Althouse: One year ago today at the Wisconsin protests: A communist slogan on a civil war monument.

March 21, 2012

One year ago today at the Wisconsin protests: A communist slogan on a civil war monument.

And an explanation of why "tea bagger" is "homophobic." The video is long, but it cracks me up every time, especially around 6 minutes in, when the guy with the Scott-Walker-as-Marie-Antoinette sign says, with disbelief, "homophobic?!!"

25 comments:

Sprezzatura said...: "...but it cracks me up every time..."

So, Althouse can't watch pols speaking live. She'll read the transcripts because the tedium of speeches is too slow for her.

But, she'll re-watch this?

WTF?; 3/21/12, 9:56 PM
edutcher said...: At least she reads, rather than belches up Lefty talking points.

Obviously, it makes PB&J uncomfortable to see an older couple expose the Lefty Establishment for what it is.

And, of course, kudos to Meade for being a good citizen.

PS Many people read the transcripts to have a chance to consider the points made (or unmade, in some cases0) at leisure; 3/21/12, 10:04 PM
Sprezzatura said...: Ed,

Don't worry my comment was a multi-offender.

May it (and this one) RIP after deletion.; 3/21/12, 10:08 PM
bagoh20 said...: I like how Althouse inadvertently tells a clueless English teacher that we need better teachers, and he seemed to agree as Meade tries to teach him modern English.; 3/21/12, 10:34 PM
bagoh20 said...: You don't have to be gay to do it.

And I don't mind being called a "tea bagger", or a "wing nut", or a "hillbilly", just don't call me a "nice guy". That pisses me off, especially in Middle English.; 3/21/12, 10:53 PM
LoafingOaf said...: Urban Dictionary:

Tea Bagger
-noun
1) A male engages in the sexual act of tea bagging. in which he stands over his partner and lowers his testicles into his partner's mouth, as if lowering a tea bag into a tea cup.
2) A follower of the conservative US Tea Party political movement, often used as a derogatory term.

Wikipedia:
"To tea bag is a slang term for the act of a man placing his scrotum in the mouth of a sexual partner or onto the face or head of another person. The practice resembles dipping a tea bag into a cup of tea when it is done in a repeated in-and-out motion. As a form of non-penetrative sex, it can be done for its own enjoyment or as foreplay."

The graphic Wiki uses shows a man and a woman. The teabaggee can be of either gender, obviously.

So, Meade was wrong and should post a correction.

(Oh, and Merriam-Websters gives two audios showing that "argot" can be pronounced either way.)

I do agree, however, that the lawyer was playing dumb about the communist slogan. But isn't Meade sometimes disingenuous himself in his videos?

For example, when he confronted people for taping things on the back side of a war memorial, he told them, "I'm not unsympathetic to your cause." Really?

And in another video, when someone asks Meade why he's shoving a camera in their faces, he got all vague and evasive and wouldn't give them a sincere answer.

In this video, how come Meade says in the video that he's not a member of the Tea Party? I recall him going to Washington 2 years ago for a Tea Party protest. "Don't tread on Meade" and all that. Or is my memory wrong?

Although I don't know for sure that Meade considers himself a Tea Partier, I thought it was common knowledge that he is one. Am I wrong?

In any case, trying to insist someone is "homophobic" for saying "teabaggers" is a political tactic by Althouse and Meade -- probably another instance where they're using Alinsky strategies.; 3/21/12, 11:45 PM
cubanbob said...: I suppose its a question of one's tastes but given a choice I would rather be a bagger than than the one getting bagged.; 3/22/12, 12:09 AM
bagoh20 said...: If you call someone a "tea bagger" with authority, you imply that you are either the teabagee, or a voyeur of said entertainment. I would just avoid using that term. You shouldn't go around implying such things of others no matter who does it.

I agree that it's not generally homophobic, but as insults go, it's about as much of a non-sequiteur as is rudely possible to deliver. I would suggest avoiding it in public, just like the C-word and n-word and the x-word.; 3/22/12, 12:32 AM
Chip Ahoy said...: Speaking of tea bagging, whatever happened to that artistic looking root? That could have been shaken out and polished up. People pay good money for things like that for their aquariums. I think. Possibly. Perhaps.

I saw branches filling a large aquarium. Seems fish like swimming around things like that. They make good aquascapes.

The artistic root that led to the tea bagging rotating Pelosi Medusa animated GIF. No link, it was fun at the time but that was then and this is now.; 3/22/12, 12:48 AM
LoafingOaf said...: bagoh20: "I agree that it's not generally homophobic...."

Meade, in his typical authoritarian fashion, was badgering those people claiming if they'd go to Urban Dictionary they'd find it's "absolutely" a homophobic term.

Meade was wrong.

See above where I looked it up on the Urban Dictionary.

It didn't say what Meade said it would.

I figured it wasn't a homophobic term, as I recalled the ladies on Sex in the City discussing teabagging.

And, as you can learn from The National Review, it was right wingers who started calling Tea Partiers "tea baggers" before anyone else:

"The first big day for this movement was Tax Day, April 15. And organizers had a gimmick. They asked people to send a tea bag to the Oval Office. One of the exhortations was 'Tea Bag the Fools in D.C.' A protester was spotted with a sign saying, 'Tea Bag the Liberal Dems Before They Tea Bag You.' So, conservatives started it: started with this terminology. But others ran with it and ran with it."; 3/22/12, 3:43 AM
Fen said...: And, as you can learn from The National Review, it was right wingers who started calling Tea Partiers "tea baggers" before anyone else:

Uh no. Read your own link. It was one guy with a sign.

According to your logic, its okay to call blacks "niggers" because Chris Rock did it.

But since you're back to calling us tea-baggers, I can assume the period of civility and pearl clutching over that Fluke Slut is over, yes?; 3/22/12, 6:05 AM
Fen said...: And I love the justifications presented by the very same people who lecture us that offensive speech is defined by the victim.

You know the term is offensive and yet you continue to use it.

Fen's Law.; 3/22/12, 6:08 AM
Darcy said...: I watched a bit of the video last year without sound at work. Glad I watched it again because it gave me a little heart or these two protesters. Seemed friendly and reasonable. Willing to listen.

And haha! Bagoh20, I almost wrote "nice guys". But yeah. I've recently reflected on the "nice guy/girl" or "good guy" use and agree that I wouldn't want to be called one.; 3/22/12, 6:37 AM
Darcy said...: Heart *for* them, not or them.; 3/22/12, 6:39 AM
Toad Trend said...: Hehe, 'Pinching Loaf' indeed drops a two-bagger on this thread, showing solidarity with the socialist rubes in the video.

I find it highly amusing that these 'educated' types almost always revert to incivility to supplement their 'argument'.

The template is 'I'm simply smarter than you, this is the way it is, and if you don't understand then F-you, you tea-bagging idiot.'

I give AA and Meade the highest of marks for confronting (tolerating) these insufferable rubes. Talk about obtuse. Before anyone goes nuts, yes, here's the disclaimer: the rubes have every right to be rubes if they wish. The bus stops, however, when the rubes insist that the non-rubes subsidize their act.; 3/22/12, 7:21 AM
Writ Small said...: I really enjoy this video for so many reasons:

- The disbelief over "teabagger" being a pejorative.

- The not recognizing that "Workers of the World Unite" is a communist slogan.

- The contrast of the conservative working and the progressives standing around while others work.

The whole video is just a pleasure.; 3/22/12, 7:37 AM
Rusty said...: I notice how they dropped the signs an offered to help Meade.

Oh..........................how sad.; 3/22/12, 7:42 AM
Matt Sablan said...: Not using the proper formulation of Democrat/Democratic -- an attempt to subvert language to make people dislike the party and must be stomped out at every opportunity.

Calling people tea baggers -- perfectly acceptable because it is an act that is in no way, shape or form offensive to throw about in public.

Standards. Some are different.; 3/22/12, 7:48 AM
X said...: it was blacks who started calling other blacks "tea **ggers" before anyone else

it was gays who started calling other gays "tea *agg**s" before anyone else; 3/22/12, 8:13 AM
Jim S. said...: I'll reiterate what I wrote a year ago: meaning no disrespect Prof. Althouse, I think you may have married up.; 3/22/12, 11:52 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "The whole video is just a pleasure."

Thanks! We love this one. Chez Meadhouse we find innumerable opportunities to say "Homophobic!" like that guy in the video at 6:06. We've cracked each other up about a thousand times saying that.; 3/22/12, 1:40 PM
Meade said...: LoafingOaf said...
Meade, in his typical authoritarian fashion, was badgering those people claiming if they'd go to Urban Dictionary they'd find it's "absolutely" a homophobic term.

Meade was wrong.

Did you go to the Urban Dictionary one year ago today? It is you who would be wrong. BTW, L Oaf, was the definition you cited today the #1 entry on UD ? Why not?

See above where I looked it up on the Urban Dictionary.

It didn't say what Meade said it would.

I figured it wasn't a homophobic term, as I recalled the ladies on Sex in the City discussing teabagging.

If you are truly interested in finding where and when the term was first used, see the 1998 John Waters movie, "Pecker". The act is homosexual and term is used pejoratively.

As for your charge of my being disingenuous with the protesters who had co-opted the Veterans' Memorial - on February 25, 2011 I was not unsympathetic to the cause of teachers and public employees demonstrating against legislation effectively leading to a 10-12% loss of income for themselves. As the protests led to the occupation of the Capitol, the recall elections, and countless acts of jackassery, I lost nearly all sympathy for the protesters' cause. But on 2/25/11, I was genuine in telling that person that I was "not unsympathetic to [his] cause".

I've never been a member of the Tea Party but I do share some of the Tea Party goals and principles as I understand them.; 3/22/12, 2:10 PM
Ann Althouse said...: What Meade omits from his description of his sympathy is that the Walker budget reform hit MY income. I sustained that 10-12% loss in take-home pay. You better believe we felt the pain as if it were our own. It was!; 3/22/12, 2:21 PM
Curious George said...: I understand why public employees were pissed about having to pay a portion of their pension contributions and healthcare...but sympathy? No. Empathy? No. It is perfectly acceptable for one to keep what is theirs. It is not acceptable for one to keep that which is provided by others as theirs.; 3/22/12, 4:39 PM
LoafingOaf said...: Meade: "Did you go to the Urban Dictionary one year ago today? It is you who would be wrong. BTW, L Oaf, was the definition you cited today the #1 entry on UD ? Why not?"

I've never used Urban Dictionary before and didn't do my search through their search engine, but rather through Google.

I did this Google search: "teabagger urban dictionary".

The first result on Google took me to what looked like a troll entry, so I selected the second result from Google -- the first definition that came up when I clicked on that.

BTW, the first result for "teabagging" says it was the Urban Diction "word of the day" two years ago. So, I presume that definition was posted long before you made your video, and it doesn't describe it as a homosexual act:

1.teabagging 11384 up, 2588 down
April 13, 2009 Urban Word of the Day
the insertion of one man's sack into another person's mouth. Used a practical joke or prank, when performed on someone who is asleep, or as a sexual act.

At the frat house last night, when Tim was wasted an down on the floor, he got teabagged by, like, ten guys!

Me and Jen were teabagging last night when her mom walked in. Awkward.

I don't think mainstream journalists like Anderson Cooper should be using the term, but you were playing a game for your video when you got all huffy at someone on the street and accused him of being homophobic.

The teacher was being polite and it's believable that he didn't know what "teabagging" originally meant in a sexual context. I've found that MOST people (especially a year ago) don't know the slang definition. Even if they do, I don't buy that it's homophobic.

And how many people saw the movie Pecker? If you say it's a term coined in a homosexual subculture, that's interesting, but it's a sex act both genders engage in. Why would people know the origins of the word? I don't know who coined "blow job", or a lot of other slang terms for sex acts.; 3/23/12, 9:02 AM