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Matt Welch examined this (newly revived) question last December:
It started in early August, as members of Congress began facing their unusually restive constituents in a series of town hall meetings. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, citing not one shred of contemporary sociological evidence, asserted that “the driving force behind the town hall mobs” is “cultural and racial anxiety” on the part of the “angry white voter.” Within a month, that bit of omniscient whitey baiting was perilously close to conventional wisdom....
Welch attended a rally:
But if there was anything “overwhelming” about the protest it was the percentage—which I would place well above 90—of signage and conversation specifically referring to government spending, economic policy, and creeping federal interference into various areas of life. I saw nothing about affirmative action, nothing about welfare, nothing about illegal immigration, almost nothing about hot-button social conservative issues, and very little on foreign policy. If race played a central role, 100,000 people did a good job of hiding it.
Posts
182 comments:
Short Answer: No.
We are not racist, that is silliness. But a lot of us are Christians and we are praying, praying hard for the rest of you.
Trey
Are Democratic Congressional Staffers hypocritical? Short answer: Yes.
If they oppose Obama's policies,they must be racist. But Obama's minister is not.
Are Tea Party Opponents insulting and rude? Short Answer: Yes.
Welch attended a rally.
There was no single rally of 100,000 people. Just say'n.
Didn't you have a dustup with Reason in 2006 over racism and civil rights?
I was uncomfortable with the crowd I found myself in because I felt they were essentially celebrating a man who had written a slim book touting a political philosophy that was used in its time very specifically to oppose civil rights and desegregation.
snip
I've already explained how I came to feel that the people I was sitting with could in fact be racists. At the table, I asked my question calmly at first, but was met with continued assertions about the rights of business owners and hypotheticals about the rights of white people.
And finally:
I tried very hard not to express anger at her, but finally I did: How do I know you're not a racist? It was a serious question, something I'd been wondering about all day.
My brother, flaming liberal that he is, has accused me and our mother of racism for our opposition to all things Obama.
I consider the racism canard to indicate that the other person's argument has no philosophical underpinnings.
It doesn't matter if you're racist or not.
The mainstream media will report that you said "nigger" and "fag" at every rally.
All they have to do is put one of theirs in the crowd to yell "nigger."
They're already doing it.
The Tea Party is racist whether it wants to be or not.
Obama and his political supporters are very delicate flowers, and must be treated as such.
During the election, attending Sarah Palin/John McCain rallies was racist because someone may or may not have yelled "Kill Him".
During the summer of 2009, attending town hall meetings was racist and anti-American and an angry thing to do. At that time, the Admin was trying to spin the idea that the anger was turning people *toward* health care. Remember that?
When that didn't happen, anyone protesting Obama became a TeaPartier- a Tea Bagger, really- and because they were white or something, they became racist.
Then came this weekend, when anybody who showed up to protest was declared a Tea Bagger, for some reason. And one among thousands might have said something racist, so the CBC and Nancy Pelosi had to lock arms and walk bravely through the protesting crowds like the US Marshals and Ruby Bridges.
Then, to top it all off, a Congressman (probably one supported by the racist Tea Baggers or perhaps the profit-over-people Insurance companies) called Bart Stupak a name.
If only all the racist, dangerous people who don't support Obama could be quieted, our politicians could get to work on behalf of the real people.
Do liberals have something to gain by painting Tea Partiers as racist? Yes.
Test: Would the tea partiers love this administration's agenda if the president was an old white dude? No
Therefore - opposistion to Obama's agenda is not based in racism.
(I will conceed that there are a few bad apples in the bunch (in every bunch for that matter) - but nost tea partiers are decent people)
Conservative dissent is inherently racist, sexist and patriarchal, Althouse. You should know this.
It's the violence inherent in the system
!
I had a friend that called me racist for opposing 'comprehensive immigration reform'. Claimed I must not like brown people. (I now think of this frienemy with less regard).
My opposition is based in economics. We cannot import tens of millions of unskilled workers while we have a welfare state. It'll kill us economically. All of us - incuding the 'brown people' already here.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, citing not one shred of contemporary sociological evidence, asserted that “the driving force behind the town hall mobs” is “cultural and racial anxiety” on the part of the “angry white voter.” Within a month, that bit of omniscient whitey baiting was perilously close to conventional wisdom....
Krugman honestly do you need more proof of what he thinks is persuasion-on a recent edition of his book,The Great Unraveling-Krugman highlights only one endorsement:
“Paul Krugman is a hero of mine. Read his book.”-Al Franken
Link to the book jacket
Are you white?
Then you are inherently a racist. It is not possible for you to not be a racist.
That is what they're teaching over in the Women's Studies and Black Studies department of the college you work for, Ann.
They're teaching our children that they are racists even if they don't realize they are racists.
In fact, they're forcing them to sign statements acknowledging that they are racists or else they cannot live in the dorms.
Surely you are informing yourself of the tactics being used against our children?
The real damage about calling people who oppose Obama for any reason a "racist" is that it cheapens the meaning of the term. It dilutes the definition of "racist" to mean "a Conservative/Republican/Christian/Libertarian who acts in opposition to Obama, Democrats or the Left."
I once thought O.J. Simpson's verdict damaged race relations in this country for ten years. No more. I think Obama is going to damage them for the next fifty years, if he, his friends and allies keep this up.
This racist meme is manufactured and is coming out of the White House. It is their only real weapon. If they keep saying it long enough, it is true.
Of course, they never call real racists racist- Jim Clybourn, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Jess Jackson Jr., Charlie Rangel, Bob Byrd, John Lewis, and and others.
It is so easy to make up racist nonsense and throw it out there. It is too believable. Once.
TITS ALTHOUSE SEZ:
The overwhelmingly white and undereducated social movement that coincidentally sprung up after Obama's election that supposedly focuses on fiscal matters (though they emitted nary a peep during Tits' daddy's profligate reign) and more than occasionally displays racist signs and brandishes firearms has nothing, nothing to do with race!
Also, please give me Cheney's dong to huff!
I'm a LAW PERF'SSR!
HI TITS!
More bullshit smear. Trying to paint conservatives as racist, bigoted, homophobes. Typical tripe playing by leftards because their ideological arguments have about as much basis in realities as Titus actually not pinching a loaf.
" ethan said..."
Shut up!
Uneducated?!?!? A lot of the people at the Tea Party rallies have Bachelors, Masters, and professional degrees. Many own their businesses or teach.
You obviously don't know us... or do you?
The National Socialists are simply applying Dr. Goebbels' dictum, "If you tell a lie often enough, you can get people to believe it".
With no better source than the marginally lucid Krugman, the lack of any evidence constitutes proof to the Alinsky crowd. And they claim to be smarter - only when they rub horse liniment on their heads.
@Chip, who claimed: "There was no single rally of 100,000 people. Just say'n."
Sure, kid. Sure.
Don't believe yur lyin' eyes!
I twigged to this after about my first two weeks of college in 198. Never, ever aquiesce to moral bullying. Get right back in their goddam faces. "I seriously don't need lectures on racism from any supporter of a guy who sat supine and silent for twenty-three years in Jeremiah Wright's ugly, loony, racist, seedy church. If you voted for this scoundrel, you may not share Wright's squalid, antiwhite, antisemitic views But you have no goddam business tutoring me or any one else on the subject of hate. Go to hell."
In 1984, I meant
rant on-
(You've been warned.)
What kind of twit universe do you have to be from to have Paul Krugman as your "hero"-what in hell are your standards?
Then,
What "double-twit universe" do you have to be from to be *thrilled* that Al Franken thinks you are his "hero" and have that as the number one reason to buy your book.
Then who are the people from the "triple twit universe" that are all-
Oooooh! Al Franken says Krugman is his hero-I think I'll buy his book!{?}
As soon as taxpayer money might go to brown people without health care, as opposed to making rich white people richer, people became unhappy.
I wonder why that is.
HI TITS AND HER IMPRESSIVELY ARTICULATE READERSHIP!
YOU LOST!
GET USED TO IT!
mesquito-
I like it.
Might borrow it even.
Somehow it takes Obama to make charges of racism-boring.
Really they are going to numb the public to that-oh well.
It's the RED, not the black, that's the problem.
That there has been a longstanding Marxist undercurrent in the African-American world only adds to the confusion.
Am I a racist if I hate Obama because of his race?
You know, he had a white mother.
Anxiety equates to racism? Everybody on a couch stand up and run out the door...or go to a window, open the window and shout I'm Mad As Hell And I'm Not Going...or something.
Yeah, I just heard this crap from a far left relative (distant).
She aggressively asserted that they're racist, but couldn't come up with a real reason. This is the left. They get the list and they just scream from it like the useful idiots that they are.
This is ye olde dumb boring meme.
"I seriously don't need lectures on racism from any supporter of a guy who sat supine and silent for twenty-three years in Jeremiah Wright's ugly, loony, racist, seedy church. If you voted for this scoundrel, you may not share Wright's squalid, antiwhite, antisemitic views But you have no goddam business tutoring me or any one else on the subject of hate. Go to hell."
Mind if I steal this? It's AWESOME!
The real damage about calling people who oppose Obama for any reason a "racist" is that it cheapens the meaning of the term.
It was cheapened long ago, but the emptiness of the race card became exposed for all to see just in the past year or so.
I knew the game was up when opposition to Obama was reflexively called racist without any regard for the words used by or inquiry into the actual motivations of the opponents.
I knew it when I heard Jeanine Garofalo start trotting out the "This is about hating a black man in the White House" nonsense, long before you started hearing apocryphal reports of racist signs or language at Tea Party rallies. You could tell that the left wasn't going to hold back from deploying the race card, and they've done it in such a naked and contemptible way that they've killed its effectiveness.
Is anyone actually worried anymore about being called a racist for opposing Obama? I've become immune to it and I'm sure most people have by this point. As of this moment, being called a racist is the surest sign that you've won. It's only when they've got no arguments that they'll preemptively drop the ad hom bomb.
And me? I'm not white, so you can shove the race card right back up your bunghole.
I find it a bit odd that mainstream news outlets would castigate tens of thousands of people because a few yahoos in the crowd are nuts.
But if 30,000 people are to be held accountable because a handful of people they are assembled alongside say some bad things, then I don't see how the media can tolerate Obama, given his one-on-one associations with Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers.
Does the media have a consistent standard on guilt-by-association?
To the extent that liberals actually believe the tea parties racist, here is why:
The tea parties must be bad people for being against an obviously good reform program. AND The worst thing in the world that a person can be is racist. Ergo, they are racists.
To the extent that liberals don't believe tea parties are racist, calling them racist is a useful lie.
Say, why didn't this little tea party movement exist five years ago, when Bush was spending money like water and running up the deficit?
Anyone care to answer?
*cue chirping crickets*
The Tea Party I'm familiar with, Tea Party Patriots, actively encourages members to keep focused on:
*Fiscal Responsibility
*Constitutionally Limited Government
*Free Markets
and avoid being drawn into social engineering. That doesn't sound racist to me. And I've never seen any media accusation of racial overtone at any local meetings though I have not, myself, attended any.
I'd agree that calling opponents racist is just a predictable distraction technique more often than not these days.
Mary over at Freedom Eden concludes (perhaps obviously):
"Racism should be condemned. It should not be exploited for political advantage. It certainly should not be falsified."
Hey Ann,
Quick question:
Where was Michelle Obama on the day of the defining moment of her husband's Presidency?
There to stand with him, hands held together, raised overhead, together toasting their victory after a hard-won year of work?
Hmmm ... where was she? Who was she meeting with? What was she doing when nobody was looking?
The Truffle said...
Say, why didn't this little tea party movement exist five years ago, when Bush was spending money like water and running up the deficit?
Anyone care to answer?
*cue chirping crickets*
3/22/10 7:18 PM
Actually Truffle, people were sleeping. Although if you go back and look you will see that Rush and a host of conservative voices did protest the Medicare drug expansion. Conservatives really woke up during the Harriet Miers nomination...
and then of course came TARP. So if you wonder what the motivation was, it is not based on race, it was based on incrementally worse actions that conservatives opposed--mainly an expansion of government and taxes.
"Say, why didn't this little tea party movement exist five years ago, when Bush was spending money like water and running up the deficit?"
Because Bush, for all his Statist flaws, wasn't poised to completely ruin the country in the middle of a depression. Oh, and he wasn't an America-hating post-modern radical collectivist.
Some conservatives opposed Bush's Medicare expansion. BTW, note how the actual costs are much higher than what was projected then.
Now consider, what Obama and the Dems just did is far bigger than that.
Mind if I steal this? It's AWESOME!
What does sit supine mean?
"As soon as taxpayer money might go to brown people without health care, as opposed to making rich white people richer, people became unhappy.
I wonder why that is."
How do you make it through life with a negative IQ? You DO understand most poor people are white, right? What was the reason for opposing Clinton's health care bill?
"that supposedly focuses on fiscal matters (though they emitted nary a peep during Tits' daddy's profligate reign)"
Did you by ANY chance notice how the voting went in 2006? How about 2008? And this logic.....since you didn't take to the streets about jaywalking, you MUST be a racist to oppose spree killing.
RE: Truffle
The first tea parties actually were held in 2008 under Bush, but exploded in 2009 along with the deficit (up 250% in one year and no end in sight).
Triffle-
What happened to all of those "Jacksonian Democrats" like Senator Webb?
Has he fought one tax and spending scheme?
[try to stay focused on the target.]
They are just uninformed. This health bill is pretty moderate. People get to keep their insurance. And insurance companies will now make a bigger profit.
As Digby notes:
It's fairly clear that Republicans don’t understand how democracy works. You campaign, people vote, you win elections, you get a majority, you pass legislation.
Republicans had 8 years. Now it's the Democrats turn. Pretty basic to understand.
Truffle asked "Say, why didn't this little tea party movement exist five years ago, when Bush was spending money like water and running up the deficit?"
That is a very fair question. I was not politically energized enough to do the same exact thing I am doing now and I was wrong. Christian or Humanistic socialism is still socialism, and Bush did much to contribute to this mess. Even Reagen did.
It will no longer pass. I will quit any tea party events or movements that become arms of the Republican party. They are a good part of the problem.
Trey
If there's one racist in the crowd -that means they are ALL racists!
Krugman says if we don't like tax-payer funded health care - we are racist. Give that man a Nobel Prize. What a genius.
No more than curling is racist. Both tea parties and curling appeal to white people -- largely middle-aged, with free time on their hands -- almost to the exclusion of other races.
btw-Just to refresh your memory he Democrats had the MAJORITY of the Senate in 2006-
and a 32 or 33 plus seat Majority for Nancy in the House.
Go look it up-I can't,remember the exact margin.
Does the media have a consistent standard on guilt-by-association?
Excellent point.
Related to that:
I've seen comments saying that we who attended the rally should condemn the actions of those who were making racist/homophobic comments- an alleged activity most of us never saw. Exactly how do we do this? Do we sign an affidavit? Does it need to be notarized?
How about this:
"Let me hereby state that I condemn all racist/homophobic and, (to complete the PC holy trinity) sexist commentary everywhere in the world, whether I actually witness it or not."
Does that make it all better? (Didn't think so.)
This is a stupid game for stupid people. It's a ploy to distract dimwits and bigots, who seem to prefer the simplicity of stereotypes over complex reality.
Just to refresh your memory he Democrats had the MAJORITY of the Senate in 2006-
and a 32 or 33 plus seat Majority for Nancy in the House.
Funny, in my 2006 there were 55 Republican Senators and 229 Republican Representatives (202 Dems and one Independent.)
Trey-
Well third parties never have to defend reality-or governing now do they....
They never have to defend their responses to the tests of history.
Easy.
Part of your post could have projection-you should be able to see it.
All pretty theory in the vacuum of what?
does anyone know of any non-white tea partiers ?
just wondering (honestly).
fls-
I should have clarified I'm talking about the election results of 2006.
My recollection is that the majority of the Senate went to Reid-Leiberman organizing w/the Dems.- and that Pelosi had a surplus of some thirty House members.
Actually Welfare, illegal immigration, and Affirmative action are all money issues too. But interesting that Matt would thinks they are only "race" issues.
MY question: Is Matt Welch a racist?
Let's write an article and judge him.
i think that if I were in a rally about some political issue, and I saw someone near me at the same rally that was expressing something that comes off as racist, i think i'd be inclined to say something to them about it.
has this sort of encounter among TPers been reported/youtube'd etc ?
Jonah Goldberg said it best:
Bitching about Bush is a little like bitching about your wife buying a new dress when you are betting your whole house on a game of Roulette at Vegas.
[Paraphrased-sue me.]
Twenty black tea partiers appear in this video, including Kenneth Gladney, Angela McGlowan, Kevin Jackson, William and Selena Owens, Alfonzo Rachel, Craig DeLuz, Deneen Borelli, and David Webb:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcsnWLLdl70
I consider the racism canard to indicate that the other person's argument has no philosophical underpinnings.
That's my impression too. People making that argument know they're being disingenuous, and by and large everyone else does too.
mad - through the 110th Congress, the 48 Dems caucused with two Independents, and Pelosi did have some 30 more Congressmen than did the Reps, though the margin fluctuated constantly.
The Democrats were able to pull off Fannie Freddie reform, a feat not possible for the three previous (Republican majority) Congresses.
The accusation is an essential narrative, not an observation.
This is the account that will put everything in its place.
The charge is not on the same level as investigations.
And of course the left doesn't really care about "racism" anyway. This is all just part of the game, one of the Rules For Radicals. Many left-wingers would be perfectly happy to call a conservative black person a "house nigger" if they thought it would be to their advantage.
Take "ethan" for example. The left loves to think of itself as the natural home for feminism and sensitivity but of course that all goes out the window if a female decides not to play along with the leftist agenda. The dissenter becomes a target of sexual attacks so vile and unhinged as to make being called a "faggot" or a "nigger" seem like a compliment. Think of the kind of mind that would write the things at that link. This is the kind of mind that's someday going to be deciding whether you live or die.
On a related note, I grew up in the Deep South part of Pennsylvania, home of the bitter clingers Obama dislikes so much. I occasionally ran across individuals who expressed hateful racist ideas and once the "Klan" even attempted to march but (of course) chickened out like the pants-wetting cowards they are once they learned that about a few thousand people had signed up to come counter-march against them.
I've also lived in places where the demography was decidedly black and hispanic. In fact, I currently live in a part of Brooklyn that is sort of where the black neighborhoods, the Dominican and Puerto Rican neighborhoods and the Chassidic Jewish neighborhoods meet. And I can attest that I daily see and hear some of the vilest racism I've ever encountered in my life issuing from the young black and hispanic population. I've seen a black child (who looked to be about 6 years old) make fun of an old Asian shopkeeper by pulling her eyelids slanted and speaking fake "chink" language while her mother stood by and laughed. A young hispanic teenager was murdered in front of my building one night after he and his "gang" of friends got into a racial epithet shouting match with a bunch of young black teenagers. There have been numerous incidents involving gang members on bikes randomly stabbing white people they found walking around the neighborhood as part of some sort of initiation. I've seen black kids throw things at Chassidic Jewish men and shout anti-Jewish slurs at them as they ran away. And I daily hear the word "nigger" dozens of times, used in a "friendly" way by black, hispanic and even white kids.
There's a serious problem with racism in this country, and it isn't happening at any "Tea Party" protests.
Are there some drooling venal white morons who end up at the protests? Sure, inasmuch as such people inevitably end up whenever you have a group of human beings gathered together. But to extrapolate that the presence of these scattered morons means the very essence of the protest movement is driven by the sentiments of said morons is patently ridiculous. And of course the left knows this. They're just doing what they've been doing since the end of real, systematic anti-black racism ended in this country: using the memory of it as a weapon in their dirty political games. They know its phony and they don't care because they also know that it works.
And they're never going to help the minority youth of this country to overcome their own racism that's been partially engendered by these kinds of games. Because that would mean perhaps losing a demographic of racially-motivated, poorly educated and dependent voters that form one of their most important political bases.
The political left doesn't actually care about racial discrimination and racialized attitudes. If they did they wouldn't play these games.
Welch isn't exactly the brightest tool in the shed, as partly shown by the fact that he's a libertarian.
What he identifies as non-racist could be construed as having a "disparate impact". I.e., opposition to welfare spending could be seen as a proxy for racism.
OTOH, what he identifies as possibly racist issues are in fact the opposite: opposing affaction is the non-racist thing to do. And, illegal imm. has a "disparate impact" as well: it mainly hurts low-wage black and Hispanic Americans. Opposing illegal imm. would help the U.S. in general, it would help low-wage black and Hispanic Americans, and it would also reduce gov't spending. Yet, for some completely unknown reason, the partiers have almost completely ignored it.
It's also a bad decision for the partiers to keep denying being racists, since it gives more power to the original accusations. There's a correct way to handle such charges, but the partiers - and their leaders - have neither the fundamentals nor the brains nor the emotional control to figure it out much less do it.
P.S. Because Althouse has recently been pro-tea party her site has become infested with partier/libertarian types. In case any respond to this, ask yourself who ultimately benefits from their comments. Althouse should really think through whether she wants to be associated with the lowest of the low.
thanks for the link, former law student
I've seen black kids throw things at Chassidic Jewish men and shout anti-Jewish slurs at them as they ran away.
This goes back to the time when a driver in a rabbi's motorcade ran over a little black kid, and the Jewish ambulance showed up to make sure the rabbi was all right. Eventually a New York City ambulance showed up to take the little kid to the hospital where he died.
"i think that if I were in a rally about some political issue, and I saw someone near me at the same rally that was expressing something that comes off as racist, i think i'd be inclined to say something to them about it."
And I suspect so would the majority of the people at the "Tea Party" rallies. That's why I'm enormously suspicious of these accusations.
I saw two very different situations years ago at two different anti-war rallies. A group of people hoisted a banner that read "Death To Israel" and were promptly shouted away by quite a number of attendees. But at another one I saw two people advertising and handing out material from of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion". In the 10 minutes or so that I watched, no one said anything to these people, and plenty of people took a copy of their leaflets. I finally confronted the people and one of them loudly called me a "Zionist" and suggested that I was trying to "suppress free speech" because I was "afraid of the truth". No one came to my defense or said anything so I left.
So it's not just the "conservatives" that have these problems at their rallies. But it's usually only the conservatives that get tarred with them in the media.
The Democrats were able to pull off Fannie Freddie reform, a feat not possible for the three previous (Republican majority) Congresses.
Which is why Fannie and Freddie are in such good shape today?
@danielle, here are some pictures from last June's tea party rally in Nashville.
There are more where that came from.
danielle said... does anyone know of any non-white tea partiers? just wondering (honestly).
Why is that important? Does the fact that black people do not support certain movements mean those movements are evil? If a bunch of white people show up to support they believe in and notice that no African-Americans have joined them, should they slink away in shameful realization that their hearts are impure? How is it that so many white people have come to think of their race as so morally tainted that it can only receive validation from non-whites?
This is such a strange state of affairs that I fear the pendulum could swing very suddenly to the other side. Liberals seem bent on creating revolutionary conditions in this country.
@Danielle, who wrote: "i think that if I were in a rally about some political issue, and I saw someone near me at the same rally that was expressing something that comes off as racist, i think i'd be inclined to say something to them about it. has this sort of encounter among TPers been reported/youtube'd etc?
Yes, here's the YouTube video of one of them who yells "nigger" frequently (he even explains what a "white nigger" is).
I'm still waiting for the video to surface of TPers this weekend in Washington saying it. So far, nothing.
"does anyone know of any non-white tea partiers ?"
How do you define "tea-partier"? If it means anyone at Saturday's rally, then the answer is yes. The first person I met at the rally was a black woman distributing hand-outs.
And my mother would've loved to have gone to the rally with me, but due to poor health could not. If she had been there, she could've stayed in the sun all day with no sunblock, and gone home darker than our president.
@FLS, I checked out your link. You played it straight!!! WTF?!?
"This goes back to the time when a driver in a rabbi's motorcade ran over a little black kid, and the Jewish ambulance showed up to make sure the rabbi was all right. Eventually a New York City ambulance showed up to take the little kid to the hospital where he died."
Oh you mean the incident that flared up into an anti-Jewish race riot in Crown Heights, the flames fanned by Al Sharpton, where "one Orthodox Jew was murdered, 152 police officers and 38 civilians were injured, 27 vehicles were destroyed, seven stores were looted or burned, and 225 cases of robbery and burglary were committed"?
Are you saying that these 14 year old boys were motivated by an incident that happened well before they were born and not by their ignorant racism? Are you saying this sort of thing is justified?
does anyone know of any non-white tea partiers ?
The Dallas Tea Party responded recently to Keith Olbermann's claim that Tea Parties lack diversity.
FLS, when did the Dems pull off Fannie/Freddie reform? Maybe a Federal takeover of a bankrupt corporation is "reform"?
does anyone know of any non-white tea partiers ?
just wondering (honestly).
Hey, I just had a thought. Maybe we could judge them by the content of their character instead.
The Democrats were able to pull off Fannie Freddie reform, a feat not possible for the three previous (Republican majority) Congresses.
Don't be stupid. Do lefties just lie for the hell of it?
Fannie and Freddie haven't been reformed by democrats. They were taken over by the government. Republicans tried to sound the alarm because of the financial instability, but democrats jumped in and put a stop to that.
Barney Frank and Maxine Waters proclaimed! "NO -they are fine". and then they collapsed. Billions of tax payer funded worthlessness. But at least Jamie Gorelick(D) made out with millions first.
"Hey, I just had a thought. Maybe we could judge them by the content of their character instead."
People without character don't look for it in others. They look for what they can see. Like skin color.
@ danielle
"i think that if I were in a rally about some political issue, and I saw someone near me at the same rally that was expressing something that comes off as racist, i think i'd be inclined to say something to them about it."
Why? What business is it of yours if they are not doing anything illegal or infringing on your right of free speech? Why do you feel compelled to tell adults what to do? And as far as your question about minorities at Tea Parties, why don't you go to one in a city near you and see for yourself who they are, what they believe, and how they behave?
See for yourself, and you might learn to think for yourself too.
FLS is referring to the reform pushed by Congressman Frank.
Ala ACORN, he decided to change the name of the failing entities. Henceworth, he has determined they will be called Fwannie and Fweddie.
does anyone know of any non-white tea patriers?
Danielle, do you know of any non-black members of the Congressional Black Caucus? That group specifically excludes whites. Pretty racist, isn't it? Probably violates some laws prohibiting government funded racial exclusion.
Why aren't you complaining about that?
@danielle
Does anybody know any honest, ethical Democrats?
Just asking, as I never see any.
BTW, I live in Chicago, home of the Chicago Democratic Crime Family. The one our President and Rham Emaneul are members of.
I posted that white power chick to my fb as Obamacare Oral Surgeon LOL
"i think that if I were in a rally about some political issue, and I saw someone near me at the same rally that was expressing something that comes off as racist, i think i'd be inclined to say something to them about it."
danielle;
People who are brazen enough to publicly proclaim their hatred of others, are probably not the sorts of people you want to approach under any circumstance, unless you are prepared for a fight, or are heavily armed.
The S. Florida tea party I went to in 2009 had hispanics and a few blacks. Of course many hispanics are white as well . . . so do they count?
Chip Ahoy wrote:
There was no single rally of 100,000 people. Just say'n.
Bullshit. Just being truthful.
Observe and be wise:
Timelapse multitude marches on Capitol
the subsequent posts of so many on either said has me wondering:
Is it possible to reconcile the left and the right in America?
It seems to me that the deeply help values and visions of each side are just not compatible. Reading here – the level of vitriol and blatant dislike of those who disagree is palpable.
There is a powerful song by Kate Wolf:
across the great divide
I wonder if a split would be a solution? Two countries – two Americas (not John Edwards’ idea but a real separation).
Here we are asking if Tea Party folks are racist – and everyone knows they’re not – but it’s a useful label for the left. And the right is just as mean-spirited toward the left in what they say and believe about them.
I wonder if a semi-amicable divorce couldn’t be a solution and each could move happily toward the future that they love and desire. I don’t see the value in ramming down the throats of half the country something that they genuinely don’t want as a leading to a good end. Is the goal to kill the spirit of one side or the other? Or just to force them to live by your values?
NewHam, that is an impressive crowd, but it's not 100,000.
Apologies. I stand corrected. Some estimates as high as 1.2 million.
If race played a central role, 100,000 people did a good job of hiding it.
Those honkeys are sneaky like that.
The University of Delaware is a testament to the disinfecting quality of sunlight. The program to which NewHam refers was forced to be suspended a few years back, and the UD also had to revise a speech code, as well--in separate issues--revise policies w/r/t to dissemination of a paper and its attitude toward postings on a student's website (in some cases, light alone was enough; in others, lawsuits as well). So, yes, it's quite important to be aware of what's going on campuses--and it's also quite possible to take action in "counteraction."
(Disclosure: I follow such things at the UD pretty closely, given that I don't live in Newark anymore--though I'm back there regularly and for extended periods, as I have been since moving elsewhere 14 years ago--for three reasons:
1. I went to college there.
2. My father was a professor there for more than 25 years (and I spent tons of time on campus, before and after my college, years).
3) My father was a colleague of Richard Aumiller, whom I loved, who was fired by UD President E.A. Trabant essentially for being gay, when I was young teen-ager.
UD lost that lawsuit, too, though not without inflicting great pain on good people.
Stuff like that tends to stick with you. [And note, also, that "stuff like that" tends to cut both ways--a tendency to trample.])
Kroshka wrote, "Why? What business is it of yours if they are not doing anything illegal or infringing on your right of free speech? Why do you feel compelled to tell adults what to do?"
wow. may be you would be telling other adults what to do, but that's definitely not what i said.
Kroshka, are you claiming that TPers really that hostile towards their own that they are not able to share their views even if they may disagree ? hmm .... Kroshka, sounds like you think very highly of TPers.
Kroshka also wrote, " And as far as your question about minorities at Tea Parties, why don't you go to one in a city near you and see for yourself who they are, what they believe, and how they behave?"
... on this, Kroshka, in terms of political issues that I'd invest time on, observing TPers is near the bottom of the list.
What is most infuriating about this Congress and this administration is the utter contempt they have shown to the American people. We can forgive a lot, but we can't forgive that.
When I Googled info on the crowd estimate on 3/20/10, I got results of:
*Tens of Thousands Rally to Pull Troops from 2 War Zones
*Tea Party Terrorist Arrested
*Tens of Thousands Rally for Immigration Reform
Wow. I've become accustomed to a background noise level of leftist media bias, but that kind of adherence to Big Brother's message shocks even me. Maybe it's not China that Google needs to be worried about?
my question about if there were any non-whites there was just to get a (typically weak) measure of the tone .... it seems obvious that there are non-white people who share political views w/ the TPers.
There sure are a lot of people claiming to know what's in other people's hearts just by the color of their skin. Kinda like a racist would do.
Danielle, do you know of any non-black members of the Congressional Black Caucus? That group specifically excludes whites. Pretty racist, isn't it? Probably violates some laws prohibiting government funded racial exclusion.
Silly man, Congress only passes laws. It doesn't have to follow any of them.
Truffle = another hit & run Alinksy troll.
I agree with Fred at 5:52.
There are probably racist members of the Tea Party movement. There are racists probably in every movement in existence.
That doesn't make the movement racist however and it's lazy to think that it does.
danielle:
it seems obvious that there are non-white people who share political views w/ the TPers.
Why thank you for being honest for once.
The Truffle said...
Say, why didn't this little tea party movement exist five years ago, when Bush was spending money like water and running up the deficit?
Anyone care to answer?
*cue chirping crickets*
3/22/10 7:18 PM
Sorry Truffle, but I was beginning to come out of my liberal stupor. Besides, as a teacher, I felt the need to feed the machine. Teacher unions really work. Our pay would go up, but scores never did. In parochial schools, when there is a budget cut, teachers suck it up and take a hit in pay. In public schools they dump junior teachers so class sizes can rise. Then teachers can raise their hands and say "Not my fault."
I did notice that the Republican Congress soiled themselves with their willingness to pass bigger and bigger budgets, with earmarks, and to grow fat at the public trough. I do remember George Will commenting on President Bush's unwillingness to veto any outrageous budget. President Bush turned moderate, which means he lost his conservative way, if he had one.
I'm not interested in being identified as Democrat or Republican, but as Conservative: interested in a smaller, less intrusive government.
President Bush took plenty of crap which was demented and hateful, and much of it irrational.
But Firedoglake keeps posting about how the Tea Party is racist. That's Firedoglake. They wouldn't just spread mendacious propaganda, would they?
The Truffle said...
Say, why didn't this little tea party movement exist five years ago, when Bush was spending money like water and running up the deficit?
Anyone care to answer?
*cue chirping crickets*
3/22/10 7:18 PM
Sounds like something one of my immoral, intellectually lazy students would say: Well, sure I did it, but what about them? Of course President Obama's deficits make President Bush look like an absolute piker. President Bush knows nothing about running up a deficit.
@ Danielle
This (below) is definitely not what you said?
"i think that if I were in a rally about some political issue, and I saw someone near me at the same rally that was expressing something that comes off as racist, i think i'd be inclined to say something to them about it."
Gee, forgive me. How could I have misunderstood what you wrote as meaning that you would tell adults what to do? Unless you mean that you would simply start shouting and calling them names? Do you even read what you write and see how it comes off?
And if you have no interest in learning the FACTS about Tea Partiers, why come here and ask ridiculous questions? The MSM have amply documented anything you'd be INCLINED to know. Ah, never mind. You are being a provocateur, hoping to goad people into replying to you in an intemperate way. Is this a paid gig? Just curious.
And yes, I do think very highly of Tea Partiers. I admire their dedication to American ideals and their restrained behavior in light of what is being perpetrated by the administration and its followers and their complete disregard for the concept of the "consent of the governed." The Tea Partiers believe that their entire way of life is being undermined by their own government, that their freedoms and livelihoods are being systematically destroyed, and yet they protest peacefully and don't even litter. Compare and contrast with -- just some examples -- the Los Angeles riots after the Rodney King verdict or any groups of "yuts" at a G8 meeting or anyone protesting an Ann Coulter speech and tell me who has more invested in the issue at hand and who behaves more admirably.
You're just being silly, really.
The Truffle said...
Say, why didn't this little tea party movement exist five years ago, when Bush was spending money like water and running up the deficit?
Anyone care to answer?
*cue chirping crickets*
3/22/10 7:18 PM
Sounds like something one of my immoral, intellectually lazy students would say: Well, sure I did it, but what about them? Of course President Obama's deficits make President Bush look like an absolute piker. President Bush knows nothing about running up a deficit.
People without character don't look for it in others. They look for what they can see. Like skin color.
Palladian wins the thread.
I wonder if a split would be a solution? Two countries – two Americas (not John Edwards’ idea but a real separation).
Hmm....where would you draw the dividing line? Seems like at least parts of both coasts would be on the same side.
I don't know where fls thinks Fannie and Freddie were reformed by the Demos. Christopher Dodd was furnishing his little Irish cottage and Slobbering Barney was arranging payoffs to his boyfriends on the Fannie board (your punchline here) while fending off attempts by the likes of John McCain and Kay Bailey Hutchison to stop the rot. And who was the point man to make sure these efforts never got out of committee? The recipient of the third highest amount of bank money, The Zero Hisself.
Tea parties began with the bailouts, the idea being that nobody was going to bail out the gas station down the street the way Goldman Sachs was. As the outrages of the current administration added to TARP and the Fannie/Freddie mess, the movement, like Topsy, grew.
And, yes, conservatives broke with Dubya on spending several years before the September Swoon. Take a long, hard look at Porkbusters, Citizens Against Government Waste, or just the efforts of Tom Coburn and Jim DeMint.
PS ethan sounds like the type who writes computer viruses. And probably does.
Calling Tea Party Members "racist" is pure bullshit and no one should take seriously anyone who cries racist because they have no argument against another person's opinions or statements of fact.
Claims of racism are no longer effective.
Kroshka, you are forgiven for reading too much into what I wrote. i realize you're still suffering the pain of last night's victory, so i'll give you a pass. but please, dont let it happen again.
also, please stop all the whining. last i checked, anyone was welcome to post to this blog. perhaps the best way to learn about TPs is at a rally. but listening (reading their blog posts) and asking a question here and there has gotta be up there ... and involves an investment in time that i'm willing to make, obviously.
i wont even respond to your inane comparison between TPers and people who dislike right wing pundits, or *rioters* (a whole different category). and you call me silly !
so how about you take your own advice, and YOU back off and stop trying to tell me how to spend my time.
Hmm....where would you draw the dividing line? Seems like at least parts of both coasts would be on the same side.
Oh, I don't mind - something fair. Obviously lots of people would want to move if they lived in the *wrong* America :-)
It's a serious/unserious proposal. A question that is sincere with a solution that is very impractical.
I just don't know (perhaps that's my own limitation) how you find common ground with the two main ideologies in this country.
The left really, honestly want an activist government and a massive safety net.
The right really, honestly wants a limited government with much more power in the individual states and individuals themselves.
Maybe a split or talk of a split would be a solution?
the likes of John McCain and Kay Bailey Hutchison
Are you're saying that there was more to John McCain and Kay Bailey Hutchison than what's been criticized and dismissed as merely being "the likes of"?
Yes: That's a serious question.
wv: cepting
Well, what the hell can one say about something like that.
Especially when it's so deliciously layered.
--
wv: pulteat
Oh, f* U, Google.
Times are tough...Krugman just held a book signing in the U.S. Virgin Islands; The democrat petri dish of progressive government dependence.
http://stcroixsource.com/content/news/local-news/2010/03/20/krugman-holds-ad-hoc-seminar-book-signing
I caught a few minutes of NPR's Talk of the Nation today when they were discussing the health bill and the demonstrators. From the transcript for NPR's Talk of the Nation today NPR senior Washington editor Ron Elving said of the demonstrators protesting the Health Bill:
"And the protestors were angry, and they were shouting. They shouted, in some cases, according to many witnesses, racial epithets. We don't have any on tape.
We don't have that kind of evidence of this, but many observers and many members of Congress testified to that. Homophobic things were shouted."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125021825&ft=1&f=5
Nothing on tape but "many" unnamed observers. Translation: although I am a journalist and I am supposed to have primary sources I can cite, I will happily make inflammatory charges that I cannot back up in order to advance the narrative.
Who said "Time is nature's way to keep everything happening at once"?
Slobbering Barney was arranging payoffs to his boyfriends on the Fannie board
- Barney and Frank broke up in 1998
while fending off attempts by the likes of John McCain
John McCain made one speech, on May 25, 2006, joining the bill as a co-sponsor, when it was all but dead. Surely Richard Shelby (R-Ala) never got it out of committee, even with the JATO assist of McCain's speech.
Note the eight-year time gap between Barney's breakup and McCain's speechifying?
and Kay Bailey Hutchison to stop the rot.
Liddy Dole was the Republican matron who pushed reform in 2005. HBH opposed reform in 2008, because the bill incidentally helped out homeowners.
The right really, honestly wants a limited government with much more power in the individual states and individuals themselves.
I don't remember the right protesting W.'s invasion of Iraq -- in what way do they want the government to be limited?
former law student (aka formerly respectable poster on Althouse) wrote:
This goes back to the time when a driver in a rabbi's motorcade ran over a little black kid, and the Jewish ambulance showed up to make sure the rabbi was all right. Eventually a New York City ambulance showed up to take the little kid to the hospital where he died.
And from what chapter of the Protocols does that chestnut come from?
I don't remember the right protesting W.'s invasion of Iraq -- in what way do they want the government to be limited?
So you want to debate whether or not the right wants limited government? :-) Government that derives its power from the consent of the governed and is *constitutionally* limited in what it can do.
My point was not to encourage debate over that. My point was that the ideologies of the left and right (as they seem to me) appear irreconcilable. I’m interested in your view of that.
But, let’s say that you are correct and the rightwingers are either so evil or so stupid or so maliciously devious that they only say they want limited government – but what they really want is a corporate empire. Let’s say that you’re totally right about that. Wouldn’t it be a relief to separate from them and have your north, west, south, or east or whatever America that is evolved and beautiful and good? How would you reconcile your values and dreams with theirs? Or is it your desire to change them in some way or subjugate them or what?
I will go on the record as saying the following:
I, on occasion, might be tempted to tell other adults what they should do. In fact, I have been.
Other adults, on occasion, might be tempted to tell me what I should do. In fact, they have been.
Sometimes, I've even done so.
Sometimes, they've even done so.
None of these things, in and of themselves--especially without context (time, place, relationships, for starters)--are "inherently" ... "wrong" or "not wrong." (Note: I'm referring to the nature of relationships herein, not specific opinions on specific issues &etc.]
When, however, the rules governing individual behavior mistakenly get writ large, ever approaching as large as they can get writ, we've ventured into another whole territory. As is true, kinda sorta, in vice versa.
***
"My way or the highway" is no way to run the U.S., founded as a republic for a reason.
OTOH, it's not as if almost every (but not every) faction hasn't for years and years and years been yelling about one thing or another in Federal government terms. They have;--in fact, "My way or the highway" is the rallying cry they share.
***
Reap, sow. Sow, reap. Reap sow. Sow reap. Sowreapsowreapsowreapsowreapsowreareap...
SooooooWeeeeeeeeee!
The Truffle said...
Say, why didn't this little tea party movement exist five years ago, when Bush was spending money like water and running up the deficit?
Anyone care to answer?
*cue chirping crickets*
3/22/10 7:18 PM
Google "Porkbusters"
Please note: Just because the press doesn't report something doesn't mean it didn't happen.
@Danielle,
Gee, girlie, get your panties unbunched and try to read more carefully. I can really see how our "pain" and "suffering" have made you a truly caring and compassionate being. I didn't tell you not to post. I was asking why post the drivel you're posting. You replied in a trollish mode, so now my ideas about you are confirmed. And I wasn't whining. I was TELLING you things in response to your supposedly genuine questions or comments. If you are too dim to see why my comparison is valid, no need to waste time on you any longer.
So This is How Liberty Dies…With Thunderous Applause: http://mittromneycentral.com/2010/03/21/this-is-how-liberty-dies-to-thunderous-applause/
The post I just linked to is the best post I have read in months. I know it's easy to get down after last night, but this post really picked me up and I hope it picks you up as well.
Reporter: Angela, I'm here in Mapleville, Illinois, at a racist tea party demonstration in front of the Democratic congressman's office.
Anchor: Bob, why do you say "racist?"
Reporter: Well, Angela, the amount of racism here at this tea party is truly appalling. Right now I can hear the crowd chanting "N******, n******, n******".
Anchor: Um...we can't actually hear that here in the studio, Bob. Maybe you could tell your cameraman to hold the mike a bit higher.
Reporter: Well, Angela, uh...ok...my cameraman is telling me that the frequency of the chanters' voices exceeds the range of our microphone. Uh...all the chanters seem to have unusually high-pitched voices, and therefore are a good octave above the ability of our equipment to detect. And that's a shame, Angela, because the sound of 100,000 coluratura soprani spewing the most disgusting racial hatred I've ever heard is a truly chilling experience, Angela.
Anchor: Yes. Well, are there any racist signs?
Reporter: Oh, yes indeed there are, Angela, a veritable sea of racist signs, bobbing up and down in time to the chanting. I feel sick at the ugly, vile epithets these people are displaying.
Anchor: Could you tell your cameraman to pan to them? We can't see any here, Bob.
Reporter: Oh! Right! Well, uh... it turns out that those damn racist tea partiers are wily, and every time we pan the camera towards them, they hide their signs. Yes, you see? Look over there....not a single sign. They're like animals, these tea party scum. I'm Bob Froth, reporting from Mapleville.
SUNSONG:
You're talking about separating into different countries--so that people could vote with their feet, and move into one or another. Others are joining into that to note the obvious problem w/r/t to the geography of such a thing. How would that work, being just two?
It seems to me that those who--with and despite all their imperfections--worked so hard to found our country and write our constitution were allowing for just this sort of situation: when people wanted, even needed, enough to vote with their feet, they could do so. It might be hard, it might involve sacrifice, it might involve all sorts of things, but at least it could be done--and was not entirely impractical, as moving from to, say, another country would be--as against, say, moving from one U.S. state or another.
There's a name for that system.
Dare we speak its name, and of its virtues?
(Even despite its past sins which I, for one, have no problem condemning, specifically, as needed, and categorically, as deserved.
But then, I have no problem with doing the same w/r/t the nationalistic, one-size-fits-all notion of domestic sovereignty shared by so many, right and left--which sorts scream so much when challenged about that shared notion, whether they're in or out of current power.
Twin sons, no matter who their mothers are.)
from what chapter of the Protocols does that chestnut come from
Special Village Voice edition:
http://www.villagevoice.com/2002-01-15/news/faded-rage&page=1
... It was here [1681 President Street], on the evening of August 19, 1991, that a station wagon ran a red light, caroming off another car and onto the sidewalk where seven-year-old Gavin Cato, the son of Guyanese immigrants, was fixing the chain on his bicycle. Cato was dragged under the car; his cousin Angela pinned against a window grate. The station wagon was part of Lubavitcher leader Rebbe Menachem Schneerson's motorcade. As a large crowd gathered, the uninjured driver, Yosef Lifsh, was whisked away by the Hatzolah, a Jewish ambulance service, while Gavin Cato lay trapped under the car. Later, it would be revealed that a police officer, worried for the driver's safety, had ordered Lisef's removal. None of this mattered on the warm August evening. Word quickly spread through the crowd that the Jew was being treated while the Black boy was left to die.
Two solitudes, in Hugh McLennan's jewel of a phrase. No sense of common community. Read Stephen G. Bloom's Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America. From a review in the SF Chronicle:
[Bloom, an assimilated Jew, living in Iowa] lingers on the Hasids' bad behavior, and there's a lot of it to examine. In business dealings with non-Jews, Sholom Rubashkin and his fellow Hasidim haggle ruthlessly, demanding to pay the lowest possible price for goods, then delay any payment at all until legal action is threatened. In social situations they snub Postville's gentile citizenry completely, refusing to return a simple hello on the street. During Hanukkah one of their group drives around town with a 10-foot-tall menorah strapped to the roof of his car,
blaring holiday tunes from a cranked-up boom box. They don't mow their lawns or register their cars or clean up their garbage.
What's worse, they're not even sorry about any of this. Bloom gets an inside look at how business is done at the slaughterhouse, and the picture isn't pretty. " 'I get bills and throw them away,' [Lazar Kamzoil] said merrily. 'The more bills I get, the faster I throw them away. If they want to get paid that badly, they'll send me another notice, and then another. When I'm ready to pay them, I pay them!' "
Worse yet is the story of two young men from Rubashkin's group of Hasidim, Phillip Stillman and Pinchas Lew. Together they committed a 1991 robbery and attempted murder in the Postville area, leaving Marion Bakken, a convenience- store clerk, critically injured, and eventually resulting in Stillman's imprisonment. In the aftermath of this tragedy, Bloom reports, the behavior of the Hasidic community was unforgivable:
"None of the Hasidim denounced the shooting of Marion Bakken. No one apologized to her. They didn't raise money for her. No one from the Jewish community donated anything to her as a token of their sorrow or shame. . . . They didn't even offer her free meat from the slaughterhouse."
http://articles.sfgate.com/2000-12-24/books/17671329_1_cultures-in-heartland-america-postville-iowa-aaron-rubashkin
Say, why didn't this little tea party movement exist five years ago, when Bush was spending money like water and running up the deficit?
There's a bit of a matter of scale.
I believe there's projected to be a single year in the next four that won't exceed the sum of Bush's eight years of deficits. I'm not sure that will hold with the passage of the health care bill, though.
And besides, there were many protests over pork and other inane spending by conservatives at the time.
FSL, you are bit selective in the facts you present about the Crown Heights Riots. Gavin Cato was a sad accident, but the stabbing of Yankel Rosenbaum by three black youths was pure murder. Why did you exclude him from your comments?
As for when Gavin was taken to the hospital, "A volunteer ambulance from the Hatzolah ambulance corps then arrived at about 8:23 p.m., and their 'crew was at first attending to the two Black children but stopped doing so when the first City crew arrived' that would eventually take Gavin to Kings County Hospital one mile away, arriving at 8:32 p.m. Volunteers from a second Hatzolah ambulance helped Angela, until a second City ambulance arrived and took her to the same hospital."
"The first ambulance to leave the accident scene was the volunteer ambulance, because the two attending police officer directed the Hatzolah driver to remove Lifsh and his passengers from the scene for their safety. The technician from the City ambulance concurred with the situation regarding the escalating scene, and also instructed the volunteer Ambulance driver to take Lifsh to the hospital. The New York Times reported on August 20, “[m]ore than 250 neighborhood residents, mostly black teenagers shouting ’Jews! Jews! Jews!’ jeered the driver of the car ... and then turned their anger on the police."
Time magazine also addressed the myth of Lifsh being wisked away by ambulance while Gavin Cato was left behind to await another, "[t]heir anger was compounded by the false rumor that Lifsh was drunk and by the fact that he was immediately whisked away in a private Lubavitcher ambulance while city emergency-service members worked to free the two Cato cousins pinned under the car."
"http://www.search.com/reference/Crown_Heights_Riot"
no
Get used to it. From now on, any objection to Obama will be called racist. That's just the way it is.
Madawaskan, I am sorry, I had a little trouble following your point. Can you try me again?
Trey
Ms Danielle--appreciate your question, but there were a host of videos and other links that suggested there were some minority groups represented in the tea party movement. Recall, for example, the picture of the black man at an Arizona who was carrying an AR15 openly (a legal weapon in an open carry state) that the media edited to show only the rifle and not the man's skin color?
I will give you the benefit of the doubt about not researching, but will also suggest that given Mr. Olbermann's rant about "white TPers" perhaps you let that influence your opinion.
And if we are going to use demographics to ascertain the appropriate quota, we also have to acknowledge that the percentage of blacks in this coutry is fairly small (12-13%), and not widely represented in equal amounts throughout the nation, so it suggests that a similarly small percentage of blacks would be appropriately reresented in the Tea Party movement.
Just my thought.
And I do apologize for the redundancy of my comment since the commentariat provided evidence which Ms Danielle acknowledged
I recall the overwhelming majority of anti-war protestors were white (ANSWR, Code Pink) therefore I guess they were racist too.
Damn that's easy.
does anyone know of any non-white tea partiers ?
just wondering (honestly).
there was the one with the rifle slung over his shoulder, but you honestly wouldn't know that because msnbc beheaded him
There are a large number of Americans who are obsessed with race. They are called Democrats.
When people bring up race in the middle of an argument, I just ask them, "Why do you keep changing the subject?"
Because, in essence, that is what they're doing.
Say, why didn't this little tea party movement exist five years ago, when Bush was spending money like water and running up the deficit?
Because the shit didn't hit the fan until the economy tanked and then the gov't started shoveling out cash to banks, AIG, car companies, the stimulus, and HCR. Can you wrap your head around the notion that maybe, just maybe, these people are actually pissed about what they claim to be pissed about?
As Digby notes:
It's fairly clear that Republicans don’t understand how democracy works. You campaign, people vote, you win elections, you get a majority, you pass legislation.
Republicans had 8 years. Now it's the Democrats turn. Pretty basic to understand.
Apparently you need read a bit more. All those Republicans voting "No" and being "obstructionists"?--yeah, they were elected too. All those protesters out there? They still have the right to protest elected officials. That Constitution? Yeah, that's still in operation too.
Get used to it. From now on, any objection to Obama will be called racist. That's just the way it is.
Correct.
The race/sex/gay card will continue to be used throughout the rest of O's (one term) presidency, to slander the opposition.
Guaranteeing that no other person of color, woman or gay will ever get elected to the presidency.
Why would anyone in their right mind not want to elect a white guy, who we can feel free to criticize w/o being labeled a hater?
So the MSM believes that a number of black congressmen walk through a gauntlet of screaming racists using, chanting, the N word without blinking? Like it was 1964 and they were just walking straight ahead. And the screaming racists are so uniformly racist that no one calls out the N word shouter? Not one? This is all so comic book cliche ridden that it is hardly worth commenting on, other than to note that the MSM point of view is completely racist. The poor darkie congressmen just took it.
BTW my previous comment was meant facetiously. (Although there may be some reality to it.)
danielle said...
does anyone know of any non-white tea partiers ?
just wondering (honestly).
I didn't actually count heads but I estimate that about one out of six of the people I saw protesting at the Capitol on Saturday were non-white.
Why are you, as you say, just wondering?
Why are you, as you say, just wondering?
Because accusing conservatives of being racists is the default position of liberals. When idiots like Krugman are pairing opposition to another trillion dollar entitlement program as racist, the shark has been jumped. The concept that varying degrees of color are required to give the Tea Party legitimacy just goes to show they can't debate any of the facts.
As I said, the anti-war rallies were pretty darn monochromatic and I didn't see anyone in the media denouncing them. Unless of course that meant people of color supported the war and oh dear wouldn't that completely destroy the narrative.
One thing that slays me about liberals is that for a group that demands we look beyond color, they sure seem hung up on it.
Don't forget, Geraldine Ferraro and Bill Clinton were briefly racists during the 2008 campaign which was natural since they were not supporting Obama.
Because accusing conservatives of being racists is the default position of liberals.
You know it really is. I know this hippie liberal guy and that's exactly his default position.
Lastly, we have the universal rule that while one goes outside the experience of the enemy in order to induce confusion and fear, one must not do the same with one's own people, because you do not want them to be confused and fearful. Now, let us examine this rule with reference to the symphony tactic. To start with, the tactic is within the experience of the local people; it also satisfies another rule -- that the people must enjoy the tactic. Here we have an ambivalent situation. The reaction of the blacks in the ghetto -- their laughter when the tactic was proposed -- made it clear that the tactic, at least in fantasy, I t connected with their hatred of Whitey. The one thing that all oppressed people want to do to their oppressors is shit on them. - Rules For Radicals, Saul D. Alinsky 1971 pg. 140
As for two nations, we are getting that. There are people who consider the political climate of possible destinations before moving: liberal people move to liberal areas and conservative people move to conservative areas. Sorry, but I can't remember the documentation I have seen for that.
The war in Iraq was bipartisan: remember those people who had to explain "I voted for the war before I voted against the war."? Besides, Saddam Hussein deliberately chose to project an image of having weapons of mass destruction. Iraq had attacked Iran before, and they were afraid of retaliation. They told that lie for the benefit of the Iranians, as a way of warding off possible attack. Liars have that problem: sometimes people believe them, and then they have to live with the consequences. As Charles De Gaulle once observed: "Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word." Perhaps that is one of the problems President Obama has. I'm not sure but he might actually believe what he says, himself. Scary.
Milwaukee - I question that. I live among a sea of liberals, but not too high of a %.
in response to Meade's question -- as i said before, its to get a somewhat weak measure of the tone. if people who agree w/ some aspects of the politics of the event dont feel like they're welcome because of other aspects of the group's politics, then they wont be there. the presence of non-whites suggests to me that the overall tone doesnt disuade non-whites from participating, which is a very good thing.
Ms Danielle--thanks for your comment
Trey-
I can't explain myself that well.
Short from: I think when in the face of all that the Democrats have done-not by persuasion, and by building consensus but by lies-conservatives, libertarians, and tea partiers that think Republicans are not good enough for them or cool enough for them-are as much to blame for all of this-and perhaps even more.
danielle,
As I said, I didn't make a racial analysis of Saturday's participants. But I can tell you with relative certainty that at least one protester had ancestors who include 1. a slave from Africa, 2. an indentured servant from Europe, and 3. an Iroquoian migrant with Asian ancestry.
I had over a dozen good conversations with as many protesters that day. I assure you: not a single one of those people expressed even a fraction of one percent of the interest you have shown here in racializing the event.
Doesn't that make you wonder why?
"not a single one of those people expressed even a fraction of one percent of the interest you have shown here in racializing the event. "
So Meade, are you denying that any members of the TPers have racist undertones ? If that is what you are trying to say, then that's absurd. There are plenty of photos linked to in the comments, and I'm sure you've seen the MSM pics as well. So because you didnt meet them, those people dont exist ?
If you're trying to say that you didnt meet any people that you found racist, then good for you. I suppose you want me to believe that your sampling of people was (1) unbiased, (2) sufficiently random, and (3) sufficiently large to say something about the entire population. If you want to get technical with me, you're going to have to do it in a meaningful way, Meade.
"There are plenty of photos linked to in the comments, and I'm sure you've seen the MSM pics as well. So because you didnt meet them, those people dont exist ?"
Exactly which people are you talking about? Do you even know?
Race obsession and racialism infects most of humanity and is probably timeless. It obviously infects your thinking. What I'm telling you is what I experienced last Saturday.
My question for you now, danielle, is this:
What makes you so sure that racism infects the Tea Party movement any more than it obviously infects your own mind?
reader_iam
There's a name for that system.
Are you speaking of secession?
If so, I agree that would be a step of last resort. Though, I am serious/unserious about this - I would prefer an agreement to secession, but it *is* a means of final separation.
I like your writing style, btw - and I like this:
Twin sons, no matter who their mothers are.
sunsong: No, the word I was referring to was Federalism (50 different laboratories, the ability and possibility--however easy or difficult--to vote with your feet and move to another state, etc.) It's not perfect, of course. But there are worse things... .
And thanks!--I suspect you may be in the minority, however. ; )
gosh. gotta love circular arguments, eh Meade.
I experienced this, therefore it is (Meade).
But question posed to another (me, in this case), you saw what you saw but how do you know its not just in your own mind?
or posed another way: what makes you think the denial of racism didn't gaud you into overlooking the instances of racism that have been presented in the media, and that -- who knows -- that you may have even encountered at the TP rally, but that you chose to ignore ?
so, Meade, let me take a stab in the dark here .... you think ignoring race makes it go away, eh ? your one of those post-racial people, color blind people ?
OK. i think we'll just have to agree to disagree. I'm sure you think your mind is somehow better than mine in that you seem to think mine is 'infected'; and I of course believe you're hopelessly in denial (i suppose i could brand denial of insidious racial undertones an infection as well, but I'll be a bit less condescending than you choose to be).
one thing i'm sure we can agree on: this conversation is going no where. actually maybe 2 points of agreement are possible: to each his/her own !
What are you going to believe, Meade: Danielle's idee fixe or your own lying eyes?
let me take a stab in the dark here
Heh.
danielle - you're an evil piece of garbage. I'm done with you.
Paul: "How is it that so many white people have come to think of their race as so morally tainted that it can only receive validation from non-whites?"
Well said.
Race mongers like danielle have so polluted the waters that you can't even have open discussions on anything. Everything becomes race.
Alex,
Go to hell.
Meade - now how is that showing gratitude, I had your back.
My back?
Thanks.
Now get the hell off it.
wow.
i'm in shock.
Meade I dont know if it makes any difference to you, but conversations here make a difference in how I view the politics I typically dont agree with. I've never claimed that all TPers are racist, and never would. and i'm somewhat more inclined think that racist undertones are an even smaller bit of the minority of TPers than I did before conversations about your trip.
i appreciate your civility.
cheers.
At last! I have the demonstration for which I was waiting to refute (or, at least, challenge) Palladian's theory of incoherence & etc. re: Alex and posit my own theory.
In fact, Alex's thing *is* coherent, viewed properly. Alex's thing is taking on the role of translator. Note how that role is not--so far as I know (and, sure, I could be unknowing) an officially designated category of troll. However, it is a rather genius carving out of place as a bridge between "whatevers" (the "points at which" each side ends or begins on both sides being of his own, sole, personal choice, of course).
wv: balljz
Heh.
Not sure I'd want to be the agent in charge of selling that bridge, myself.
And f you really want it, you can have a ding-a-ling.
wv: dionally
Oopsie! I left an "i" out of that last comment!!! heheheheheheheh
lol, reader!
and thanks, danielle
...and in case that wasnt clear, i appreciate your civility in blog posts ... i wasnt making an underhanded statement about TPers =)
plus I think your wife rocks !
take care.
>>>Say, why didn't this little tea party movement exist five years ago, when Bush was spending money like water and running up the deficit?
Anyone care to answer?
*cue chirping crickets*
Well, as a staunch libertarian I did oppose Bush as much as Obama, although I was not as knowlegable then. As for the Republicans in the Tea Party, it was because...Bush was a Republican. Why aren't you on the left still talking about Iraq? Because the president is a Democrat. Partisanship, while idiotic, is not the same thing as racism.
"Notice anything? Like maybe how Bush’s deficits are dwarfed by Obama’s?"
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