If you listen to Speaker Boner, Paul Ryan, Batshit Crazy Michele Bachmann or any of the other Teabaggers in congress, nothing is off the table when it comes to spending and deficit reduction. Not Social Security. Not PBS. Not Medicare. Not even the Pentagon.
But NASCAR sponsorships? Woe! Are you crazy? How can you even suggest such a drastic proposal? Minnesota Representative (and alleged Slut) Betty McCollumn dared to make that exact recommendation. This is what she got in response:
There's really no need to point out the grammar, syntax, punctuation or hell, even the blatant racism in the fax from this run of the mill NASCAR fan. Though my wife did get a major kick out of how the person we'll refer to as "Redneck X" had no issue dropping the N-Word or calling a freely elected female of Congress a "Slut", but didn't seem comfortable spelling the word "Fuck" properly.
I don't want to play the dangerous game of painting all teabaggers, conservatives, Pentagon Groupies or Nascar junkies with a broad brush, but does this not seem emblematic of sheer hypocrisy of the teabagger movement? I tend to lean towards this being the ultimate, comprehensive symbol of the Teabagger movement:
- Complete misuse of the term "Marxism". I would think that the Federal Government (in this case, the Pentagon) withdrawing from funding a private enterprise (NASCAR) would be quite the opposite of Marxism/Socialism/Communism and all of it's perceived manifestations.
- Overt racism. I don't really think I need to point out the obvious do I? I mean for Christ's sake, what the phuck does the Attorney General have to do with this? Other than being black?
- So inherently Southern/Confederate/Red State. The FBI is investigating this (OK, by proxy Holder is involved AFTER the fact) and let's just say, I'll be 100% shocked if it's found that this fax originated in Vermont.
- 100% absence of facts. There is a news clipping, followed by a series of slurs and insults. No mention of anything practical whatsoever.
- No solution offered. Like every Teabagger demand or ideal, there's no inkling as to how to rectify the problem at hand, be it real (like Social Security) or imagined (Marxist N-Word Thugs and Rectum Sniffing Sluts trying to ruin your ability to watch cars go round and round).
The same troglodytes who demand that we keep the government out of Medicare are now arguing that we keep our filthy government hands in our private sports associations.
Troglodytes are enemies of the US Constitution!
Education to all Troglodytes!
Foreign and Domestic!
OK, so I know the Tea Baggers want to roll the clock back to the 50’s, but the 1850’s………….. really? The rightwing in America is completely lost…….. they’re not even in the discussion……hopelessly off message. As an artist I hold the first amendment right to free speech near and dear. While I don’t believe the fringe propaganda of the Tea Party should be suppressed, I do believe it should be marginalized. This is not a political movement, it’s the Neo-Nazis, it’s the White Citizens Council, it’s the Klan. Read the Southern Poverty Law Center’s report on the Tea Party and other elements of the far right in America and you’ll surely realize that this so called political party is nothing more than a gelatinous coating on the racist bowels of the GOP.
ReplyDeleteThat being said………… they are far more organized and effective than we are, or have ever been. They are able to elect candidates to national office, they are a sought after voting block, they get the job done. Who cares about progressives? Why aren’t Washington’s politicians worried about seeming too ignorant or jingoistic? Why aren’t these guys trying to satisfy us!? The answer is simple………….. we don’t fight. Now you can say all you want about the Neanderthal, redneck, Tea Baggers……… but they fight. They know what they want (or rather what they hate) and they refuse to give their vote to anyone who isn’t on the same page. Tea Baggers are vocal, they attend rallies, they vote, and they always know who their representatives are. Put plainly, they are more committed to the cause of subjugating progressive ideals than we are to seeing them flourish.
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2010/spring/rage-on-the-right
I couldn't agree more, I don't understand how during 8 years of Bush Rule (not to mention the preceding 8 of centrist traingulation and prior 12 of corporate facism) we couldn't organize a pick up game of tic-tac-toe but less than 12 months into the presidency of the first African American President, the Klan's reborn under the guise of "No More Spending".
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, a lot of the blame has to go to the Mainstream Media, I know this for working losely in the industry as well as reading up on ratings and whatnot - Division Sells. When Obama's crusing with 64% Popularity, that's not good for business. Not for MSNBC, and not for FOX News. Frankly it's part of the reason i think the Bush-Kerry election was so close: as bad as we all now know Bush was (and folks like us knew from day 1), remove yourself from any biases and it's painfully obvious that John Kerry was a fatally flawed candidate who had no business breaking 50 million votes.
But Rich I think the biggest reason that they can organize is the lack of internal dissent. For the most part, they're high school graduates of modest means, white and over 45. They cling to a Pleasantville notion of what America is and they get hard'n wet at the sight of Old Glory. Its not too hard to make a million midgets agree they want to be taller. The corporate powers that be are another topic for another day - the boots on the ground, so to speak, share very similar genetic markers.
Contrast that on the Left where, you have varying degrees of everything: Education, Race, Class, Language, Religion, Income, Age, Policy, etc. It's not as simple as galvanizing "Against the Marxists".
Yes........ I agree.
ReplyDeleteBut I also think that in certain instances we're so smart that we're stupid, as my old man used to say. In the liberal intelligentsia it's fashionable to be anti-group for the sake of being anti-group. Let's call it the anti-movement movement. Commitment and organization have been the tools of lunacy for so long that many forward thinking individuals recoil on instinct. We can't allow ourselves to be on the same page even when we're on the same page. It's frustrating to say the least.