There is a lot of bad journalism these days, so it is such a relief that some brave souls are still out there, ready to investigate the important stories of our time. In the opinion of one such person, the important story of our time is, “What are those Tea Party people up to, anyway?” Most of us had already jumped to the conclusion that the answer is “Illiteracy” and “Mayhem.” We now have fully-researched proof of these conclusions, but why exactly did it take two whole years to get here?
When I started going to Tea Party meetings two years ago, I was sympathetic. Just after attending one in North Dakota in August of 2009, I wrote: “Most tea partiers are not bad people. They’re just mad. In many meaningful ways, today’s Tea Party attendees’ lives have gotten consistently worse for the last 20 years, regardless of which party was in power.” I concluded that trying to figure out what they wanted was a dead end because what they wanted was simply to complain—that the Tea Party “is not a group of listen and respond; this is a group of respond and respond.”
Two years of Tea Party functions later, and I finally know what the Tea Party wants: A Christian nation.
In the last year or so, in addition to going to meetings and rallies, I’ve spent an unhealthy amount of time on the websites, Facebook pages and social networks of Tea Party organizations and those sympathetic to them. While many are still active, many others have not been updated for months and months. Many appear to have fallen off in activity in December, just after the elections. Event calendars are barren. “Latest updates” are months old and unanswered. Those that are active are often just ugly RSS feeds, just a string of links to news items on Breitbart sites or Newsmax.
Someone get this person a large amount of alcohol and some Michele Bachmann-strength pills, because two years reading Teabagger “social networks” probably does irreparable damage to the brain. [The Awl]
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Well, duh, and they don't like black people too much either.
Listen to this several times and you will feel better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IjBi1eEaAA
Hasa Diga Eebowai
That was just beautiful. Today I R proud 2 b a Wonketteer.
A common thread on the Facebook pages of the Teabaggers is a message to Obama that we are a CHRISTIAN nation and that we need prayer and a moment of silence in school. Pray while you eat your Rice Krispies at home and arrive at school ready for a moment of "science" and not "silence."
Is that what is meant by "American Exceptionalism?" We are the last of the Christian nations and kidz praying away evolution? And, Barb, don't forget about guns — we gotz lotz of guns.
"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."
The teachers I know are praying for a moment of silence…but from Republican state legislators who want to cut school budgets, not from the kids who will be hurt from the Party of No…
A late great teacher friend once said in response to this idea of "a moment of silence" in the schools (I paraphrase): "I get only 50 minutes to reach these kids, and these people want to cut into my teaching time? No way. A minute is too important, and I'm going to maximize every single one of them to make sure my students come out of here with at least enough critical thinking skills to recognize that this is a terrible and stupid idea."
Don't forgot they also "want our country back," if the Teabaggers at my local county fair are any indication. From who or what, who the fuck knows? (A: the coloreds and fags.)
Well, too bad, they can't have it. But they CAN have the wampum and smallpox-infested blankets that the last group who complained about "wanting their country back" got.
You know what else the Tea Party is?
FUCKING OLD AND DYING.
They were the Cialis of the Republican Party. But, ultimately, they are two inexplicable bathtubs in the middle of nowhere.
What, don't you always have sex in adjacent enamel old timey tubs?
That is just the hawtest way!
Two bathtubs ^^ filled with pig shit and used dentures^^ in the middle of nowhere.
You really know how to make a fella happy, don't you, Lettuce?
From the article (pretty well written, I thought):
"Desjarlais is just one of a number of well-spoken Christian home-schooled wonder-kids I've listened to at Tea Party meetings. In Wisconsin, the most famous of these kids is Tricia Willoughby, a 15-year-old who gained fame after being shouted down by protesters when she spoke at a pro-Walker rally at the Madison Capitol in March."
I'm just sayin'… reactionary jingoism won't die out with just one crusty teeth-gnashing generation. Freedumb to cultivate stoopid and pass it on to their versions of whiz-kids will, like those impoverished in other means, always be with us.
Agreed… you can't fix stupid. But I am (perhaps foolishly) optimistic about the new/next generation. They may have the attention spans of fruitflies, but under-25s overwhelmingly oppose the war and support marriage equality.
They always have, they always will. But they don't tend to vote, and they do tend to age.
I wish that was true, but I'm appalled by the number of younger people that have grown up since the Raygun Regime that have been brainwashed into believing that Real America did not exist until 1981, and the Blessed St. Ronnie rode in on his white stallion to do battle with the filthy Communists and their Union Lackeys.
"I’ve spent an unhealthy amount of time on the websites, Facebook pages and social networks of Tea Party organizations and those sympathetic to them"
Five, maybe six minutes?
Such is the Tea Party: so cholesterol-laden and Rascally immobile that time itself becomes morbidly obese in their presence.
That story sounds like a weekend with the juggalos http://deadspin.com/5831225/dropping-in-on-the-de...
Careful, you might summon them.
I call bullshit. If he was involved with the Tea Partiers for more than 30 seconds, he would have misspelled more words than that.
This is, in many ways, the most disheartening of all possible core goals for the TPs for anyone with a certain soft spot for democracy. When 'politics' comes to be defined in theocratic absolutes, the glue which binds a democracy…and a people…together is dissolved and the only question left to be answered is not whether democracy will survive, but rather what's the ultimate body count going to be?.
Quite. If American = Christian, then by definition anyone who's not a Christian is not a "real" American.
Isn't that what they've been saying all along?
Dang, u-o-o, stop trying to cheer me up. I've been avoiding this place for a while 'cause I just couldn't handle the truth.
Hasa Diga Eebowai.
Tealiteracy!
In the last year or so, in addition to going to meetings and rallies, I’ve spent an unhealthy amount of time on the websites, Facebook pages and social networks of Tea Party organizations and those sympathetic to them.
One toke over the line, sweet Jesus. One toke over the line.
This reminded me of Zippy the Pinhead's maxim, "If you can't say something nice, say something surrealistic."
This is why we need to SHUT DOWN THE FAA. More airplanes would be falling out of the sky and, hopefully, landing (crashing) on tea party rallys and meetings. (Thus saving the world.)
For the rain, it raineth on the just
And also on the unjust fella
But chiefly on the just, because
The unjust steals the just's umbrella
The problem with planes crashing on people and things is, there's always innocent bystanders lurking about just waiting to be burned to a crisp. And with my fucking luck, I will be every single one of them.
The FAA isn't mentioned in the Constitution (or the Bible), so I guess they'd be cool with that.
Well guess what – the rest of moderate thinking Americans are also fucking tired of the Teatards.
I'm glad he/she found enlightenment. However, until we eradicate the shitstains in the House representing this fringe group, his/her statements are just interesting.
And since it's not my Birthday and can make any wishes I want I would ask the people of Connecticut to send Joe Liebermann's ass packing.
He's retiring in 2012, so wish partially granted.
We'll do our best, but no promises. We already sent Blumenthal, and they seem to be feeing up Bysiewicz.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Remove-and-Replace...
America WAS founded as a Christian nation. George Washington himself baptized 40 wild injuns in the freezing waters of the Delaware River whereupon they all contracted swine flu and frostbit testicles, the end.
Took him two years to figure that out? It was clearly all about White-People-Jesus from day one….
exactly- 30 seconds for us to figure it out-but after all- he started out as a teabagger himself so 2 years- hey, that is a high IQ'd teabagger
I had no idea there were high-functioning teabaggers. Good for them.
Hey Teabaggers!
A finstere cholem auf dein kopf und auf dein hent und fiss!
(A dark nightmare on your head, hands and feet!)
Well, at least Kim Simac (mentioned in the article) remains private citizen Kim Simac for the time being.
yet outspoken on the subject of public schools, as some of us will recall
I'm confused. How could you be sympathetic to the movement, but also concluded very early on at the same time that "what they wanted was simply to complain."?
Abe, the tea party isn't that deep. Really and honestly, they aren't. I fear you might have taken a dive into the shallow pool that is the tea party and bumped your head.
Don't be confused, it was a Dick Army, the right wing of the Republican Party or white simpletons in fear of a black planet.
They did hoodwink quite a few into believing the" it's not a party thing". There are still robots on comment boards pushing that kind of uselessly after all the anti abortion, anti union, anti Islam anti Mexican anti education anti medicare laws getting passed by the new teabagger governments. It was a grand attempt to corral those all important idiot *Independent* voters that get to decide everything in this country. It worked. So far.
This is a real eye opener!
Also, this chick could have saved herself two years' worth of trouble by listening to FDR fap for one minute in 1936. Also.
Not to take away from your point, but the author's name was Abe Sauer. The Joan Lunden lookalike in the article pic was a local Tea Party opportunist.
One good youtube deserves another:
Applause http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M1c7itPy3Y
Luxumberg?
Justin. Justin. Where is Justin now?
10 to 1, or we let the goldfish go…
Willoughby is an unstoppable home-schooled Christian-conservative leftist terminator—pure, pretty and completely immune from criticism. This is likely why Willoughby could be found three months after that incident at Americans For Prosperity's RightOnline conference, where, next to her teenage sisters, she taught a room full of middle-aged men and women at a session called "Youth Outreach." One of the sisters said to the crowd: "Barack Obama may have the unions. But we have the home-schoolers."
I was even more floored when Morton Blackwell rose from the audience to be recognized. That Blackwell, a member of the wildly powerful dominionist Council for National Policy and a Republican activist going all the way back to Barry Godwater, chose to sit in a poorly ventilated room and listen to the Willoughby teenagers says something both about the growing power of home-schoolers in the Tea Party movement, and about how the movement is desperate to cultivate younger followers.
And it's public schools doing the indoctrination?
Definition of 'indoctrination' is in the eye of the
beholderbewitcher.in Home schooling- unlike in public or some private(non-religious) schools- no one debates you or tells you that you are wrong(or fucking crazy- you could have heard that in my daughter's high school). You are also only hearing the stereotypes of anyone who is different from you because your parents aren't letting you actually meet/get to know non-crazy Christians, Jews, Muslims, Rastafarians(yup, my daughter went to school with Rastas), Hindus, Sikhs(our high school had kids from everywhere- but we are close to DC) and OH,NO- Atheists and Democrats
They're setting these kids up to bitterly occupy the fringes of society once the masses get truly sick and tired of their shouted refusals and inability to actually debate someone of a differing opinion, culture, viewpoint, outlook, experience, etc.
Yeah, well, Kim Simic got croaked in her recall bid/tantrum: 2 Wisconsin Democrats Re-elected, NYT. I still think that Wisconsin can/should fall into the Great Lake of their choice–taking Brett Favre with them, if possible–but good for them on this one.
"When S&P downgraded the United States debt, the political difficulties it underlined are embodied in Kim Simac, the candidate for Wisconsin state senate"
Who lost, thank you God
"An example of one of Simac's speech blurbs, delivered to huge applause:
' …while I don't have a degree in economics, I can tell you this, without all those evil corporations offering jobs, products, commerce, taxes to the American economy, this thing called the American Dream will find itself up the creek without a paddle.'"
Yeah…because those pissy small businesses don't give anyone jobs. Oh wait:
(Small businesses) have generated 64 percent of net new jobs over the past 15 years http://www.sba.gov/advocacy/7495/8420
Damn straight, and Bammaz has put in place several initiatives to help small business. Bammaz gets it, I just wish he'd be more vocal about what he gets right.
As it says in the article
The most active presences now are the Tea Party leaders who've gone whole hog with the movement and have nothing to lose in doubling down (such as Kim Simac) and the professional Tea Party organizers such as Freedomworks, American Majority, Tea Party Express and 9/12, who are, at the end of the day, simply community organizers for corporate advocacy.
Those fucks aren't interested in job creation. They're interested in profit. Nothing else.
Small businesses need to grow. Large corporations look at ways to cut staff without affecting the bottom line, as we are seeing now with the cash hoarding taking place in most listed companies.
I'm trying hard to snark here, but I got nothing. It drives me fucking crazy.
OT, but I really haven't followed Perry too closely. But, holy flying horses, this guy is a world class turd. Today, he's got his leg up on a haystack saying he will be the president who loves his country. Then he doubles down later in the day and, when asked if he really implied that Obama doesn't love his country, tells the reporter ''you're a good reporter, go ask him." Right, OK.
First, who was the secessionist?
Second, does anyone really think Obama doesn't love this country??!? He's a Harvard lawyer, with a gorgeous family and, oh , BTW, President of the USA, pretty much set for life.. Yeah, Wick, I'll bet he HATES this country. Every time he thinks millions of people voted for him and flies around in a helicopter, he thinks, "I will destroy this evil country."
And this forever.
Yeah, and all that trying to reform healthcare to make it accessible, and trying his best to keep as much social security and medicare in place as possible, and helping the EPA, and all those other things which are obviously just to destroy the country.
Fuck the EPA. I'll get cancer from the air if I want to. It's my god given right as an American. Why does Obama hate America and Jesus and the troops?
Perry's a dangerous kind of stupid. It's not just that he's stupid, but completely and utterly bereft of even the hint of humility. Prideful stupidity is the most dangerous kind of idiocy. I'm not quite of afraid of his chances at the nomination as some are, but I think his shit needs to be made an example of every single day of his campaign, and so far, the media is actually off to an admirable start, surprisingly.
That folks are morally bankrupt as Karl Rove and Rick Santorum are already going after him is a good sign. It's crazy that Dubya might actually be the one to save us from Rick. If Dubya has anything to say about it, Rick won't be the nominee. We are oddly fortunate that the Bush clan can't stand Ricky.
Was this research paid for with a soshulist Obamagrant?
we're going to need more lions.
OT, but this is amusing.
So I'm reading the Patriot Action Network website and notice they have recommended reading for "coordinating ideas" under their "start here" section.
"This'll be entertaining" thinks I, wondering whether they've got beyond a certain small locomotive with aspirations.
First suggestion?
"Books for organizers:
Saul Alinksky – Rules for Radicals and Reveille for Radicals"
I'm not joking about that. It seems that hypocrisy isn't a word that actually means anything to these fucking nutballs.
PS if you have ten minutes, watch their video on how Ancient Rome fell. Apparently it's because of government regulations and subsidies.
Not lead water pipes, Christians, and Barbarians?
"Alex, I'll take Christians Wielding Lead Pipes on Barbarians" for $200…"
I seem to recall that the Roman Empire fell because of insurance companies were forbidden from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.
That, and the teachers' unions and regulation of financial markets.
If we could hook Saul Alinsky on the left, and Wm. F. Buckley on the right, up to electrical generators, there's enough spinning in their graves to end dependence on foreign oil for the next hundred years.
I guess ol' Abe gets some points for trying.. for two fucking years. gah!!
We've lost — if we ever had it — the idea of a "loyal opposition". For Sarah Palin, Rick Perry and the TP'ers, Barack Obama and the Democrats are the enemy — in the military, combat, defeat-at-all-costs sense. "Take our country back" implies the country has been stolen; that it's theirs instead of everyone's; and it must be re-taken, as if capturing Constantinople. Why not say "win with our better ideas"?
America was founded by Christians and Deists, but it was not founded as a Christian Nation. The Founders had first-hand experience with the official Church of England. Experience that led directly to the separation of church and state embodied in the First Amendment. When the TP'ers are reading the long-dead minds of those Founders, they should also pay attention to the choices and compromises they made in the Constitution.
The argument that God and Jesus and the Bible are intertwined in the founding of America ignores the imperfections in our national story. Do the TP'ers really want to argue that the "the only nation founded on Christian principles" had to include slavery as part of Jesus' plan? That God's plan for the 13 colonies (and territory acquired since) was to decimate the native inhabitants with disease and war. That confiscation of property from British loyalists during the Revolutionary War was sanctioned by Timothy, 5:8 or somesuch.
America is challenged by powerful forces, especially those related to efficient, global transportation and communication systems. I work with people in India. I buy things made in China and shipped half-way around the world to a store near me. Cheaply.
We have great wealth. And, like wealthy nations before us, we're spending it to make our lives easier. That doesn't make us stronger, but it's how markets and capitalism work. Those are our gods and they have charted our future.
Wonderful. I'm soooooo going to steal some of what you've written, because it's so damn good.
Thank you.
Do the TP'ers really want to argue that the "the only nation founded on Christian principles" had to include slavery as part of Jesus' plan? That God's plan for the 13 colonies (and territory acquired since) was to decimate the native inhabitants with disease and war.
Yes. They do. Isn't that the point of Dominionism?
(But seriously, well done.)
Well, of course, I hate America- I am a Jewish female democrat (who has voted in every election since 1973- if only school board was being elected- I voted) whose father and uncles- the children of immigrants- fought in WWII- because they hated American too. And my grandparents hated America so much -they left their families behind and came across land and and then in steerage to this country- to give their children the chance to be born in a country without a king or Tzar- so they could grow up to hate America.
Teabaggers want to "take the country back" to white man racist rule -with white women knowing their place and everyone else way beneath them. It should be clear to every decent person- whatever their so-called political beliefs- that the current GOP teabagger asskissers are the ones who hate America.
Thank you for this. You lifted my spirits this morning by taking back the definition of a "real American".
That article just affirms my belief that there is a sizable population of people that live for the single purpose of being perpetually outraged.
Kid: “What are you mad about Grandpa?”
Grandpa: “What have you got?”
Fuck these ignorant, insufferable fucks.
Get these jerks, with their religion and homeschooling down IMMEDIATELY to Texas and then let it secede or rejoin Mexico or whatever……. Please!
'Most of us had already jumped to the conclusion that the answer is “Illiteracy” and “Mayhem.” ' To this I would add 'Inbreeding' and "An Almost Pathologic Xenophobia'.
See, there is a bad side to manifest destiny.
I am only surprised that anyone who can read and write would ever have been 'interested" in the ignorant, ridiculous "ideas" the teatards idolize in the first place. I am so suprised, in fact, that I refuse to believe it, I think this is a fraud. Noone capable of writing coherently, could ever have had a sincere interest or attraction to the 'tards. Their entire message is patently ignorant and incoherent, and can only attract the stupid. I am not buying this author's story, not a whit.
The author managed to milk this for two years – that sounds like a solid gig!
And while a significant majority of Americans, including Warren Buffett, think it would be a good idea to raise taxes on the rich in order to help balance the budget, 77% of the self described Tea Partiers are against the idea.
Amen.
Came across this gem too.
http://beeryblog.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/the-amy...
It's sad, the depths to which David Weigel has sunk…
The Tea Party, a Party whose time has come…..and gone.
If they got the state church they think they want, they wouldn't like it….
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