“Socialism” Charge Hurts The Tea Party
May 20, 2010 The Teabag Terror, The Teabagger Fail
DNC Chairman Tim Kaine yesterday:
“I think for most thinking Americans, throwing that label around actually doesn’t hurt us,” Kaine replied. “It suggests an extremism and an ideological rigidity that isn’t where most Americans are. We are problem solvers.”
“A party that just relies on throwing labels around and refusing to cooperate, they might get a headline but they won’t get support of people,” he added. “We are going to promote smart solutions to these problems and If the other guys want to rely on labels rather than roll up their sleeves and actually help us govern a nation at a time when governance is needed — it is an abdication of responsibility but they are not going to help their case by doing that.”
He’s right. It’s the little boy crying wolf now; the Teabag Terror has been trained to regurgitate scare words so often, and for so long, that their usefulness has peaked. The same words were leveled at Obama during the 2008 election and failed to beat him; the tea party phenomenon is nothing but a doubling-down on the failures of yesteryear.
I have said this year would see Americans get tired of teabaggery, and this is exactly why.
What’s Wrong With Wingnuts, In A Nutshell
May 12, 2010 Teabaggers, Teh Stupid™, The Teabag Terror, The Teabagger Fail, wingnutosphere
They double down on the absolutism and purge their party in the process. Demanding purity, they lobby for a retrograde agenda. Weigel points to three planks in Maine’s new GOP platform:
- Return to the principles of Austrian Economics, and redirect the economy back to one of incentives to save and invest.
- Discard political correctness, make public the declaration of war (Jihad), made against the U.S. on 23 Feb 1998, and fight the war against the United States by radical Islam to win.
- Defeat Cap and Trade, investigate collusion between government and industry in the global-warming myth, and prosecute any illegal collusion
Get that? (1) Ron Paul monetary policy (2) declare holy war (3) criminalize science.
And they wonder why I call them names.
This personality type has a name: AUTHORITARIAN. One of the primary patterns of the authoritarian personality is psychological projection; authoritarians are generally the first to accuse someone of authoritarian motives because they are themselves authoritarian. The accusations may vary: statist, communist, fascist, socialist, Islamic, Hindu, Jewish, Rastafarian, Sleestak…the names may change, but the accusation is the same.
This is why Obama drives your typical wingnut crazier than a sprayed roach. His color, origins, background, etc. are places where wingnuts can invest their belief that he, and not they, are the authoritarian.
Furthermore, certain cultic groups on the right (and I include the John Birch Society here) promote these crazy theories for the very purpose of maintaining authoritarian politics in America. The more you study these outfits, the more closely they resemble their own caricature: globally-rooted, secretive, greedy, evil, and convinced of things that just don’t make any damn sense.
To learn more about the authoritarian personality, here’s a free book in .PDF format. It’s sourced and scientific and researched and everything. It also contains this disturbing passage, which I quote at length with emphasis added:
The next night 68 high RWAs showed up for their ride, just as ignorant of how they had been funneled into this run of the experiment as the low RWA students had been the night before. The game proceeded as usual. Background material was read, Elites (all males) nominated themselves, and the Elites were briefed. Then the “wedgies” started. As soon as the game began, the Elite from the Middle East announced the price of oil had just doubled. A little later the former Soviet Union (known as the Confederation of Independent States in 1994) bought a lot of armies and invaded North America. The latter had insufficient conventional forces to defend itself, and so retaliated with nuclear weapons. A nuclear holocaust ensued which killed everyone on earth–7.4 billion people–and almost all other forms of life which had the misfortune of co-habitating the same planet as a species with nukes.
When this happens in the Global Change Game, the facilitators turn out all the lights and explain what a nuclear war would produce. Then the players are given a second chance to determine the future, turning back the clock to two years before the hounds of war were loosed. The former Soviet Union however rebuilt its armies and invaded China this time, killing 400 million people. The Middle East Elite then called for a “United Nations” meeting to discuss handling future crises, but no agreements were reached.
At this point the ozone-layer crisis occurred but–perhaps because of the recent failure of the United Nations meeting–no one called for a summit. Only Europe took steps to reduce its harmful gas emissions, so the crisis got worse. Poverty was spreading unchecked in the underdeveloped regions, which could not control their population growth. Instead of dealing with the social and economic problems “back home,” Elites began jockeying among themselves for power and protection, forming military alliances to confront other budding alliances. Threats raced around the room and the Confederation of Independent States warned it was ready to start another nuclear war. Partly because their Elites had used their meager resources to buy into alliances, Africa and Asia were on the point of collapse. An Elite called for a United Nations meeting to deal with the crises–take your pick–and nobody came.
By the time forty years had passed the world was divided into armed camps threatening each other with another nuclear destruction. One billion, seven hundred thousand people had died of starvation and disease. Throw in the 400 million who died in the Soviet-China war and casualties reached 2.1 billion. Throw in the 7.4 billion who died in the nuclear holocaust, and the high RWAs managed to kill 9.5 billion people in their world–although we, like some battlefield news releases, are counting some of the corpses twice.
The authoritarian world ended in disaster for many reasons. One was likely the character of their Elites, who put more than twice as much money in their own pockets as the low RWA Elites had. (The Middle East Elite ended up the World’s Richest Man; part of his wealth came from money he had conned from Third World Elites as payment for joining his alliance.) But more importantly, the high RWAs proved incredibly ethnocentric. There they were, in a big room full of people just like themselves, and they all turned their backs on each other and paid attention only to their own group. They too were all reading from the same page, but writ large on their page was, “Care About Your Own; We Are NOT All In This Together.”
The high RWAs also suffered because, while they say on surveys that they care about the environment, when push comes to shove they usually push and shove for the bucks. That is, they didn’t care much about the long-term environmental consequences of their economic acts. For example a facilitator told Latin America that converting much of the region’s forests to a single species of tree would make the ecosystem vulnerable. But the players decided to do it anyway because the tree’s lumber was very profitable just then. And the highs proved quite inflexible when it came to birth control. Advised that “just letting things go” would cause the populations in underdeveloped areas to explode, the authoritarians just let things go.
Yeah.
These people are not very Christian, which is why they work so hard to maintain the appearance of Christianity. Insofar as they believe in God, it is inspired by fear; and fear — along with stupid ideas, lies, and ugliness — is all they have to offer right now. In America, they mostly do this by maintaining a “right to life” that ends at birth; and they like birth, because the more there are to suffer with them the merrier.
Put them in charge and you will see the world tilt towards destruction. We’ve already seen it.
Doof Quote of the Day
Apr 16, 2010 Teabag Terror, Teabaggers, The Teabag Terror, The Teabagger Fail
If this guy served a day in the actual military I’ll be surprised. If he ever rose above the rank of sergeant, I’ll be shocked speechless:
Worried about liberal infiltrators, Kevin Terrell, a self-described colonel in the Ohio Valley Freedom Fighters militia based in Louisville, led about two dozen camouflaged followers on a patrol around the park. “I’m a little apprehensive because of the left-wing nut jobs out there,” Terrell said.
Right. So many liberals flying planes into buildings and blowing up stuff that we need to dress in camouflage and patrol the perimeter to keep them out.
For more cognitive dissonance, read my new post at Left In Alabama about the tax day tea party in Florence.
Trumka Tags Teabaggery
Apr 15, 2010 Teabag Terror, Teabaggers, The Teabag Terror, The Teabagger Fail
Trumka takes on the whitewashing of tea party activism in the last year:
Two Swords Are Enough
Mar 29, 2010 Obama Derangement Syndrome, Obama antichrist, Paranoia, Paranoia and the Post 9/11 World, Republican tinfoil hattery, Republicans Meet The Teabag Terror, The Teabag Terror, apocalypse, paranoid universe, regressives
I was selling flags at a gun show all weekend and had to spend yesterday evening catching up with a news cycle that’s finally catching up with me. Frank Rich recognized the teabag terror and its enablers:
Are these politicians so frightened of offending anyone in the Tea Party-Glenn Beck base that they would rather fall silent than call out its extremist elements and their enablers? Seemingly so, and if G.O.P. leaders of all stripes, from Romney to Mitch McConnell to Olympia Snowe to Lindsey Graham, are afraid of these forces, that’s the strongest possible indicator that the rest of us have reason to fear them too.
The FBI also raided a “Christian” militia group. From the Hutaree website:
We believe that one day, as prophecy says, there will be an Anti-Christ. All christians must know this and prepare, just as Christ commanded. Luke 22:35-37, And He said to them, “When I sent you without money bag, knapsack, and sandals, did you lack anything?” So they said, “Nothing.” 36, Then he said to them, “But now, he who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a knapsack; and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one. 37, “For I say to you that this which is written must be accomplished in me: ‘And He was numbered with transgressors,’ For the things concerning Me have an end.” This clearly states the reason for the training and preparation of the Hutaree.
Conveniently not included is Luke 22:38: “The disciples said, ‘See, Lord, here are two swords.’ ‘That is enough,’ he replied.”
Rich is essentially recognizing what I warned about one year ago. Now, I’ll make a second prediction: the mutterings among the tea party demographic will commence. My next gun show will feature at least one addled personality telling me the Hutaree, who were apparently planning to attack Muslims, were no danger to anyone. Right-wing radio will catch fire; denunciations of Teh Obamanon™ will use the same language aimed at Clinton from 1993-1995. We may even hear the term “jackbooted government thugs” used again.
And someone, somewhere will take it as a sign to begin the apocalypse.
Of course, inevitably there will be claims of an “inside job” and a “false flag” operation. There always are. The Samsara of Wacky does not permit any sort of introspection that might tear a hole in the paranoid universe.
Two swords are never enough. A dozen swords are not enough. There is no limit to the rationalizations of an apocalyptic mind.
You Don’t “Coordinate” Zombies
Mar 27, 2010 Eliminationist Rhetoric, The Teabag Terror
Dale Robertson, the self-proclaimed “founder” of the tea party movement, speaking of teabag terrorism in the Washington Times yesterday:
“These people could be anybody. I wouldn’t put it past the Democrats to plant somebody there,” Mr. Robertson said. “They’re trying to label the tea party, but I’ve never seen any racial slurs.”
Dale Robertson photographed in January:
The right-wing Times offered this quote:
Senate Sergeant at Arms Terry Gainer also told the Associated Press on Thursday that there was “no evidence that annoying, harassing or threatening telephone calls or e-mails are coordinated.”
It’s a misleading quote. An army of zombies wouldn’t display “coordination” either –all you have to do is release them into the streets with their hunger for brains, and they’ll do the rest on their own. Dale Robertson is Exhibit A for the non-coordinated nature of the teabag terror.
Which brings us to Michael Steele, who yesterday rejected a proposal* from his Democratic equivalent to sign a joint declaration calling for civility:
Republicans see the statement as an attempt to force them to either reject the statement — allowing Democrats to say the RNC finds the incidents acceptable — or to sign on to something that the DNC would later wield against them.
By not joining the statement, Steele IS saying he finds the incidents acceptable. That Republicans fear such a statement might be used against them later means they have no control over the teabag terror and fully intend to let it run rampant. That’s not “coordination,” it’s permission, which is all the lone wolves out there need.
*Continuing my boycott of POLITICO links: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/35096.html
Childish Republicans
Mar 26, 2010 The Teabag Terror
Remember that kid in third grade who always flipped insults? “I’m not stupid — YOU’RE stupid!”
That kid is now the Grand Old Party.
What to do, now that the zeitgeist has shifted? Tea party wackos berated a man in a wheelchair last week, then spit on members of Congress and called them “faggot,” “nigger,” and “wetback” over the weekend (while carrying RNC-supplied signage), and then reacted to the passage of health care reform by throwing bricks through windows. Rep. Anthrony Weiner’s office has received a white-powder Anthrax hoax letter.
Then the GOP reacted to their defeat by doubling-down on the obstructions and delays. It was enough that even Dana Milbank, the dean of Beltway journalism, took Republicans to task. The media narrative has shifted: Republicans are the bad guys, and the tea party is an escaped monster.
Republicans now condemn the violence, but warn Democrats to stop paying attention to the violence they stoked. It’s the bully taking your lunch money and warning you not to tell anyone. Meanwhile, the right-wingers outside of Congress say that Democrats are the ones spreading hate:
You may or may not have heard, but the far left and the drive by media are pushing a major narrative campaign in an attempt to paint the entire tea party movement as a fringe movement that uses violence and racism in its efforts. This effort is being orchestrated by left wing power brokers, and it’s a gross misrepresentation of what is really going on. (Emphasis original)
That’s Eric Odom, one of the chief architects of the tea party Frankenstein creature, claiming that this voicemail is “proof” that Democratic Congress members are inventing the whole thing to stir up left-wing hate:
Get that? Calling a Civil Rights hero “nigger” is not racism, but being angry enough to confront Eric Odom is racist. Or something. But Odom has nothing on Eric Cantor, whose Richmond, VA office was hit by a stray bullet on Tuesday:
A preliminary investigation shows that a bullet was fired into the air and struck the window in a downward direction, landing on the floor about a foot from the window. The round struck with enough force to break the windowpane but did not penetrate the window blinds.
Like manna from heaven, the Dobbsian incident allowed Cantor to claim yesterday that he has “been directly threatened.”
But the prize goes to Andrew Breitbart, the master of ceremonies for the high-tech lynching of the uppity black organization called ACORN:
Get that? Democrats “went looking” for the racists protesting on the Capitol steps, therefore the racist epithets were their own fault. Confronting the ugly somehow excuses the ugliness.
Meanwhile, David Frum — who had the temerity to question this new orthodoxy of insanity in his party earlier in the week — has been fired by the American Enterprise Institute. The right is determined to raise its zombie army, brooks no disloyalty, and blames its enemies for the resulting violence.
Dear Chris Reichert
Mar 26, 2010 The Teabag Terror, health care reform
Sir: I read yesterday of your apology to Robert Letcher, the wheelchair-bound Parkinson’s victim you mocked during a health care bill protest last week. That hateful and harmful action — one which propelled the public narrative to turn against the tea party protests — is not undone by an apology, yet is welcome all the same. It speaks well of your conscience and character.
I must take exception to one point, however:
“That was my first time at any political rally and I’m never going to another one,” Reichert said.
“I will never ever, ever go to another one.”
Mr. Reichert, what happened in Columbus went beyond the bounds of “political rally.” I have attended many rallies over the years and never witnessed that sort of behavior. The “rally” in Ohio was, in fact, an angry mob — a phenomenon in which reactionary, negative emotions (anger, fear, and hate) turn normally staid and stable individuals into a dangerous, ravening group mind.
Rather than abuse you, I would invite you to reconsider your decision and attend a Martin Luther King parade or a demonstration for health care, civil rights, or other liberating causes. You needn’t carry a sign or take part, but may observe at some remove how a gathering of citizens can provide a democratic release of positive energy.
This would be a whole new sensation for you. Such rallies invariably leave me beaming for the rest of the day. Instead of anger, you would feel pride; in place of hostility, you would find peace. Then you might understand why reactionary politics are an inherently un-American domain.
Attack of the Wingnut Zombies (or, He’s Still Got This)
Mar 21, 2010 11-Dimensional Chess, President Barack Obama, Sunday Sermon, The Malkin Malevolence, The Teabag Terror, The Teabagger Fail
The tea party has shouted abuse at a disabled man and attacked the veracity of 11-year old children. There is no low to which the teabagging does not sink. I blame Michelle Malkin for this behavior — “Going Galt,” indeed.
I have to make changes to this video, but you should watch it anyway:
They aren’t nice people. They’re a mob, and when regl’ar folks become a mob they are like any mob known to behavioral science. That is to say they have a mob mentality. When organized with attention to inclusion and general welfare, a protest is a beautiful thing; when it is organized by bringing together John Birchers, Ayn Randists, various Catholic sects, neocons, corporate citizens, libertarians, and netizens, you eventually get a schism. The new right is an uneasy alliance and perhaps even an explosive combination.
The political science term for this is fissiparous.
Between high narrative and low effort, you can break this beast. Call it…oh…I don’t know…11-Dimensional Chess.
Think about it. Health care was Obama’s Waterloo; the GOP would repeat history by counting on a president to make all the wrong moves. But Obama defied this narrative, choosing patient persistence over confrontation. When there finally was confrontation, he made his case.
In fact, his entire approach has been the 180-degree opposite of all the teabagging projection. Making a symbolic major concession (single-payer) simply means he has a perfect record of not meeting his opponents’ expectations.
The health care bill works thusly:
(1) You have a duty to cover your health care, i.e., a mandate, i.e. “personal responsibility.” In Canada, they call it “taxes.”
(2) You have a right to buy a policy that actually covers you. No pre-existing conditions, no lifetime limits.
(3) If you are too poor to afford a policy, one will be afforded you through Medicaid. There will be no more means-testing for Medicaid in the south, ending what can only be compared to the practice of literacy tests for voting during Jim Crow.
(4) If you have income but no insurance, the government will make it cheaper for you and someone WILL have to sell you a policy.
(5) You will have a choice of policies (i.e., “free market forces” will be unleashed).
(6) The IRS will collect a tax on everyone without a health care policy. That will make sure the idiots are covered in the ER. My own local hospital is going bankrupt over the issue of unreimbursed indigent care costs.
(7) Plans that cost too much will be taxed. Which is okay, because what insurance companies offer in premium plans is really just improved customer service and easier access to boner shots. the cost of a plan doesn’t determine the quality of care — doctors and nurses do that.
(8) Insurance companies will have their net profit limited. Whatever is left over must be spent on care. The IRS will be checking forms to catch libertardians dodging the mandate, but they’re actually going to spend most of their time checking the books at Big Insurance.
(9) The plan is popular and will only get more popular with time. Families getting $10,000 a year for insurance are not going to complain.
(10) The law will reduce the deficit by more than a trillion dollars in 20 years while extending the life of Medicare by at least a decade.
(11) It will bend the overall cost-curve down so we don’t all go broke.
I’m still not sure what the negative is. The same doctors and nurses will be providing care without working for Uncle Sam. Where is the grand socialist takeover is insurance profits, and it is hard to defend companies that hike rates 40% in the middle of a recession.
The public option seems alive again, the agenda moves forward, and Democrats march on. Obama signals a future public option effort now because promises made by a president to AHIP, AMA, PhRMA, or the hospital industry are not binding on Congress. Basic Civics here, folks!
Who is getting the knife in the back? Where is the sellout? I see neither. I’d say this is a victory, and what’s more I’d say the president has improvised, adapted and overcome the tide of town hall zombies to create real and lasting reform we can build on.
Prominent HuffPo firebaggers, however, tell me this is a sellout to the insurance companies — something they share in common with Michele Bachmann. She was using FDL talking points while gazing hypnotically into the camera Friday night:
We find the furthest point from the political center in the place teabaggers and firebaggers meet. If Obama pushes for a train of jobs bills, confirmations, and perhaps even a climate-related bill to follow the breach made by passing health care reform, then we might be looking at the most powerful force of change since FDR. It didn’t happen fast enough or violently enough to satisfy everyone, but it has happened.
I hope David and Jane do not put themselves on the wrong side of this. If she starts staring at the camera like Bachmann, her Sanders-Kucinich triangulation will have become a trigonometry I do not understand.
This was always possible, and the opposition made it inevitable. It is their own fault. Up next: watch the split as tea party and Republican Party divide at primary time. Authoritarians take themselves far too seriously and I have no doubt we’ll see an attempted third party movement (which will fail).
Against the facts and the steady, relentless march of progressive action around the country, the Attack of the Town Hall Zombies has been defeated.
“11-Dimensional Chess” began as a denunciation of Obama’s strategy by those who wanted more and faster. It was never about a chessboard, however, but simple rational empiricism. Logically, the correct response to this event is not to indulge in PUMA fantasies about President Hillary and instead push harder than ever for a public option.
Call. If you’ve already called, renew your call. Let’s do this thing. We aren’t the pawns; we’re all pieces in the first dimension of this game, and I’m not appointing knights. I do my part; now let’s do our democratic duty and finish the reform we set out to do.
The Billionaires will take us out with a new hymn:
Yes. Let there be progressives raising their voices. The right ain’t got nothin‘ on us. And the more we do a good job of getting out the puppets and paint the more we can put the right to shame by singing in one united voice; and who knows? Maybe our point will be made to those in the halls of power.
Sunday sermon over.
Lady Gaga Will Eat Your Brain
Mar 20, 2010 Glenn Beck, Paranoia, Republican tinfoil hattery, The Teabag Terror, health care reform, paranoid universe
Some weirdness for your weekend: a website called “Vigilant Citizen” has a nice, long post detailing the mind-control propaganda in Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” video.
In the video, the “telephone” is a metaphor for Gaga’s brain and the fact that she is not answering that phone (her brain) means that she has “dissociated” from reality. Dissociation is the ultimate goal of Monarch mind control. It is induced by traumatizing events, such as electroshock therapy or torture, to force the victim to dissociate from reality. This enables the handlers to create in the victim an alter personality that can be programmed to perform various tasks, such as carrying out an assassination.
To me, this is the best of Weekly World News paranoia with a slathering of pop-culture keywords to promote linkage (which is why the link above is wearing a condom). All those hairdos where Gaga has one eye covered? Illuminati symbols! And so forth.
Repeating myself: New World Order paranoia is inherently circular. “They” are out to get you, “they” control everything, and “they” are all in it together. That’s right, Lady Gaga and director Jonas Åkerlund and costar Beyoncé are ALL PART OF THE CONSPIRACY.
What kind of idiots would fall for such nonsense? NewLeftMedia caught some video at the bill-killer rally in DC this week, including genuine LaRouche cultists:
Health care is rationing. Health care is murder. They don’t know what’s in the bill, but they just know there’s euthanasia in it because it’s socialized medicine — and they know that because Glenn Beck told them so. Do you see what I mean when I say that Beck is mainstreaming the fringe?
Instead of health care, imagine this crowd protesting Lady Gaga. When you’re done chortling at the conceit, remember that the paranoid universe is a continuum of crazy where Gaga and Obama serve a single monolithic agenda. In such a universe, back-to-school speeches and music videos aren’t just similar, they’re the same.
