The School Board, Sharks, Tornadoes, and the Tea Party

While waiting for last week’s Cobb school board meeting to get started, a little old lady sitting next to me explained that she and about four other little old ladies were on the anti-Common Core Team. They all had their little anti-Common Core signs. I asked where she got her information about Common Core. She said the internet.

I didn’t say that I was a French fashion model. That would have been mean. Lies to these folks are like tattoos. They don’t go away. If you thought that the “Agenda 21” anti-development foolishness had gone its silly way to oblivion when Senator Chip Rogers (NE Cobb & SE Cherokee) resigned, then you should read Jan Barton’s criticism of Commissioner Ott in the 7/29 MDJ about an East Cobb development plan along Johnson Ferry Road.

Back at the school board meeting, the idea of saving education by bleeding it to death was in high gear. They had already removed another 180 teachers, increased class sizes, and now they were going to vote to see how many math books should be cut out of the budget.

Cobb’s main assets are its proximity to Atlanta, a quality public education system, and good transportation.  Cobb Republican Tea Partiers have killed any possibility of maintaining or improving our transportation system. Now, they have taken aim at the school system and are calling lifelong Republicans Rino’s, socialists and worse.

How did this happen to a county of moderate to conservative voters? It’s all in the history of Cobb. The Cobb GOP used to delude themselves into thinking that they were all moderate country club Republicans like Johnny Isakson who were more interested in low taxes than goofy ideas. The Cobb Chamber of Commerce was the backbone of the party where greed was good and wacky conspiracies hurt the bottom line and weren’t tolerated.

Then there is the real history of Cobb. The late Cobb Congressman Larry McDonald was also the head of the anti-union, anti-civil rights, anti-communist, and anti-fluoride John Birch Society. Koch Industries founder, Fred Koch a close personal friend of Joseph Stalin (http://exiledonline.com/a-peoples-history-of-koch-industries-how-stalin-funded-the-tea-party-movement/, was a strong supporter of the John Birch Society with the money Stalin paid him.  But Birchers couldn’t get anyone elected. His sons funded the Libertarian party and also had minimal success. After seeing the homophobic, anti-woman Christian Coalition join and change the GOP, the former Birchers/Libertarians morphed into the Tea Party, and then they became Republicans too.

The worst part of the Republican Tea Partiers is the fear that this small minority has put into the moderate East Cobb Republican majority. Competent, moderate, Republican leaders are afraid to run for office because (1) Tea Partiers would call them unspeakable names. (2) Tea Partiers would show up at campaign events and act like monkeys that had knocked over a hornets nest. (3) Moderates of either party don’t vote in primaries. Since there isn’t a Tea Partier with a moderate bone in his/her body, the primaries belong to them.

This wouldn’t bother a Democratic candidate because this is what Democrats think Republicans act like. But Democrats tend to run in mostly Democratic areas.

Tea Partiers can’t be reasoned with but they can be misdirected. Next time one starts a conversation with the latest conspiracy, ask him or her if they had heard about sharks being transported by tornados.  The sharks are falling all over Cobb and gobbling up people and pets. It was in a movie. It was on TV, so it has to be true.