oh, look. a rock. is that a Roman numeral? really?

[mellowtigger]

So many more interesting things are happening in the world, but this teabagger nonsense is what I finally settle to pondering today.

The irony is rich. I think these people are the same ones who spent their lives believing that minorities should be kept in their (lower) place. Now that they themselves are the minority, they don't understand what has gone wrong in their lives. Why has their democratic authority disappeared? They don't realize (even as they saw it happening) that minorities gain what they want by cooperatively soliciting help and intelligently describing their plight so as to warrant compassionate response from the majority. They've experienced no compassion themselves for the suffering of other minorities, so it doesn't occur to them that they could receive such generosity too. Instead, they're reaching for their weapons while claiming that they're the ones trying to save the democracy that they care so much about.

I said before in my own words that I do not trust these people: "I'm arguing that the threshold of violent behavior has already shifted and will continue to shift." It's no longer about political disagreement.  It's about people who failed to make their intellectual point, who failed to make their democratic point, who now want to rely on bully threats to win their way.

These people seem comfortable with abandoning the current government in favor of something else.  I wish they were smart enough to correctly name the "something else" that they want.  Unfortunately, they're not that smart.  They keep insisting that they want to save democracy... which is the very process that they're unhappy with because they aren't getting what they want.  Is it too late to explain to them that minorities get what they want by asking for the help of other empowered groups?  Blacks in America convinced whites to fight on their behalf; women in America convinced men to vote on their behalf; gays in America are convincing straights to argue on their behalf.  Democracy is powerful and transformative.

Republicans still think the teabaggers are on their side.  They're trying to nullify the recent health care legislation.  One (Reagan era) former administrator says "similar attempts at "so-called nullification" led to the Civil War."  Republicans are almost cute in their childlike ignorance; they still think they can control the teabaggers even while goading them onwards.  At least one of them knows better, though: "The thing that sustains a strong Fox network is the thing that undermines a strong Republican party."

Ah well.  I'll leave you with their images and their words.  As Rachel Maddow warns today (after bricks shatter glass at some Democratic party headquarters), let's see what happens here in America on April 19th.

---

Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: "Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!" Pls see my Facebook page.
- Sarah Palin, http://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA/statuses/10935548053


So, if you wish to send a message that Pelosi and her party cannot fail to hear, break their windows.
Break them NOW.
Break them and run to break again. Break them under cover of night. Break them in broad daylight. Break them and await arrest in willful, principled civil disobedience. Break them with rocks. Break them with slingshots. Break them with baseball bats.
But BREAK THEM.
The time has come to take your life, your liberty and that of your children and grandchildren into your own two hands and ACT.
It is, after all, more humane than shooting them in self defense.
And if we do a proper job, if we break the windows of hundreds, thousands, of Democrat party headquarters across this country, we might just wake up enough of them to make defending ourselves at the muzzle of a rifle unnecessary.
- Mike Vanderboegh, http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2010/03/to-all-modern-sons-of-liberty-this-is.html
(the same guy who is telling whoever will listen that we "need to be forming neighborhood defense organizations")



Proverbs 8:36: ... All they that hate me love death.
Editorial translation to Teabaggery:  Jesus wants us to use our guns on you.  Or our waterboards.  Whichever is more satisfying (for us).

Comments

[tbrough.livejournal.com]

What really irks me about these knuckle dragging punks is what cowards they are. I am willing to be that as the group actually ties to go for the 'revolution,' most of them will run to their basements and hide. Or stay home and watch Faux. Or when they get caught, like that punk-ass James O'Keefe who, when caught trying to commit a federal crime, jumped into the wAhmbulance and tried to crybaby his way out of it.

Sadly, the lone wolves, like the abortion doctor assassins and the IRS Airplane Terrorist, will still succeed in deadly missions with Beck and Limbaugh cheering them on. Republicans who think oinking "Baby Killer" or applauding (literally) disruptions in the House gallery makes for got politics are the ones that really need to get fired. Here's hoping these pubic servants are the first to go in Novembers to come.

[joshuwain.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering if this overload on emotion can actually work against them come November. Right now they're getting increasingly nasty and I'm starting to wonder if this will work against the Conservatives come election day.

[pi3832.livejournal.com]

I see a different struggle going on--a generational one. Gay rights is the best example of this, where research has shown that support for gay-rights-related initiatives is directly correlated to a voter's age. I think the same is true of race politics, though it's a lot less obvious. Yes, living in the rural deep south, I know that a lot of young people are still racists (indeed, living here I've discovered just how racist I can be), but I don't think they(we) are in the way their parents are. E.g., I think younger white folks around here objected more to the fact that Obama is a democrat than that he is black. (Though, they did object to both.) Older folks wouldn't have voted for a far right-wing, flag-waiving, cross-toting black candidate even if Ronald Reagan had risen from his grave and given this hypothetical negro his personal endorsement.

The Teabaggers and Faux News and such feed a lot off of retired folks. Yes, there is a very visible Young Republican element running around out there--indeed, there's a 22-year-old standing as the lone Republican candidate for parish president, here in rustic St. John the Baptist Parish. (Also the only white candidate, which should be a bad thing, politically, since the parish is overwhelmingly black--this was one of a handful of LA parishes to go to Obama in '08--but there are four black, democrat candidates, so "Buddy" will likely benefit from a seriously split vote. Though, I hope not. The democratic front runner is, AFAICT, significant more qualified and funded than her fellow democrats. A woman? Apparently not an issue, strangely enough. Indeed, I believe the deep-southern racist ideology ranks black women as preferable to black men--they're seen as more reliable, harder-working, and less like to steal our wimmins.)

But as I was saying, I think there is a lot of Baby Boomer death throes at work in current politics. The left should probably to try to get younger people back in the game by explaining that their fight will get easier over time. And start pointing out to the Democratic old guard that currently they are part of the problem, not the solution.

Oh, and I think you take the whole "minority" thing way too literally. "Minority", to what have become the Teabagger crowd, has always been a euphemism for "non-whites". Hell, the left used the term euphemistically too, since they threw in women with the "minorities." For them the term simply meant "the people not in power".

To be completely honest, though, I think it's all beyond repair. The ultra-wealthy have lost their collective minds, and have given up all pretense of ethical or socially-responsible behavior. The vast majority of Americans are just screwed, and the only idealogical difference that matters is whether or not you know you're fucked.

There's a political party I could get behind: "Fuck me? No, fuck *you*!"

[pi3832.livejournal.com]

My earlier rantery spurred me to start a thread on reddit: "Right-wing-nuts keep intimating about violence and guns. I'm curious--how many left-wingers won't shoot... but will shoot *back*? (http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/bhlkv/rightwingnuts_keep_intimating_about_violence_and/)" At the moment, it's got 141 up votes, and has spawned 273 comments.

Point being, a number of those comments point out that a lot of the right-wingers comments about guns and violence are most likely so much hot-air. They're just being small-minded bullies, with way more bark than bite. Should bullets fly, they will hide in their basements.

Sure, some windows have been broken, but I think that is really just an expression of a sense of shock. A lot of people must feel like the rug has been pulled out from under them, that the world has suddenly "gone mad." They are confused and frightened by change they thought impossible. Like old people encountering black cops.

Some will act out, but I suggest that you are worrying too much. There won't be much violence, and most, if not all, of it will be of the vandalism sort. And I believe that said minor, isolated violence is not a pre-cursor or worse to come, but rather a death-rattle, like someone flipping you the bird as they race off in their pick-up truck after you stood your ground.

Keep standing, Tig. They'll keep backing down, and talking shit as they wander off.