Althouse: "Crash the Tea Party."

April 13, 2010

"Crash the Tea Party."

An update.

50 comments:

David said...: Nice to be in the post racial era, eh?; 4/13/10, 9:26 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I already signed up to be a citizen journalists for PJTV on tax day next thursday.

I will be taking pictures and possibly video.

I want to take a sign or something to identify me squarely on the Tea Party side.. but all I have so far is "I take my tea w/o Obama"

Lamo!

Does anybody have any ideas?; 4/13/10, 9:27 PM
David said...: Len, just hang a couple of wet tea bags from your belt buckle. That ought to confuse them.; 4/13/10, 9:30 PM
David said...: "Lem"
Sorry--typo king rides again.; 4/13/10, 9:30 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Also, if you have any ideas, please make sure to check the spelling ;); 4/13/10, 9:31 PM
Unknown said...: Another good little nephew of Uncle Saul. In the age of the Internet and videcams, it's getting harder to escape the light of exposure. I won't say the days of "fake but accurate" style mis- and disinformation are over, but pulling it off won't ever be as easy.

That this clown feels obliged to try to get something like this started shows how powerful - and dangerous in the eyes of a lot of people - the Tea Partiers are.

Bottom line: They're making a difference.

Mrs. Meade, kiss your husband. He's helping save this country.

Sorry, Wack.

PS How about, "The gang in DC stole my Change".; 4/13/10, 9:34 PM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: This is the first center-right mass movement I've seen in my lifetime (I was born in '65) and the reaction to it is fascinating.

On all sides.

I'm not a fan of populist movements (the "man on horseback" dangers and all that) and this one does have elements that are worrisome (no, Obama is not a Marxist). But the attempt by many (too many) on the left to suppress and smear the entire effort is far more ugly.; 4/13/10, 9:49 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: The effort to discredit is futile. Discredit away, it means nothing and accomplishes even less. What it shows though, is that the Left has looked hard for racism, and hasn't found any therefore it must be manufactured. In fact, the opposite will happen. By trying to prove racism, homophobia, moronism, by manufacturing it, you demonstrate racism, homophobia and moronism in yourself.

Opponents went ape-shit insane insisting Palin is an idiot and in so doing demonstrated their own idiocy. Same thing here. Bring it. Let them show us what they are.

This is turning out to be a very fine show.; 4/13/10, 10:01 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Thinking about the crashers Althouse wrote..

It generates too much chaos and uncertainty. If you don't know what's real and what's fake out there in that world of political action, don't you want to pull back into your more intimate relationships with people you actually know?

I cant help thinking I might be a crasher of another sort.

I'm taking unemployment compensation and as Beth pointed out ... tax-payer subsidized transit is your mode of choice? Are you going to the Tax Protest to protest taxes, or to protest the protesters?

I'm a mass transit conservative :)

On the other hand.. if only the pure could protest, I'm not sure who would qualify.

wv gettow - nobody wants to get towed.; 4/13/10, 10:11 PM
rachel tot said...: My Tea Party sign will say

"Ah'm proud to be an ignert, racy, anti-semenite, proConfedrate, shotgun-carrying, Bible bitch trailer trash slut whose bin on Jerry Springer (please take my picture for the next news cycle and I'll shoot the finger and bare a breast for added effect)."; 4/13/10, 10:13 PM
Palladian said...: "Obama is not a Marxist"

He's not? I think I'd rather be though a Marxist than a power-hungry liar or an idiot, which are the alternative theories if he's not a Marxist.

Of course in my view the three aforementioned ontological states are synonymous with each other, so I suppose it doesn't matter.; 4/13/10, 10:15 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: Lem, here's an idea

1) YOUR GRANDKIDS ARE GOING TO PAY MY BILLS!

HOW YA LIKE THEM APPLES?

2) HEALTHCARE FOR ALL CENTRAL/SOUTH AMERICA NOW!

WHY NOT?

3) FINE! HERE'S MY WALLET

4) SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL KLEPTOCRAT

VOTE PARTY LINE

5) NO INCOME TAX FOR THE LOWER 50%

IT ONLY MAKES ¢

6) DON'T LISTEN TO THAT OTHER GUY

7) I ACTUALLY DON'T MUCH CARE FOR TEA

8) SOMEBODY STOP ME, I CAN'T HELP MYSELF

9) BABY NEEDS A NEW PAIR OF SHOES

10) GORDON BROWN / DAVID CAMERON SAME DIFFERENCE

11) GIMM'E BACK MY PILOTS LICENSE!

I HAVE AN APPOINTMENT WITH A BUILDING

12) MY ARMS ARE VERY TIRED

13) I'M ONLY HERE BECAUSE I'M DITCHING WORK

14) WHAT IS EVERYBODY TALKING ABOUT?

15) YES SIR, MAY I HAVE ANOTHER?

16) TELL YOU KID TO GET HIS FLAG OUT OF MY FACE

17) MAY I ASK WHAT LENS YOU'RE USING?

18) YOU'RE STANDING ON MY FOOT; 4/13/10, 10:16 PM
John Stodder said...: The mistake the anti-Tea Party side is really making is in thinking this is a media war. That if enough is said against the movement by respectable commentators and leaders, if enough hairy frogs are found among participants in a protest, the whole thing will just blow over.

It's interesting that the left of our era, among whose key documents was Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent," an analysis of the corrupt influence of PR on the news and thus on policy, would end up as the last defenders of using PR as a weapon.

The Tea Party is not a PR creation. Thus, PR is useless against it.

The only way to make them go away is to co-opt them, adopting enough of their ideas so that the fight over the unmet remainder seems like a waste of their time. That's a bridge too far for the Democrats right now, but they'll be kicking themselves in a year for not doing it.; 4/13/10, 10:18 PM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: He's not? I think I'd rather be though a Marxist than a power-hungry liar or an idiot, which are the alternative theories if he's not a Marxist.

No, he's not.

Even if I can't persuade you that he isn't, I don't think the people surrounding him - folks like Summers and Gates et al. - would be working for one.

This is also why I shake my head when I hear people claim that Bush (or Obama) will suspend the elections and rule through fiat. You actually think that the men and women around them, the men and women in the military and FBI and police departments throughout this country would go along with such an action?

No they wouldn't.; 4/13/10, 10:20 PM
LonewackoDotCom said...: Most small insects are probably smarter and more aware than the partiers; none of them are smart enough to understand what Levin means to them. Not only are they incredibly dumb and incredibly unaware of what's going on around them, but most of them are misanthropes or outright sociopaths. And, all are as glassy-eyed as any other cultist.

So, those like Althouse should find something else to promote. She could promote someone who has similarly aberrant ideas as long as they weren't partiers. For instance, there are Randroid organizations that at least aren't out there acting like children even if their ideas are equally insane. Or, she could go straight to the source and just help promote one of the other Kochtopus groups, just not help them with promoting the partiers.

For all the details, see my extensive tea parties coverage.

And, maybe Althouse could riddle me this: why aren't the partiers going after the Dems and the Beltway over their most vulnerable issue? The Dems and the Beltway are very vulnerable on one specific issue, and it's a vital, fundamental issue that raises the taxes on the partiers and reduces their power. Yet, the partiers almost completely ignore it.

Think that one through and you'll see that the partiers aren't what they pretend they are.; 4/13/10, 10:20 PM
Palladian said...: "Even if I can't persuade you that he isn't, I don't think the people surrounding him - folks like Summers and Gates et al. - would be working for one."

I have no faith in the goodness of powerful men.

"This is also why I shake my head when I hear people claim that Bush (or Obama) will suspend the elections and rule through fiat. You actually think that the men and women around them, the men and women in the military and FBI and police departments throughout this country would go along with such an action?

No they wouldn't."

You seem certain of many things that seem to defy certainty. Again, I have no faith in the goodness of humans and no faith that, even if goodness resided in them, they couldn't be unwittingly led astray.

The 20th century is replete with examples of ostensibly blameless people accepting, allowing and even aiding and abetting the unthinkable.

How can you look at history and trust anyone?; 4/13/10, 10:29 PM
Palladian said...: Correction: How can you look at history and trust anyone with power?; 4/13/10, 10:30 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: That's a lotta tea there Chip ;); 4/13/10, 10:34 PM
garage mahal said...: No, he's not.

He's got to be some horrible name!; 4/13/10, 10:37 PM
LonewackoDotCom said...: Here's a hilarious addendum to the above. The PJTV description of "infiltrators" sounds exactly like the partiers themselves.; 4/13/10, 10:40 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: 19) I'D RATHER BE FISHING

20) I'M ONLY HERE TO SEE WHAT PEOPLE ARE WEARING

21) I WAS TOLD THERE WOULD BE BACON

22) I'M SINGLE

23) LET'S GO GET A BEER; 4/13/10, 10:49 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: Palladian, thank you for uploading your sketchbooks. Most impressive.; 4/13/10, 10:51 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: 23) LET'S GO GET A BEER

saved the best for last.; 4/13/10, 10:56 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Yes, I second Chip's sentiment. Very impressive, Palladian. Not that I didn't expect your work to be impressive, but I was, frankly, blown away. It was the flawless sense of proportions that did it.; 4/13/10, 11:00 PM
Palladian said...: Palladian, thank you for uploading your sketchbooks. Most impressive.

You're welcome, Chip. Thanks for looking at them. Check back for more!

Oh, and a reciprocal thanks for all the food-blogging.

verification word: fartivel....

fartivel...

I can't.

I just can't.; 4/13/10, 11:02 PM
Palladian said...: Geez, thanks F.H.! I'm glad you enjoyed looking at the drawings... And my students will be happy to hear about my sense of proportion. They're not too sure sometimes :)

Now let's get back to calling Obama and garage mahal Marxists! I actually wish Obama would be the kind of Marxist that garage is— an insignificant one!

;); 4/13/10, 11:06 PM
garage mahal said...: I prefer to be called a small m marxist. A centrist marxist, if you will. I'm not way out there by any means!; 4/13/10, 11:18 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I prefer to be called a small m marxist.

Isnt that like being a little pregnant Garage?; 4/13/10, 11:33 PM
Caroline said...: Palin will be at the Boston TP tomorrow, so if any of Levin's "operatives" are there, they may not be able to contain themselves from verbally attacking her and blowing their "cover". Should be interesting to watch what happens. Their heads might explode.*

I'll be there. With a camera. I wouldn't miss it for the world.

*Operatives' thoughts just before their head explodes:

"I really really really hate Palin, but I'm supposed to be a tea-bagging racist that loves Palin; so I can't verbally attack her, or no one will believe my ugly racist sign, which I carry not because I am a racist, really I'm not, even though the sign IS pretty nasty- I could see why people might think I really AM racist to come up with it, but really I'm not- I just carry it because I want people to think the guy in the wheelchair next to me and his grandchildren are racists... But I SO want to call Palin a bad name... I love to call right-wingers bad names... It's what I do... It's aalll I know how to do...But I can't call them bad names... not now... I'm an operative on a mission... ooh my head hurts..." BOOM; 4/14/10, 12:52 AM
MamaM said...: Lem, you know a lot of songs. Can you come up with song title or line from one of them to use on your sign?; 4/14/10, 1:36 AM
Alex said...: Crashing the tea parties is brilliant Alinsky-ite tactics to scatter us. Fuck, I will have NOTHING to do with the tea parties because I have too much to lose.; 4/14/10, 1:45 AM
Doug Smith said...: She could promote someone who has similarly aberrant ideas as long as they weren't partiers.

What are those aberrant ideas?; 4/14/10, 1:49 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Can you come up with song title or line from one of them to use on your sign?

That's not a bad idea.; 4/14/10, 1:52 AM
Revenant said...: Obama isn't a Marxist, nor is he a socialist.

His preferred form of government appears to be standard FDR stuff, minus the concern with national defense. Basically a totalitarian oligarchy, with an internationalist foreign policy and a corporatist/syndicalist economic policy. The usual belief that if the right people are given enough power to rule over the rest of us, all our problems will go away.; 4/14/10, 3:15 AM
Opus One Media said...: SMGalbraith said...
This is the first center-right mass movement I've seen in my lifetime (I was born in '65) and the reaction to it is fascinating."

Center Right? Hey. Take a turn due south, go to the fork in the road, bear far right, take the first right into the trailer park, go to the first doublewide on the right and and park next to the burning cross (the one on the right, not the other two) and knock three times on the clubhouse door.

I'm sure a few, unfortunately more than a few, are from your "center right" but more than a few to offset it have fallen off a cliff somewhere and can't be found on this planet.

Don't get all huffy at this characterization. If it were any other time and any other place in our history, the reaction would be that way - it just happens to have been ushered in by some manipulative political nerthewells who see an opportunity when it presents itself, have no shame in manipulating the unwashed, and won't be there when things run amuck.; 4/14/10, 5:44 AM
Quaestor said...: Revenant wrote Obama isn't a Marxist, nor is he a socialist.

Interesting. You deny Obama is a socialist, and then go on to describe him as such in a piecemeal fashion.; 4/14/10, 6:36 AM
KCFleming said...: The Tea Party crashers better be ready for the physical retaliation they are trying to provoke.

The racial healing under Obama makes one weep.; 4/14/10, 7:13 AM
KCFleming said...: @Quaestor
I'm not interested much anymore in the 57 flavors of socialism. He's a statist, to be sure, and Marxist in worldview.

That's enough to be called a socialist for most. His "corporatist/syndicalist economics" is National Socialist Party redux.

Arbeit macht frei.; 4/14/10, 7:18 AM
Fen said...: /via Instapundit

State Dems scrambling to deploy tea party ‘crashers’

New Hampshire Democrats are engaged in a statewide search for liberal activists willing to attend so-called tea parties on Thursday and carry signs expressing racist or fringe sentiments, a Democratic source with knowledge of the effort tells NowHampshire.com.

According to the source, who sought anonymity for fear of reprisals, the Dems’ last minute scramble reflects a growing obsession among party leaders that they need to discredit the tea party movement soon or it will overwhelm them come the November election.

http://www.nowhampshire.com/2010/04/14/source-state-dems-scrambling-to-deploy-tea-party-%E2%80%98crashers%E2%80%99/; 4/14/10, 7:44 AM
Fen said...: BTW, if you are a Democrat but NOT a Little Eichmann, please report any inside knowledge of these dirty tricks to PJ media or some other media outlet thats not under DNC control.; 4/14/10, 7:46 AM
Andrea said...: Actually, this "tea party crasher" movement is just another typical moment of liberals shooting themselves in the foot. All we have to do now, when shown a person at a tea party rally with a racist sign, is say "oh, that's just one of those tea party crashers." How are they going to prove us wrong? Oops.; 4/14/10, 7:48 AM
KCFleming said...: @Andrea
Ha! Hilarious.

Telegraphing the crash-the-Tea Party plan does give plausible deniability to the whole movement from now on.

I hadn't considered that.; 4/14/10, 7:52 AM
Joe said...: I prefer to be called a small ‘m’ Marxist.

Oh so you prefer to rob people at the point of a gun, impoverish your society, produce an non-sustainable, non-transparent, socially immobile society, but without the camps….well then that makes it all better. I assume that was sarcasm, right? Or are you just saying that you’re Mussolini, rather than Hitler, and that on the great scale of being you’re, comparatively, a saint?; 4/14/10, 8:02 AM
KCFleming said...: "I prefer to be called a small ‘m’ Marxist."

The e. e. cummings of statists.; 4/14/10, 9:07 AM
bagoh20 said...: What's a Marxist and what's so bad about it?; 4/14/10, 9:39 AM
bagoh20 said...: Where are the arguments against small government and adherence to the constitution?

Where are the defenses of our fine congressional incumbents?

Is yelling "racist" all there is on that side instead? Really?; 4/14/10, 9:43 AM
Joe said...: What's a Marxist and what's so bad about it?
It’s not fair to bait people like that!; 4/14/10, 9:48 AM
bagoh20 said...: If the Tea Party can't succeed, there is no hope. There will not be another movement toward smaller government and away from collapse until after it's too late, if we're not already there.

These claims of radicalness are working. There are a lot of fence sitters afraid some tea partier will do something stupid and embarrassing to the movement. Dems are doing everything they can to provoke it, capture it and exploit it, even if it requires manufacturing it. This should be easy from a movement of millions demonstrating everyday in public. These same fence sitters would have no problem jumping in with a leftist movement even if it had plenty of Marxist signs and anarchist or confiscatory rhetoric.

Why is racism (even manufactured) so much more scary than Marxism, when the later has been the engine of the worst atrocities in human history from which no race was safe?

What did education do to people?; 4/14/10, 9:55 AM
Quaestor said...: Elements of Fascism:
1)nationalism
2)corporatism
3)national syndicalism
4)expansionism
5)social progress
6)anti-communism
7)suppression of dissent
8)censorship
9)state propaganda

Well, by my estimation Obamaism (with the eager cooperation of his lackeys in the MSM) correlates on at least 7 of 9 points. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss (if the old boss was Mussolini); 4/14/10, 10:05 AM
Doug Smith said...: bagoh - it's true. I know people who won't attend tea parties due to fear of these crasher-types.; 4/14/10, 11:32 AM