Tea Party - Take Two
As Frank Schaeffer points out in this essay on Alternet, this
can come to no good.
rage-full people do not care one bit about the consequences of their
actions. And knowing that any violence on their part would get
a violent response from the powers that be is poor consolation
when one is pushing up daisies.
C
can come to no good.
According to the "Tea Party" website, TeaThis could easily get out of control. I can tell you this - hopped up
Party Express II: Countdown To Judgment Day"
is underway. Here's how their website
describes it:
All throughout the recent Tea Party
Express national bus tour we kept receiving
calls from people around the nation who lived
far away from the route our buses took across
America. We vowed at the time to keep the Tea
Party Express effort alive -- and that's
exactly what we are doing.Join us from October
25th to November 11th, 2009 as we tell
Congress and the White House: "Enough!" Let's
stand up and stop the bailouts, cap and trade,
out-of-control spending, government-run health
care, and higher taxes! We're back and
determined to take our country back!
What will happen on their predicted "Judgment
Day"?
If you buy the biblical spin of the Religious
Right folks -- that make up the bulk of the
Tea Party movement -- the implication is
clear: Jesus will soon return, send all
Democrats, gays, blacks, progressives,
liberals, college-educated unbelievers, etc.,
to Hell, while saving what Sarah Palin calls
"us" "Real Americans" -- in other words
unreconstructed frightened and resentful white
lower middle class Americans.
(As a former right wing evangelical
anti-abortion leader who built a good career
from these folks -- until I quit in disgust
with myself, the anti-American nature of the
movement and the takeover the Republican Party
by extremists -- I know of what I speak.)
If you put the secular/right's
"tree-of-Liberty-must-be-watered-by-the-blood-of-tyrants-
Timothy McVeigh spin on the Judgment Day scenario;
then there will soon be a hoped for bloody day
of reckoning for the occupant of the White
House.
rage-full people do not care one bit about the consequences of their
actions. And knowing that any violence on their part would get
a violent response from the powers that be is poor consolation
when one is pushing up daisies.
C
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For those who would dismiss the "lunatic fringe" just remember. It was the lunatic fringe that brought Hitler to power, Mussolini to power, Franco to power and helped most of the right wing dictators in South and Central America.
These people are very easily manipulated by the rich and powerful to their own ends.
Do NOT underestimate the Lunatic Fringe.
C
October 28, 2009 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
It was not the lunatic fringe, but big business that brings despots to power. Hitler was backed by IG Farben, the national banks and overseas investors like Lindbergh and Prescott Bush. Mussolini and Franco had similiar support. Fascism was an investment opportunity. It offers cheap labor, war profiteering, prison manufacture, compliant populations, and high profit.
The teabaggers are the public relations face of big business. They help promote an extreme and irrational vision that lends credibility to pundit asshats that are paid to translate their limbic ramblings into English. They also represent the formative stage of brute squads and civic violence.
Just remember that they are not the power. Neither was Hitler. The power are businesses that abrograte ethics in order to satisfy their bottom line and live the good life, far above and away from us little pigs.
October 28, 2009 9:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am aware of businesses support for Hitler and the rest. However their appeal was to the fringe. With their hate speech and unrestrained patriotism and racism.
The whole fatherland thing.
C
October 28, 2009 11:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
And I am saying that support was window dressing. German Nazism bypassed democratic mechanisms and seized power by funding, terrorism, and advertisement. In the end, Nazism was a national majority movement and there were no democratic mechanisms whatsoever.
At the time, the Mark was worth nothing... So international currency bought a lot of unemployed toughs to don brown shirts.
I am just saying that it doesn't focus reality properly to claim that despots ride into power on the shoulders of a minority of lunatics. I am saying that when Hitler and other petty tyrants say that millions stand behind them, it's not people but dollars of which they speak.
The jingoism is appealing and safe for the people to believe in and rally around, but the formula for a dictatorship is more complicated. It involves destabilization, paramititaries, disaffected veterans, mysticism, and lots and lots of money.
So you are looking at one angle in fear. I am looking at several, and in a state of black dread.
October 28, 2009 11:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am much more worried about people like this compared to people at teaparties. C'mon guys - let's get our priorities straight.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33521953/ns/us_news-security
October 29, 2009 9:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think I underestimate since I saw some of them on my teevee lately.
Though--I looked at their website, teapartyexpress, and it doesn't appear to be the same people as the 9-12 glenn beck bunch and all. The most interesting member of the hierarchy ssems to be the asshat kenneth gladney. Temember the town hall in st. louis that got a bit violent? SEIU people were there, and there were some fracases (fracasi?). There was video, and police came, and Gladney claimed he was a victim, though the man who he accused of hurting him was THE ONE ON THE GROUND! He is making the rounds in a wheelchair; he had already walked across the street when the police arrived, but came back to make his charges; I think the SEIU man was arrested. And now he's toring with tea party express. And talks on fox news.
I love good Christianist bashing, yuou know i do. But I find about 10% tops credibility with frank schaeffer. I've seen him interviewed by several lefties who seem to find him credible, but I swear to god i don't trust or like him. He mentions leaving a good career on the other fundie path. It's no doubt true, but his new gig looks pretty lucrative! His website has long lists of speaking engagements. and as we know, the more outrageous you are in your rhetoric, the more gigs you can get, plus higher fees. Think sarah palin reversed. I'm just saying.
As far as extremist groups, the ones I may fear most is the zealous anti-abortionists. They have proven over and over that they are willing to kill people; terrorists extraordinaire. Brrr.
Remember the ubiquitous bumper stickers that said:
Come the rapture, this car may be unmanned. ?
A friend told me of one he saw, and I found online and put on my car:
Come the Rapture, can I have your car??? ;-)
October 28, 2009 5:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
You maybe correct Wendy. But I do pay close attention to these wackos. For they are the ones who would most likely start shooting and blowing things up.
I'm just trying to say "Pay Attention."
C
October 28, 2009 5:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeppers; plenty from the Patriot movements of the last two decades are just sleeping-rebellions-looking-for-a-cause.
October 28, 2009 6:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Noisy demonstrations by left-wing radicals are a very good thing, and noisy demonstrations by right-wing radicals are a very bad thing.
"Un-American!"
Thanks for co-opting that word for the left.
McCarthy got a lot of mileage out of it, and so will "we."
October 28, 2009 5:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
A terrible over simplification from a simpleton, no doubt.
C
October 28, 2009 6:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
What one needs to bear in mind is that it is not JUST health care and the bail-outs that pisses these people off.
They see their entire life style being attacked and regulated.
Don't dink, don't smoke, don't eat at Fat Freddie's BarBQ. Eat this way, speak this way. Don't call blacks the N word or Chinese the C word or Latins the S word.
Don't drive gas gulling SUVs or pick up trucks.
All of this they see as an intrusion to their lives and they hate it.
C
October 28, 2009 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well thank god that is all cleared up.
At least I will be in good company!!
October 28, 2009 7:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh for heavens sake!
Someone needs to take a switch to these people behinds and be done with it.
Ask the former wingnuts in Montana... they're watching their state get devastated due to what?
Oh yeah, global warming. The thing that doesn't actually exist
October 28, 2009 10:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Read this on Alternet yesterday... and got to thinking about my brother's neighbor who recently bought himself a school bus and then covered it over with dirt... hmmmm
October 29, 2009 1:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am much more worried about people like this compared to people at teaparties. C'mon guys - let's get our priorities straight.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33521953/ns/us_news-security
October 29, 2009 9:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
What these people hate the most is anyone telling them they cannot act in any irresponsible way they damn well please.
C
October 29, 2009 10:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
When you say "these people" - are you referring to the US Sunni's?
October 29, 2009 1:06 PM | Reply | Permalink