Do you need any more proof?
I've been sick for over a week so I haven't been posting or reading as much lately, but suddenly I'm hearing rumblings about the possibility that the left could win over the teabaggers because they are angry too.
This tea party movement, this seething anger, is being driven and co-opted by Republicans. But at its core, the outrage isn’t ideological. It isn’t even necessarily anti-government. It’s just anti-this-government.
Those caught up in tea party hysteria are the kind of voters Ross Perot captured in 1992. Two years later, without Perot, these foaming, vaguely culturally conservative, middle-income voters went Republican.
But these voters, unlike their tea party activist manipulators, don’t give a damn about Edmund Burke, Ludwig Von Mises or Ayn Rand. They want jobs and a government that makes sense to them — that’s it. As long as Democratic candidates don’t explicitly agitate their culturally conservative sensibilities and can deflect the appeals Republicans make on those hot-button social issues, these voters can be won over with economic arguments.
Can we dispel that notion forever please?
Nearly 350 right-wing protestors crowded a New Mexico town’s busiest intersection yesterday to protest President Obama’s supposed anti-gun agenda and the “government takeover of our health care system.” While the event mostly looked like any other recent right-wing rally — complete with signs reading “replace the communists in DC” and “the sky is falling! A black man is president!” — what set this protest apart was that there “were plenty of handguns and rifles displayed.”
The local Tea Party and a group called the Second Amendment Task Force (2ATF, a reference to the ATF, which enforces gun laws) encouraged people to bring guns to the event in Alamogordo, NM, in order to “put a positive light on gun ownership,” said 2ATF’s founder Dan Woodruff. While the two protests were technically separate, they were planned together for the same day in adjacent locations. Otero Tea Party Patriots coordinator Don Omey said he was “proud” of the gun-toters. “That’s what we need to turn some minds around,” Omey said. Under New Mexico law, it’s legal for anyone over the age of 19 to open-carry a holstered firearm in most public places. And while there was no violence during the event, one protestor wearing a Tea Party shirt said his loaded gun was a “very open threat” to anyone who might “try to take over the country completely as a socialist communist [state].”
They want jobs for sure, but they think that any government which is led by a Democratic politician wants to destroy their freedoms and as we see, take away their guns. The tea party crowds are a FOX News/corporatist-led movement. What comes out of their mouths is mostly gibberish promoted by right wing talkies and not based in reality.
Has President Obama even mentioned anything about guns in the last six months? Michele Bachmann believes the GOP should be redefined by the teabaggers. Here's a hint for Michele. A good portion of teabaggers are made up of the farthest right-wing fringe elements in America. That includes the militia movement and white supremacists. They already are part of the GOP's base for the most part, only they want to take it as far right as possible. Since Gingrich endorsed Scozzafava, teabaggers and conservative bloggers distrust him so he's out there doing his best to suck up to them now, but Dick Armey already has his hands deep inside their pants already.
... are a political cancer. Eventually, cancer metastasizes and spreads, killing off the healthy cells, and finally, the host.
What the GOP, and even FOX News has been doing is the political equivalent of smoking eight packs a day.
Yeah, that was my first though too. So many of the tea-baggers are unthinking, ignorant wackos from Know Knothing Knation. The Republicans been pandering to them for so long without really making them happy, and now they're finding it difficult to ignore them when they need to.
So, I have concerns about wooing them to our side.
But, if it can be shown that there is indeed a sizable enough sub-group of them that just seek a government that works well, and that that sub-group can be wooed, I suppose I'm open to it.
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
teeny teeny teeny tiny tiny...
I've yet to see a teabagger who's impressed me. They nearly all appear to be racist, ignorant, ill-informed, and just hateful. And they don't intend to improve their conditions any time soon.
I've never seen change without a fire
And they can't spell. What a bunch of twtas!
Bite my shiny metal ass.
http://www.startalkradio.net/
I don't give a toss.
:D
I've never seen change without a fire
My recent confrontation with two of them on Amazon has shown me to what level they are at. It doesnt matter how many times or how many ways you prove them wrong, they will continue to insist that they are right, they are incapable of seeing any faults in their choosen leaders and they will readily misrepresent any and everything they can and immedeatly accuse you of dishonesty at the least little slip up. As for racist; all I can say is that one of them suggested that the reason more black people dont vote Republican is because we dont understand freedom or the Constitution, I'm not kidding.
When angry, count four, when very angry, swear.
-Mark Twain-
....is about as likely as attracting GOP votes on health care reform.
... called BIPARTISANSHIP that seems to be rotting Obama's brain.
Yeah, hahahaha!
....on the FB page, 'Conservative', essentially told me today that partisanship is a part of things, the way it works, and is the reality of the situation (but more nasty-like). Ok, fine! Have it your way, I thought. But she also didn't like me pointing out that a nice accompanying idea to her statement is that elections also have consequences, so, uh, what the hell is she complaining about? The system works!
Anyway, that was my Touch A Conservative Gently Moment of the day.
I'm just superstitious enough to hedge my bets.
... bipartisanship is a nice balance between liberal and conservative values.
In recent practice, however, it's become skewed, so that the liberals (Democratic leadership) are constantly bending over, trying to appease the conservatives and win them over.
The current GOP doesn't give a fuck.
So there's none of the necessary balance needed to make it a functional concept.
They have a dick army in their pants?
:D
I'm just superstitious enough to hedge my bets.
Indeed...lol
Now i really believe that you have been sick the last week.
Because that was lame ;)
Bite my shiny metal ass.
http://www.startalkradio.net/
I don't give a toss.
hope you're feeling better
put some of those Holiday Herbal Tea gifts to the test!
your name's Lebowski, Lebowski... and your wife is Bunny
someone pointed out today that the Tea Baggers are 100% white folk. [or so they believe - they would get a big suprise if they knew anything about genetics..]
this 'whiteness' of the tea baggers is not a normal distribution of skin tones in america, so it can't be ignored in order to understand the
movementbastards."Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
... that there is either Mongol (Genghis Khan) and/or Islamic blood in most of them, especially if they came from 'white' Europe. Both the Mongols and the Islamic Empire reached across continents.
that I'm a mixed-ethnicity/race woman of color, I'd find it impossible to feel at home with a movement that has no one that looks like me or has lived like I have.
Especially if the reason there's no one in the movement who looks like me is if the people of the movement hate people who look like me (i.e. brown people).
I've never seen change without a fire
Every teabagger needs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7aUAHOW6Ss
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
to own guns at the rate things are going.
Actually we are already the most heavily armed populace on earth and have been for a long time.
I figure what would REALLY get those teabaggers on our side is if Jane would offer to write a letter with one of them complaining about Rahm.
fighting each other and at each others throats is not a good situation.
In Mouseland, the mice united to drive out the cats.
"If the US government enforced its banking laws like it did its park regulations, we wouldn't be
in this damn park in the first place." OCCUPY.!!
these casuistic, sophistic, subliminalist sloganeering psychological button pushers employed by these insane rulers have masterfully dehumanized people?
Is that for me, or just a comment??
I dehumanized people, but I'm talking about Tommy Douglas and the story of Mouseland in the open thread a few days ago. (I think you got that though, right?)
"If the US government enforced its banking laws like it did its park regulations, we wouldn't be
in this damn park in the first place." OCCUPY.!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C570byQCLpI&fe...
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
The birthers and teabaggers are pissed at glenn beck too....amazing stuff!
http://americangrandjury.org/action-alert-for...
http://americangrandjury.org/?sid=030bc
Being batshit crazy just isn't enuf.
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
... and more important are the people who sympathized, but weren't wacky or dumb enough to make asses of themselves in public.
There ARE lots of Republican voters who range from disillusioned to utterly horrified by their party's antics, but who have been indoctrinated by Corporate Media to fear and hate all "Liberals", to view us as people who want to take away everyone's guns and money and give them to "Illegals".
It would be a good idea to reach out to these people.
let me know...They are a creation of FOX News...
Why? They bring guns to rallys. You don't do that. You bring guns to wars and hunting, gun shows where you can sell them, and club meetings where they are discussed and displayed.
They don't belong at heated political events. Passion and guns equals death. As long as these people do this, I won't go near them.
By the way, I am a gun owner and have been all my adult life. I believe in gun rights and I never, EVER take my gun to an inappropriate place.
So if there is to be any joining of the forces, the guns must stay home. At least until it is proclaimed throughout the land that some kind of war is on.
Give them all the rope they want. This is the 1st time I agree with Crazy Eye'd Bachmann.
What is your conceptual, continuity?
been a fallacy. It is partisans who vote the partisans in. Independents may share values from either side, but after 8 years of blatant neoconservative partisanship, even Independents were ready for a "real" change (which none of us are seeing enough of, yet)
As far as some teabaggers turning on their own. anyone who sees their nest egg evaporating before their eyes are sooner or later going to figure out the real reason why. This corporate-backed tea party movement has been finally exposed to these mindless pawns waving their flags and goofy signs.
All I can say to them is come on over with good guys!
LimpBalls
Al Franken got ambushed by Teabagers at the Minnesota State Fair last summer. He did a brilliant job and actually turned the situation into an opportunity for constructive dialog.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCNs7Zpqo98
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnCKfo_u6lQ
From the ones I know that will listen, they match the ones that stopped and actually were willing to let Franken speak. Middle-aged, politically cynical, economically hurting and Tea Bag Party so far has had an explanation for their problems. They will listen to other explanations, cynically, then judge. Sure. They are disenfranchised and they know it.
They seem to be in the minority of the ones I know. I know some young Republican Conservatives too. Young enough to be sure they know everything (not a strictly Republican problem!), and they are unreachable. Maybe in 15 years. The ones that went into the movement from the religious far right evangelicals and the white supremacists are not reachable. For them it is a religion and a way of life, and they are not open to hearing anything unless it is from someone they know and trust in a position of authority. And even then, as we see with Beck, it had better be a local authority with peer pressure.
The ones I know are in the south. Mix may be different in other regions.
Not all Republicans are raving mad misogynistic sociopaths, and not all Tea-Baggers are bat-shit crazy Palinistas. There are a fairly large number that are anti-Corporatist, that hated the Wall Street Banker bail-outs, that are fed up with unending foreign wars, that are fed up with globalization and loss of jobs.
These are the people that liberal progressives could make common cause with. The primary objective is the overthrow of the Corporatists from government and politics. Leveling the political playing field by banishing Corporate money could be a common second objective. Texas, one of the most red of Red States, bars any corporations from making campaign contributions -- that's why Tom DeLay got into legal trouble there.
It's not as if there aren't loony Democrats out there, besides the Corporatists I mean. One need look no further than HuffPost to find many Obama-nuts wearing blinders. I have to respectfully disagree with John Amato in this regard. There are people on the other side of the political divide that liberal progressives can find common cause with. We have a big job ahead trying to dismantle the Corporatist State, and we need all the allies that we can find.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. They just may need a bit of de-programming is all.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
-- John F. Kennedy
who can't handle having a black guy for president. they're going to get shafted at election time.
If notice, now that is has become clear the Teabaggers have turned on the GOP, Fox News and their pundits pretty have stopped talking about them unless forced too. Their own creation is no longer under their control and that can be scary when you have your own agenda to push and they may counter it. I think Fox/GOP are hoping that without their support they will lose interest and move on before campaigns start getting into high gear in a few months. After all any attempt to get teabaggers support is pretty much going to tick off a lot of moderates and undecideds (who tend to stradle the middle).
While that could happen, not exactly dealing with the best and brightest here, as this whole "movement" has lasted longer then thought it would. However, all it takes is Beck talking about them for an episode (and this will happen, he can't help himself) and the movement will be back in full swing.
they are correct about our freedoms. He hasn't done jack shit to give back anything we lost. If anything he has taken more away.
I'm not a teabagger but to thinmk that we aren't losing civil liberties under O is wrong. We hated bush doing it...and slowly and quietly so is O.
Bullshit. You sat on your hands because Bush was feeding your war lust. You cared not that he was stripping the Bill of Rights. NOW you're a patriot?
The people of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage." J.K. Galbraith
you are wrong to say that but that's typical of a an O apologist. Look at his record and tell me what has been undone? What has been extended.
sorry, our guy is bought and paid for and now we have to sit back and watch what it is like to have folks we thought were on our side act like Republicans.
Indefinite Detention. Once O took that step there was no turning back Bush
Then you immediately claim that Obama is taking away our "civil liberties". Honestly? Which ones? What is it that you can't do today that you could do a year ago?
Do you remember a thing bush rammed through Congress called the Patriot Act? The one that forces librarians to report on your reading habits without telling you, among many other attacks on Americans' freedom? Did you complain about that too? Somehow I doubt it.
Let's be honest, OK?
Do you remember Obama letting any of the patriot act expire this past year?
I just mentioned one, Civil Liberty taken away. Indefinite detention. I know it is a teeny weeny issue but us liberals tend to look at that as a wrong move.
Yes, I did complain. I have been blogging for about 3 years now and I slammed Bush over and over.
that as a "member" of youtube, that a report of everything that is viewed is submitted to VIACOM due to a court settlement between the two companies. Not saying that the government has anything to do with it but sounds a little odd. You can fact check this for yourself.
Do you have at least 80?
I won't do less than 80.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
I have 144. We are talking about cats, right?
Bite my shiny metal ass.
http://www.startalkradio.net/
I don't give a toss.
At one of the links provided by Think Progress, at the New Mexico Independent. Also, more video in a blog post from NMI here.
.
The irony here, which should be obvious to anyone who's been paying attention to how a society reacts to threats, especially as highlighted in the last decade with Rights restrictions and willful violations of basic human and civil Rights, is all that is needed is for one of these NutSacks to pull a trigger...
... THEN they will see their Rights restricted and possibly revoked.
THE TEABAGGER PARTY IS NOTHING MORE THAN AN OBSTINATE ADOLESCENT!
... Who's membership cards reside in the files of the Perpetual Victimhood Club.
"I'll do something real stupid so that you have to react in a way I object to JUST so that I can become THE VICTIM POSTERCHILD!"
Nothing but pure trash with zero morality.
.
Starve the WAR Beast...
... Feed Americans.
one word defines the teabag folks: selfish.
look very close at fox news and these tea bags.
they are selfish to the core.
they dont resist medical insurance for all because of losing their personal freedoms or gov takeover.
they resist because they are afraid of paying for someone elses medical insurance.
why are you journelists afraid to state what is so clear. tell it like it is americans are waiting for such a person.
as far as perot i voted for him i would vote for mickey mouse if he ran rather than these crooks and liars that we know have controlled by corp fascists known as lobbyists.
Thom Hartmann has had the same wacky idea, that progressives can join with the teabaggers on economics (which I think is completely wrong because the teabaggers actually believe liberals/progressives are the ones that screwed things up) as long as we stay away from all other issues. I have gone on his website and posted about how crazy it is and I would call him up and tell him but I listen to him while at work and don't have any way to do it. Considering how bright he is I don't get why he doesn't understand that the teabagger movement is highly authoritarian and can't be reasoned with.
Seriously, do these gun nuts seriously believe that their semi-auto handguns and rifles could keep today's US Government, with the backing of the US military, from doing whatever the hell the government wants to do?
I understand the original intent of the Second amendment, but seems sorta obsolete considering the weapons the government now has solely at it's disposal... right?
(From my blog)
I disagree with this. Here’s why.
1) The media always focuses on the most nutcase of protesters. This happened constantly when I was helping organize Iraq antiwar protests. You could have a crowd of thousands and the photos were of the craziest protesters with the most deranged signs. DJ, who posts here, lives in rural Utah and says most the teabaggers he knows are Democrats and not racists. That hardly fits the media stereotype – and that’s exactly my point.
2) The teabaggers are a real phenomenon. Sure, they are egged along by right-wing operatives. But they don’t like big government, don’t like the bailouts, and most especially really get really pissed when urban liberals piously lecture to them about their lifestyles and react in horror when they carry guns.
3) Guns are an part of rural southern / western culture and have been for generations. This is an issue they will go to the barricades on. For C&L to be aghast because protesters legally carried guns to a protest in New Mexico means they really don’t get it about a large part of US culture. (And let’s not forget the Black Panthers legally carried guns to the California capital in 1968, freaking out a bunch of people too.)
4) There is a populist upsurge happening in this country now. It will continue to grow. Populism has a long history here, it’s red, white and blue American, and ignores traditional political party boundaries focusing instead on the theft by a few from the rest of us.
5) The left must become involved in this resurgence of populism or the right will have it for their own. C&L does an extraordinary job of exposing the most rabid and deranged of the right. But they err in thinking that fringe represents all the right.
There is common ground. We need to find it, then work together on changing our current system of theftocracy with its plunder by a few.
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