Spouting Off About Camille Paglia Spouting Off Again

Today, Salon.com has their monthly Camille Paglia feature, where she opines contrarily about any number of things. Lately she has, in my opinion, been giving too much weight to the importance of Talk radio and Tea Parties. Thus, my rebuke:

I'm surprised Paglia can't spot the men behind the curtain running the supposedly-spontaneous Tea Bag demonstrations - the corporations and the folks at FOX. The Tea Parties are ersatz - protest kitsch - Disneyfied imitations of political demonstrations that would be best based on real anger. Like the post-1970 Vietnam War demonstrations compared to the pre-1968 ones, they possess a real cynical heart. If Paglia thinks listening to Talk Radio gives her an insight that other metrosexuals don't have, she's wrong. We listen to Talk Radio too, and we think those folks are way, way off base!

In California, at least the anti-Prop. 8 demonstrations have a seed of anger: the gays briefly had a right that was taken away from them. Like one sign I remember seeing: "Married October 22, 2008 - Screwed November 4, 2008".

With the Tea Partiers, however, what these suburbanites lost was the complete dominance they had from 2000-2006 over the American political agenda. Sorry, but elections have consequences! Urban 'enclaves' make up the majority of the country! Wake up!

The media does a dreadful job covering Tea Parties, but they've always done a dreadful job covering any kind of demonstrations. And if the mainstream media disdains the Tea Parties, perhaps there is a reason. Unlike academics, the MSM can't be caught mistaking gilt for gold, and it's hard to fake real anger.