Via AllSpinZone (’cause I hardly ever read Maureen Dowd any more), today MoDo got to the roots of what’s motivating the tea partiers (emphasis added):
Surrounded by middle-aged white guys — a sepia snapshot of the days when such pols ran Washington like their own men’s club — Joe Wilson yelled “You lie!†at a president who didn’t.
But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!
Yesterday70,000 or so right-wingers “demonstrated” in Washington. If you believe their handlers, a segment of people who looked on complacently for eight years while the Bush Administration plundered the treasury suddenly are outraged about government spending. Some of them seemed to have other concerns, however.
Did any of yesterday’s protesters carry signs that had some connection to actual issues — “No Public Option” or “Ixnay on Exchanges” or something? Or was the entire exercise about the hobgoblins who live in their heads?
Like Dowd, I don’t forget that “Democratic presidents typically have provoked a frothing response from paranoids.” But as much as they hated Bill Clinton, the degree of frothing does seem to have been kicked up a notch.
I think the analysis about Joe Wilson is exactly right. The screaming wingnuts cannot accept a black man as president. They can’t, of course, come right out and say that. It appears to be in line with what other African American trailblazers went through like Jackie Robinson. I am shocked by it all, stupidly having assumed that we as a people had progressed further so that the color of a person’s skin would not make THAT much of a difference. Like I said, I stupidly assumed this. I have been shocked by educated people I know, who do not live in the south, and their inherent distrust of this man. The color of his skin is the only explanation for it.
I will say it. I can’t accept a black man as president. There do you feel better now. By the way way I’m sitting on my front porch with a piece of straw in my mouth and the coon hounds at my feet and the twelve guage in my lap. Have a nice day.
Since the passage of the Civil Rights Act it’s no longer socially acceptable to call a spade a spade. So now the repuglicans have moved up on the melanin scale and masked their racism against Spics and Mexicans under the guise of calling them illegal aliens (wetbacks).
What a shame to have to be a racist without the full measure of freedom that George Wallace enjoyed.
And I have to compliment South Carolina and it’s representatives for shining like a beacon in the preservation of racism. Jim DeMint( R-SC) claims he’s never been so proud to be an American while he’s circulating among a bunch of racists…he should attend a Klan rally if he really wants to experience pride in America.
Needle? Haystack? Why do we keep looking for reason and relevance in what the protesters say and do?
I guess I’m influenced by Max Blumenthal and Jeff Sharlet, the guys who’ve been closest to and writing the most about the power houses of the right. The people we see are followers, scripted on-thinkers. Some of them are perfectly decent people who have no idea the extent of the harm they’re doing even as they cling to the word “patriot.”
Well Tater old boy, it looks like you’re stuck with that (hopefully) near fatal pain for the next three years.What goes around, comes around, Bon Appitite, Mon amie!
tatert,
Sounds kind of dull. I think you need a change.
How about putting the dogs in your lap, the straw at your feet, and the twelve guage in your mouth?
And do they have to be “coon” hounds? Don’t any rascist’s have just regular ol’ hounds?
PW – I agree. And not only are they unaware of the harm they’re doing, they’re doing it first and foremost to themselves. They’ve been suckered into believing that the people promoting and organizing the demostrations etc. have in mind the welfare of the little guy, the hard-working, law-abiding citizen struggling to keep his head above water. Indeed, there is a sucker born every minute. (In a way, I actually pity them.)
Among the ranks of the tea-ers, however, is a probably large contingency of Christian fundamentalists whose narcissistic faith demands a cleansing, a purification of the body-America so that they, the righteous, are in no danger of being wronged by the unrighteous – whose names are legion beginning with Leftists.
I think why this is so surprising is because Obama was elected President by a majority of Americans. It made some of us think that itself meant that many American people had changed. But, their complaints about government spending are so hollow because they were the ones who supported Bush and Cheney who spent the country into oblivion. It’s just that the stupid media that is referred to as mainstream with a liberal bias is too chicken to call these people for the racists and bigots that they are. If they were called out for their bigotry, racism, etc., everyday, they would, perhaps, restrain themselves. But, then, again, these people are bereft of any soul or humanity, maybe not.
Gulag, as they say over on Wonkette: Well played, sir.
Joan,
Thanks, but that one was too easy – a fastball down the middle. It couldn’t have been any easier if I’d planted the comment myself. Which I didn’t!!!
Ran across this quote from Orwell which is eerily timely right now “the common man, to be controlled must remain an ignorant fanatic, whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation and orgiastic triumph.” Talk about a profile of the fringe Right these days!!!
It’s interesting that the only commenter naive enough to equate “ignorant racist” with “hayseed” is the classy individual calling him- or herself “tater.” I work with many ignorant racists who wear tailored business suits and have the accentless speech of a newsanchor.
I’ve also met white farmers and small-town folk who work hard for civil rights for others, simply because they know it’s the right thing to do.
It isn’t how racists dress or pronounce words that gives them away; obviously, it’s the things they think and say and do. The signs carried by yesterday’s crowd left no doubt to any thinking, truthful person. Ignorant racists prevailed.
Wait. Obama’s black?
It is amusing/amazing to watch the tea baggers haunted by current events filtered thru the hobgoblins in their minds. “On what planet do you spend most of your time?” indeed.
MoDo is exactly right for once. I was struck by this same attitude when I replied to wingnut commenter “Tonia” a few postings ago, when she referred to Obama as “that thing”. I couldn’t believe it.
Now this is the way to tea-bag: Billionaires for Wealthcare, the apparent reincarnation of the Billionaires for Bush groups.
Wait. Obama’s black?
Well snarked.
I have been going through every photograph of the washington, dc, demonstration as I can. Probably not more than 150 to 250 pictures.
So far I have only found two pictures of men who might possibly be minorities. It could, also, be that the camera darkened them trying to adjust to sunlight and shade at the same time.
Can you say white racist demonstration in washington, dc. Can you say people that are so ignorant that they will do whatever their corporate betters tell them to do?
If you can’t, you are part of the problem. Not part of the solution.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh, Dowds article does not serve any good purpose. Aren’t the Dems know going back through all the scads of paperwork……to ‘fix’ the HC bill wording so it does NOT include Illegal Immigrants?
Seems Mr. Wilson was just ‘mis-spoke’….in the same way the admin seems to do so often. Difference is? At least Mr. Wilson was declaring the truth.
So, take the ‘racist card’ out of the fray……and get down to brass tacks. A lie is a lie is a lie. Maybe not the appropriate location to do so, but it seems to me that Mr. Wilson just couldn’t hold it in any longer.
As for me? Yep, I’ve been tempted on many occassions to shout out “LIAR” at our politicians on BOTH sides of the aisle.
The beginning of Prez O’s ‘speech’…..he basically, out and out was shading anyone who doesn’t agree with him……as liars. No offense there? Yeah, I sure was.
2010 and 2012 VOTE THEM ALL OUT.
Oh…..and yeah, the NEA and ACORN and Jones deals…….I suppose just nobody was lying anywhere along the trail, eh?
VOTE THEM ALL OUT 2010 and 2012
Suzy Q: For a more thorough explanation of why you are an idiot and, worse, hurting America, see:
“Spiting Ourselves to Death”
“Read the Bill”
Thank you.
A lie is a lie is a lie. Maybe not the appropriate location to do so, but it seems to me that Mr. Wilson just couldn’t hold it in any longer.
Wilson was lying, yes. I guess he couldn’t hold his lie in any longer. BTW, if you don’t like lies, where were you during the Bush Administration? The Bushies may have told the truth now and then, but if they did, it was by accident.
Yesterday while the dimwitted teabaggers snarled, bitched, moaned, complained, and generally felt the world a huge shit sandwich, I had my classic old (1975) go fast boat out on Lake Michigan for a rip-roarin gas guzzlein hell of a good time. Funny how I was able to just enjoy myself, just me, 500 horse power and the big lake. It’s really no different now than it was last summer before the afro-socialist facist despot took over the country, it never really dawned on me!
I don’t understand why “Acorn” is such a huge bug-a-boo.
Every rightie I know goes crazy at the mention of it.
And about term limits; one would think the individual should have something to do with how long a person holds office. I wouldn’t consider changing doctors or insurance agents every 4 years just to keep things shaken up, there is value to continuity if things are going well. Real change in Washington would come if third and fourth parties had a real chance to win, the two party system sucks, but the right appears to want a one party system.
Maureen Dowd describing the “frothing responses” of Obama’s detractors? And am I the only one seeing a little hypocrisy here? I know it’s been awhile, but Al Gore’s loss in 2000 ushered in 8 years of George W.Bush, and Maureen Dowd matched ANY of the Fox News gasbags in her frothing descriptions of Gore as ‘So Effeminate He’s Practically Lactating”.
Does any of these knuckleheads stop to consider, even for a nanosecond, that the fact that they are out there waving their stupid “Obama=Hitler and/or Stalin” signs with utter impunity, that they are refuting their own charges?
Nah, that would require an ability to reason.
erinyes (love the name, btw):
The right hates ACORN because it effectively registers, and then turns out to vote, a segment of the citizenry that does not, shall we say, support the right’s agenda. This is off critical importance in states like Florida, Ohio, and sooner than one might think, Texas.
Aren’t the Dems know going back through all the scads of paperwork……to ‘fix’ the HC bill wording so it does NOT include Illegal Immigrants?
Um, no, they’re not. The “no-fed money-for-undocumented persons” paragraph was already in the bill, which the rest of the world figured out last week. Please catch up. Rep. Joe Wilson turned out to be declaring a lie.
“So, take the ‘racist card’ out of the fray.”
First, you’ll need to take the racists out of the fray. So what are you so upset about, again? Since your original point about Joe Wilson turned out to be BS?
And where were you during 8 criminal, deadly years of Bush, btw? Silence then equals zero credibility now, Suze.
Joan,
As to the question of where these people were, they were too busy counting money. If they were rich, it was their own. If they weren’t, it was somebody elses – someone who promised them that some piddling amount would trickle down to them someday if they were good and loyal followers.
And now they’re pissed because nothing trickled down to them. Not even a drop piddled down to them. And, “morans” that they are, they blame the Democrat’s. Especially now that there’s a black guy as President. You see, he’ll trickle around what was promised to them to the brown people. Reparation is what they fear. That, and logic.
I have no doubt that there are a great number of non-racist, likable, wise people who are passionately at odds with Obama on many issues. Obviously, those people have a right to express their views and, no, they shouldn’t be accused of having another agenda. However, I agree with the original post. Some of the rhetoric we are hearing has a chillingly racist tone, and it’s deeply upsetting to me that more people either don’t hear it or are ignoring it.
I was especially struck when reading about parents who were upset that their children’s schools might broadcast Obama’s speech last week during class. The tenor of some of these “concerns” was distasteful, and quite notably lacking in the respect one should feel for the office of presidency. As I read The New York Times story on this, I found myself trying to remember having heard, during the Clinton years, anything as disturbing. Obviously, many people on the right truly hated Clinton. But I don’t think that they would have acted scandalized had a school chosen to broadcast a speech by Clinton, and I believe that the reason, sadly — horribly — is race.