Here's the article. Quite apart from the childishness of evoking the term "teabagger" and creating a image to convey the term (to those in the know), it's quite an offense to Mark Skoda, whose name appears next to the image. Since there is no caption, it creates the impression that that is a picture of Mark Skoda! I'm surprised TNR isn't more careful about provoking lawsuits. Basically, TNR is flaunting its stupidity here.
Maybe they don't want us to take the serious article seriously.
Ironically, that's a reason to read it.
... I couldn’t help but watch Skoda as he sat in a huge ballroom on the convention’s second night, listening to Joseph Farah, the mustachioed editor of the far-right-wing website WorldNetDaily, work the crowd of 600 into a frenzy. “If Barack Obama even seeks reelection as president in 2012, he won’t be able to go to any city, any hamlet in America without seeing signs that ask, ‘Where’s the birth certificate?’” Farah crowed from the podium.Mustachioed? Now, we're left wondering if that's Farah in the photograph.
[Skoda] couldn’t have been pleased. Skoda and convention mastermind Judson Phillips have ambitious goals for the Tea Party movement. They aim to build their respective groups (Skoda is founding a Tea Party PAC; Phillips heads an organization called Tea Party Nation) into political players that can influence votes and tug candidates in their direction. But their quandary is as plain as the expression on Skoda’s face during Farah’s paranoid Friday night monologue: How can a movement whose base detests mainstream politics--not to mention, has a few screws loose--possibly build political clout?...
Skoda rationalizes some of the Tea Party’s rough edges as a necessity of movement-building. “I think it’s always useful to get people excited,” he says. “Part of this movement is visceral. It’s perfectly okay.” But he is much more interested in practical politics than in bombast....Ironically, the author of this article — Lydia DePillis — is a Mark Skoda type, sensible, moderate, and analytical. And whoever put that photograph on the article is a Joseph Farah, stirring up the readers, getting people excited and visceral.
Political realism, however, isn’t what the Tea Party base wants to hear....
To the sidelined activists, Skoda’s approach and the Nashville convention are the antithesis of what the movement should be about....
Whether the tea partiers will prove too busy fighting among themselves to fight the Republicans, the Democrats, and the system writ large is anyone’s guess. But Skoda is pragmatic enough to know that he can’t cut the non-pragmatists out of the coalition altogether.
UPDATE: TNR has swapped in a different photograph, so it's good that I got the screen capture. The "teabagger" picture also went out in TNR's email alert titled "The New Republic Politics Weekly Newsletter: The Tea Party's frustrated moderates."
ADDED: Ace links here and says: "They only do that one story, eh? The 'moderates' are always so close to ditching the party over the wignuts; we're almost in a state of civil war. It's always that way in the GOP. Now it's that way in the Tea Party, too. Meanwhile, no wingnuttery or frustrated moderates in the Democratic Party, eh?"
पोस्ट्स
११३ टिप्पण्या:
Both the Democratic and Republican Parties have their loony edges, why shouldn't the Tea Party?
It's foolish to focus on the edges, however.
..and that is not the photo that accompanies the article now.
Interesting.
You're right, the picture is definitely meant to confuse the reader into thinking it's a photograph of Skoda. But I don't think it's stupidity. This is quite intentional. They don't care about provoking lawsuits. This is psy-ops.
I didn't actually think it was anyone associated with the "Tea Parties". Based on the age of the person in the picture, the nasty, patchy facial hair, the black-framed rectangular-format glasses and the evidently gleeful willingness to assume a revolting pseudo-sexual pose, I just assumed it was your run-of-the-mill post-ironic hipster douchebag.
It looks like they changed the picture..
And, of course, the teabagging hipster douchebag picture has been removed. Wow! We're sorry! What a mistake! We didn't mean to post that picture or leave it there long enough for everyone to have a good laugh! We absolutely didn't! We're a magazine of integrity, don't you know?
Would it be a fair assessment to suggest that the dismissive sexual connections launched against the tea party types has only served to motivate them?
As far as I can see the fact that tea parties are still generating ink must mean that they haven't quietly dispersed as the MSM had hoped.
How dare these commie-fascist terrorist-sympathizing marxist baby killers call us teabaggers! The nerve.
What's the title supposed to mean? "Weak" brew?
Never forget that The New Republic touts itself and is touted by liberals as a serious, responsible organ of their creed. This is what liberals are. And proudly so.
Dont forget the TNR's Stephen Glass.
This guy didn't just make up quotes, he made up people and entire events to go with them and tried passing them off as news reporting.
Big yuck, garage. Snark snark. But we got it: a lefty is caca. When you're right you're right, comrade.
Wow, they changed the picture, Ann.
They are writing at a high school level...or maybe that's just how propaganda is done.
Frenzy...paranoid...mustachioed...I bet they described the leftist anti-Bush marches using more heroic terms.
Well Jonathan Chait is the "senior editor" and this is his idea of persuasive.
First there is this title of his article about a week ago:
J**** C****, Mike Allen Reconciliation Is NOT THAT COMPLICATED
[Obviously Mike Allen is his god, and he felt compelled to go with the all caps.]
Then the very next day he has this jewel of persuasion in an article-
It's a reform designed in the mold of classic moderate Republicanism, melding fiscal responsibility and compassion for the poor and sick with a series of bold experiments to nudge medicine toward efficiency.
In an article where he's complaining about how everyone else is myopic.
That's there senior editor.
Smells like teen spirit. oops - I mean - Air America.
Ya, that's one way to "sell" the Health Care Bill-as a "series of bold experiments".
At least he's sort of honest there-you have to give him that.
Yes lefties are caca.
The sheer childishness of the left astounds me! Shocked, nay shocked I am! The ends justify the means.
Continuing compliments, Prof Althouse, for keeping an eye on this sort of thing --and same to Prof Reynolds for banging the potlids for you when you do --
One thing I've figured about Althouse is that while she's a wild-eyed liberal, she believe in basic fairness, honesty, decency. That jives with me.
I just checked and they CHANGED the picture... no editorial note as to the change. Nothing to see... move along
Big yuck, garage. Snark snark. But we got it: a lefty is caca. When you're right you're right, comrade.
I strongly sense freely able to dish it out, but not being able to take it here. What I don't get is naming your party after a bunch of smugglers though.
This "teabagger" trope has bled over onto my hometown paper.
Normally they will delete any comment with a "homo" "fag" or "queer" usage. In fact there is no reliably politically correct term that you can use for same sex practitioners.
Except now. Teabagger is a term they won't censor.
From now on if you are in the mood to question some obnoxious persons sexual orientation, in the most derogatory insulting manner possible, without a pause to think about whether the nanny media will moderate your tone, teabagger is the word to use.
ricpic - Well it certainly is an organ, all right... all they can do is concentrate upon organs, as witness the tea bags.
Quite the slash 'zine of the Left.
Edit: That's *their* senior editor.
I guess TNR decided that it was too well respected and decided to go for the edgier part of the market.
I expect they'll last about as long as the NYT, for the same reasons.
That's OK, I'm sure some one will figure out a way to use an enema bag juxtaposed with Miss Anabel Park.
The Coffee Enema Movement!
The picture was actually of a Tea Part COUNTER-PROTESTER.
You can find them on the web if you know where to look.
Other examples I have seen are pictures of tea partiers holding signs that have been photoshopped to read:
"It's American patriotism to protest raising taxes on the richest 5%!"
garage mahal: How dare these commie-fascist terrorist-sympathizing marxist baby killers call us teabaggers! The nerve.
Shut up faggot.
re manofaiki's quotation "It's American patriotism to protest raising taxes on the richest 5%!"
--if only! It's not even so much the wastage of the hard-earned dough. What it IS, is the committing of more deviltry with the added energy.
Without GWB the left couldn't have a three person parade. Especially without puppets. So I can imagine they will remain infuriated by the "tea baggers" and remain as happy at inventing that clever slur as they are at having, after years and years of thinking about it, come up with the term "wing nuts." I will hurl the ultimate leftie insult at this TNR piece: "sad."
American Power tracked-back with, 'The Coffee Party War!'.
Ya know, if they wanted an image of a knowledgable individual in the act of "teabagging", perhaps they should use Barney Frank or Anderson Cooper.
The Left's Propagandists are running full bore. Ridicule is all they have because the facts are not on their side. Obama is not a Natural Born Citizen NO MATTER WHERE he was born, since his father was not a US Citizen at the time Obama 2 was born. He freely admitted to being subject to the jurisdiction of a foreign power at the time he was born (Britain), thus he can never be Natural Born, even if born in JFK's lap in the oval office. They try to keep the focus on the BC to distract from the real issue, which is that his father was Kenyan.
Just as an aside though. If Ann Althouse were trying a case would she accept the word of an unsworn, biased website? Wouldn't she ask if the people who supposedly examined the BC on Factcheck were document experts? Wouldn't she be able to tear them apart on the stand? Wouldn't she want to see the document herself, not a picture on a website? Why does the Hi. director of health have to make very carefully worded parsed statements about the BC? Does "natural-born American citizen" mean that he was born vaginally? (Natural Born doesn't have a hyphen)? Oh I know, nothing to see here, move along. I must just be crazy! If you all are lawyers that are reading this you should be ashamed not to ask these questions. Not that you care about the constitution anyway, even Volokh, the supposed genius, doesn't know what a Natural Born Citizen is.
A case of projection, I'd say.
Fen
You are so cute when you're mad.
I strongly sense freely able to dish it out, but not being able to take it here.
I read that and thought, "that's the most true statement ever to come from garbage's keyboard." Then I realized he wasn't referring to himself or the Left.
Ah, well.
And, garbage, you're so dim when you post.
“If Barack Obama even seeks reelection as president in 2012, he won’t be able to go to any city, any hamlet in America without seeing signs that ask, ‘Where’s the birth certificate?’” Farah crowed from the podium.
How appalling! Next thng you know, some crazies will be demanding that George W Bush release his TANG records in order to prove that he fulfilled his National Guard obligations.
What I don't get is naming your party after a bunch of smugglers though.
How exactly were the (Indian-warrior painted and garbed) protesters against taxation without representation who threw the King's licensed and taxed tea overboard into Boston Harbor in the “Boston Tea Party” (in 1773 during the run up to the Revolutionary War) a “bunch of smugglers”?
The picture is disgusting. I was put off years ago when John Stewart began to think it was hilarious to toss around expressions from the outer fringes of the gay subculture, like "tea-bagging," "Cleveland steamer," "give me a reach-around," etc., while his audience laughs knowingly (and then heads for an internet connection to find out what the heck he's talking about.)
There are plenty of things people do that the rest of us would just as soon not have to think about. Is it going to be forced on us?
The "protesters" were not protesting taxation without representation, or high taxes on tea. Just the opposite. They were protesting the Tax Act of 1773 that made tea less taxed, and cheaper. Why would colonists be against cheaper tea!? The only people hurt by the Tax Act were tea smugglers. Two of the biggest reputed smugglers were none other than John Hancock and John Adams. So the tea partiers are aligning themsleves with smugglers, in acts what we would call terrorism today!
TNR is staffed by nothing but amoral scumbags. WTF did you expect, civility? Class?
The Dem's contempt, the elite left's scorn and MSM's ineffectual campaign against the Tea Party only makes the movement stronger, giving it historical gravitas. Thus symbols such as the Gadsden flag emerge when tea partiers meet to express dissatisfaction with their government.
Which reminds me of this essay written in 1775 by Benjamin Franklin regarding Gadsden flag symbolism:
I recollected that her eye excelled in brightness, that of any other animal, and that she has no eye-lids—She may therefore be esteemed an emblem of vigilance.—She never begins an attack, nor, when once engaged, ever surrenders: She is therefore an emblem of magnanimity and true courage.—As if anxious to prevent all pretensions of quarreling with her, the weapons with which nature has furnished her, she conceals in the roof of her mouth, so that, to those who are unacquainted with her, she appears to be a most defenseless animal; and even when those weapons are shewn and extended for her defense, they appear weak and contemptible; but their wounds however small, are decisive and fatal:—Conscious of this, she never wounds till she has generously given notice, even to her enemy, and cautioned him against the danger of treading on her.—Was I wrong, Sir, in thinking this a strong picture of the temper and conduct of America?
The electorate's rebellious mood grows stronger as the economy worsens while politicians of both parties ignore/belittle constituents to their own peril. They have been warned.
Mick, Obama's mother was American no matter what island or country she happened to be at the moment Obama was born, which is shown to be Hawaii. Emphasizing the country/citizenship/loyalty of Obama's father is risible when it's not annoying. You do know the challenge to Obama's citizenship was started by H. Clinton supporters, later picked up by fringe elements, and has aught to do with the tea bag movement. (Loveliest bunch of unlikely protesters I've ever encountered. Would you care to see my pictures? 1st Denver protest.-- 2nd Denver protest They're ordinary pictures. Nothing outstanding about the photos, save for the growth between group 1 and group 2.)
"I'm surprised TNR isn't more careful about provoking lawsuits."
I'm not.
I would have said to Franklin had I been around at the time and had the opportunity, "You know Ben, if may I call you Ben, you make some excellent observations there, but the snake is a helpless mess shown all chopped up like that."
The “protesters” were not protesting taxation without representation, or high taxes on tea. Just the opposite. They were protesting the Tax Act of 1773 that made tea less taxed, and cheaper. Why would colonists be against cheaper tea!?
They were protesting, yes, the Tax Act of 1773 — protesting against taxes, that is, that were levied on them by the British Parliament (in which they had no representation) rather than by their own elected colonial assemblies. According to those colonials (and Britons) known as Whigs, that was a violation of the British constitution. Thus: taxation without representation.
Moreover, calling that protest “terrorism” (though it was the action of a mob, and as such was condemned by many, including Benjamin Franklin) is pure hyperbole, in which you love to indulge.
The "protesters" were not protesting taxation without representation, or high taxes on tea. Just the opposite. They were protesting the Tax Act of 1773 that made tea less taxed, and cheaper. Why would colonists be against cheaper tea!? The only people hurt by the Tax Act were tea smugglers.
I guess this is what happens when you learn history from the back of a CrackerJack box. The colonists weren't overjoyed about cheaper tea when it came with strings attached, like Parliament continuing to insist that they could tax the colonists without consent. Despite it being cheaper, there were taxes attached to the tea. Typical that you would despise such principles--I guess in your book freedom is a small price to pay when the gov't so generously bribes you with cheap tea or health care.
Two of the biggest reputed smugglers were none other than John Hancock and John Adams.
John Adams, one of the most respectable lawyers in the colonies, was a tea smuggler? What an exciting life he led!
So the tea partiers are aligning themsleves with smugglers, in acts what we would call terrorism today!
And your compatriots would call it Direct Action.
The New Republic is still upset over getting pawned about Beauchamp so they are taking it out on their perceived enemies.
Either that or the guy with the tea bag is how Franklin Foer likes to picture himself.
Chip Ahoy said...
"Mick, Obama's mother was American no matter what island or country she happened to be at the moment Obama was born, which is shown to be Hawaii. Emphasizing the country/citizenship/loyalty of Obama's father is risible when it's not annoying. You do know the challenge to Obama's citizenship was started by H. Clinton supporters,"
You don't understand. The qualification of Natural Born Citizen is a security requirement to ensure the highest probability of attachment and allegiance to country. It was to prevent foreign influence on the 2 top officers of the government. The term is a Natural Law Term of Art from Vattel's Law of Nations which literally translates from French as "the Natives from within". It is the unification of blood and soil that makes a child naturally the citizen of ONE country, not subject to the jurisdiction of any other. For that to happen, one must be born in the US of 2 Citizen parents (or if the mother is not married, a citizen mother). Barack Obama admits Here under "Factcheck" that his citizenship was governed by Britain:
http://www.fightthesmears.com.php5-9.websitetestlink.com/articles/5/birthcertificate
How can a person born subject to the jurisdiction of Britain be a Natural Born Citizen?
If he used a British passport to travel to Pakistan in 1981 (it was a Britaish Commonwealth) he may still be a British citizen to this day.
When does any lawyer accept the word of an unsworn biased (Annenberg)website as proof of anything?
Okay, the Founding Fathers were a ribald bunch with a few foibles here and there. So, they and all their work totally sucked. Hitler OTOH was quite a smiling greenie, loved children and dogs and was a vegetarian anti-smoking teetotaler. So he and all his work was just loverly. Good grief. Such pointless nonsense.
The New Republic is going to end up paying that guy a low seven-figure number. I'd take his case in a heartbeat.
I am beginning to suspect garage mahal is in fact a high school history teacher, a Howard Zinn acolyte, slinging America-the-Evil-Empire bullshit at impressionable sophomores, and praising socialism .
But if John Adams was a smuggler and terrorist, then we could sure use him now.
@Chip
LOL! According to the folklore/superstition of the time, a snake cut into segments possessed the power to reassemble at sunset.
As a man of letters & science I doubt Ben bought into that...but it's a boffo political visual for times when many of the rubes needed for a militia were illiterate...doncha think?
Interesting how a little blogosphere publicity, albeit on a high-hit site, can make a legacy media outlet alter their Web presentation. Someone is running scared.
Garage reveals his true Democratic party colors by suggesting that the self-interest of the organizers of the Boston Tea Party somehow invalidates the larger political purpose of the destruction of the tea. In Democrat world, any self-interest is EVIL! CORRUPT! ... that is, unless it's a Democrat's self-interest.
Brethren, and Fellow Citizens !
You may depend, that thoſe odious Miſcreants and deteſ-
table Tools to Miniſtry and Governor, the Tᴇᴀ Cᴏɴsɪɢɴᴇᴇs,
(thoſe Traitors to their Country, Butchers, who have done, and are do-
ing every Thing to Murder and deſtroy all that ſhall ſtand in the Way
of their private Intereſt,) are determined to come and reſide again in
the Town of Boſton.
I therefore give you this early Notice, that you may hold yourſelves
in Readineſs, on the ſhorteſt Notice, to give them ſuch a Reception, as
ſuch vile Ingrates deſerve. JOYCE, jun.
(Chairman of the Committee for Tarring and Feathering.
☞ If any Perſon ſhould be ſo hardy as to Tear this down, they may
expect my ſevereſt Reſentment. J. jun.
Garage provides the perfect similie for the "cheaper" health insurance/care were about to have crammed down our communal craw.
What's not to like?
Two of the biggest reputed smugglers were none other than John Hancock and John Adams.
Where on earth did you come up with this sort of rubbish? I, for one, would like to see some sort of reference. I read David McCullough's biography of Adams a couple times over, and it's clear that his only source of income was his profession as a lawyer. More recently I've read Harlow Unger's biography of Hancock, and the only suggestion that he was a smuggler was clearly a politically motivated charge based on his sloop Liberty arriving in port less than half loaded with a cargo of wine.
garage, my friend, you are going to have to stop using made up "facts."
Garage,
The British government erroneously assumed (as you are erroneously assuming now) that the Colonials were distressed about the price of tea. They weren't. They refused to buy British tea because the British held that the Colonials could be taxed at will, pressed into military service at will, and have their property put to any use the Crown wanted at any time.
Any tax paid to the British government would be supporting this unjust state of affairs, which led not only to the Boston Tea Party, but the less well known reactions in New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston.
In New York and Philadelphia, the Colonials sent the tea back even though it was cheaper than "smuggled" tea, and in Charleston, they left the tea to rot on the docks. In all cases, they were willing to buy more expensive "smuggled" tea. The dispute wasn't over the price of tea, but the principle of the thing. The Colonials were more than willing to pay a higher price if it meant greater freedom to determine their own fate.
As far as your attempt to equate the Boston Tea Party with terrorism, you're demonstrating only that you're a moral fucktard.
@Chip, to heck with Ben Franklin. I'd like a couple hours with Madame Brillon de Jouy. Or Emilie du Chatelet. (What is it with 18th century French noblewomen?)
Palladian:
"This is quite intentional. They don't care about provoking lawsuits. This is psy-ops."
Absolutely. The same with the bullshit "Coffee Party", concocted by a fucking strategy analyst for the New York Times and a former campaigner who produced political ads for Obama.
When we do the same thing in other countries in a time of war and manufacture popular support for our agenda, douchebags like those at the Times scream to high heaven about America's underhanded tactics.
But they're more than willing to do the same in support of their own political agenda to their fellow citizens.
People should stop calling this "astroturf" or "bias" and making jokes about it and start calling it psychological operations -- a calculated effort to influence the American public by way of deception and trickery.
"What I don't get is naming your party after a bunch of smugglers though."
We didn't.
We named it after a bunch of bad ass motherfuckers we call Forefathers, who proved themselves willing to pick up arms and execute their own fellow British citizens who forgot we came here to be free.
You get me, kid?
Youngblood: As far as your attempt to equate the Boston Tea Party with terrorism, you're demonstrating only that you're a moral fucktard.
s/demonstrating/recapitulating/
It's not like it's new information or anything.
wingnuttery among the Dems? I thought the term was moonbattery.
Garage, you've outdone yourself today. Bravo!
Truly a marvellous piece of performance art.
In all cases, they were willing to buy more expensive "smuggled" tea. The dispute wasn't over the price of tea, but the principle of the thing. The Colonials were more than willing to pay a higher price if it meant greater freedom to determine their own fate.
I don't think statists like Mahal (I won't devalue the word "liberal" by granting him such a label) understand this concept. In his mind, no one should have cause to complain because the gov't is giving us something., never mind what we give up in return for these handouts.
It's why such statists on the left make the disgusting and corrupt argument that "Poor/black/hispanic/minority people who vote Republican are voting against their own interests." It's simply beyond their conception that such people would vote for higher principles rather than a handout.
Palladian is really really fat....therefore his opinion doesn't matter.
poor fatty Palladian.
Garage, a "reputed" non-idiot, thinks that Sam and Johnny Adams were terrorists.
Garage, I know rehab must be hard, but you've got to stop breaking into Nurse Ratched's office to post. And those meds you've copped can't be the right ones.
You need the little blue ones for delusional historical illiterates.
Palladian makes Precious look thin.
And he is gay. How sad is that? He is a totally invisible gay.
What a horrible example of the gay. A fatty.
Blue@9 - "It's why such statists on the left make the disgusting and corrupt argument that "Poor/black/hispanic/minority people who vote Republican are voting against their own interests."
Except that in many aspects, "The Package" Republicans offered the minorities, the Reagan Democrats, the no health insurance working poor - DID involve them voting against their direct economic interests in order to get the "traditional values" part of the "Republican deal".
Truth is that Republicans became the great defenders of corporate interests, free trading good worker jobs to China promising great new replacement jobs for China-eradicated, India-outsourced jobs that never appeared. Tax cuts for the wealthy only.
And defended it by saying that workers who saw their jobs taken away should "reinvent themselves" and strive to be CEOs - and then they too could make tens of millions....
Somewhere after Reagan, Republicans got so wrapped up in the false bubbles of prosperity and so disconnected from Reagan Democrats they forgot that Reagan was a staunch defender of jobs Japan was trying to take and the guy screaming at Israel to extradite fled Wall Street con artists who dishonored their profession.
Did Clinton also sell out minorities and workers? Seek the Open Borders the Bush's wanted? Love Free Trade? Of course! With the Gingrich Congress cheering him at every turn.
Except that in many aspects, "The Package" Republicans offered the minorities, the Reagan Democrats, the no health insurance working poor - DID involve them voting against their direct economic interests in order to get the "traditional values" part of the "Republican deal".
Great, another paternalistic statist. Don't you get it? Many of us have no desire to vote for a man or party just because of promises to enrich our particular demographic. I would (figuratively) spit on a politician who told me "If you vote for me, I'll make sure all Korean-Americans between the ages of 30 and 35 get one meeellion dollars from the gov't!" Seriously, go eat a bag of dicks.
People should vote according to whatever factors they feel are most important to their lives. Who the hell are these condescending douchebags who lecture poor people that they're "voting against their interests" if they vote for the party that doesn't promise them a handout? Let me guess: in your world, poor people are too damn stupid to figure out their own best interests--it's best that they let you do the thinking for them, eh?
Do you tell rich Democrats: "You idiot, you're voting against your own interests?" What about white people or non-union workers? Do you lecture them about making sure to vote for their own direct economic interests? You're just like that guy Mahal: OMG but this party is giving you cheap tea!
And you douchebags have the gall to say that we're the greedy and selfish ones?
Clearly, the left is terrorized by millions of their fellow Americans. Phobias often lead to irrational, sometimes dangerous overreaction. Teaphobia is already producing derangement and psychosis on the left. There will be some very revealing behavior in the near future that may turn out to be dangerous. Simply follow the projection from the left to see how it may manifest. They will do what they claim to fear most from this concerned and lawful movement of people doing their duty as free men and women in a democracy.
This article illustrates a perfectly legal approach, but demonstrates the lack of respect for honest debate and the humanity of the opposition which always precedes the decent into violence.
I think that may not occur this time only because of the power of this media to instantly show it and hurt the message of the guilty. That could be a great benefit of the Internet and I hope we make it so.
I am disinclined to take 'tea-bagger' as a serious insult, but perhaps a linguist or grammarian could help me settle this. Considering 'employer/employee', is not 'tea-bagger' preferable to 'tea-bagee'?
the Reagan Democrats, the no health insurance working poor
Minimum wage on a single full-time job is $15,000. So that gives us a lower boundary on "working poor". The median household income is $50,000, so that gives us an upper range on what could conceivably be called "working poor". The following is the percentage of native-born American households that lacked insurance for at least part of the year:
Income Range (% uninsured)
$15,000-$24,999 (25%)
$25,000-$34,999 (23%)
$35,000-$49,999 (21%)
Source: US Census.
Even among the working poor, the vast majority are insured. So even if one was ignorant enough to believe that Obamacare will benefit those members of the working poor who lack insurance, it would still be in the self-interest of most of the working poor to oppose it.
In short, the idea that working poor "Reagan Democrats" ought to be supporting Obamacare is a bunch of nonsense.
@Blue@9 -- Good stuff. Thanks.
"Let me guess: in your world, poor people are too damn stupid to figure out their own best interests--it's best that they let you do the thinking for them, eh?"
In my world, seeing America's industrial base gutted by a Ruling Elite that control the levers of power, not the workers...it is not a function of American middle class stupidity that so many of them are jobless.
It is a function of how powerless they are to stop selling out America's future to the Chinese, stop mass illegal immigration, or restrain an out of control Fed gov't that sees Gov't jobs as the solution to jobs lost overseas.
Lecturing the American middle class that they are only suffering because they are too stupid to set up their own China import company is hardly the way to get them to see Corporate Republicanism as their friend. No matter how much "traditional family values love" is thrown in as a sort of propitiation...
And the gutted of jobs middle class and working poor get the familiar "magic bullet" excuses from Globalist Elites of both Parties.
Republicans hold out the hope of magic technology as well as "let those lazy sometimes unionized bastards pull themselves up by their bootstraps to become entrepreneurs or CEOS" logic. "Nanotechnology!! Become your own small business man in a town with no jobs!" And quietly, the one place Bush II was able to grow jobs was by growing government even faster than LBJ to add 1.8 million new Federal jobs funded by China IOUs.
Democrats hold out miracle high technology and government jobs to replace what we gave away to China and India. "Exciting Green Jobs! HIgh tech Solar Salvation!!" And more money borrowed from CHina to add community organizer/grant user jobs."
Only adding new Fed jobs on borrowed money or paying to keep existing jobs with borrowed money - worked.
I find dissent patriotic -- even if it's not by people of my particular political persuasion (which happens to be libertarian, fiscal-conservative, despiser of politicians).
It's foolish to focus on the edges, however.
Not for those on the edges, however--and it seems to me that now there are enough different edges, defined and entrenched, that those edges in the aggregate get the most focus.
In short, it's the perimeter, not the area.
Helluva thing, really.
I didn't read enough of whatever preceded the first couple sentences of what Cedarford wrote, but if his goal is to oppose the corrupt establishment - especially on the immig. issue - then the tea partiers are either doing nothing or on the wrong side.
I have yet to see one teapartier that's smart and emotionally stable enough to take on the bad guys. They're dumber and more out of control than a five-year-old, ADD-stricken Homer Simpson.
Here's another thought with regard to what I've been observing over time, trend-wise: across politics, disciplines, philosophies, arts, business & etc., etc., etc.:
"If the sausage casing is good enough, the innards therein will be just fine."
Hmmm.
wv: crosm
If you dare, or something like that.
Several years ago, I interviewed ChrisSimcox; search his name if you don't know who that is. I wanted him to give me examples of media bias, but he wasn't able to comply. But, that's not why I'm writing this. His associate was a complete, drooling-on-himself idiot, running down the MSM to me: a non-MSMer who's basically on the same side as them. Instead of cooperating with my attempt to show up the MSM, that assistant treated me like I was one of the people I'm trying to fight against.
The teapartiers are like that, only even dumber.
Ahhh, Lydia Depillis. The woman - excuse me, girl - who wrote that article called me a racist in another article she wrote for TNR, about the 9-12 march in DC.
She is an undergraduate intern at TNR. She interviewed a bunch of us ladies having a happy hour drink at one of the Washington hotels, the evening before the march. I said one thing I liked about Obama is that his family is a good role model for black families, in terms of a black man loving a black woman, raising their children well, intact family, education ... all things many black and white thought leaders said about Obama during his campaign.
In the article she quoted me and called my remark racist. I tried to respond in the comment thread, but couldn't log in unless I paid for a subscription, which I was not going to do. I wrote to editorial and asked if I could rebut, they said only if you're a subscriber. I let it go. How many people were going to read it and there are lots of people with my name.
I happened upon her twitter handle last week, because I follow a few liberal journalists, and read some of her twitter feed. Snarky, shallow, predictable lefty tropes, I'm so cool I get to play with the big kids, aren't those teabaggers dumb, etc. I mean, worse than Megan McCain if you can believe it.
I think we need to connect the dots here ... Andrew Breitbart could do a number on her.
In my world, seeing America's industrial base gutted by a Ruling Elite that control the levers of power, not the workers...it is not a function of American middle class stupidity that so many of them are jobless.
Ah yes, that's because you're stuck in world that no longer exists. Wistfully pining away for the past glories of an economy where American workers were insulted from competitive pressures is, well, quixotic.
This may be news to you, but the world where an American family could enjoy a comfortable middle-class existence on the salary of a single unskilled blue-collar worker was doomed long before any jobs actually left this country. Most of this incredible prosperity was rooted in a single fact: The rest of the industrialized world was either bankrupt or under rubble after WWII, except for us. How long do you think that kind of superiority was going to last? Forever? Eventually the rest of the world caught up (or is catching up), because it's not feasible to bomb everyone else back into poverty.
Businesses sold out America and shipped jobs overseas? What else did you think would happen when foreign workers finally had factories in which they could make the same stuff at a fraction of the cost? What do you think the solution should have been--keep making the same stuff as China but sell it at 10 times the cost? How long do you think that business model could survive? Shit, even the Japanese don't manufacture most of their electronics anymore--it's way too costly compared to doing it in China.
In the end, you're just indulging in a fantasist pipe-dream. The US couldn't just put up a massive wall around the country and declare that our economy would stay the same forever. That would have been real economic suicide. We can't pretend our way out of this. Frankly we're only doing as well as we are because of innovation and a shift to technology and an ideas-based economy. Keeping around manufacturing that pays union workers $30/hour to make $.05 widgets and textiles is asinine and everyone knows it.
So yeah, keep blaming "them." You know, "them," the cabal, the elites, those evil people pulling levers because they hate America. Let's just pretend that prosperity is natural result of generous intentions, and that we can regain our former glories by unleashing a stabbity thrust into the dark hearts of "them." Laf.
We still love our fatty, morbidly obese Palladian. Shes a great gal.
She's Mister Fench, from Family Affair, plus 200 pounds.
Republicans hold out the hope of magic technology as well as "let those lazy sometimes unionized bastards pull themselves up by their bootstraps to become entrepreneurs or CEOS" logic.
Yes, that's exactly what Republicans say: "union workers should become CEOs". It was extremely clever of you to summarize it in that manner. A lesser mind might have said that Republicans want union workers to do the same thing that non-union workers do: provide useful work in exchange for the best salaries they can attract in a free market.
Rather than, say, the best salaries they can pay Democratic Congressmen and Presidents to pay out of tax revenues. :)
What else did you think would happen when foreign workers finally had factories in which they could make the same stuff at a fraction of the cost?
This is one of the most fascinatingly revealing sentences I've seen in recent times (please note the "one of").
Sophie makes perfect sense and when Clinton went the NAFTA route for free trade, the unions were put in their place, at the very bottom of the industrial complex along with lawyers. Two lowlife parasitical collectivities destructive of economic growth were sidelined until the Dem disease made a comeback and put SEIU and the tort thugs front and center.
The US is going to have to continue its climbdown or put the Dem disease back in remission in Nov, 2010.
"How dare these commie-fascist terrorist-sympathizing marxist baby killers call us teabaggers! The nerve.""
Please, the difference is the vast majority of the Tea Partiers didn't even know what that term meant, much less have done it, and, well, the left is pretty much composed of terrorist-sympathizing marxist baby killers so it fits.
The guy in the picture is an idiot. That's now how you brew tea.
Blue@9 wrote:
"I don't think statists like Mahal (I won't devalue the word 'liberal' by granting him such a label) understand this concept. In his mind, no one should have cause to complain because the gov't is giving us something., never mind what we give up in return for these handouts."
Exactly.
The picture looks more like a hippie teabagee.
"What else did you think would happen when foreign workers finally had factories in which they could make the same stuff at a fraction of the cost?"
Ooh! Ooohh! I know! ...our wages and standards of living would plummet! Right?
I said one thing I liked about Obama is that his family is a good role model for black families, in terms of a black man loving a black woman, raising their children well, intact family, education .
Why isn't that a good model for any color family? Why explicitly refer to the race?
Why isn't that a good model for any color family? Why explicitly refer to the race?
Possibly due to the stratospheric un-wed mothers among African-Americans?
Hell even Louis Farrahkan made this a major issue in his Million Man March.
I have to admit that garage has found a new low in comparing American colonists protesting British tax policies with modern day terrorism.
Congratulations garage, you have completed your training and are now a Master Tool.
In most movements the "lunatic fringe" is where the verve and vigor of the party comes from. With sensible, pragmatic people at its core a group learns to use that energy to keep excitement - and funding) rolling in.
Personally, I'm glad to have them. Something to keep MSM focused upon while the real work goes on. And those very, well, focused souls will be of good use in the upcoming political battles over health care and the systematic dismissal of individual freedom Obama has in store for us.
Lipton T. Bagg
liptontbagg@gmail.com
viewedfromtheright.blogspot.com
The picture, and then the guy they quote in the first sentence has a name that sounds like "Mark Skrotum".
Coincidence? I doubt it; doesn't pass the smell test. Wonder whether "Mr. Skrotum" even exists.
wv: "stoxil" -- pharmaceutical for treatment of toxic scrotum syndrome.
"What else did you think would happen when foreign workers finally had factories in which they could make the same stuff at a fraction of the cost?"
Ooh! Ooohh! I know! ...our wages and standards of living would plummet! Right?
Plummet? So far we're just standing still, but they may as well plummet if people continue to insist that we prop up jobs that make no economic sense. What the hell is wrong with people? Do they really think we can legislate a different economic reality? Go ahead, pass a law that bans companies from moving jobs overseas. It'll be nice for about five years, and then the jobs will be gone anyway because the companies will be gone.
The funny thing is that China surpassed us in manufacturing for the first time just this past year. That's right, for all the bleating about the evil men behind the curtain selling us out, it's only been in the past year that we've dropped from #1 to #2. We're now behind a country with four times the population and an artificially devalued currency.
What does this mean? It means we still do a shit-ton of manufacturing--we just don't do the cheap shit that doesn't make any economic sense. Over time this sector is going to continue to shrink, but it's going to resemble something more like Germany's manufacturing sector--tooling, industrial goods, luxury goods, the kinds of stuff that still sells for a premium because the Chinese can't do it very well--yet.
Eventually the Chinese will catch up to that too, and then we'll have to figure out other things that we're better at than the rest of the world.
reader_iam:
What else did you think would happen when foreign workers finally had factories in which they could make the same stuff at a fraction of the cost?
This is one of the most fascinatingly revealing sentences I've seen in recent times (please note the "one of").
I would be interested to know what you find so revealing about it.
"What matters it? If the only people the tea parties can count on for support are the sort of wingnut extremists who think the American Revolution was justified, the movement is doomed anyway."
;-)
For the win.
flenser on 3/15 @ 4:20 PM
Glad you're admitting that the Bush NG crazies are comparable to the Birther crazies.
Only trouble is that the so many in the MSM still "know" that "Bush was AWOL".
Lonewacko, I've never followed one of your links. Your a lousy salesman. Insulting customers is what's really stupid by expecting us to be interested by lame, broad, ad hominem attacks which inform us that what is at your link is a waste of our time.
Glad I got all that "paperwork" taken care of, Ann. Otherwise I would have missed out on the sterling education being advanced by this "garage" guy/gal. Gave me a good laugh and this old Texan can always use a good laugh!
For fixin' the button; Thank you, Darlin'!
Women and blacks were of course exempted from taxes in the early American republic.
Oh, wait.
We're laughing at you. And TNR. Win-win!
So it's bad form to mock stupidity now? Oh, right, I forgot - the "New Journalism" means that any crazy BS now demands equal time with actual facts, science or history. The "Teabagger" meme was originated by the group itself - if you're dumb enough to start out with a footbullet like that you're flat-out begging for mockery ... & it doesn't help when you follow it up with Orly Taitz & "GOVERNMENT HANDS OFF MY MEDICARE!!1111!!"
Nor does massive gnashing of teeth over Obama's "socialism" from people who obviously have no idea what the word really means. Socialists don't bail out ailing banks with taxpayer money - they nationalize them. They don't spend an entire year trying to fix a dysfunctional private healthcare system - they abolish it in favor of an exclusively public one.
Changing over to "The Tea Party" scarcely helps, if you know the real story behind the original Boston Tea Party. Nor does the fetish with the Founding Fathers: if anything, America is suffering from some states having too much representation, relative to their meagre population, which gives them far more political power than their numbers merit. That imbalance is repeated by the media in regards to the Tea Party itself - they only get a few hundred people to show up on the steps of the Capitol, yet they're national news when they do so.
Go through the archives of websites like Instapundit, HotAir, LGF or JawaReport if you want to see some REAL ugly use of perjoratives & tasteless graphics. The right trumps the left by light-years in terms of sheer nastiness, both online & IRL - Google "Max Cleland election campaign" for one obvious example.
PS - a link, just so everyone knows exactly who the poor victims of this horrible TNR smear-job are.
(in before "they're all obviously CEIU moles, WAEK UP SHEEPLE")
Go through the archives of websites like Instapundit, HotAir, LGF or JawaReport if you want to see some REAL ugly use of perjoratives & tasteless graphics. The right trumps the left by light-years in terms of sheer nastiness, both online & IRL - Google "Max Cleland election campaign" for one obvious example.
You're kidding, right? Ever been to a lefty protest? An anti-war rally during the Bush years? Amazing.
You said: "Obama is not a Natural Born Citizen NO MATTER WHERE he was born, since his father was not a US Citizen at the time Obama 2 was born."
Neither the citizenship of a parent nor dual nationality has any effect on the Natural Born Citizen status of a child who was born in the USA, as Obama was.
That is why such prominent conservative Senators who are also lawyers as Orren Hatch and Lindsay Graham say that a Natural Born Citizen is simply one who was born in the USA:
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), said:
“Every child born in the United States is a natural-born United States citizen except for the children of diplomats.” (December 11, 2008 letter to constituent)
Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT), said:
“What is a natural born citizen? Clearly, someone born within the United States or one of its territories is a natural born citizen.” (Senate Judiciary Committee hearing hearing on OCTOBER 5, 2004)
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