enjoyed broad government funding to the steady federal funding of agricultural supports in rural America. Tea-baggers -- many of whom enjoy Medicare and Medicare Advantage -- actually represent the America that enjoys extensive federal financial assistance.

Thus it is not socialism that the average tea-bagger opposes. In reality, tea-baggers like their own federal welfare programs just fine and solely want to prevent younger Americans, urban Americans and Americans of color from enjoying the benefits they so readily accept for themselves.

CLAUDIA NEELY
Monroeville