Of persecution:
As anti-tax protesters organize tea parties across the country on April 15, rumors are swirling that a backlash is brewing.
Some believe ACORN, which has been under scrutiny for accusations of voter fraud, is preparing to crash some of the tea parties. But ACORN says it is only helping to organize dozens of rallies on the same day in support of President Obama’s first budget.
Speaking of the baggers, if you haven’t seen this, you’re in for a treat.
(via)
cleek
the comments over on that Fox link are pretty awesome.
the d-baggers are really itchin for a fight. and with tensions that high, they’ll probably get one, too.
i got a feeling the next two weeks’ news are going to be devoted to analyzing the actions and statements of a handful of d-baggers and the liberal they assaulted.
d-baggers
dmsilev
Seen somewhere on the net: There really need to be counter-protesters with cans of coffee, preferably Chock Full Of Nuts.
-dms
bago
Everyone caught David Shuster’s totally straight faced delivery of how (a) Dick Armey was leading a teabagging revolt, yes? Threw in a licking joke too. I’m amazed he didn’t go for the taint.
Dennis-SGMM
How could the baggers not be enraged? The Democrats were handed a solvent, smoothly-running paradise on January 20th and it only took them four months to fuck it up.
4tehlulz
If, tomorrow, I use a tea bag to make tea instead of letting it oxidize at teabagging meetup, do I hate America?
Jackmormon
Counter-protesters would just validate them. Instead, people who want to see the phenomenon or manifest their displeasure should dress really normally, behave like an average, casual passer-by—and point and laugh and then (and this is important) move the fuck on with their day.
The Grand Panjandrum
That is just an outright falsehood. ACORN is not under scrutiny for any such thing. They reported that goddamned possible problems themselves. Anyone organizing voter registration drives is required by law to inform the appropriate authorities if they have questionable registration cards. But I guess the misstatements of fact in order to keep the one of the favorite right wing talking points alive is too much to resist.
srv
I’ll get a black helicopter with ACORN painted on it, if everyone else gets ninja outfits with the Obama logo on the shoulder.
But should the berets be black, red or pink?
passerby
@srv:
Maybe the berets could look like an acorn top, get it? ACORN.
[feels silly]
4tehlulz
@srv: I’ll do this if you agree to drop hundreds of small sacs, each containing two acorns and tied together with a short, limp string, onto the teabagging masses.
Also, black, cuz of racism.
Ash Can
Seriously, with all this fearmongering among the teabaggers about ACORN infiltrators and RedState telling the faithful that they need to call out the "liberal frauds" in their midst at tomorrow’s bagfests, I can easily imagine these right-wing fire drills quickly degenerating into free-for-all melees. ("Oh yeah? Well who are YOU calling a liberal, you liberal?" POW!)
The Grand Panjandrum
@srv: Only if Cole or DougJ will make us a really cool patch to sew on the sleeve. You know, kind of like the Red State Strike Farce. We shouldn’t miss an opportunity to prove our machismo.
Mnemosyne
@Ash Can:
I think it’s going to look a little something like this.
Face
@bago: I posted this on the wrong thread, but it’s this quote which is money:
SGEW
Not to be missed: James Wolcott’s Operation Messing With Their Minds blog post:
I love Wolcott.
OriGuy
This wingnut Woodstock could easily turn into Altamont, especially if some of the militia types show up.
Thom Hartmann yesterday pointed out how ignorant the baggers are about the Boston Tea Party. The protests were not about taxation without representation. The British East India Company (the Walmart of its day) was exempted from tariffs, while smaller enterprises were charges steep tariffs. Thom read a pamphlet complaining that the East India Company was exploiting the natives of the countries they exported from, ignored their laws, and incited rebellion to get more favorable governments. Full transcript here.
Edit: The link above wasn’t for Thom’s show yesterday, but from an article he wrote in 2007, which he was quoting from yesterday. Worth reading.
zoe kentucky
Pittsburgh has been blessed with two "tea party" events this week– one this past Saturday and one this Wednesday. If I hadn’t been sick in bed on Saturday I would have gone, Ambassador Alan Keyes was there! Wheee!!! Local tv news (non-fox) coverage said that many people were there to protest the new increase in taxes on cigarettes– even referring to it as a "tax and tobacco" party. In a few short moments they interviewed people who openly hated Obama, talked about how much they hate taxes, showed a few people in Uncle Sam costumes. Didn’t seem all that impressive or interesting, they had the protest in an area that has few passerbys, no car traffic whatsoever. Their message isn’t clear or unified and if I didn’t know about the tea parties in the first place I wouldn’t have known what to make of the local tv coverage of Saturday’s event. Like most peaceful protests, it’s something that makes the protesters feel good, less isolated and alone, but does little else.
The protest tomorrow is in a downtown square and will probably draw small crowds on the one day that people are extra cranky about taxes– April 15th. Although I really think that the cigarette tax increase will draw more people than anything else, as there are a lot of smokers in Pittsburgh, sadly. Not a bad hook but doesn’t necessarily attract like-minded people with a right-wing/conservative politiacal agenda.
Balconesfault
Still nothing better than Anna Marie Cox the other night on the Rachael Maddow show, in response to Rachael’s musings over whether tea-baggers would turn their attentions to Republicans who voted for the stimulus package:
"And who wouldn’t want to tea-bag John McCain?"
El Cid
I’m serious — the modern U.S. right is losing it, and what’s either worse or better (depending on your perspective) is that they are, in my view, seriously, seriously, seriously over-estimating the degree of popular support for their craziness and anti-Obama hysteria.
I think they’re really cruisin’ for a bruisin’.
Oh, sure, they talk to their fellow Hannitoids and Beckists, and their white conservative Southern and Western neighbors, and they’re convincing themselves they’re representing a majority, though at present they imagining they’re the spark for the revolution.
But it’s just NOT the case. Outside their crazy niches, Americans are just tired of the bitter tantrum right.
I wish they would go away. But they won’t. They’re going to keep going and upping the crazy level until either the whole thing dissolves from frustration or they begin trying to throw their weight around where no one’s the least bit scared of their knucklehead brigades.
Tsulagi
From the tbogg link…
Oh, you can bet the RSSF will be on hand to ogle and sample that display.
4tehlulz
WHO WOULD JESUS TEABAG?
kay
@The Grand Panjandrum:
No one gets it, or they refuse to get it. It’s amazing, how completely stupid people are about voting.
It’s not hard to figure out why ACORN has to turn every voter registration card in: because they can’t pitch them according to their own analysis of validity. No one can. You have to turn them in, even if the name at the top is "Bug’s Bunny". You can’t represent that you’re registering someone to vote and then sort of cull the cards, all by yourself.
There would be a huge scandal if they threw one out. It’s illegal, for one. It pisses me off that not even one reporter will bother to pull up a Sec of State website and read the rules.
TenguPhule
Creamy Filling, B!tches!
Balconesfault
@kay:
No – what pissed ME off is that there are people who are out there who I have absolutely no doubt understand everything that you just said – who continue to repeat the Acorn/Vote Fraud canard.
Fox News is propoganda. It’s not a bias. Bias implies a tilted playing field. If Foxworld the playing field just disappears altogether once you get 15 yards away from the right wing endzone.
John S.
We are dealing with a group of folks that are largely unaware of the fact that the term "tea bagging" means ‘putting your testicles in someone’s face’ rather than ‘an act of protest against taxation’.
These people live in their own reality. Always have, always will.
Bulworth
@The Grand Panjandrum:
Isn’t this whole ACORN obsession so pre-election mentality?
Maybe the tea-baggers will talk about Bill Ayers again.
TR
Glenn Beck had a anti-tax guest pass out on his show live. Looks like his stupidity really is powerful enough to knock a man out.
Joshua Norton
Only if anyone actually thought we took the conspiracy nut talking points seriously. This thing has been a joke since the word "tea bag" passed the first wingnutter’s lips.
TenguPhule
Or Beck is going Galt on personal hygiene.
Mouse Tolliver
Two world famous teabaggers died this week — Marilyn Chambers and Jack Wrangler. I wonder if the wingnut teabaggers will take time out of their protest to honor their passing.
ksmiami
THESE PEOPLE ARE FU***ING INSANE. and really quite unhinged.
r€nato
On Maddow last night, saw b-roll of pre-4/15 teabaggers wearing buttons with the word TAXES and the circle/slash through the word.
Made me want to tell them, "if you hate paying all taxes, then maybe you ought to get your protest off the public sidewalks paid for with tax money. Oh, and it’s likely your protest was watched over by cops paid for with tax money. Go hire private security, freeloader!"
As always, conservatism is merely a way to rationalize extreme selfishness and narcissism.
The Moar You Know
@TR: You know what is really scary about that clip is that Beck seems to be the only guy who has a clue as to what to do. After it’s done he’s asking for help and his production people are just sitting there with their thumbs in their asses.
And I give him some props for giving the guy a hand and making sure he didn’t hit his head. Which, as I found out the hard way once, is pretty important.
Bootlegger
Wasn’t that an ACORN that fell on Chicken Little’s head?
"The sky is falling, the sky is falling. Obama’s cutting our taxes which means socialism, fascism and no more guns. The sky is falling!!"
Tony J
Since the Wingnuts have gone for the "OMG! ACORN plans to infiltrate our protests to make us look bad!" line, I’ll make a little prediction.
They know full well that there are going to be a lot of Teabaggers carrying guns, and they’ve done their very best to make them angry, paranoid, and looking for trouble.
Odds are, they’re hoping to get a Horst Wessel moment out of this.
Evinfuilt
I’m pretty sure 90% of "involved" liberals understand the best way to handle tomorrow is to just not be there.
We don’t want to inflate their number
We don’t want to be a target
We don’t want to give truth to their lies
I feel a lot of people who go tomorrow will be scared by who’s there with them. Could cause yet another shrinking of the Republican Base.
Halteclere
This weekend my father-in-law was talking about going to the tea bag protest in his small Texas town. The conversation went something like this:
Me: "What is so different about this year’s taxes as compared to last year’s that would lead to this event?"
Him: "Because this year our taxes are being taken away and given to banks to keep them propped up, with the claim that they are too big to fail".
Me: "Well, anything that’s too big to fail should be too big to exist."
Him: "Well the Soviet Union wasn’t too big to fail."
Me: "?????? Let me go see what my wife is doing…"
In hind sight there are a lot of good analogies between the current banking situation and the USSR that would have been fun to explore (both were based on unworkable ideology, for example), but at the time my head was spinning too much due to the logic disconnect.
Steve V
John and/or Doug — I look forward to your reaction to the DHS "right wing extremism" report and the insanely over-the-top response from the rightbloggers.
gbear
@SGEW:
That sign is incredibly full of win. Now I want to go to a protest too.
Brian J
I’m of the mindset that it’s not right to keep blaming the Bush administration for every problem that comes up or remains and/or grows as the Obama administration progresses. There is a limit to how, well, accurate that approach is. Of course, they haven’t begun to approach it, no matter how much the Republicans would like to pretend otherwise. Obama’s been handed a bigger pile of shit to clean up than anyone in several decades.
NonyNony
@Evinfuilt:
That’s pretty much exactly why these rumors of "agent provocateurs" are spreading through the right right now. The portion of the tea bagging crowd that wants to think of themselves as normal is going to be appalled by the Birchers and the Birthers and other folks who are messing up their nice little "sane" tax protest. preemptively giving them a crutch to hold onto lets them join in without getting too weirded out. The crazy folks must be some of those ACORN people they’d been told about trying to make the group look bad.
Where it’s going to get ugly is if one of the nuttier, angrier ones decides that someone else is some kind of Soros-sponsored ACORN infiltrator trying to make the group look bad or worse – collecting names for the FEMA-run concentration camps. That could start a mess. I wouldn’t want to be taking pictures or jotting down names at any of these events tomorrow.
Stefan
Me: "What is so different about this year’s taxes as compared to last year’s that would lead to this event?"
Him: "Because this year our taxes are being taken away and given to banks to keep them propped up, with the claim that they are too big to fail".
Did you explain to your father-in-law that it was actually last year’s taxes (collected under Bush) that were given to the banks? Because, you know, this year’s taxes haven’t been fully collected yet?
cleek
fortified.
Woody
If i was gonna crash one, i’d have a pair of truck nutz hanging on my belt…(scroll down)
r€nato
Nearly all of these douchenozzles will be given a tax cut by Obama.
And where the fuck were they the last 8 years? Oh that’s right… they don’t mind government spending (so long as the GOP is doing it). Just don’t raise that money with TAXES. Instead, just pick it off the magic Chinese money tree.
I really, REALLY want to go down to our local teabagger protest with a bullhorn and ask them these questions… but, no need to feed their martyr complex or inflate their already overinflated sense of importance.
NonyNony
@Halteclere:
Actually last night on the BBC World News radio program there was an interview with a guy who was once part of the IMF and is an econ prof at MIT (can’t find a link right now). He compared the current situation in the US to the oligarchs in Russia and how the IMF had to basically break a number of the oligarchs before real change could get made. He essentially said if the IMF was honest, it would be proposing the same thing here – that some of the Masters of the Universe need to be broken and thrown out into the streets to fix the system. But that the IMF won’t do that because it’s a tool of the US and Western Europe and so it’s just dithering around right now and proving to the world that we’re giant hypocrites.
Halteclere
@Stefan:
I did not – I was up against Fox and O’Reilly talking points for which I was unprepared.
Legalize
Dammit, ACORN spies have infiltrated my sign making operation! I’m ruined!
jim
It’s not just ACORN any more … their activism must be hitting a nerve, because now the evil mastermind Obama himself is in on Teh New & Improved Lemony Fresh Inquisition:
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/04/14/confirme-the-obama-dhs-hit-job-on-conservatives-is-real/
JK
The people attending these tea bag rallies are as deranged and delusional as Holocaust deniers and 9/11 conspiracy buffs.
These jackasses can’t make up their minds as to whether Obama is a Muslim, a socialist, or a fascist.
Fox News Channel has reached a new low, by providing wall to wall coverage of these idiotic rallies.
r€nato
That was very likely Simon Johnson, who has been getting a lot of time in the media lately.
Anton Sirius
@srv:
Rainbow berets, silly!
J. Michael Neal
You know, all these stories about people’s relatives make me glad that I spent the weekend with my father, watching hockey. Then again, he’s an ivory tower egghead.
JoyceH
@NonyNony:
They’re right to worry. This post was found on the white supremacist site Stormfront:
" Ladies and gentlemen, I think every WN needs to not only attend the April 15th Tea Party nearest you (I’m going to the Alamo in San Antonio) but then stay involved and help provide leadership to this movement.
I believe that this is the white revolution we’ve been waiting for.
It doesn’t look what we expected but this is it.
I’ve seen probably 50 videos on TV showing previous marches and what strikes me is that the participants are all WHITE. It stands to reason . . . we’re the ones being taxed to support Affirmative Action, Welfare and other worthless social programs. It’s our tax dollars going to ACORN and supporting the 12 million illegals swarming into our neighborhoods."
If these people show up, the birthers will be the least of the teabaggers’ worries. Over two thirds of the nation like and support our new president, and the opposition to him is talking about ‘white revolution’?
NonyNony
@r€nato:
That’s him. Very interesting interview.
Anyone who’s never heard a BBC radio interviewer go after a public figure is missing out. They usually seem to know how their subjects are going to respond and come up with questions and phrasings that strike right at the heart of the assumptions behind what the subject is saying and force that person to actually answer tough questions. This one, though, seemed like the interviewer was asking Johnson questions that struck right at the heart of American-style capitalist assumptions and assumptions about how the US government is supposed to work and Johnson would just agree with him and then go on to point out that what the interviewer was suggesting didn’t actually go far enough. Very strange, but interesting.
joe from Lowell
This is the sound of movement conservatives pre-spinning the failure of their protests.
They so totally woulda been huge, except ACORN sabotaged them.
jerry 101
I wish I could go teabaggin’ tomorrow. It’d be so much fun, but (alas) I have to work. I work for a public accounting firm, so calling off "sick" would be a bad idea because I couldn’t come to the after-work boozefest.
Plus, I’m stuck in the ‘burbs during the day tomorrow.
I’d love to make some signs and stickers to hand out:
"Taxation With Representation? HELL NO!!!"
"Teabaggin’ Anarchist"
"I Paid for that Sidewalk! Now, Git!!!"
"Government – For it before I was against it"
"Rescind the Declaration!!!"
"Just Say No to White Suffrage!!"
I think you could get a few wingnuts to wear stickers or carry signs with those phrases. They’re not known for their tremendous mental capacity.
jerry 101
By the way, anyone think there’s going to be a riot tomorrow? All these white supremacists and gun nuts running around? And you just know that some concealed carry fanatics will be packin’. Especially since these are being held in big, scary cities (lots of brown people).
Cyrus
Damn. I’d go to the DC tea party – not as a saboteur, just to watch; maybe I’d bring popcorn – but it’s being held downtown from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., and it’s hard for me to get out of the office in the middle of the day like that. Oh well.
In the late 80s or early 90s, P.J. O’Rourke cracked a joke that liberal rallies and protests were more diverse and well-attended and enthusiastic than their right-wing counterparts because right-wing activists have jobs and therefore don’t have time for protests. I kind of hope he was right about that. It’ll be great to see news stories about a tea party at the Treasury itself made up entirely of right-wingers for whom it wouldn’t conflict with their jobs: College Republicans, staffers on the Hill, founding members of the John Birch Society, and the total loons who waved signs about "homo sex" at Obama’s inauguration.
Michael
You forgot the green ones.
Actually there should be a poem on the multicolored berets, an ode to the Diversity Corps:
Green is for Gaia, which Nurtures us All;
Red is for Russia, Revolution’s first Call;
Pink is for Prissy, the Way men should Be;
And Black is for Africa, Beacon for You and Me…..
Mnemosyne
@JK:
Didn’t you know? They’re all the same thing. Soci-alist = fascist = Muslim. It’s been that way since the 1980s when the CIA insisted that the revolutionaries in Iran weren’t really Muslim fundamentalists, they were Commie agents in disguise.
Mnemosyne
Crap. I forgot that the S-word throws you into moderation.
Cyrus
@jerry 101:
I have a t-shirt that reads "Republicans for Voldemort," like a campaign slogan. (A one-shot joke at a webcomic was that he was a candidate in the 2003 California recall election. It was so popular they made a t-shift of it.) In college I wore that shirt to an activity fair or club open house or whatever you call it, where student groups could each set up a table in one common area to recruit. I wore it up to the College Republicans table and I was greeted with cheers. It took a few minutes for the only one of them who had read the books to speak up and explain what the shirt actually meant.
Mike in NC
Whenever I’ve gone out to lunch with a group of friends or coworkers, you can always pick out the Republicans because they insist on separate checks, which they thoroughly scrutinize to make sure they aren’t being overcharged a dime. Then they’ll more often than not leave the smallest tip imaginable — or none at all — regardless of the quality of the service. Such dicks.
Napoleon
@NonyNony:
Read Johnstons piece in the current Atlantic. He basically calls the US a big banana republic.
AL
It’s all the same to them. There is no academic application of these words, they’re just shibboleths used to determine that they are indeed the One True Americans defendin are freedoms.
That’s probably why they refuse to stop using "teabag" despite being pointed out how idiotic they sound. It’s a shibboleth now, and they are damn sacred to these nuts.
Pasquinade
Rightwing paranoia swings into high gear:
Mass Graves Phoenix Arizona (Mass graves being dug for Obama’s "Testing?"- Tea Party Alert)
Posted on Tuesday, April 14, 2009 2:04:03 PM by puffer
I wouldn’t put ANYTHING past our socialist government. Are graves being dug in preperation for "trouble." For those right-wing extremists? Stay sharp.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2228993/posts
Hob
@Brian J: Any particular reason you decided to share your disapproval of a hypothetical thing that, as you say, no one’s even really gotten close to doing yet? That’s the kind of comment that’s either so innocuous that it means nothing at all (like "I’m of the mindset that it’s not right to drive through a red light just because it was green yesterday; fortunately no one is doing that"), or kind of condescending and obnoxious and concern-trolly.
Robertdsc-iphone
Funny, I happen to think we’re not taxed enough. If there were a dedicated tax to pay for national healthcare, I’d pay it.
Even though I benefit from the Obama tax cut, I’d give it back if we all got coverage.
anonevent
@Jackmormon: As you walk past, walk up to one bagger, point at another, and whisper, "He says he’s more conservative than you are."
Jon H
Someone should organize zombie marches to coincide with the teabagging events.
Kind of like when the zombies (in Montreal?) ran into a group of LARPers.
– Jon
(Zombies are pretty played out by now, but a nationwide anti-teabag peaceful zombie attack would be a great way to go out on a high point.)
Bruce
@Michael:
That’s too much win for me…
i would follow with
"blue for the air…leave it clean as can be…"
Stefan
Anyone who’s never heard a BBC radio interviewer go after a public figure is missing out. They usually seem to know how their subjects are going to respond and come up with questions and phrasings that strike right at the heart of the assumptions behind what the subject is saying and force that person to actually answer tough questions.
Jeremy Paxman of the BBC once said that his unspoken thought going into any interview was "why is this filthy liar lying to me?" Paxman is also famous for asking the same question twelve times in a row when the interviewee refused to give a straight answer.
Compare, sadly, to the style of our US reporters….
JL
This is from the AJC.
We’re talking to all the affiliates. We’re trying to make sure they know Fox isn’t a sponsor,” said Randy Lewis, a publicist and organizer. “They’ve chosen to wrap their programming around the event.
Yeah right. 24/7 free advertising and FOX isn’t a sponsor.
Bubblegum Tate
@Pasquinade:
Jebus H. fucking Christ on a popsicle stick. What the hell is wrong with these people? And how long before they say, "I’m gonna kill myself before you commies can kill me! Ha ha ha, joke’s on you!" to really put the cherry on top of the sundae of crazy?
NonyNony
@Napoleon:
I’ll need to track that down. What was interesting to me in this interview was that he was comparing Russian oligarchy to American oligarchy and he was pointing out that even though in effect the same thing was happening here that happened in Russia, the two systems were implemented differently. In Russia, the oligarchs had power because of rampant corruption and their own thuggery. Here in the US, our very mindset favors the oligarch’s worldview to the point where they don’t need the corruption or the thuggery to get what they want – the people in power and the citizenry at large agree with the oligarchs at a fundamental level about how the economy is supposed to work and everyone just goes along with it.
It was an interesting observation, and the whole interview was full of stuff like that. For a short 10 minute or so interview, it packed in a lot of substance. I love listening to BBC interviewers.
@Stefan:
This is actually what I love about the BBC – everyone knows that they’re going to be combative. And it’s not like it’s a "liberal" bias or a "conservative" bias or a "government" bias – they’re combative because that’s what they do. It doesn’t seem to matter if the interviewer agrees with your point or disagrees with it, he’s going to hammer away with questions regardless of whether it makes you look like a buffoon or look good.
That’s actually why I was kind of surprised by the Johnston interview last night – it felt like the interviewer had misread the situation and instead of giving those really tough questions the interviewer was going too soft on him and letting Johnson take the interview where he wanted it to go. Now that may just be that Johnston is just that good at thinking on his feet, but it was strange for a BBC interview. (It didn’t really feel like the interviewer was trying to go easy on him either, more like he’d been given the wrong background and thought he was going to be talking to a "rah-rah American Capitalism is teh bomb" interview subject and instead got a "we’re even more fucked up than you could possibly imagine" subject. Strange).
carter
check out this supposed letter from daily kos — i’m safely assuming it’s fake, but that never stopped the wingnuts from rational hysterics before…
http://www.playboy.com/articles/the-plot-against-america/index.html
asiangrrlMN
I have one thing to say to the rightwingers: SUCK IT UP! You’ve been out of office for less than three months. Sheesh! What a bunch of whiny crybabies you are.
You know what my dad for his country (Taiwan)? He protested for an independent Taiwan. He was blacklisted from returning (would have been jailed or killed in an accident if he tried) for twenty-plus years. He had friends who were jailed for their involvement in the movement. He missed his parents’ funerals. Both of them. I remember marching as a kid on the streets of Minneapolis for an independent Taiwan.
Once my dad was allowed to return, he went and worked tirelessly for the Democratic Progressive Party. Eight years ago, for the first time ever, there was a DPP president. He lasted eight years. Unfortunately, he was not a very good president. Now, the KMT (think Republicans on steroids) are back in charge and putting all the DPP leaders in jail. Is my dad whining? No. Is he complaining about how unfair it all is? No. He is still working for change. Why? Because that’s what a real patriot does.
So, Republicans, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your damn country.
jjray
Top Ten Things A Patriot Needs To Do To Survive In Obamastan (satire)