The tea party movement is disturbingly racist and reactionary, from its roots to its highest branches. On Saturday, as a small group of protesters jammed the Capitol and the streets around it, the movement’s origins in white resistance to the Civil Rights Movement was impossible to ignore. Here’s only what the mainstream media is reporting, ignoring what I’m seeing on Twitter and left wing blogs:
Civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis was taunted by tea partiers who chanted “nigger” at least 15 times, according to the Associated Press (we are not cleaning up language and using “the N-word” here because it’s really important to understand what was said.) First reported on The Hill blog (no hotbed of left-wing fervor), the stories of Lewis being called “nigger” were confirmed by Lewis spokeswoman Brenda Jones and Democratic Rep. Andre Carson, who was walking with Lewis. “It was like going into the time machine with John Lewis,” said Carson, a former police officer. “He said it reminded him of another time…”
There were many reports that Rep. Barney Frank was called a “faggot” by protesters, but the one I saw personally was by CNN’s Dana Bash, who seemed rattled by the tea party fury. Frank told AP: “It’s a mob mentality that doesn’t work politically.”
Meanwhile, a brick came through the window at Rep. Louise Slaughter’s Niagara Falls office on Saturday (the day she argued for her “Slaughter solution” to pass health care reform, though it was rejected by other Democrats on the House Rules Committee)…
So I’m having a hard time tonight trying to believe almost uniformly white tea partiers are anything other than a racist, right-wing reaction to the election of an African American president who brings with him feminists and gays (even if he doesn’t do as much for them as they would ideally like). I’m having a hard time seeing the tea partiers as anything other than the spawn of George Wallace racism – the movement Pat Buchanan bragged to me that Richard Nixon made his own…
Anyone pretending to be surprised?
if I had a tea party I’d invite Alice and ware a hat.
Anyone pretending to be surprised?
nope, the haters need something to rally behind
Every Tea Party needs some Mad Haters
A MN Tea Party event in MN involved the same racist/homophobic and in this event xenophobic comments a few months ago (I went there out of curiosity). I hate to incite the Godwin Rule on my comment, but if these folks were wearing brown shirts and swastikas, you couldn’t tell the difference.
It’s surprising how many nutjobs are out there. The right wing lie machine has people so riled-up that they are losing their minds. I can understand disagreement, but I don’t understand ignoring facts.
Note to right wingers: Your parents told you about the boogie man in order to scare and control you.
And they don’t know the first thing about how to dress. Pearl necklace with that skin color? At least Sarah looks contemporary.
Great quote Truthy!
Daniel chptr 11 and this-
Isaiah:3:12-As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead you cause you to err, and destroy the way of your paths. From daniel to revelations never before has prophecy matched as it does today.
Alinsky’s ‘Rules for Radicals’, Tactic #13:
13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.
Well based on this argument, liberals are all a bunch of Jew-haters, and Christian haters, too.
This
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SCs6pSE8_I
So the incident in question was caught on video, and it turns out they are lying. Pretty sad for a heroic civil rights guy like John Lewis.
This author doesn’t know what she’s talking about. The Slaughter rule passed both the Rules Committee and the House as a whole. Or perhaps she is just being deliberately deceptive in saying that a few Democrats on the Rules COmmttee opposed it, implying ti was shot down.
Is it fair to assume that most visitors to this blog listen to John C. Dvorak and respect, if not agree, with many of his opinions? I do. That said, I will side with John and agree with him in his assertion that the state of our country is hopeless. Especially if so many of the comments I read here are representative of the views held by average Americans. I’m not involved in the tea party movement but what rational person can argue with the fact that there is no fiscal accountability in Washington? As for the supposition that tea party activists are racists, consider this: there may be a few in the crowd. Are there not racists in the Democratic and Republican parties? Certainly. Moreover, are we so ignorant and naive as to not consider that there may be provocateurs in the crowd chanting these racial slurs?
Divide et impera. <- If we understand this, maybe there will be hope. Like John, I'm doubtful.
Ya know the economy is fucked, politicians are corrupt, and we seem like we are going to fall apart as a country before 2020. Might as well get REAL national healthcare, even if the government cant afford it. After all they can barely afford anything else, yet they STILL were able give zillions to banks and car companies.
If the country is going to fail then fucking LET IT HAPPEN already, maybe a health care plan will speed that process up? then we can pick up the pieces and start over, and maybe, just maybe learn from our mistakes in the past 200+ years.
Democrats really shouldn’t throw stones considering that a top Democratic Party leader is a proud member (and leader) of the Ku Klux Klan and to this day still refers to Americans of African ancestry as the N Word.
Another regressive playing the race card.
Dude this isn’t about race. The divide is between those who think they can get a free ride off everybody else and those who think the money is running out.
MikeN said,
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-SCs6pSE8_I
So the incident in question was caught on video, and it turns out they are lying. Pretty sad for a heroic civil rights guy like John Lewis.
yep that video totally follows him every step of the way… oh wait, it doesn’t…
So if he was lying does that mean that the people who claimed that whoever said the racial slur was booed were also lying?
The lame so-called “Tea Party” doesn’t even know anything about history. Thinking it’s the same as the merchants who one opposed the British Crown’s import of cheaper goods (mainly tea). While at the same time imposing a tax on domestically sold goods. The Stamp Act. How the h*ll does that have anything to do with health care. Ben Franklin started modern medicine in the US. And I’m sure he hoped it would eventually be available to all. And not just the richest who can afford it.
If anything. These people are much more like the third of colonial America, the Loyalists, who supported the Crown. And did support any change in government, for the good of all. They were all doing quite well, under British rule. And that’s likely the case of many of these “Tea Partiers”. They’re doing quite well, exploiting the system everyone else is paying for. So why reform it, so that much more of America benefits from good health care? And they have to sacrifice a bit of the excess and profit?
I just realized something, seeing the Palin-Bachmann photo. America has had that compass change, we’ve heard was coming. Only it’s poliitical. These gals are the Wicked Witches of the North and South. So who might be the good witches of the East and West?
Don’t you get it? We are T-partiers and we can do anything we please. Isn’t that the whole idea behind the original event that gave us our name?
For the record, we can use any means, any argument, any tone of voice, any blather, any non sequitur, any decibel level and any spare baseball bat to drive our points home because, goddammit, we are absolutely right in everything we say and fuch you if you disagree, you mutt.
Fascism was supposed to have been killed off in the 1940s!
Obviously it is re-emerging in 2010 U.S.A. Although the Yanks never had much to do with that, as they didn’t get into WW2 until 1942 not 1939 much of the rest of the world did.
When will these Dickheads ever grow-up?
I am outraged but even more, embarassed that I am a member of the same country as these ignorant people. I wrote about this last night in my blog – http://penguindroppings.blogspot.com/2010/03/what-disgrace.html because of how indignant I was. This is hatred but points to the “sheeple” who are a part of this movement…
#52 Fascism was supposed to have been killed off in the 1940s!
You give people too much credit. Remember, public anarchy is only 3 meals away (think day 3 of an earth quake in major city under a Bush administration).
Anyway, the Tea Boogers draw in hair trigger right wingers looking for anything to justify channeling their racism and bigotry.
As pointed out earlier, most have no clue what they’re protesting.
So now Fox has moved from info babes to Candidate babes?
I’ve voting for the democrats now they’re gonna run strippers.
I’d like to get them both in a pile.
Tea Baggers STEAMED, they paid $100,00 and all Palin gave them was a HAND JOB ! But the racial epithets show that the Repukes still have their WHITE SHEETS AND HOODS IN THEIR CLOSETS !!!
#7 >We all know that Republicans are stupid as >the day is long but this is just amazing.
>Any Republicans here to support the teabaggers? >Come on, out of your holes and give us your >best shot.
Why do you think Republicans are stupid? Are you some kind of moran party freak? It doesn’t make a shite what party someone is from, the parties all suck. People are so freakin’ stupid to classify other people as to their “party” it makes me wonder how they grew enough brain to type here. Why don’t you get an independent brain and think for yourself? If you’re a “liberal” and voted for that moran who is currently president, you deserve him. Go get a brain and vote with it, not according to some stupid party line. Do people still pull that “vote Democratic party” button? And you call Republicans “stupid.” Geez.
Maybe #7 thinks that some Republicans are stupid because some of them have such a hard time with spelling. Even the small words like “moron”. If you’re going to defend your intelligence and call someone a moron, you should probably spell it correctly. It just looks better that way.