Cathy Young has an interesting column digging deeper into the data. Here’s how it starts:
Ever since the “Tea Parties” gained national attention, the debate has raged on whether they are a grass-roots protest movement in the proud tradition of American dissent, or a hysterical mob driven by fear, intolerance and selfishness. Recently, two much-discussed surveys — a CBS/New York Times poll and a multi-state University of Washington poll — have been bandied about as proof that the leftist caricatures of the Tea Partiers as mean-spirited rich white bigots are accurate. Yet a look at the data suggests that this interpretation is highly skewed by political bias.
UPDATE: Relatedly, I haven’t heard any prominent “tea partier” make anything remotely resembling this blatant appeal to racial demography, courtesy of President Obama, in which he told activists that “it will be up to you to make sure that the young people, African-Americans, Latinos, and women who powered our victory in 2008 stand together once again.”
Steve says:
“the debate has raged on whether they are a grass-roots protest movement in the proud tradition of American dissent, or a hysterical mob driven by fear, intolerance and selfishness.”
Does Cathy Young mean to imply that there’s a difference?
(Okay, I’ve filled my cynicism quota for the day.)
April 26, 2010, 11:27 amConstantin says:
It should be beneath a president to make a statement like this. It’s not beneath this guy, though. His entire adult life has been one of race obsession.
April 26, 2010, 11:35 amGordo says:
There’s any easy test for any tea partier to take re: being a racist or not.
Would you be just as opposed today to the presidency of Hillary Clinton?
If the answer is “yes,” congratulations, you are not a racist. Because Hillary Clinton would be espousing the very same political agenda that Barack Obama is espousing.
If the answer is “no,” then you are most likely a racist.
April 26, 2010, 11:41 amTexEd says:
I can understand the Obamacrats misleading the world regarding the nature of the Tea Partiers, they must demonize the opponents for the faithful, but I simply don’t understand why the captive media tells the same lies.
April 26, 2010, 11:42 amWe all know some one who went to a Tea Party or (maybe) has a Tea Party or Palin bumper sticker. We know they aren’t bad people. Yet, the media continues to sell as truth something we KNOW to be false.
What is the motivation for the media to be so self-destructive? Sure, individuals will get sinecures on the federal payroll or on the staff of some political hack, but the media institutions will continue to suffer.
Dave N. says:
But if you substituted Hillary Clinton for Barack Obama and opposed her, you would be a sexist.
April 26, 2010, 11:45 amGordo says:
TexEd: Look in a mirror, buddy. The tea partiers are being led around with a nose ring by a bunch of political hacks and political entertainers whose primary mission is the political destruction of Barack Hussein Obama. They don’t care if 45,000 Americans die needlessly every year because we are the one industrialized nation in the world that can’t provide adequate health care for all of its citizens. They don’t care if we consume energy in a way that not only might negatively change world climate, but also spews unhealthy pollution and enriches foreign tyrants. They don’t care if the destructive techniques of Wall Streeters bring down our economy again in the future.
All they care about is power, and the political destruction of Barack Obama. It’s disgusting, really.
April 26, 2010, 11:49 amDudeman says:
No Dave, you would still be a racist because you picked a white woman over a black man.
April 26, 2010, 11:49 amtroll_dc2 says:
For a different view, see this.
It includes this paragraph:
April 26, 2010, 11:49 amGordo says:
Well, there’s THAT problem …:)
Let’s put “John Edwards” in my prior statement in place of Hillary Clinton. NO, wait ….
April 26, 2010, 11:50 amB.D. says:
@ Gordo: assuming you’re correct in your assumption about Hillary, then you’re right. But it’s a ridiculous question to ask, since Obama actually IS the president, and we’ll never know what Hillary would have done.
FWIW, the teapartiers seem to be mostly issues-oriented. There are exceptions, of course, but that’s to be expected.
April 26, 2010, 11:51 amAndyinNc says:
Shorter Bernstein: Encouraging historically under-represented minorities to participate in the political process is just like calling Obama a watermelon-eating witch doctor!
April 26, 2010, 11:55 amParagon says:
Great commentary from Steyn. Read the rest here.
April 26, 2010, 11:56 amCJColucci says:
From Cathy Young’s “interesting column”:
The endurance of racial stereotypes in this day and age is disturbing; but Tea Party supporters differ little in this regard from mainstream Americans.
Something to remember the next time Professor Bernstein wants to hang unpalatable political views on historical figures he dislikes for other reasons than their unpalatable political views.
April 26, 2010, 11:59 amuh_clem says:
I suspect that the Tea Party is something akin to the elephant and we’re a bunch of old blind men.
From where I sit, the movement doesn’t seem to have a coherent ideology, and many participants hold self-contradictory positions (“keep the government’s hands off my medicare”). I doubt that many adherents have really thought through the official positions of the Tea Party . Of course, you could say that about pretty much any party.
April 26, 2010, 12:02 pmFloridan says:
The blogger doth protest too much, methinks.
April 26, 2010, 12:03 pmbchurch says:
That is indeed a simple test. Racist people only hate black politicians. Finally, proof that nobody hated LBJ because of his or her racist beliefs.
April 26, 2010, 12:04 pmDarel Finkbeiner says:
So… FDR sends Japanese to internment camps, 22 Democrats filibuster to stop civil rights legislation, Democrats go to war with the Union to keep slaves… who’s the racist group again?
Also, are you racist if you hated both Bush 43 and Obama’s economic policies? It’s so hard to figure out who’s racist anymore…
April 26, 2010, 12:06 pmtheobromophile says:
I find the double-bind that leftists would inflict on Tea Partiers to be ironic: if we are wealthy and educated, then we are elites who are seeking to preserve our status; if we are working-class, then we are uneducated rubes who hate people who have more than us. The worthlessness of these ad hominem attacks should be self-evident.
“Other minorities such as Italians and Jews” is interesting; why no mention of other racial minorities, such as the Japanese? Why not the Irish, who lived under “No Irish Need Apply”?
April 26, 2010, 12:09 pmbchurch says:
Yeah Democrats used to win the entire southeast, but mysteriously, those states all became Republican in the late 60s. I wonder what could’ve caused that. We’ll probably never know.
April 26, 2010, 12:10 pmStrict says:
It all depends where you set the bar for “racist,” and whether the bar shifts. Bernstein suggests that Obama is more racist than any Tea Partiers because he wanted more women, young people, blacks and other minorities to get out and vote, because they tend to vote Democrat. That’s a pretty low bar for “racist.”
It’s a weak to use the qualifier “prominent tea partier,” because then any counterexamples of Tea Partier racism can be discounted on the grounds that the specific Tea Partier is not “prominent.” Who is a prominent Tea Partier anyways? Who qualifies and who doesn’t?
It also depends what kind of circumstantial evidence you’ll allow.
For example, Obama won 8% of the white male vote in Alabama and 9% of the white male vote in Mississippi. Conservatives here say “not racism,” because there’s no direct evidence.
For another, in the 221 years since the first Congress, there’s been only 6 “African-American” Senators. The first two were not popularly elected, and both had a white parent. The third [Brooke] was obviously mostly white [and had a white Italian wife]. The fifth [Obama] had a white mother, and the sixth was appointed. Conservatives again would say “not racism,” because there’s no direct evidence.
The obvious inference from these two examples, however, is racism. That’s not “seeing racism everywhere,” it’s just seeing it where it’s really, really obvious.
April 26, 2010, 12:10 pmbyomtov says:
Young writes:
Thus, while only 35% of strong Tea Party supporters rated blacks as hardworking, only 49% described whites as such. While the gap is evident, these responses are close to those for all whites (blacks are rated as “hardworking” by 40%, whites by 52%).
Actually, these responses are not “close,” especially the 35% – 40% gap.
It’s worth reading this interview with Dr. Christopher Parker of UW, who conducted the poll.
April 26, 2010, 12:22 pmgood reverend says:
Oh, I get it: we’re not driven by racism and homophobia, we’re driven by the budget and Obamacare, and we happen to be racist and homophobic to boot.
I’m uncomfortable with people who point to individual protesters’ signs or comments and try to tar the whole Tea Party movement with them: many Tea Partiers have strong, intelligent concerns to bring to the table. However, saying the loony-tunes people just aren’t ‘prominent’ Tea Partiers belies the many bigots who, having nowhere else to go, have tagged along with the movement. Furthermore, just because the ‘prominent’ activists are smart enough to keep their mouths shut doesn’t mean they aren’t tacitly encouraging the propagation of these sorts of beliefs — they’re all too happy to have the support.
April 26, 2010, 12:27 pmAnderson says:
Find a gallery of Tea Party photos and look at the signs.
If Jews were being portrayed anything like Obama is, Bernstein would have his panties so wadded, they’d require surgical removal.
Tea Partiers aren’t racist; they just don’t like black people.
April 26, 2010, 12:27 pmyankee says:
She lost me with this:
This didn’t remotely pass the smell test, so I looked up the numbers. In 2008, the 95th percentile mark for household income was $180,000 (see table A-3). According to Wiki, in 2005, only 1.5% of households earned $250,000 or more. Even if the number of $250,000+ households has doubled in the past 5 years (no doubt a vast overestimate, especially considering what’s happened to the economy in that period), that would still only be 3% of households.
The only way she could come up with this 11% figure is if she were intentionally lying, just made up the numbers, or looked at some source and completely failed to understand it. I’m going to apply Hanlon’s Razor and guess it’s the third one, but it leaves me with no confidence about the rest of the statistics she presents.
April 26, 2010, 12:34 pmbyomtov says:
DB,
Did you actually listen to what Obama said?
He was identifying groups that had a large number of first-time voters in 2008, and was urging his supporters to make sure that those people stayed involved and voted this year. If it was supposed to be a “blatant appeal to racial demography,” why include women, and young people. Are these now “races” as well.
April 26, 2010, 12:37 pmDavid Bernstein says:
Nope, that’s your misinterpretation. The Tea Party movement leaders, as evidence by “good reverend’s” post above, is accused of fostering racialist thinking–let’s get all the white guys together and vote out the Democrats. Yet I haven’t actually heard anyone say that, but I have now heard Obama say “let’s get the African Americans and Hispanics out to vote for the Democrats.” Imagine if Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck was quoted as telling their supporters that they need to make sure that white men turn out to vote for the GOP in November! I am not persuaded that the fact that blacks and Hispanics are underrepresented minorities has anything to do with this, especially given that “women” were mentioned in the same sentence, and I believe that they are a majority of voters.
April 26, 2010, 12:39 pmfalafalafocus says:
The quote doesn’t say that.
Also, DB didn’t call Obama’s statement racist, but only a “blatant appeal to racial demography”.
Other than that, your point is spot on.
April 26, 2010, 12:40 pmBored Lawyer says:
Sorry, but this is not an “obvious inference” at all. It’s rather an example of statiticulation — gussying up an argument with statistics which do not in fact back it up.
Mississippi and Alabama are very conservative states, especially when you exclude blacks, who vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Barack Obama was among the most liberal Democrats to run for President since at least LBJ, if not earlier. Ideology is at least a powerful possible reason to explain the result as race.
The real test would be to compare how a white candidate with the same liberal (dare I say far-left) views as Obama would fare in a Presidential race among white voters in Alabama and Mississippi. Let’s say Dennis Kucinich ran for President and won the Democratic nomination. Would such a candidate do better than Obama did? My guess is that maybe he would do marginally better, but I doubt he would gain more than a few percentage points.
April 26, 2010, 12:42 pmbgates says:
Democrats used to win the entire southeast, but mysteriously, those states all became Republican in the late 60s. I wonder what could’ve caused that.
Huh. Right at the same time the southeast became vastly more racially tolerant than it had ever been, it became vastly less Democratic than it had ever been. That’s a puzzler.
April 26, 2010, 12:46 pmyankee says:
I should add that you have to live in a bubble to believe 11% of Americans have incomes of $250,000 or more. Perhaps the same sort of bubble that leads you to complain about how hard it is to pay the nanny on a mere $300,000 a year.
April 26, 2010, 12:47 pmBored Lawyer says:
Did you even bother to read what you wrote before you posted?
Here is a newsflash: Obama is a politician. In American political discourse, politicians are criticized, caricatured, excoriated, pilloried, and made to look foolish. George W. Bush was routinely portrayed as a monkey and a simpleton in innumerable cartoons published throughout the media, not to even mention what was put on signs at protests.
To compare carictures of an individual, prominent politician to caricatures of the generic “Jews” is intellectually dishonest.
Which is not to say that some caricatures might not be racist. A sign which shows Obama eating watermelon is clearly appealing to racism. A sign which shows Obama expanding the government until it takes over the country is not.
April 26, 2010, 12:54 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
AndyinNc,
Shorter Bernstein: Encouraging historically under-represented minorities to participate in the political process is just like calling Obama a watermelon-eating witch doctor!
Andy, your “historically under-represented minorities” (“young people, African-Americans, Latinos, and women“?!) together make up the large majority of the electorate. Hell, women all by themselves make up a majority of the electorate. If they (well, we, actually) all really want the same candidate, they (we) can collectively elect anyone they (we) please.
April 26, 2010, 12:55 pmbchurch says:
Hilarious.
April 26, 2010, 12:57 pmDavid Bernstein says:
I believe the relevant sentence says that 11% of “all Americans” as a demographic group in the poll had this income, i.e., that the poll demographics skewed toward this group in general, not just re tea partiers. I could be wrong, but that’s how I read it.
April 26, 2010, 1:00 pmsureyoubet says:
While poorly phrased, the sentiment expressed is not as “self-contradictory” as hosts on MSNBC would like to make it out to be.
Most of us have paid “premiums” into Medicare for our entire working lives. We had no choice in that matter. No option to use those funds to purchase private insurance. (the same way we have been forced to pay for an annuity and disability insurance through Social Security taxes)
Had I paid premiums to a private company for 40 years for the promise of delivering certain coverages to me in my old age, I would be rightly outraged if that company breached its contract and attempted to roll back and limit the coverages for which I had been paying for 40 years. I’d sue them, and if unsuccessful, would probably be demanding that the government step in with “insurance reform” to prevent that kind of raw deal. Unfortunately, the government will claim that it is immune from suit, and that there is no “contract.”
Why is it “self-contradictory” to expect the Government to refrain from acting in ways that if done privately would generate universal outrage.
Indeed, the statement reflects at least in expressed intent, at least some of what Obama and the Democrats claim their health care bill will prevent insurance companies from doing. When government does it, what else can be done but yell at rallies?
I know you’ll say I’m unreasonable for characterizing Medicare as an insurance contract, or Social Security as an annuity/disability insurance bundle, but that’s really what politicians of both parties have sold it as for my entire lifetime. Show me the elected official that said: there are no promises or guarantees. You might get nothing.
April 26, 2010, 1:04 pmA. Zarkov says:
The Democrats are running scared because they know full well the Tea Party people will provide much needed manpower for the Republican candidates in the coming November 2010 election. They will walk their neighborhoods knocking on doors to get out the vote, put up signs, and do all those things one does to elect a candidate. Fearing this potentially large labor pool, the Democrats and those who do their bidding are on a desperate mission to discredit the Tea Party movement by trying to portray them as racist and violent. But most anyone who has ever attended a Tea Party can tell you that description is way off the mark. I went to a Tea Party event in Walnut Creek CA, more as a spectator than a participant, and talked to a lot people. At no time did I encounter anything racist. Indeed I met blacks and Hispanics who were participants. The tension one usually encounters at an anti-war demonstration was missing. A tension that often breaks out into violence and arrests.
There are few to zero arrests at Tea Party events. Compare and contrast to WTO demonstrations, Mexicans protesting immigration laws, and of course peace demonstrations which are anything but peaceful. Remember the “no blood for oil” shouts as anti-war demonstrators assaulted members of the Pacific Stock Exchange after Gulf War I started? There was violence and arrests at the Concord Naval Weapons Station in 1987. Every demonstration I have witnessed in Berkeley had arrests. The demonstration outside the UC Weapons Lab also had lots of arrests.
Now we see CBS and UW in acts of utter desperation trying to fudge poll results in a most transparent way. When the campaign starts to really heat up in the fall, look for direct violent attacks against the Tea Party people themselves in an effort to scare or somehow associate them with violence.
April 26, 2010, 1:05 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
David,
I believe the relevant sentence says that 11% of “all Americans” as a demographic group in the poll had this income, i.e., that the poll demographics skewed toward this group in general, not just re tea partiers. I could be wrong, but that’s how I read it.
That’s probably right: a percentage not of “all Americans,” but of all Americans in the poll sample. It is not difficult to think of reasons that poll samples might skew wealthier than the general population.
April 26, 2010, 1:06 pmStrict says:
“Yet I haven’t actually heard anyone say that,”
Directly. This brings us back to the direct vs. circumstantial point. Rush isn’t stupid enough to say things like that directly, but he did say things to the effect of “candidate Barack is taking his marching orders and inspiration directly from black supremacist radical racist Reverend Wright.” It amounts to “Hey my white listeners, vote against Barack.” “The Choice of Reverend J. Wright’s Church Defines Obama’s Character.”
And your comment reminds me of another head-in-the-sand comment about Tea Party rallies:
When asked about anti-Semitic signs at a Tea Party rally, Rep. Boehner said he “didn’t see any such sign.”
I’m not sure what’s weaker, the “didn’t see it” defense or the “not prominent” defense.
April 26, 2010, 1:07 pmAnderson says:
Did you even bother to read what you wrote before you posted?
Have you even bothered to look at the signs the Tea Party folks carry?
They may not all be racist, but they’re comfortable demonstrating with racists, which is enough for me.
April 26, 2010, 1:12 pmStrict says:
Michelle: “Andy, your “historically under-represented minorities” (“young people, African-Americans, Latinos, and women”?!) together make up the large majority of the electorate. Hell, women all by themselves make up a majority of the electorate”
Women are historically underrepresented. Is it really so baffling and deserving of italics and the question mark explanation mark combo?
The first time there were three female Senators [out of ONE HUNDRED] in the Senate was 1992. It took over 200 years for women to get 3/100 representation in the Senate.
April 26, 2010, 1:15 pmyankee says:
You’re right that that is a possible reading of what Young said; if that’s what the poll found then my criticisms would be misplaced. Unfortunately the poll numbers on the NYT website only go to $100,000+, not to $250,000+, so there’s no way to tell if that’s what the poll found. I haven’t been able to find the $250,000+ numbers on either the CBS or NYT sites, so I don’t know what to make of them.
April 26, 2010, 1:16 pmQ says:
Thus, while only 35% of strong Tea Party supporters rated blacks as hardworking, only 49% described whites as such. While the gap is evident, these responses are close to those for all whites (blacks are rated as “hardworking” by 40%, whites by 52%).
She just showed the teapartiers are more racist than all whites in general.
April 26, 2010, 1:22 pmCump says:
People who love to fingerpoint others for this or that interdicted opinion (e.g., “racism”) are putting themselves on display in ways that they don’t suspect, mainly because not “suspecting” oneself is precisely the point of the exercise. The exercise is called “scapegoating,” whereby you divest yourself of some trait that you find makes your peculiarly uncomfortable about owning, so you accuse someone else of it. Call someone a “racist,” and bingo! you have just announced your own superior moral stature.
Consequently, I also suspect those who like to find others to be “racist” are very much concerned about being called racists themselves–else why the assumption that calling someone else “racist” is really going to make them cringe. It’s all a matter of “tell me who you hate and I’ll tell you what you are.” You’re concerned about someone else’s being “racist”? That means, inter alia, that you yourself are very concerned about being racist, and if you are that concerned then that means that you take race itself seriously. And if so, that means in turn that–watch my every move here–you are a “racist.”
For myself, I’m completely uninterested in race issues. And I’m sure that those who disagree with me will find that it is impossible for someone not to be obsessed by race, and therefore I must be a liar.
In brief, accusations are always boomerangs.
April 26, 2010, 1:25 pmyankee says:
OK, I’ve finally located the results with the $250,000 numbers. Young is correct: 11% of all respondents had incomes over $250,000 (see page 41).
April 26, 2010, 1:28 pmMonday Musings » Republic Defenders says:
[...] to David Bernstein at The Volokh Conspiracy for connecting these two. Is the President acting in a more racist manner than the [...]
April 26, 2010, 1:28 pmStrict says:
Here’s a statement from the ADL about racism and anti-semitism at Tea Party rallies.
On April 7, 2010, the ADL said that “White supremacists…have been…aligning themselves with the Tea Party movement.”
On April 14, 2010, Jewish Republican Debbie Schlussel detailed the anti-semites who have been sponsors, headliners, and invited speakers at a variety of Tea Party rallies.
April 26, 2010, 1:29 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Strict,
Women are historically underrepresented. Is it really so baffling and deserving of italics and the question mark explanation mark combo?
My point was that women aren’t a “minority” in the electorate, and I doubt they’re even a minority of those voting in recent years. If your position is that I as a woman will remain nonetheless “underrepresented” until half the legislators are women, I’m afraid I don’t agree.
(Though if that’s the sort of “underrepresentation” you mean, you might want to do something about the scandalous discrimination against “young people” — another group on Obama’s list — actually codified in the Constitution. “You can’t trust anyone over 30,” and yet your choices for President are limited to people over 35? How is that fair?)
Just joking. Sort of.
April 26, 2010, 1:29 pmStrict says:
Elie Wiesel has apparently condemned anti-semitism at Tea Party rallies.
April 26, 2010, 1:32 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Strict,
Debbie Schlussel, from your link:
I’ve told you about anti-Semitic Michigan Tea Party speaker Emily Zanotti, a lunatic stalker who praised Muslim Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic death, rape, and torture threats. And yesterday, I told you about Michigan Tea Party Express speaker Mike Cox, sleazebag and Islamo-panderer extraordinaire. He was featured at every Michigan Tea Party event over the weekend, and is wasting hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to aid extremist Muslims. And then there was the Tea Party event at the conservative CPAC conference, of which Islamofascist Grover Norquist was an embraced sponsor.
Come now, did you really hope anyone would click on your link and read that?
April 26, 2010, 1:36 pmbyomtov says:
MDT,
.. I doubt [women are] even a minority of those voting in recent years.
Your doubts are justified.
April 26, 2010, 1:40 pmMark Field says:
Another breakdown of the racial implications of the NY Times survey can be found here.
April 26, 2010, 1:41 pmStrict says:
Michelle,
Yes? She talks about how renowned anti-semite Jim Traficant was a featured speaker at several Tea Party rallies.
April 26, 2010, 1:42 pmlgm says:
Another possibility, more supported by the evidence, is that the tea party “movement” largely is the creation of republican operatives. There’s a saying in science when you create a dubious model of a physical system you don’t understand: “replacing ignorance with fiction”. That’s exactly what Fox and us doing to turn not terribly political conservatives into the angry tea party mob.
April 26, 2010, 1:45 pmKazinski says:
I think you’ve got it backwards. The Tea Partiers are sick of being “led around by a nose ring by a bunch of political hacks and political entertainers”, and they aren’t putting up with it anymore.
If you think the Tea Partiers are just being led around just ask Charlie Crist, the sitting governor of Florida, who is being kicked out of the GOP by the voters, despite being endorsed by the NRSC. Or ask Dede Scozzafava and Newt Gingrich if the Republican party controls the Tea Party movement.
April 26, 2010, 1:45 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
byomtov, thanks. I figured as much, if only because women outlive men by several years on average, and older people tend to be more reliable voters than younger people. Besides, of course, there are just more of us in the first place. IIRC there’s some small gender discrepancy in survival through gestation, or through infancy, or both. (Here, I mean. In China, not so much; or, rather, runs the other direction.)
April 26, 2010, 1:46 pmStrict says:
“If your position is that I as a woman will remain nonetheless “underrepresented” until half the legislators are women, I’m afraid I don’t agree.”
No, that’s not my position. I don’t have any quotas or bright lines in mind. I guess you know underrepresentation when you see it.
If only 1 [or 3 like in my example] out of the 100 Senators is a woman, that certainly is underrepresentation.
If in the entire history of the United States, there’s only been two elected black [= two black parents], then yes, I would say black folks are certainly underrepresented in the Senate. That’s clear to me.
Where “underrepresentation” ends is much less clear.
April 26, 2010, 1:47 pmparared says:
google ‘tea party protest’, image search
There ya go, show me a racist image ….
April 26, 2010, 1:50 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Strict,
When a writer resorts to the likes of “sleazebag and Islamo-panderer extraordinaire,” I do tend to lose interest. And when I get to “Islamofascist Grover Norquist,” the writer goes officially into the certified loonie file. I can’t imagine what she’s even alluding to, unless it’s that Norquist’s wife is a native of Kuwait. High crimes and misdemeanors indeed!
April 26, 2010, 1:54 pmrachel says:
There once were plumbers and lawyers at a tea party
April 26, 2010, 1:54 pmsipping black, white and green to buzz pretty hearty
They discussed the weather, health and taxes
civil liberties, budgets and Abraxas…
Wow, the racist/sexist/anti-semitic/gay-bashing/xenophobic/rich rubes aren’t even arty.
LN says:
The Tea Partiers are partisan Republicans plain and simple. Like all partisans, they freak out a bit when members of the other tribe assume power in Washington. But since “let’s go back to the government we had in 2004, that was totally awesome” doesn’t sound like a good rallying cry these days, we end up with a “grass-roots” movement led by “Washington outsiders” like Dick Armey and Newt Gingrich. This movement wants lower taxes (the primary domestic policy achievement of the Bush administration) and lower government spending (but not cuts to Social Security or Medicare, of course, so oh well). “Lower taxes” has been topping the Republican Party agenda for decades now, but I’m supposed to believe the Tea Party is full of great new ideas that have never been thought of before.
As far as race is concerned, well race is a complicated topic and people on all sides feel free to clutch their grievances. That’s not at the core of the Tea Party though — the Tea Party is just an exercise in branding. If people thought Bush was a good President these lifelong Republicans wouldn’t have to pretend to be revolutionaries.
April 26, 2010, 1:54 pmbadlaw says:
Am I the only who sees these claims for what they really are? Thinly veiled attempts by Obama devotees to stigmatize any criticism by pointing out how defective his detractors are. It’s a textbook ad hominem attack. “They can’t have a legitimate grievance with Obama…they’re racists!”
April 26, 2010, 1:57 pmKazinski says:
Renowned Democrat, anti-semite and convicted felon Jim Traficant. Lets get his whole CV in there.
April 26, 2010, 1:59 pmdesiderius says:
DB, I don’t envy your position in academia, given the evidence of these comment sections. You have a stronger stomach than I, but I wonder how much longer even you can hold out.
Here’s another take on the tea party, from an entirely different quarter.
April 26, 2010, 1:59 pmStrict says:
Jewish Republican Eric Cantor criticized Rush Limbaugh for comparing Obama to Hitler. Cantor also criticized anti-semitic signs at Tea Party rallies as “inappropriate.”
April 26, 2010, 2:01 pmAngus says:
Traficant started voting for the Republican leadership in the House and considers himself a conservative Independent, plus a right-wing radio talk show host. Just to get his full CV in there.
April 26, 2010, 2:04 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Strict,
If in the entire history of the United States, there’s only been two elected black [= two black parents], then yes, I would say black folks are certainly underrepresented in the Senate.
Leaving aside your curious phrasing — intended, I suppose, to limit the timeframe to after direct election of Senators was enacted, and to exclude spurious folk like, say, the current President, who is evidently insufficiently black for you — I think we’re talking about different things. I gather that AndyinNc was talking about groups “historically underrepresented” as voters, not as elected officials. I meant mainly to quibble with the idea that women are a “minority” or ever have been.
Personally, I feel I am “represented” when I can vote for the candidate I choose in a fair election. I want Mickey Kaus to replace Barbara Boxer (fat chance, but we’ll do what we can). Does that mean that I want to reduce my “representation” in the Senate? We seem to understand the very word two different ways.
April 26, 2010, 2:06 pmStrict says:
K: “Renowned Democrat, anti-semite and convicted felon Jim Traficant. Lets get his whole CV in there.”
Sure. He wasn’t renowned for being a Democrat, though. That wasn’t what got him in the news. Being crooked and anti-semitic got him in the news.
April 26, 2010, 2:08 pmStrict says:
Michelle: “I do tend to lose interest”
Haha. Me too. I have absolutely no interest in [regularly] reading her page. I just thought it was interesting that other Jewish Republicans are attacking the anti-semitism at Tea Parties, while Bernstein is denying it [bizarrely].
April 26, 2010, 2:11 pmSarcastro says:
Hah! I see lib’s massive generalization about the Tea Parties, and I raise you misinterpreting Obama!
This way, everyone gets angry!
April 26, 2010, 2:15 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Strict,
Sure. [Traficant] wasn’t renowned for being a Democrat, though. That wasn’t what got him in the news. Being crooked and anti-semitic got him in the news.
OTOH, the Democrats did put him up for re-election, what, eight times? Or was it nine? (Not that any blame attaches to them for that; you don’t necessarily know that a bigot and crook is either until he does something dumb.)
April 26, 2010, 2:15 pmStrict says:
Michelle: “I gather that AndyinNc was talking about groups “historically underrepresented” as voters, not as elected officials.”
Ok, that’s different. My bad.
However, as you know, women also have a history of being disenfranchised as voters.
April 26, 2010, 2:17 pmBaseballhead says:
Someone already did that earlier in the thread.
Nobody’s responded to troll_dc2′s link up near the top, asking people to imagine what the reaction might be if tens of hundreds of black protesters marched upon the White House with signs saying, “I’m not armed… this time” and demanding political revolution.
It’s a interesting exercise.
April 26, 2010, 2:18 pmAnderson says:
It’s a interesting exercise.
The fact that FoxNews hasn’t paid a provocateur to arrange just this, does a little to restore my faith in human nature.
April 26, 2010, 2:21 pmDilan Esper says:
The right wing in this country contains some racists and some non-racists. Tea parties are simply the angrier side of the right wing. (Indeed, we saw the same anger from the right wing during the Clinton, Kennedy, and FDR presidencies. It’s nothing new and it is nothing more than that.) So I don’t buy any sort of claim that “the teabaggers are a bunch of racists”. That’s a group stereotype and is at the least overbroad.
What I will say is that the teabaggers bring the crazy. They parade with guns, they exclaim that relatively minor redistributions of wealth are socialism and fascism, they say that a health plan that fellates the private sector is a “government takeover of 1/6th of the economy”, etc. And when you are nuts, it tends to induce people to ask questions about your motives, i.e., what is it about Obama that drives you so nuts.
So if teabaggers don’t want to be labeled as racists, perhaps they might want to tone it down a little and make rational arguments instead of acting like insane people.
April 26, 2010, 2:22 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Strict,
Haha. Me too. I have absolutely no interest in [regularly] reading her page. I just thought it was interesting that other Jewish Republicans are attacking the anti-semitism at Tea Parties, while Bernstein is denying it [bizarrely].
Make that “a Jewish Republican,” singular. I assumed DB was a registered Libertarian, or possibly an independent. And since this Jewish Republican is the sort of nutcase who thinks Grover Norquist (honestly!) is an “Islamofascist,” I can’t fathom how or why this is “interesting,” except as a pathological study. Not least since her entire line consists of shadowy links to “Muslim extremists” that I’d wager you would be reluctant to use in any other context.
April 26, 2010, 2:22 pmMark Buehner says:
Umm… “A Cantor spokesman also said that signs at Thursday’s Hill Tea Party showing murdered Jews at Dachau were “inappropriate.”
Warning people that you believe a similar atmosphere that precipitated the Holocaust is underway is anti-semitic? Something is confusing here. If tea-partiers thought Obama was leading to the next holocaust, wouldn’t they be supporting Obama? Or more likely are you confusing anti-semitic with inappropriate.
Using holocaust analogies like this is (in my opinion) bad taste (and both sides of the aisle do it often enough), but that is a far cry from hating jews. In fact you could argue that striving to prevent another holocaust (no matter how silly or misguided in this instance) makes a pretty good case for NOT being an anti-semite.
On the bright side, you have showcased a pretty excellent example of confusing (intentionally, one would think) overheated and overwrought political rhetoric with racism.
April 26, 2010, 2:23 pmRacism and The Tea Partiers « THE BLACK KETTLE says:
[...] MORE [...]
April 26, 2010, 2:23 pmMark Buehner says:
Here there be thick irony.
April 26, 2010, 2:24 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Dilan Esper,
So if teabaggers don’t want to be labeled as racists, perhaps they might want to tone it down a little and make rational arguments instead of acting like insane people.
You might yourself “tone it down a little” and drop the “teabagger” business, you know.
I haven’t been to a tea party — I think they’re rather scarce in Marin County — but I have seen a large number of left-wing demonstrations in my time in the Bay Area, and I haven’t seen any tea party footage that approaches the level of incivility that was routine at them. You haven’t seen “insane people” until you’ve seen Berkeley the day of the Rodney King verdict.
April 26, 2010, 2:28 pmbadlaw says:
I was waiting until someone got to this point. This is underlying subtext to all these racism claims: if they would just go away, people would stop alleging they’re bigoted…whether those are scurrilous claims or not is irrelevant.
April 26, 2010, 2:32 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Mark Buehner,
Well, actually, I do think suggesting comparisons of Obama’s administration to the one that led to Dachau is “inappropriate.” If I met some one bearing a sign like that, I’d back away slowly and not make any sudden moves.
But you’re right; it’s hardly anti-semitic. I had the same reaction when it was revealed that, at some earlier tea parties, people were carrying signs with swastikas on them! Left unmentioned, of course, was that the swastika always seemed to be enclosed in a red circle, with a red diagonal line through it. Yep, obvious Nazis, these folks.
April 26, 2010, 2:34 pmKazinski says:
He won election year after year with a (D) beside his name, he never would have won any election in any Republican district. Republicans don’t vote for crooks. Now I am not saying that no Republicans ever turn out to be crooks, but once the dirt is out there they get voted out.
Democrats on the other hand will keep electing the likes of John Murtha, William Jefferson, Barney Frank, Alan Mollohan, and Charles Rangel over and over again, even after the voters become aware of scandals and alleged criminal activity.
April 26, 2010, 2:36 pmOctavian says:
I guess I don’t fit the main stream media’s contrived profile of a Tea Party activist given that I am a dark-complexioned Latino and son of first generation immigrants.
April 26, 2010, 2:38 pmgeokstr says:
The answer for me is, not only “yes” but “hell yes”. If McCain, or Romney, or even Palin had been elected and started to enact a leftist “radical transformation” of America, I’d be even more incensed, because that would mean that they lied about their true positions, unlike Obama, who, despite all his rampant lying about nearly everything, only thinly veiled his intentions. So by your own definition, I’m not a racist, or even a sexist, just adamantly opposed to the Religion of Leftism in all its guises. If that makes me a “directionist”, well, so be it. I can live with that.
Anderson, you’re a regular here, so I know you’ve seen the sites and sources for the obscene, death-wishing posters from all your leftwing protests during the Bush regime. Therefore I must assume that you either have not followed the links or are being deliberately disingenuous about it. (Those are the charitable interpretations of your claims about all the racist posters at the Tea Parties; there are others.)
========================================================================
Ah, yes, the old “fake but accurate” ploy the left loves to use. Pull words out of context, or hell, even make up “quotes” and even fake “documents”, because you just know it’s true anyway, so it’s OK.
According to Wikipedia, the founder of Black Liberation Theology openly stated it’s based on Marxism. And just like the phony racism charge alluded to above, if any conservative, white black or purple, ever worships at the altar of St Karl of Marx, I’ll oppose him too.
April 26, 2010, 2:42 pmgeokstr says:
Of course not, it just makes you a self-loathing, semi-Oreo, Uncle Tomas who is a traitor to his race, to all the leftists out there.
:-)
Better hope you never get nominated for a judgeship – there’ll be pubic hairs all over the Coke cans.
April 26, 2010, 2:47 pmAnderson says:
I guess I don’t fit the main stream media’s contrived profile of a Tea Party activist given that I am a dark-complexioned Latino and son of first generation immigrants.
Uh, no, you don’t fit the factually correct “profile” of the vast majority of Tea Party activists. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but don’t blame “the mainstream media” for noticing that most of the folks at these rallies are white.
April 26, 2010, 2:47 pmAnderson says:
so I know you’ve seen the sites and sources for the obscene, death-wishing posters from all your leftwing protests during the Bush regime
Actually, no, the media’s response to those (“my”?) protests was mostly to pretend they weren’t happening.
But I’m not addressing merely obnoxious signs (Obama = Hitler, etc.). I’m addressing *racist* signs.
April 26, 2010, 2:49 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Kazinski,
Democrats on the other hand will keep electing the likes of John Murtha, William Jefferson, Barney Frank, Alan Mollohan, and Charles Rangel over and over again, even after the voters become aware of scandals and alleged criminal activity.
You left out Marion Barry. But D.C. is just a little different.
I don’t think it’s that Republican voters wouldn’t re-elect alleged crooks so much as that Republican state parties usually won’t let them run. Still, McCain survived the Keating Five business quite nicely. And I seem to remember a sex scandal or two that left a Republican incumbent standing…
April 26, 2010, 2:50 pmMark Buehner says:
Should they have noticed that most of the people at Hillary Clinton rallies were white? Was it relevant then?
April 26, 2010, 2:50 pmLN says:
If you think that Barack Obama — one of the most conciliatory politicians I have ever seen — is setting out to enact a leftist “radical transformation” of America, that says a lot more about you than it does about Barack Obama. But it’s really quite hard to convince a delusional person that they’re delusional.
April 26, 2010, 2:50 pmtroll_dc2 says:
I’m surprised that the comment I put up at 11.49 has received only minimal attention. So here is another quote:
April 26, 2010, 2:51 pmLN says:
I read in the New Yorker that someone answered Keith Olbermann’s question about “where are all the brown faces at the Tea Party rallies” with a YouTube montage of pasty MSNBC anchors. Funny.
April 26, 2010, 2:53 pmgeokstr says:
The fudge packers just can’t seem to stop the vile juvenile references to their opponents, can they?
April 26, 2010, 2:55 pmRich M says:
Anderson’s link does not show Tea Partiers. You guys seem to be missing that point.
April 26, 2010, 2:56 pmMark Buehner says:
You said a mouthful. Its not like in just over a year, Obama has taken over 2/3rds of the automotive industry, most of the banking sector, and crafted the healthcare sector to his liking…. I don’t guess we should count that he hasn’t yet invented a carbon taxing scheme on all of America’s industry, revamped immigration, and perhaps installed a VAT.
What exactly would you consider transformative? Escape from New York?
April 26, 2010, 2:56 pmRPT says:
How do allegedly inaccurate portrayals of the TP’s at all inhibit them from participating in GOP GOTV efforts? The TP’s are going to be attacked? Isn’t there some substantial overlap between the TP’s and 2A activists/practitioners?
It seems to me that the TP’s are the most narcissistic activist group ever (astro-turfed or not). They have received fawning media coverage far out of proportion to their actual numbers, which are much much less than the numbers who protested the Iraq War and have appeared to support other “liberal” causes. Not only FOX (TP 24/7) covers their various events, meetings, Palin speeches, etc.; even purportedly liberal MSNBC covered the Searchlght NV gathering live.
April 26, 2010, 2:57 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Mark Buehner,
Should they have noticed that most of the people at Hillary Clinton rallies were white? Was it relevant then?
Funnily enough, I believe that early in the primaries it wasn’t even true. Hillary had a lot of black support.
But “most” of the people at any rally are going to be white absent some special draw for non-white people, simply because “most” of the country is white. What is meant, I think, is just that way fewer than one in eight people at tea parties are black. You could say the same about crowds at any number of events, but in most cases no one would bother, any more than they’d bother pointing out black “overrepresentation” at other events.
April 26, 2010, 2:58 pmMark Buehner says:
Perhaps because its a silly comment. Anybody that has seen/suffered through an anti-war, anti-trade, or eco-nut rally in the last decade could tell you that teaparty rhetoric is provincial by comparison. When tea partiers start wearing masks and throwing things at cops, i’ll take notice.
April 26, 2010, 3:01 pmDilan Esper says:
You might yourself “tone it down a little” and drop the “teabagger” business, you know. I haven’t been to a tea party — I think they’re rather scarce in Marin County — but I have seen a large number of left-wing demonstrations in my time in the Bay Area, and I haven’t seen any tea party footage that approaches the level of incivility that was routine at them.
This is complete bull****. Seriously. As bad as ANSWER was, there was NEVER a left-wing demonstration with the number of people openly armed that we have seen at teabag rallies. Never.
And as for fascism comparisons, it is NOT insane to compare Bush Administration belligerence and civil liberties violations to historical antecedents. It is completely bat**** insane to compare a health care bill to fascism, however.
Finally, this is an internet comments thread, and there’s nothing wrong with “teabagger”, which was used by the protesters themselves until they learned what it meant.
The entire reason the teabaggers are nutcase extremists is because they don’t know the difference between insults on the internet and calling Obama a fascist because he passed a health insurance mandate.
April 26, 2010, 3:02 pmMark Buehner says:
Something like 5-10% of blacks identify themselves as Republicans. Should we consider any republican gathering de-fact racist or should we ask if black have glued themselves to the democratic party en masse at the risk of uncle tomism? I’ll be the first to say conservatives have done a poor job reaching out to blacks, but you have to admit blacks seem to stick with the democrats regardless of the issue and how it affects them personally or their community (school vouchers, for instance).
April 26, 2010, 3:05 pmDilan Esper says:
The fudge packers just can’t seem to stop the vile juvenile references to their opponents, can they?
Geok:
“Teabagger” is an insult that comes directly from the fact that the protesters were idiots who didn’t know what it meant and used it.
“Fudgepacker” is a vile, bigoted, homophobic slur.
There’s a difference, and just because you don’t like liberals insulting crazy right wingers isn’t a permission slip to be an anti-gay homophobic bigot.
April 26, 2010, 3:05 pmLN says:
The main reason
I wonder why Obama took over the banking sector. Was it because he’s a tyrant with no sense of limits, or was it because the banking sector was about to collapse? Hmm, that’s a tough one. Poor Goldman Sachs, they were just minding their own business and suddenly they’re getting bailed out by the government and making record profits. Isn’t that what happened to farming under Mao?
April 26, 2010, 3:05 pmBaseballhead says:
Anderson’s link showed pictures and a video taken at a Tea Party rally. Perhaps you’re missing something?
April 26, 2010, 3:05 pmMark Buehner says:
A question currently being rethought, in fact. Regardless, that doesn’t mean he gets to keep it, does it? If the newspaper business goes belly up (as seems likely), will Obama bail them out and use the NYT as an official arm of government? Is that much different than what is happening now with the banks? You’re not allowed to pay back your TARP money because we want to keep you on the hook, and if you try to you’ll be audited. Is that the kind of economy we want?
April 26, 2010, 3:09 pmgeokstr says:
If by “conciliatory” you mean he has a soothing tone and reads the teleprompter speeches beautifully, I agree, he is “conciliatory”. But he doesn’t walk the “conciliatory” as well as how he talks it.
Tell you what, let’s give him another year and see who’s “delusional” about your wonderfully conciliatory demigod. Although it really won’t make any difference to you even if by most people’s definition, he hardly turns out to be conciliatory, now will it?
April 26, 2010, 3:10 pmmattski says:
I think right-leaning politics is a very visceral affair. The fear of authority is more or less suppressed when the Daddy-party is in power because the GOP has “ass-kicking cred”. But when the Mommy-party gets its turn then hysteria has a field day.
April 26, 2010, 3:11 pmStrict says:
Mark: “Its not like in just over a year, Obama has taken over 2/3rds of the automotive industry”
You are referring to the bailouts started under Bush in December 2008? Bush’s $17.4 billion bailout to the auto industry.
– George W. Bush, December 2008.
I don’t see how Obama differs from Bush in this regard at all. Both believed that an Austrian School non-intervention would have allowed the industry to collapse. Both believed that a bailout is bad, but is better than the alternative.
If Obama had indeed done nothing, you might be complaining now about how “Obama threw 2/3 of the automotive industry under the bus” or something…
April 26, 2010, 3:12 pmRich M says:
I think you’ve made it pretty obvious that you are the one that is “bat**** insane.”
April 26, 2010, 3:12 pmBaseballhead says:
The first part of your statement informs the second. If conservatives do a better job reaching out to blacks, my guess is that they would be much less willing to stick with the Dems on whatever random issue. It’s probably harder than it sounds, I’m sure, but given how breathtakingly bad Democrats are on race issues, you’d think the GOP could think of something at some point to improve their lot with African-Americans.
April 26, 2010, 3:14 pmgeokstr says:
Oh you mean like the climate models of the acolytes of the Religion of Gaia?
April 26, 2010, 3:17 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Dilan Esper,
This is complete bull****. Seriously. As bad as ANSWER was, there was NEVER a left-wing demonstration with the number of people openly armed that we have seen at teabag rallies. Never.
I suppose it’s just an incidental detail that the ANSWER folks actually, you know, trashed a whole lot more stuff that wasn’t theirs. I keep hearing about the tea partiers’ incendiary rhetoric, but for some reason it’s always the other folks who actually set stuff on fire. And smash windows. And loot shops.
Anyone actually shot at a tea party rally by any of these scary armed people? Any cars torched? Any stores ransacked? Any random people of the wrong race bashed in the head with bricks? I thought not.
And as for fascism comparisons, it is NOT insane to compare Bush Administration belligerence and civil liberties violations to historical antecedents. It is completely bat**** insane to compare a health care bill to fascism, however.
Considering that the “belligerence” and the “civil liberties violations” are pretty much the same 15 months into this administration, I gather that your main complaint is that people are calling Obama a fascist for the wrong reasons.
(And actually, I’ve seen the case made that forcing citizens to purchase a product from a private corporation is in fact rather like the private/governmental arrangements of historical fascism. I haven’t evaluated the argument, but on its face it isn’t “completely bat****.)
Finally, this is an internet comments thread, and there’s nothing wrong with “teabagger”, which was used by the protesters themselves until they learned what it meant.
There is everything wrong with “teabagger.” You folks are chortling still after more than a year, just because those ignorant rubes — sorry, now it’s overeducated rich people, yes? — weren’t au courant with current slang for obscure sexual practices. Really, grow up.
April 26, 2010, 3:17 pmMark Buehner says:
…
You don’t see the difference between providing loans and taking an ownership stake in the automotive industry (And making sure your union friends get a taste as well of course)?
Ohhhhkaaaay.
April 26, 2010, 3:19 pmRich M says:
As much as the left wants to associate a tiny minority of racists at a “Tea Party” event with Tea Partiers, they are not Tea Partiers. These pictures show nothing about the Tea Party. Are you guys on the left sure you want to start playing this sort of association game?
April 26, 2010, 3:20 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Rich M,
Are you guys on the left sure you want to start playing this sort of association game?
Of course they don’t. There’s far too much nasty evidence, given the extent they’ve allowed ANSWER to stage and script their protests.
April 26, 2010, 3:24 pmLN says:
Banks aren’t allowed to pay back TARP money? That’s news to me.
Seriously, the entire global economy ran into a recession because of banks that were bailed out and then went on to make record profits. If you feel that this is just more evidence that your prior concepts of “free-market liberty” and “socialist totalitarianism” are the best tools one can use to make sense of the world, well it’s obviously going to be pretty hard to explain to yo uwhat’s actually going on.
April 26, 2010, 3:24 pmDilan Esper says:
I suppose it’s just an incidental detail that the ANSWER folks actually, you know, trashed a whole lot more stuff that wasn’t theirs. I keep hearing about the tea partiers’ incendiary rhetoric, but for some reason it’s always the other folks who actually set stuff on fire. And smash windows. And loot shops.
Obviously, you never went to any anti-war rallies, because you seem to think a bunch of stuff happened at them that didn’t happen.
Anyone actually shot at a tea party rally by any of these scary armed people? Any cars torched? Any stores ransacked? Any random people of the wrong race bashed in the head with bricks? I thought not.
So as long as they don’t actually commit acts of domestic terrorism, it isn’t insane to bring a bunch of guns to a public gathering and blather on about how a private sector health care bill is the beginning of the fascist state? That’s a low bar you set for sanity.
And actually, I’ve seen the case made that forcing citizens to purchase a product from a private corporation is in fact rather like the private/governmental arrangements of historical fascism.
So Hitler and Moussolini had health care mandates? Who knew?
Seriously, this is completely dumb. Insane. Any adjective you like. And until teabaggers get back into the REAL WORLD where a health care bill isn’t fascism, people are going to continue assuming their irrational hatred of Obama has a cause.
There is everything wrong with “teabagger.” You folks are chortling still after more than a year, just because those ignorant rubes — sorry, now it’s overeducated rich people, yes? — weren’t au courant with current slang for obscure sexual practices. Really, grow up.
Michelle, the teabaggers ARE ignorant. And not just about sex. They are ignorant about policy, for instance, by thinking that Hitler favored a health care mandate.
April 26, 2010, 3:28 pmcaroline w. says:
Big yawn at the -ism smear tactics aimed at suppressing valid political speech.
Tea Partiers should wear cleavage showing low-cut tops and bicep revealing tight tees while brandishing signs that say “Proud Raciest” and “Yes, I’m a Say NO to Obama’s So-shall-ism homophoniac.”
(one -ism is OK)
April 26, 2010, 3:30 pmMark Buehner says:
Geithner May Not Let Banks Pay Back TARP
Government Foisting Illegal Requirements On TARP Repayment
Obama Wants to Control the Banks
Maybe you should do a little catching up on your facts before you lecture me on “what’s going on”.
April 26, 2010, 3:31 pmbadlaw says:
The truth is, the only way for Blacks to give the GOP a chance would be for either a Black candidate to gain high status within the Party (Michael Steele notwithstanding), or for the GOP to really make in-roads in the media.
The thing is, neither of those is going to happen. As long as the Democrats can frame dissent with this President as racism, and many visible Blacks label non-Democratic blacks sell-outs and Uncle Toms, Blacks will continue to distrust the GOP.
April 26, 2010, 3:32 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
LN,
Banks aren’t allowed to pay back TARP money? That’s news to me.
There was an NPR story many months ago about a small bank (hmmm, was it North Carolina? Virginia? Somewhere in the not-deep South, anyway) that had accepted a TARP loan that it didn’t actually need. You understand that the government did press these loans onto banks that didn’t need them, in an effort to camouflage and protect the ones that really did.
Anyway, this bank wanted to pay back the TARP loan, having had it for a month or two (I forget), and was not allowed to discharge the debt.
I wish I could remember more details, but this story was nearly a year back IIRC.
Seriously, the entire global economy ran into a recession because of banks that were bailed out and then went on to make record profits. If you feel that this is just more evidence that your prior concepts of “free-market liberty” and “socialist totalitarianism” are the best tools one can use to make sense of the world, well it’s obviously going to be pretty hard to explain to yo uwhat’s actually going on.
April 26, 2010, 3:33 pmMark Buehner says:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u2gquh7FuA
See if you can believe your lyin eyes. Fwiw, anytime protesters are wearing hankies over their face, you’re probably in for a wild ride. You see that a lot at tea parties?
April 26, 2010, 3:34 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Dilan Esper,
Obviously, you never went to any anti-war rallies, because you seem to think a bunch of stuff happened at them that didn’t happen.
You didn’t say “anti-war rallies”; you said “left-wing demonstration[s.]” And I have been to a lot of those. Or, I should say, I’ve been in their vicinity. Not always by choice.
So as long as they don’t actually commit acts of domestic terrorism, it isn’t insane to bring a bunch of guns to a public gathering and blather on about how a private sector health care bill is the beginning of the fascist state? That’s a low bar you set for sanity.
Not lower than the one set by the folks who caused every merchant on Southside in Berkeley to keep a store of plywood sheets on hand to protect their windows, just in case they might be needed.
So Hitler and Moussolini had health care mandates? Who knew?
Who knew Mussolini had an extra “O”? (Sorry, spelling flames are out of line; my bad. Couldn’t help myself.)
Seriously, this is completely dumb. Insane. Any adjective you like. And until teabaggers get back into the REAL WORLD where a health care bill isn’t fascism, people are going to continue assuming their irrational hatred of Obama has a cause.
I did not say that Hitler or Mussolini (or Franco, or any other fascist that occurs to you) had health care mandates. I did say that the close connection — the actual requirement to buy something from a government-approved private company, whether you want it or not — smacks of the close government/company relationships that were in fact central to Nazism (not so much Italian fascism, IIRC).
For what it’s worth, I think the origin of the idea of mandatory savings towards health care (i.e., it comes out of your paycheck whether you want it to or not) was actually German, though well before Hitler. Ca. Bismarck, yes?
Ah, yes. Thanks, Wikipedia:
The first bill that had success was the Health Insurance bill, which was passed in 1883. The program was considered the least important from Bismarck’s point of view, and the least politically troublesome. The program was established to provide health care for the largest segment of the German workers. The health service was established on a local basis, with the cost divided between employers and the employed. The employers contributed 1/3rd, while the workers contributed 2/3rds . The minimum payments for medical treatment and Sick Pay for up to 13 weeks were legally fixed. The individual local health bureaus were administered by a committee elected by the members of each bureau, and this move had the unintended effect of establishing a majority representation for the workers on account of their large financial contribution. This worked to the advantage of the Social Democrats who – through heavy Worker membership – achieved their first small foothold in public administration.
This was, as I understand it, a “mandate,” in the sense that your wages were reserved for your health care automatically. Rather like SS and Medicare, but accessible to all workers no matter when they needed medical care.
April 26, 2010, 3:52 pmquestioning Dilan says:
Dilan, do you have any cites for your claim that the Tea Party types called themselves “teabaggers,” as opposed to reporters and critics tagging them? Maybe one or two crowd members did, but I haven’t even seen that, and certainly nothing by a local organizer or “official” spokesperson.
What do you have?
April 26, 2010, 3:59 pmcaroline w. says:
Don’t care for bean-counting, but while evidently there are “minorities” like blacks, latinos and gays at Tea Party rallies, a larger presence by same would indicate a maturing of the body politic, a marker that people are learning to care about big-picture issues beyond their race or orientation and tribalism. Might still be a function of group identification but one writ larger– as (liberties and economy-minded) American.
April 26, 2010, 4:02 pmSuperSkeptic says:
What a pathetic thread.
Look, if “racism” = “white privilege” (that is, even if you haven’t done or said anything racist, you’re inherently a racist for being white in society) then white people can never criticize the government. The very first post of the thread implies as much.
April 26, 2010, 4:03 pmDilan Esper says:
I did not say that Hitler or Mussolini (or Franco, or any other fascist that occurs to you) had health care mandates. I did say that the close connection — the actual requirement to buy something from a government-approved private company, whether you want it or not — smacks of the close government/company relationships that were in fact central to Nazism (not so much Italian fascism, IIRC).
You did indeed say that, and that is 3-year old’s reasoning. “You see, the Nazis had public-private partnerships too!”
When the brownshirts take the streets to enforce the individual mandate, let me know, Michelle. Until then, you are completely nuts.
This is a political movement filled with insane imbeciles. And until the right wing gets the crazy under control, they are going to be subjected to deserved ridicule.
April 26, 2010, 4:03 pmDilan Esper says:
Dilan, do you have any cites for your claim that the Tea Party types called themselves “teabaggers,” as opposed to reporters and critics tagging them?
Google is your friend.
April 26, 2010, 4:04 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
questioning Dilan,
I think the origin of the claim is someone or other urging people to mail tea bags to their Congressmen. I haven’t seen any tea partier actually quoted as using “teabagger,” but some certainly picked up the tea bag (as such) as a symbol. Hence the last year’s worth of thoroughly adolescent mirth. It beats me why anyone would want to sit perpetually snickering a la Beavis and Butthead (heh-heh-heh, he said “teabag”), but apparently it does afford pleasure to some people. As does the actual act they’re alluding to, doubtless.
April 26, 2010, 4:07 pmDilan Esper says:
Michelle:
Google is your friend.
And the reason it’s a good insult is because the teabaggers are both ignorant about sexual practices AND public policy. People who think that health insurance mandates are the first step towards fascism are dumb and crazy. So the teabagger insult fits– why not continually point out that these people are so dumb they didn’t even know what teabagging is?
April 26, 2010, 4:10 pmDesiderius says:
MDT,
“Really, grow up.”
I wouldn’t hold my breath.
April 26, 2010, 4:12 pmDave N. says:
No, you see, there’s a picture of some woman wearing a bunch of teabags on the fringe of a silly hat and this is the absolute proof of the matter.
(Well, at least that’s the answer I got when I asked the same question on another thread)
April 26, 2010, 4:16 pmquestioning Dilan says:
Dilan, I love Google as much as the next geek, and I tried it before I commented, but the plentiful hits had no hard evidence, just (1) assertions like yours, and (2) proof that they used teabags as props, as Michelle noted, but without self-labelling as “teabagger.”
Since you are obviously better at this than me, then, why not indulge us with some links to actual self-labelling?
After that, you can move on to the substance of explaining why (1) a main failing of these people is their lack of sophistication and their resort to sloganeering, while (2) hammering the Beavis chuckles at them is, by contrast, the height of sophistication.
April 26, 2010, 4:17 pmbillfromontario says:
So David Bernstein thinks that Obama is a racist but Tea-baggers are not?
Okey dokey.
April 26, 2010, 4:19 pmthe Colone; (ret) says:
keep calling me a racist, homo-phob, it only adds to my resolve.
http://www.lookingattheleft.com/2010/04/tax-day-revolt-washington-dc-2010/
I can see November from my house Lefty. One term.
At this rate President obama will face serious contention from his own party for the democrat nomination.
April 26, 2010, 4:20 pmbillfromontario says:
Some teabaggers are, indeed, proud to be called teabaggers:
http://www.myfreedompost.com/2010/04/video-proud-to-be-teabagger.html#
April 26, 2010, 4:23 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Dilan Esper,
You did indeed say that, and that is 3-year old’s reasoning. “You see, the Nazis had public-private partnerships too!”
OK, Dilan, explain what Nazionalsozialismus was. Leave out the genocide bit; we know all about that. What was the rest of the program?
I’m not saying that “public/private partnerships,” as you call them, are a bad thing. I am saying that the close intertwining of government and corporate interests is a key feature of how fascist governments were run. Was it rarer in contemporaneous governments that weren’t fascist? I think so.
April 26, 2010, 4:24 pmpc says:
Clicky. Here’s some more.
That took about 5 seconds on Google.
April 26, 2010, 4:27 pmbillfromontario says:
From the linked article:
In other words, the Teabaggers are really just a bunch of older, conservative, white folks and everybody knows that older white conservatives ain’t got a racist bone in their body.
April 26, 2010, 4:28 pmbillfromontario says:
My grandpa used to carry a pretty little homo-phob on his pocket watch chain. Wonder whatever happened to that?
April 26, 2010, 4:29 pmMark Buehner says:
Is this any more mature than calling Democrats ‘Jack Asses’ or ‘Demorats’? If I find some hillbilly Dem that embraces the Jack Ass label, does that make it any less moronic?
No. It doesn’t.
The only thing particularly humorous about this whole ‘teabagger’ insult are the dopes who actually believe dropping the term every other sentence for over a year demonstrates their sophistication. Think about that for a second.
April 26, 2010, 4:30 pmbillfromontario says:
Okay, Mark you need to pick an argument here. Are you saying that the Teabaggers never called themselves that? Or are you saying that even if they did that other folks shouldn’t call them that?
April 26, 2010, 4:33 pmMark Buehner says:
On the other hand, people that seem to define anyone not actively liberal as automatically racist are at the height of insight into the population. Amazing that with a nation 50% racist we still elected a black president.
April 26, 2010, 4:33 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Dilan Esper,
[W]hy not continually point out that these people are so dumb they didn’t even know what teabagging is?
Because you don’t have to be “dumb” not to know every item in the 59th edition of Kraft-Ebbing, just (as Ilya Somin would say) “rationally ignorant”?
I suppose you don’t even know what bariolage is. Or scordatura. Or that you can describe the function of a bass bar, or explain just intonation.
(I bet you can’t describe the origin and use of a bezoar, either. And that would likely put you behind — knowledge-wise — an awful lot of teenagers.)
April 26, 2010, 4:34 pmBaseballhead says:
As much as [OPPONENT PARTY] wants to associate a tiny minority of [BAD PEOPLE] at a [EVENT] with [OPPONENT PARTY], they are not a part of [OPPONENT PARTY]. Are you guys on the [OPPONENT PARTY] sure you want to start playing this sort of association game?
…
This denial works for literally everything.
April 26, 2010, 4:34 pmMark Buehner says:
I’m saying you have to be a blockhead to think that mining some anonymous rube off of utube ‘proves’ what a political movement by and large holds to. Especially in absence of simply erring on the side of not being a large type D-bag and holding a civil tongue in your mouth when talking about tens of millions of your fellow countrymen trying to voice their opinions.
Unless provoked of course.
April 26, 2010, 4:37 pmStephen Lathrop says:
Discussions of racism are always complicated by the fact that each participant carries around a personal definition, and the definitions are wildly out of synch. For some people, repeated adoption of policies that disproportionately harm black neighborhoods is obviously racist. For others, it’s just majority rule.
I’ve watched that in action in a group where the few black members were treated (as I thought) with cringe-inducing dismissiveness by a white majority. Later, I heard some whites privately criticize the blacks for exaggerated racial sensitivity. This in Massachusetts, by the way.
After the 2008 election, the New York Times published a map (link please, if someone can find it) showing county-by-county the locations where Republican majorities increased compared to 2004. What I found striking was that generally the counties that went more Republican in 2008 also seemed (at a glance; better analysis would be useful) to be counties from the confederate south with disproportionately white populations.
Given that Democrats lost in 2004, and won in 2008, a locally increased Republican vote bucks the trend and needs an explanation. If you want, you can choose to believe Republicans gained because white southern voters disliked Obama’s policies more than they disliked the policies of John Kerry from Massachusetts in 2004, or that they liked John McCain more than they liked Bush in 2004, before Katrina.
I’m skeptical. I think the 2008 map is as good a map as we are likely to get of the distribution of locally high levels of white racism throughout the U.S. (Note: I am not asserting that Republicans are disproportionately racist, but instead that racists of whatever tendency seem to have voted Republican in the south to oppose Obama.)
Racism is not merely a southern or a conservative phenomenon. Whites everywhere, liberals and conservatives alike, often resist allowing the opinions of blacks to be among the determinants of what conduct is or is not racist. Whites of all parties, localities and political traditions prefer to decide on their own whether they are racists or not.
I mention the national 2008 map because I would like to see a similar map of Tea Party activity. Does one exist? Recognizing that many will disagree, I would hypothesize that you could get a useful idea of Tea Party racist tendencies, or their absence, by comparing a Tea Party map with that 2008 election map.
I think most people agree that white racism is still a problem in the U.S. Remarkably, when it comes down to specifics, there seems never to be agreement that white racism is a factor in any particular situation—and especially not in politics.
If it exists, racism has to be somewhere. It can’t be nowhere.
April 26, 2010, 4:37 pmbillfromontario says:
I don’t think anyone here has said that 50% of the country is racist.
But setting that aside, you do realize that the president is elected by electoral votes, right? And that almost 50% of the popular vote was, indeed, against Obama?
April 26, 2010, 4:39 pmMenshevik says:
Dilan E. never responds directly to Michelle’s point regarding the relative levels and frequency of violence at leftist demonstrations versus Tea Party demonstrations. Unless you believe guns are scary in themselves — which, owing a couple and having spent a fair amount of time at ranges, I don’t — carrying guns to meetings is not a priori equivalent to throwing rocks at cops and buildings if no threats of violence are made, and far more importantly, if no violent actions are carried out. I too have seen many Bay Area demonstrations on behalf of leftist causes over the years. I’ve seen only a few rightist demos — one sparsely-attended Tea Party gathering in front of San Francisco City Hall, and a few larger ones in front of the court house when the constitutionality of Prop. 8 was being decided. All of the Tea Party people I saw were very polite. OTOH, some of the pro-Prop. 8 people were very obnoxious, but I didn’t see any violence being threatened against their opponents.
Compare that with say, demos protesting the Oscar Grant shooting.
April 26, 2010, 4:41 pmhousehold/individual stats geek says:
For those of you trying to reconcile the statistics about income levels –
I don’t think anyone has yet identified the mismatch between using households versus individuals in measuring income in raw dollars, in percentages of the US population, etc. This is a common problem in many statistics thrown around, especially when journalists (or worse yet, the people actually doing the studies) mix and match numbers that were each based on a different benchmark.
Many households making 200-250K are dual-earners at 100-150 each, so those people might get placed in different pots in different surveys –”what is your household income” or “what is your income”? Same for people making 100 at 50+50 or 70+30, or 60 at 30+30.
Most economic stats focus on household, assuming that better shows what resources you have available. Many pollsters advocate household as a better demographic benchmark for opinion polls re political, social, or other views, too, because household income reflects social grouping better than individual income. As between two women making $25K, with opposing political views, it tells us something if one is a working-class single mom whose 25K is also her full household income, while the other makes 25K part-time as part of a 100K household. Of course, a marriage or divorce can transfer either of them into a different group overnight, without any actual change in wages.
It gets even messier, because people-per-household varies greatly, with richer households running larger, so our top 20% of households contain far more than 20% of the people, largely because of the dual-income versus single-income gap.
It’s even messier still when looking at data over time, such as data showing household income stagnation from 1970 to today. Today’s households include far more single parents, and far more elderly people living alone, and that distorts everything. Grandma might have no wage income, but might live well in a paid-off house with minimal expenses, but brings down the household numbers.
Once you start noting this in news pieces, you can quickly lose faith in the usefulness of much of the income-based or wealth-based statistics that you see.
April 26, 2010, 4:41 pmMark Buehner says:
“I’m not sayin. I’m just sayin.”
You guys do a bang up job of proving our points about you. Thanks!
April 26, 2010, 4:43 pmMark Field says:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the episode “Bad Eggs“. :)
April 26, 2010, 4:43 pmbillfromontario says:
So we’ve gone to “Teabaggers don’t call themselves that” to “only a few Teabaggers call themselves that”?
I guess you are speaking for the “tens of millions” of Teabaggers now? Who elected you Grand Lipton?
April 26, 2010, 4:44 pmbillfromontario says:
Mark, you’re embarrassing yourself. You said you were “amazed” that Obama was elected when 50% of the country was allegedly racist. Do you see how dumb that statement is?
I’m certainly not saying that 50% of the country is racist. I was just pointing out that your bone-headed statement that Obama won an election with about 51 or 52% of the popular vote (whatever it was) in no way disproves that about 50% of the country is racist.
I don’t know about the racism of the Teabaggers, but from what I’ve seen they sure seem to be dumber than rocks.
April 26, 2010, 4:48 pmMichael B says:
“Look in a mirror, buddy. The tea partiers are being led around with a nose ring by a bunch of political hacks and political entertainers whose primary mission is the political destruction of Barack Hussein Obama. They don’t care if 45,000 Americans die needlessly every year because we are the one industrialized nation in the world that can’t provide adequate health care for all of its citizens. They don’t care if we consume energy in a way that not only might negatively change world climate, but also spews unhealthy pollution and enriches foreign tyrants. They don’t care if the destructive techniques of Wall Streeters bring down our economy again in the future.
“All they care about is power, and the political destruction of Barack Obama. It’s disgusting, really.” Gordo
An inartful, vapid, sneering, arrogating and boorish show of facile contempt. Evidence of projection as well.
Which is why your comment is nothing but unsupported and unargued assertions.
April 26, 2010, 4:49 pmMark Buehner says:
My friend… are you indeed suggesting that a few anonymous people on the internet can possibly do so? One of us is looking very foolish right now. To your credit I have to wonder if its me… because its hard to believe anyone could really hold to that kind of nonsense, so maybe i’m confused. If some random NOW members made a video espousing the name ‘Hillary’s Bitches’, that would open the door for referring to the entire organization that way? Really?
I’m not speaking for anyone. Neither am I putting words in peoples mouths in a rather pathetic attempt to gain the high ground in using the term ‘tea bag’ in polite company. You might want to think that one over.
April 26, 2010, 4:50 pmMark Buehner says:
bill, your sarcasm detector is turned off. Or blown out. Whichever.
Ah, ‘Time for you teabaggers to get busy proving that 49% of the country isn’t racist.’
Shut up, he explained.
April 26, 2010, 4:52 pmgun nut says:
We don’t have a perfect comparison to show how gun-carrying black protestors would be treated at a tea-party-sized rally.
But we did have the example of Black Panthers carrying guns at voting places, and after the Bush DOJ won a judgment against them for voter intimidation, the Obama DOJ dropped the case on appeal and explained how it was just one big misunderstanding.
I’m sure that if tea partiers carry guns to Eric Holder’s polling place, he’ll be equally accepting of their explanations.
April 26, 2010, 4:55 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Mark Field,
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the episode “Bad Eggs”. :)
See, even I know less than nothing. I was thinking of the Harry Potter books myself. Of which I consider myself rationally unignorant, because they’re well designed and I had a good time reading them.
April 26, 2010, 4:58 pmtroll_dc2 says:
There is way too much denigration of tea-type people for what they are purported to be. It is far more useful to focus on their views and statements.
The good news is that they recognize that we face a hellatious financial future. The bad news is that they seem to have no idea as to what to do about it. They are against overspending. Fine. So what would they cut? Would they support reductions for things from which they benefit (like entitlements)? They are against “waste,” which they seem to think involves things that they do not like. I do not hear them advocating a cut in expensive things like the space program or the defense budget. They can be against “earmarks” all they want, but even if you eliminate all of those, it will not much matter in the larger scheme of things, since most of the federal budget is made up of entitlements, defense spending, and debt servicing.
If we don’t cut spending, we will have to raise taxes. I don’t hear these people advocating a tax increase. So I conclude that they are merely unhappy but are unwilling to do the things that will be necessary to keep us in good stead. They did not rise up against Bush 43, and I suspect that they will fade away if the Republicans regain power, even if the Republicans emphasize the same short-term (more tax cuts, no serious spending cuts) that the Democrats are focusing on.
April 26, 2010, 5:00 pmcaroline w. says:
The lofty Left indulges in name-calling and the righteous Right gets defensive. After finger-pointing and playground brawling, we learn the Left is brazen and the Right apprehensive. Is our future to be all guns and roses and an enticement to incitement, or will we discard rhetorical violence and trick poses in favor of civil protest and sexual excitement?
April 26, 2010, 5:01 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Menshevik,
Compare that with say, demos protesting the Oscar Grant shooting.
To be clear: I think Menshevik means “demonstrations” rather than “democrats.” And Oscar Grant was a young man shot by a BART (=Bay Area Rapid Transit, light rail) cop on New Year’s Eve. The defense is that he thought he was drawing his Taser, whereas it was actually his gun. Trial of the man who did it, who has the improbably Germanic name of Johannes Mehserle, has gotten moved to LA.
And I would wager that merchants all over the West Coast will be using their extra-special shutters on the day the verdict’s announced. Just in case. Because those BART riders can be so violent.
April 26, 2010, 5:10 pmMark Buehner says:
En Garde Strawman!
This appears to be the new slap aside technique- all these people care about is low taxes. Hey, back when those millions of people were protesting that huge health care bill that even the HHS department itslef now admits will increase costs… would you call that something tangible to cut spending? Stopping the hemorrhaging?
The idea that our government is so well run and everything they do is so incredibly important that we can’t possibly even freeze spending at the Vice Consulate Administrators Department of Honey Bee Redistribution for the Southern Oklahoma Valley… I mean, they need every penny! After all, the president promised to comb the budget for every cent of waste, and he found nearly 100 MILLION!
The problem is that there is indeed a HUGE ideological divide in this country, and we don’t even seem able to talk sense to each other anymore its so wide. Would raising the retirement age for SS and Medicare sooner rather than later save a few bucks? Would dumping this huge new entitlement? Would cutting Agricultural subsidies? Trimming the military budget? Getting rid of the Education Department? Ending the Drug war?
Some of these things are small, some are huge, and almost nobody agrees on all of them. But the idea that we cant even DISCUSS a major haircut for the size and scope of the federal government is absurd. Its an attempt to shut down discussion, nothing more.
April 26, 2010, 5:15 pmAndy Rozell says:
Are there any numbers in this poll that show how many tea-party sympathizers are business owners?
I’m betting that business owners are a lot more likely than others to think that most people of all races are lazy and untrustworthy.
April 26, 2010, 5:15 pmFranklin says:
The media’s syllogisms that paint anti-obama protestors or conservatives as racist are just plain awful. If I find white protestors who dislike blacks or thinks israel runs the US, then therefore all protestors are just protesting because they hate blacks and jews? So therefore if one black person hates white people, then Obama hates white people too? The discussion is so blatantly devoid of merit it is sad. There will always be overlapping ideologies among any group, therefore drawing any conclusions of the whole group based on “some” of the group is incorrect.
April 26, 2010, 5:15 pmpc says:
Teabaggers carried guns (including a carbine) when they protested an Obama speech. Despite Obama’s socialist-Islamo-fascist tendencies to confiscate guns, none of the armed people were arrested or had their firearms confiscated.
April 26, 2010, 5:21 pmCrawdad says:
Well, I damned glad that the election of Barack Obama ushered in a new post-racial America. Another hope dashed.
April 26, 2010, 5:21 pmMichael B says:
A reflection of the issue and problems, in Oklahoma, excerpt, emphases added:
“Since 2006, Oklahoma has passed laws cutting off benefits such as welfare and college financial aid to illegal aliens. Thousands of Hispanics fled the Tulsa, Okla., area in the shadow of a 2007 state law that limits benefits and mandates deportation for illegal aliens, according to a report from KTUL television in Tulsa.
“The news report said in East Tulsa, where a community of Hispanics had grown over recent years, there was a sudden drop in population.
“Deputies from the Tulsa County sheriff’s office went through training to handle apprehension and deportation procedures, and prepare them to perform multiple duties of both deputy sheriffs and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
“Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz told KTUL in 2007 that the impact of the illegal alien population was evident everywhere in the state, especially in jails.
“‘We see the effects of gangs, we see the effects of illegal immigrants, we see the effects of drugs, we see the effects of methamphetamines,’ he said.
“According to the FBI preliminary crime report, Tulsa experienced 264 fewer violent crimes in 2007 than in 2006.
“Oklahoma law eliminates most taxpayer subsidies for illegal immigrants, allows state and local law enforcement officers to verify the residency status of those arrested and makes it a felony to shelter or transport illegal aliens.”
April 26, 2010, 5:22 pmtroll_dc2 says:
Mark Buehner, you seem to have whipped yourself into a frenzy. Calm down and look at the problem again.
We have a rising deficit of over a trillion dollars a year. The debt level is so high already that we are in long-term danger of becoming Greece. If we do not deal with the problem, over creditors eventually will. The interest rate on Greek bonds jumped 3.5 percent in one day last week. No matter how the present crisis ends, it is clear that Greek society is going to be completely transformed, and the Greeks are going to have very little say about it. It will be crammed down their throats, even as the creditors get a haircut as well.
If we don’t get serious, the same thing will happen to us. The tea-party people ought to be part of the dialogue. But cutting taxes definitely will not be part of the scenario, trust me.
April 26, 2010, 5:29 pmAlan K. Henderson says:
I have a question for any Tea Party opponents out there (other than the elite sorts who live off vast sums of taxpayer largesse): what do they threaten to take from you?
April 26, 2010, 5:31 pmMark Buehner says:
If the people in power (republicans included sadly) have their way, they will NEVER cut spending, and they will in fact spend every extra dime in extra taxes they manage to raise.
How do you combat that? Let the political class do their usual BS hand waving about spending if we agree to raise taxes even higher?
The only answer, as Reagan said, is starve the beast and hope people come to their senses and elect some people that are really willing to cut government spending in a big way. Does that mean we will still have high taxes in 10 years? Probably. But if we start raising now there will be zero impetus to cut anything, ever, and indeed there are always more lovely big spending programs out there that need more.
The entire dynamic needs to change, and quick. You can’t tax your way out of this, we’re getting to the point of diminishing returns and really hurting the growth, especially of small business. This model of huge government doing special favors for special corporate friends while taxing the bejesus out of everybody else in ways that just get kicked back to consumers is not tenable. We can’t afford this size of government and it is certain to get bigger with our entitlements. There isn’t enough blood left in the turnip to tax, so we have no choice but to dramatically change our spending habits.
The fact that the tea-party sees some of this (even if you posit that they only care about taxes) is still better than Obama and the political class living in la-la land believing we can tax and spend our way to prosperity… or even sustainability. Americans didn’t sign up for that and they are predictably about to do something about it at the ballot box.
End of sermon.
April 26, 2010, 5:38 pmtroll_dc2 says:
Alan K. Henderson, they are not threatening to take anything away from us, but they should. They are confused and incoherent, and I fear that when real and necessary reform is proposed, they will oppose it. “Real and necessary reform” means cutting many hundreds of billions of dollars in spending and raising taxes. How else would you deal with our fiscal problems?
April 26, 2010, 5:39 pmMark Buehner says:
But the people that just brought us that Health Care bill that is going to save all this money (ahem), those rational folks you believe will step up to the plate?
Give me one reason I should believe our current government is prepared to cut spending in any meaningful way.
April 26, 2010, 5:44 pmA. Zarkov says:
The inaccurate portrayals serve to discourage new people from joining the movement. If people come to believe that most Tea Party people are racists with violent tendencies they will tend to shun them and not listen to their arguments.
I think there could be an overlap between Tea Party people and those who are vigorous champions of 2A. But as far as I can tell, Tea Party people don’t bring guns to demonstrations. In other words, I don’t think the overlap is protective, although there might be a deterrent effect.
April 26, 2010, 5:45 pmAnderson says:
These pictures show nothing about the Tea Party.
Ah so. Because the true Tea Party — the Tea Party that we carry within our hearts [suppress a tear] — cannot be reduced to a mere photographic representation.
Or is the idea more like “the Tea Party Invisible,” as opposed to the mortal and fallible “Tea Party Visible”?
… Whatever.
April 26, 2010, 5:47 pmAnderson says:
what do they threaten to take from you?
The biggest health care reform since Medicare? Does that count?
April 26, 2010, 5:48 pmtroll_dc2 says:
Mark Buehner, Reagan was WRONG about starving the beast. It just borrowed the money that it needed. BTW, why did the government continue to grow? Because THE PEOPLE wanted it. I am not going to defend Obama; I think that he is totally wrong on just about all aspects here, but he knows, alas, that if he were to do the right thing, he would get clobbered by everyone. And now that Citizens United has come down (which will lead the way to unleashing corporate spending on politics even more after subsequent court decisions are issued), the problem will get harder.
The efforts to limit agricultural subsidies got nowhere in the last farm bill. Legislators are pushing the Pentagon to accept weapons systems that the military does not need or want. We enacted a drug-prescription law with virtually no way to pay for it. The new health law is a fiscal mess. There were screams when Obama moved to reduce the space program.
This is all madness, but democratic-type governments are not good at cutting spending. Constituents want it, and they would rather not pay for it.
April 26, 2010, 5:49 pmA. Zarkov says:
I think that’s a good question. But your question answers itself. Those on receiving end of government expenditures don’t want to give up what Obama and the Democrats are sending their way. Can you blame them? It’s self interest. It’s also self interest to oppose government if you’re the one paying.
I suspect many Tea Party people oppose amnesty for illegal aliens, and support efforts to control U.S. borders. The illegals stand to lose if Tea Party candidates get elected to Congress. That’s why Obama is pushing amnesty while the window of opportunity is still open.
April 26, 2010, 5:54 pmPaul in NJ says:
That’s not how they see it. They’re expressing their genuine bewilderment. They just don’t get it, and they’re saying so.
As an added bonus, every time the media tar Tea Partiers, it causes another American to wake up and look at what’s happening. “My nephew/grandson/neighbor went to a Tea Party, and they’re not like that vacuous baritone on Channel 2 said!”
April 26, 2010, 5:56 pmpc says:
Spelling, grammar, punctuation and diction.
April 26, 2010, 5:58 pmCrime data, etc. says:
What’s invisible, Anderson, is anything of substance in your commentary.
As to some crime data:
“In Operation Predator sweeps across the country conducted between 2003-2007, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents nabbed over 10,700 foreign national child molesters. Many of these predators had been previously convicted of other crimes, and many had already been deported once. The number predators apprehended in the sweeps actually only represent the tip of the iceberg.”
April 26, 2010, 5:59 pmMark Buehner says:
I think he was right but his timing was wrong. The beast grew larger than anyone had imagined (then), and Reagan was no small part of the spending I agree (with a cold war to win granted).
But we are getting to a different time here. Soon we just won’t have a choice- we WILL have to make hard decisions. There is nothing wrong with staking the ground that we cut spending first and raise taxes only when we’ve cut all we possibly can. To do differently just moves the playing field that much farther to the tax and spend side before you have to start negotiating.
April 26, 2010, 6:00 pmA. Zarkov says:
You’re right, and you point to an inherent weakness in the Tea Party position on government spending. More than half the people want that stuff, and as long as they believe someone else is paying, the majority of the people will support expanding government spending. Of course this is a basic weakness in the democratic system of government, and that’s why the founding fathers established a republic not a democracy. The Tea Party people want to restore that idea. In other words, the Tea Party positions are actually anti-democratic and they must face up to that. We have a conflict between those who pay and those who get. If we are not careful, one day we might get a civil war.
BTW the EU faces the same problem. Right now Germany is the one who has to bail out the PIIGS because everyone is broke or nearly broke. At some point Germany will leave the EU. You might say we are worse off because the ones here who have to pay can’t legally leave the union.
April 26, 2010, 6:06 pmtroll_dc2 says:
These steps will have to occur together if they are to happen. You cannot do economics and good-government stuff without taking politics into account.
More tomorrow. I’m out of here. (For a discussion on this subject, see http://timnuccio.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/mankiw-on-our-fiscal-problems/#comment-503).
April 26, 2010, 6:07 pmGordo says:
If it’s any consolation for some of the more right-wing readers of this thread, I have just as much contempt for the far-left protesters of the Bush era, who would have us bow down to our foreign enemies, take us out of the world economy, and end capitalism as we know it.
In fact, the tea partiers and the “anti-globalization” protesters of previous years are proof that the political “spectrum” is, in fact, a horseshoe. And I have equal contempt for both ends of this horseshoe.
April 26, 2010, 6:09 pmMichael B says:
An unenlightening and massive equivocation, Gordo.
April 26, 2010, 6:12 pmRPT says:
Geo:
slightly off-topic here, but I expect you and I would agree that Avatar is one of the worst films ever made.
April 26, 2010, 6:13 pmzuch says:
Prof. Bernstein:
UPDATE: Relatedly, I haven’t heard any prominent “tea partier” make anything remotely resembling this blatant appeal to racial demography, courtesy of President Obama, in which he told activists that “it will be up to you to make sure that the young people, African-Americans, Latinos, and women who powered our victory in 2008 stand together once again.”
Uhhhh … so an appeal to “racial [and ageist, apparently] demograp[hics]” is the tu quoque of Obama/Hitler signs, witch-doctor Obama PhotoShopping, and watermelon e-mails. Simply acknowledging the overwhelming black voter preference for the “not Jesse Helms/Strom Thurmond/Trent Lott party”, and the strong preference of young, female and Latino voters for the Democratic party, is an anti-white stereotype too, I’m sure. I think that this Caucasian male old fart feels rather insulted … but I leave it to you as to who I think is insulting me.
You folks ought to look less at
perceivedmanufactured slights, and worry more about why these people for the most part think your party is a bunch of troglodytes.Cheers,
April 26, 2010, 6:24 pmQ says:
Ha.
April 26, 2010, 6:25 pmzuch says:
You think he might have noticed at some point or another that he’s black?!?!? A Stephen Colbert he aint.
But what’s your evidence for your claim?
Cheers,
April 26, 2010, 6:26 pmtioedong says:
left out again….
Guess us hard working Asians who lost places in Universities for being too hard working and smart are going to be ignored again.
April 26, 2010, 6:32 pmzuch says:
Would this be the same Steyn that is so damn worried that civilisation as we know it will fall because the darkies are outbreeding us?
Cheers,
April 26, 2010, 6:40 pmricky richardson says:
That last bit reminds me of going through the airport security list last Christmas with my girlfriend. There was an older black guy in front of me with his wife. He was dressed very nicely and professionally. His clothing and demeanor suggested that he had money, style and by my rough estimate, class (at least more than me). In any case, TSA was not having it with him and patted him down twice after he had emptied his pockets. He finally gets through the metal detector and then I get to go. I set it off with my belt, the guy tells me to take my belt off, which I do and I walk through, get my stuff and no one touches me. Then the guys wife and my girlfriend goes. She’s also black an my girlfriend is latina. They both get patted down before going through, even once. Then they take about 5 minutes with their purses, and finally they get through. You guessed correctly if you said that I’m a white guy. Blonde hair, blue eyes, the whole shebang. You also guessed correctly if you thought they had a better reason to pat me down. They did.
April 26, 2010, 6:47 pmleo marvin says:
Cuts both ways.
April 26, 2010, 6:56 pmzuch says:
Uhhh, yes. Democrats en masse marched lock-step to demand that Dubya be hanged for the crime of being white (and/or a capitalist). I remember that; it was in all the papers. Anyone saying that justifiable complaints — say, about Dubya getting four thousand U.S. soldiers killed for no reason at all — were involved clearly has no grasp of reality.
Cheers,
April 26, 2010, 6:59 pmzuch says:
I think this bears repeating. Good thing geokstr is up to the prodigious job.
Cheers,
April 26, 2010, 7:02 pmleo marvin says:
No, the auto and bank bailouts were all Obama’s doing, just like Ruby Ridge happened on Clinton’s watch. It doesn’t matter if it’s factually incorrect. The greater truth is that if you see something authoritarian and Marxist, a liberal must have done it, and if a liberal did something, it must have been authoritarian and Marxist. Tug on either of those threads and the whole ideologically determined far right wing world unravels.
April 26, 2010, 7:03 pmzuch says:
Typo there. Should be: Obama has taken on 2/3rds of the automotive industry, most of the banking sector…”
IC that GM is currently touting its recent emancipation in full-page ads.
Cheers,
April 26, 2010, 7:06 pmleo marvin says:
That may be the scariest thing I’ve seen on this thread. It’s not just that I support Boxer. I’d prefer Mickey Mouse to Mickey Kaus. I might even prefer Danger Mouse to Mickey Kaus.
April 26, 2010, 7:09 pmzuch says:
How can any reasonable person ignore two gazillion of them on the Mall, as such people as Sean InsHannity and FauxSnooze so perceptively reported?
Cheers,
April 26, 2010, 7:12 pmleo marvin says:
I hold their views in similar disdain, but I’m a lot more concerned by the one that’s a dominant influence on one of the two major parties. That’s not the anti-globalizers.
April 26, 2010, 7:18 pmravenshrike says:
You mean the black guy that the media carefully edited so that you couldn’t tell he was black and subsequently attempted to portray him as a racist white guy?
April 26, 2010, 7:22 pmzuch says:
Huh?!?!? Since when? And you seem to be confusing ANSWER as well with the anti-WTO/G-8 anarchists who have an entirely different agenda [if you could call it that] and are quite a bit more marginalised and rare. Do you think we ought to be linking neo-Nazis — and their attacks (and even killings) of Jews — with the Tea Party movement? Ummmm … waiddaminnit.
Cheers,
Cheers,
April 26, 2010, 7:26 pmwhiston says:
Mark B.
Do you know what sarcasm means?
You said above that it was amazing that a country where 50% of the people are racist managed to elect Obama.
Bill noted that the election (where about 48 or 49% of the people voted against Obama) did nothing to disprove the country’s racism.
You responded that his sarcasm meter was broken.
So, did you mean that the country _is_ racist because 50% of the people voted against Obama. That is what the translation of your statement via sarcasm would mean?
Or did you just make a lame-ass point, get called on it, and the resort to the “I was just joking” defense?
April 26, 2010, 7:33 pmMenshevik says:
Zuch, ANSWER has been quite prominent in Bay Area anti-war rallies. And even if they haven’t trashed buildings, many aspects of their agenda are unpleasant, to say the least (unless you’re a fan of Milosevic or Kim Jong-Il).
April 26, 2010, 7:36 pmunlawyer says:
Here is another way of looking at GM’s “recent emancipation.”
April 26, 2010, 7:41 pmA. Zarkov says:
Let’s compare and contrast today’s demonstration against the recently enacted Arizona law dealing with illegal migrants. From myway,
Has any of the Tea Party events risen to this level of civil disorder? I assume that you opponents of the Tea Party people are even more incensed at this kind of behavior.
As for Obama, I see nothing wrong with his egging on the racial groups that support him to come to his aid. I don’t see that as explicitly racist. Similarly I see nothing wrong with an appeal to the racial groups that bear the brunt of paying for Obama’s big government either. Let’s be honest, we have a clash of interests here between those who pay and those who benefit. Each is acting in his rational self interest. The Democrats are trying to cloud the issue by bringing in race as a protective wrapper for their policies.
April 26, 2010, 7:42 pmCB says:
As I recall, the gay meaning of teabagger came to the light to the “rubes” when Anderson Cooper so coyly placed it into polite company conversation in this interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I64Ed5iLu4M&feature=related
The left couldn’t stop shrieking and high-fiving themselves that Cooper could be so clever…and to an establishment guy who probably had no idea the double entendre.
And by the way, I certainly don’t understand why only one tribe is consistently called racist. I see very strong tribalistic racism from all tribes in this country. It’s really quite disgusting that only the white Christians get slandered like that.
April 26, 2010, 7:52 pmzuch says:
… like holding up signs, eh?
But I’d note that the Democratic leadership didn’t (although they should have) hold out their hand to the anti-war protesters. Much the opposite, sadly. The anti-war protesters, of course, were correct. And over four thousand U.S. soldiers are dead.
Cheers,
April 26, 2010, 8:06 pmDilan Esper says:
Dilan, I love Google as much as the next geek, and I tried it before I commented, but the plentiful hits had no hard evidence, just (1) assertions like yours, and (2) proof that they used teabags as props, as Michelle noted, but without self-labelling as “teabagger.”
You didn’t look hard enough.
April 26, 2010, 8:06 pmDilan Esper says:
Dilan E. never responds directly to Michelle’s point regarding the relative levels and frequency of violence at leftist demonstrations versus Tea Party demonstrations. Unless you believe guns are scary in themselves — which, owing a couple and having spent a fair amount of time at ranges, I don’t — carrying guns to meetings is not a priori equivalent to throwing rocks at cops and buildings if no threats of violence are made, and far more importantly, if no violent actions are carried out.
A random person carrying a gun for self-protection wouldn’t be.
But carrying guns EN MASSE AS A FORM OF POLITICAL PROTEST is a threat and is intended as a threat. Because, you see, these folks are the last resistance against Adolf Obama and the Brownshirt Democrats. Or something.
April 26, 2010, 8:09 pmbill bush says:
Check this out: http://cosmicnavellint.blogspot.com/2010/04/imagine-if-tea-party-was-black-tim-wise.html
April 26, 2010, 8:23 pmpc says:
As I recall, the meaning of “teabagger” came to light the second someone said they were a “teabagger” and it was posted on the internet. It was probably sooner than that, assuming someone that played Counterstrike was around when “teabag the Democrats before they teabag you” was offered up as a protest sign. Rubes? Well, if that’s how you want to describe the Tea Party…
As an aside, it’s interesting that teabagging is described as a homosexual activity by certain parties. The act of teabagging requires only one male, the other person can be of either sex.
April 26, 2010, 8:23 pmGaryC says:
GM used one pot of TARP funds to pay off some other TARP loans. You can transfer your MasterCard balance to VISA if you want, but it doesn’t get you out of debt.
The government still owns over 60% of GM – the TARP payment didn’t change that at all. Presumably this will change if and when the shares are sold on the open market.
April 26, 2010, 8:29 pmDesiderius says:
troll_dc2,
“Mark Buehner, Reagan was WRONG about starving the beast. It just borrowed the money that it needed. BTW, why did the government continue to grow? Because THE PEOPLE wanted it.”
No argument here. Maybe if we called off the circular firing squad evident in this thread among those aware of the problem and trained our attention on convincing those PEOPLE that our present course is unsustainable, some actual progress could be made.
Consider the possibility that we’ve been divided and conquered.
April 26, 2010, 8:40 pmCB says:
Okay, couldn’t live without that info. I guess it was just all the gay male broadcasters snickering away that would have made me think that. The broadcast was when the term was disbursed into general society and then apparently in many other broadcasts….not some obscure internet posting. And if you’ll notice, rubes has quotation marks around it in my comment because someone had mentioned it in a post above..
April 26, 2010, 8:41 pmDesiderius says:
LM,
“if a liberal did something, it must have been authoritarian and Marxist”
The problem is that a lot more people my age have been to college than your cohort, and even more younger than I, so more average people have come into contact with the campus Left than in the old days. That Left has, in fact, become more authoritarian than in your day (or at least the authorities more Left), and so the picture that a lot of average people have in their mind of the typical Leftist is not LM, but rather someone like Zuch.
Not a recipe for a happy majority.
April 26, 2010, 8:51 pmElliot says:
Many Blacks call themselves “niggers,” and many homosxuals call themselevs “fags.” So, is it OK to call them “fags” and “niggers” because this is an internet comment thread?
April 26, 2010, 8:54 pmA. Zarkov says:
That’s pretty lame. If you have proof of your assertions then share it, otherwise few will take you seriously.
It seems to me that you don’t have proof, or for some reason you want to waste people’s time.
April 26, 2010, 9:00 pmDr. Weevil says:
pc (8:23pm):
April 26, 2010, 9:06 pmCan you find a pre-Anderson-Cooper instance of a Tea Partier referring to himself as a ‘teabagger’? Michael Berube tried, and failed miserably. He found three pre-A.C. instances of “teabag the fools in DC” meaning send teabags to Congress, with no obvious sexual undertone, and one pre-A.C. demonstrator holding up a sign saying “tea bag the liberal dems before they tea bag you!!”, which doesn’t make a lot of sense unless the obscene meaning is intended. Assuming for the sake of the argument that the website (which liked the sign) did not falsify the date of the post, that the picture was not photoshopped, and that the demonstrator was not a leftie agent provocateur, is that really enough to justify tens of thousands of smirking [expletive deleteds] like Dilan Esper calling all tea partiers ‘teabaggers’ ever after and insisting that they asked for it and that they took the name themselves? Berube was unable to come up with an instance of the specific word ‘teabagger’ before mid-April of last year, when Anderson Cooper and several others made the obscene meaning famous, so it appears that what you “recall” is a false memory.
Of course, some in the Tea Party movement have since adopted the name, pointing out with some glee that if they’re teabaggers, that makes their opponents teabaggees, which is a far more humiliating and degrading role. But they have done so in (what I consider misguided) self-defense.
(Next paragraph copied with tiny updates from Berube thread):
Of course, even if dozens of Tea Partiers had called themselves ‘teabaggers’ in ignorance of the sexual meaning, that would not justify labeling the entire movement with the term forever after. If (hypothetically) tens of thousands of angry leftists were demonstrating as “The Working Peoples’ Movement”, and one or two or ten of them were quoted as saying things like “I’m just a simple working girl from Muncie”, their opponents would surely snicker, since “working girl” is of course slang for prostitute. Would it be reasonable for their opponents to start shouting “they’re all WHORES! they admit it! ‘working girl’, ha ha ha! whores, whores, whores!” and keep up the mockery for a year and more, calling the WPM “working girls” with a sneer every time they were in the news, and adding little digs about the putative whores’ prices for various services? That would be the equivalent of what many on the left are doing. Do you really see nothing wrong with it?
Alan K. Henderson says:
I don’t know if this is a jest or a serious remark.
Medicare is unsustainable in the long run (unless we find blue jungle aliens to steal resources from before the Boomers all get sick at the same time), but it still has a lot of fans.
ObamaCare has lots of fans, too, but supporters never explain what exactly it’s supposed to do to reduce overall health costs. The vast bureaucratic complexity created by the law alone should prove that it will do otherwise.
I don’t know if anyone’s invented this amendment to Murphy’s Law, but…the costs associated with a Congressional bill tend to correspond with its page count.
April 26, 2010, 9:50 pmwhatwhat says:
“I guess it was just all the gay male broadcasters snickering away that would have made me think that.”
Here’s something else we know about the Teabaggers (the political movement) — they have really, really boring sex lives.
Proof? They all seem to believe that teabagging (the sexual act) is limited to gay folks.
No wonder they seemed so pinched up and angry whenever you see them on the teevee.
April 26, 2010, 10:10 pmwhatwhat says:
Weevil
Sorry, the teabagger label ain’t going away. It’s silly, of course, but no more silly than the pathetic maroons who populate the teabagger movement. (“GET GOVERNMENT OUT OF MY MEDICARE” is my favorite Teabagger sign.)
Look, I am going to start a political party. I am going to call it Democrats United for More Buggery. Don’t you dare call it DUMB. That is an insult to the movement. How dare you. Sure, sometimes we in the movement refer to it as D.U.M.B. But if you ever do that then you are just making fun of lots of patriotic americans.
Get over it.
April 26, 2010, 10:14 pmDr. Weevil says:
whatwhat:
April 26, 2010, 10:27 pmI am well aware that the ‘teabagger’ label is not going to go away, and in some (only some) ways I welcome that fact. Like ‘Demoncrat’ and ‘Democrap’ on one side of the political spectrum and ‘Rethuglican’ and ‘Repugnican’ on the other, the word ‘teabagger’ is an infallible sign that the commenter using it is a sophomoric bigot whose further words can and should be ignored. In the case of ‘teabagger’, he — it’s almost always a he, isn’t it? — is a foul-mouthed sophomoric bigot.
pc says:
And here we go again. There seems to be a lot of projection going on with the idea of teabagging, but I don’t think it’s coming from the “liberal” side.
April 26, 2010, 10:56 pmDesiderius says:
pc,
And here we go again. There seems to be a lot of projection going on with the idea of teabagging,but I don’t thinkit’s coming from the “liberal” side.Fixed.
Nika riots redux. Great.
April 26, 2010, 11:04 pmQ says:
So you agree that the Tea Party are bigots: http://www.myfreedompost.com/2010/04/video-proud-to-be-teabagger.html#
April 26, 2010, 11:05 pmDr. Weevil says:
Q:
April 26, 2010, 11:22 pmSo you think it’s fair to take one website video and blame it on “the Tea Party” as a whole? Read my previous comment: some Tea Partiers have (inadvisedly, in my opinion) adopted the name, just as some gays have tried (with only partial success) to turn ‘queer’ and ‘fag’ into positive terms. I think it’s a mistake for Tea Partiers to do that, but it’s a not-entirely-surprising reaction to the blazing hypocrisy and contemptible swinishness of literally thousands of lefties who have been gleefully and unapologetically tossing the term at them for over a year. Many of the same ones get all bent out of shape if anyone uses ‘Democrat’ as an adjective instead of ‘Democratic’. I have never understood what’s so offensive about using ‘Democrat’ as an adjective, but I don’t do it, because I see no point in needlessly antagonizing the other side. What’s your problem?
Michelle Dulak Thomson says:
zuch,
Huh?!?!? Since when? And you seem to be confusing ANSWER as well with the anti-WTO/G-8 anarchists who have an entirely different agenda [if you could call it that] and are quite a bit more marginalised and rare.
ANSWER was actually heavily represented in the antiwar protests (certainly in the Bay Area, and from what I could see of news broadcasts, elsewhere in the country as well). I was reading and commenting on some left-of-center sites a few years back, and asked why sincere antiwar folks would want to have their protests basically led by a bunch of obvious neo-Stalinists; the (apparently sincere) answer I got back repeatedly was “But they’re such terrific organizers.” Well, that’s all right, then.
And I am not specifically thinking of the anti-WTO anarchists, zuch; nor would you, if you’d been long in Berkeley. There are a lot of people who just want to smash and loot and burn; any plausible excuse will do. (Overheard by a friend on the day of the Rodney King verdict, one young woman to another: “Oooh, I hope they hit The Gap. There’s a lot of stuff I want out of there.”)
My point is that, for all the anxiety about violent rhetoric and such at the tea parties, for a right-wing protest that actually involved people smashing stuff and/or burning stuff and/or looting stuff and/or beating other people up, you have to go back decades. For a left-wing one, you don’t have to search very far.
April 26, 2010, 11:42 pmrpt says:
I agree that the use of refried beans represent an escalation of tactics. The next step is habenero (sp?) chilis.
April 26, 2010, 11:43 pmRicardo says:
What you might call the populist conservative movement is full of innuendo about the “real America.” This is not an appeal to racial demography only in a Steven Colbert world where conservative politicians can’t identify the race of all those people living in “real America.”
Both sides know perfectly well where they are getting their votes from. And if they don’t, they need to fire their campaign strategists.
April 27, 2010, 12:00 amleo marvin says:
What you describe wasn’t unknown even in my antediluvian days. I agree a college campus is the best place to look for anyone who doubts liberals have our own faction of power-seekers and bullies. Of course they’re outnumbered by open-minded students and scrupulously fair teachers, but they’re a corrosive enough minority to taint higher education. Still, the nearly balanced political demographics of college graduates suggests that whatever attempts there may be to indoctrinate students aren’t very effective. So at their worst these liberal bullies are an unfair impediment to aspiring academics, including other liberals, who buck their orthodoxy, and an obnoxious nuisance to everyone else. On the other hand, the most visible coterie of doctrinaire right wing bullies are movers and shakers in the Republican party and conservative movement politics. The first group offends me. The second one scares me.
April 27, 2010, 12:11 amzuch says:
I went to school in Bezerkeley, and lived in Oakland, and various other places around the Bay area. And you’re full’o'it. The biggest and loudest protests I’ve seen in recent days was people living in trees trying to keep a new athletic facility from supplanting some big old-growth oaks.
If you march down Telegraph waving a Nazi banner, you’re likely to get some rudeness, and if you wear your Dubya/Ctheney buttons, probably the same. People might call you eedjits, but that’s perfectly understandable.
Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 1:15 amzuch says:
Proof by unverifiable personal anecdote … and you have no idea if they were serious, do you? <*sheesh*> Not to mention, such a desire, even if sincere, is hardly the same as actually, you know, doing something…. Betcha blacks scare you, eh? You cross the street to avoid them? Rap music lyrics make you wet your pants?
Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 1:21 amzuch says:
And the Rodney King trial was when, exactly? I think I’ll start calling you Michelle Van Winkle…. And when was OKC?
Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 1:25 amzuch says:
And I am authoritarian exactly how? Let’s see, who’s for “military commissions” with the introduction of evidence obtained under torture? Show of hands, please. Who’s for warrantless wiretaps? Show of hands once again. How about prosecuting the ill-fated “War on Drugs”? Or “pick[ing] up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business”?
Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 1:32 amPerseus says:
If the Reverend Jesse Jackson can be scared of black youths (“There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery — then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”), why shouldn’t the rest of be?
April 27, 2010, 2:16 amLester Livio says:
With all due respect, this is simplistic thinking!
I am a college professor, an African American, and a Tea Partier. What does that make me?
April 27, 2010, 2:46 amA. Zarkov says:
Note the key word for the Willis and Chung
I can see that you take this thread most seriously.
April 27, 2010, 3:16 amRicardo says:
More on racial demographics: Obama is simply stating a fact by saying that women, young people and racial minorities helped elect him President. This is obviously true to anyone who bothers to look at the exit poll data.
McCain won 55% of the white vote compared to Obama’s 43% — Obama needed lots of non-white votes to win and he got them. An equally telling statistic is if you look at the racial breakdown of Obama v. McCain voters: my rough calculation shows that about 89% of people who voted for McCain were white while only 61% of Obama voters were white.
Again, the only people who can fail to notice these facts are those who live in a Stephen Colbert I-don’t-see-race world. The Republican Party seems to have mostly given up on the Bush-Rove strategy of trying to court minority (especially Hispanic) voters.
April 27, 2010, 4:09 amDesiderius says:
zuch,
“And I am authoritarian exactly how?”
Well, you have no authority here to throw around, so you usually just settle for being an asshole. I don’t see much evidence of anything to impede you doing so were you to obtain any.
LM,
“Still, the nearly balanced political demographics of college graduates suggests that whatever attempts there may be to indoctrinate students aren’t very effective.”
Unfortunately, given the importance of the liberal arts and the liberal principles that constitute our country, they’re indoctrinated pretty effectively in the opposite direction, far as I can tell. The bullies aren’t liberal in any sense of the word, nor, I’ve come to believe, meaningfully Left.
April 27, 2010, 6:36 amMark Buehner says:
I’m calling sock-puppet. No way two different people on this thread can be this dense. Let me break it down for you- NO I do not believe that anywhere near 50% of the country is racist. That was a jab at dolts that are arguing opposing Obama (ala the teaparties) is evidence of racism. Whats sad and a bit shocking is that somebody could actually take that at face value. I suppose it betrays a mindset that entertains the notion that such a vast number of Americans could be racist in this day and age.
April 27, 2010, 9:13 amMark Buehner says:
Since when do facts have anything to do with what is acceptable to say out loud that touches on race? Is this some new rule the Left has assigned itself? Goes without saying it wouldn’t apply to the right. I don’t suppose if John McCain was out specifically rallying the white people that voted for him it would go over well.
April 27, 2010, 9:18 amunlawyer says:
and in the very next comment:
So right after making an unsupported speculation on how the people of Berkeley would act, you reject a personal anecdote. Oh, the irony.
April 27, 2010, 10:35 amDotar Sojat says:
Last evening a large crowd showed up just down the highway from me at the Odessa, MO City Council meeting to protest the granting of a permit to an avowed white supremecist for a teen night club. The crowd’s message was that his racist beliefs had no place in their community. The crowd was white, rural, working class. I’m betting that few of them voted for Obama. Just an anecdote.
April 27, 2010, 10:35 amzuch says:
IOW, “I ain’t got nuttin’… but I won’t let that get in the way of slinging accusations like hash in a greasy spoon.”
I do appreciate your standards for proof though. Perhaps I am not, as they say, “innocent beyond a shadow of a doubt”.
I leave it to the discerning readers to judge just who is the a$$hole [and who the "authoritarian"] in this encounter.
Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 11:06 amMenshevik says:
Zuch has achieved troll status, personal insults being one of the hallmarks of trolldom. Please refrain from feeding.
April 27, 2010, 11:16 amzuch says:
OK. Try it. Tell us what happens.
IIRC, in my academic days there, David Irving came to campus to give a talk. Needless to say, he was not showered with flowers and candy. As for Dubya/Ctheney, you can just look up the vote there. Or just take a walk.
Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 11:18 amzuch says:
In case the fact escaped you, the personal insults seem to be coming from the other side. See, e.g., Desiderius’s unsolicited appellation for me.
Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 11:19 amunlawyer says:
My point was not to deny the truth of your claim, but merely to contrast it with your rejection of the claim of someone else.
April 27, 2010, 11:23 amslimslowslider says:
Indeed, I would like to see Menshevik’s list of trolls on Volokh Conspiracy.
April 27, 2010, 11:24 amMenshevik says:
I think the out-of-the-blue accusation of racism coupled with insult of “Betcha blacks scare you, eh? You cross the street to avoid them? Rap music lyrics make you wet your pants?” passes the trollish threshold.
April 27, 2010, 11:43 ammattski says:
Less and less value in your remarks, more and more evidence of misery.
April 27, 2010, 11:51 ammattski says:
Sorry, I don’t see it that way. Zuch was questioning the value of Michelle’s “anecdote.” What did it prove?
OTOH, you appear to concede that Zuch’s claim was valid and uncontroversial.
April 27, 2010, 11:54 amMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
zuch,
Betcha blacks scare you, eh? You cross the street to avoid them? Rap music lyrics make you wet your pants?
“Betcha” you think that’s actually effective rhetoric. From here, I confess it does make you look like a pathetic little creep. But maybe that’s just me.
And the Rodney King trial was when, exactly? I think I’ll start calling you Michelle Van Winkle…. And when was OKC?
Okay, you want an authentic smashing/burning Bay Area riot that is within your living memory? Try this one.
April 27, 2010, 11:57 amunlawyer says:
Please consider the possibility that I am neither convinced of the truth of the claim nor convinced of its falsity.
April 27, 2010, 12:13 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
zuch,
I ought to have added that The Gap gave up on that store eventually; I forget what’s in the space now. But before they gave up they invested in steel shutters for all the windows. I’ve seen them deployed in times of, er, tension.
Of course this is all purely anecdotal. Take no notice.
But if you read far into my last link, you find — who else? — our old friends from Revolution Books in the thick of the Oakland riot. For those unfamiliar with the bookstore, it’s a block from UCB, a block from the late Gap in fact, and I believe its orientation is mostly Maoist/Sendero Luminoso. Half the spaces in that Durant/Channing complex are vacant, but Revolution Books, last I checked, was still there.
April 27, 2010, 12:25 pmMark Buehner says:
link to article of GM ‘payback’
Heh
April 27, 2010, 12:38 pmzuch says:
Ahhh, yes, a burning political revolt on the serious social question as to whether BART cops ought to be firing their guns at people down on the ground and killing them.
While I don’t approve of rioting, I’d think you would not be surprised that such occurred under the circumstances.
But I’d also note that this, just as in the Rodney King riots, was not exactly a grand political statement, nor was it sponsored by the Democrats nor organised by ANSWER.
Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 1:07 pmzuch says:
More on the ideological foundations of Tea Party people here.
Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 1:14 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
zuch,
While I don’t approve of rioting, I’d think you would not be surprised that such occurred under the circumstances.
Under the circumstances as stipulated? No. Which, as I said, is why businesses in Berkeley keep plywood sheets on hand to protect their windows at a moment’s notice. There are often “circumstances.”
Last week, a Chinese-American man was punched for no particular reason on Telegraph Avenue. He told his father, who was there shopping with him; the father went to confront the attackers, was attacked in turn, and is now dead. An account is here. Two young black men have been arrested in connection with the killing.
Number of cars torched / stores looted / people beaten up by Oakland’s Chinese-American community in reaction? I think you know the answer to that. The public gesture of the Chinese-American community (though it was joined by the non-thugs of all races) was a prayer vigil.
Yes, yes, of course the Oscar Grant case is different, because he was killed by a minor species of law-enforcement officer. I know that. But if it were Tian Sheng Yu who had been killed by Johannes Mehserle, would you expect downtown Oakland to be put to the match? Really?
April 27, 2010, 1:45 pmRich M says:
Hey nice sarcasm. For what it’s worth, I’m not a Tea Partier. I am saying, simply, that the photos that you linked into this thread are not Tea Party people. There are plenty of “photographic representations” of Tea Partiers out there. You should look.
Judging from the thinly-veiled spitefulness of your comments in here, it must suck to be you. It must suck to be a left-wing moron watching helplessly as this groundswell of anti-leftism rises. I just wonder when you guys will realize that we are still, and always will be, a center-right country and we will always reject governance from the left. Your messiah, who appears incapable of moving to the right, will be a one-termer. Too bad for you, but great for the rest of us.
April 27, 2010, 2:16 pmzuch says:
Yes. Two young, and apparently drunken, thugs punched the guy (and he apparently fell, and was fatally injured). And they have been charged with murder (within a nanosecond). They were not cops. Cops shooting guns. And you acknowledge that the community reaction was not to extol the thugs but rather to (at least for some) join a prayer vigil for the victim.
See any difference? Oh … nevermind:
A “minor species” of policeman? What is that? Are we to excuse the bestiality of such “minor species” as understandable?
I would expect (or at least hope for) as much anger and outrage. Yes. Maybe not put to the match, but then again, Jack London Square was still standing last time I was down there.
But I think you’re getting rather far afield from political protests.
Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 2:25 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
zuch,
Yes. Two young, and apparently drunken, thugs punched the guy (and he apparently fell, and was fatally injured). And they have been charged with murder (within a nanosecond).
Well, hardly within a nanosecond, zuch; they might’ve been caught even earlier had the first press reports not declined to state any description beyond “young and male.”
Is “drunken” an excuse these days? I gather it, if anything, increases the penalties for vehicular manslaughter. I don’t see how assaulting people on the sidewalk is more excusable for a drunk man than is causing a collision. Most people involved in car accidents, drunk or sober, don’t actually will them to happen. People who commit assaults on sidewalks, drunk or sober, generally do.
They were not cops. Cops shooting guns. And you acknowledge that the community reaction was not to extol the thugs but rather to (at least for some) join a prayer vigil for the victim.
By “the community” you mean whom? The black community? The “black community” comprises mostly sane people who only want to live as best they can, pretty much like everyone else. Most people, of whatever race, aren’t keen on random gunshots killing or maiming their kids, or people punching random strangers just for fun, or, for that matter, people smashing up whole streets in retaliation for something that happened miles (or hundreds, or thousands, of miles) away. Most people, of any race, are sane.
(If you can find anyone, anywhere, btw, “extolling” Mehrsele, do let me know.)
I would expect (or at least hope for) as much anger and outrage. Yes. Maybe not put to the match, but then again, Jack London Square was still standing last time I was down there.
Yeah, well, those tough old buildings take a great deal of burnin’. Cars, OTOH, are easy.
Would you “expect” the anger and outrage to be expressed on random people’s cars, shop windows, and so forth? In all honesty?
April 27, 2010, 2:47 pmRich M says:
“Still, the nearly balanced political demographics of college graduates suggests that whatever attempts there may be to indoctrinate students aren’t very effective.”
This suggests that somewhere around half of our college graduates have enough brain matter to reject the illogic of the left.
April 27, 2010, 2:58 pmzuch says:
It sucked to be one of the more perceptive people in Weimar Germany too, as the country devolved into fascism. Jes’ sayin’…. But then again, we learned a good adage from that one: “Never again!….”
But news fer ya: There’s no “groundswell of anti-leftism ris[ing]“. You’re just getting louder and more obnoxious, and with a “
PravdaFauxSnooze” to blast your ‘message’, such as it is. “Go State! Beat Georgia! We’re Number One!“….Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 3:02 pmzuch says:
More on Tea Party political theory (with pic’chers this time to help out).
Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 3:09 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
zuch,
But then again, we learned a good adage from that one: “Never again!….”
Not that our “learning” did the Tutsi much good. Or the residents of Srebenica, for that matter.
April 27, 2010, 3:13 pmzuch says:
They had videos. Pictures. You know.
No. But it may go to “intent”, so as to differentiate between manslaughter and second degree (or felony) murder.
No. I didn’t say that.
Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 3:14 pmRich M says:
No, thanks to the groundswell of anti-leftism (really sucks for you doesn’t it?), we won’t devolve into “facism.”
Hey, I got “news fer ya” too, you guys are going to lose your ass in the next two elections. But keep denying reality. You lefties are good at that.
Jes sayin
April 27, 2010, 3:15 pmRich M says:
Much as I’d love to stay, gotta go
April 27, 2010, 3:19 pmzuch says:
Took a bit of work to get him up on charges, though. Without the video, you think he would ever have been charged?
Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 3:20 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
zuch,
They had videos. Pictures. You know.
Ah. The surveillance state at its best? As far as I can tell, what they had was footage of the suspects on the street, plus multiple tips. But the son must’ve been able to tell at least the skin color of the men who attacked him, and yet the first SF Chron article about the attack doesn’t give that information.
No. But [intoxication] may go to “intent”, so as to differentiate between manslaughter and second degree (or felony) murder.
Yes, it might.
As to “anger and outrage,” why wouldn’t you think the (hypothetical) killing of a middle-aged Chinese man by a BART officer would set off riots?
April 27, 2010, 3:23 pmzuch says:
A plausible alternative explanation is the unremarkable fact that half of all students are dumber than average [or more accurately, the median]. I’m sure the readers have already figured out which half that is.
Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 3:23 pmzuch says:
In case you’re not familiar with such, riots are not unheard-of in Asia.
Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 3:28 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
zuch,
In case you’re not familiar with such, riots are not unheard-of in Asia.
So you’re saying that you do think that there would have been a riot in downtown Oakland had a middle-aged Chinese-American been killed, rather than a young black man. I’m afraid I don’t agree with you. I do not think you would have seen any property damage. You would have seen an exceedingly polite request to the local government to find out what actually occurred.
April 27, 2010, 3:42 pmAndrew J. Lazarus says:
OK, I live in Berkeley, I’d agree with this. I’m not sure I’d say a lot but, yeah, enough to get in the way.
I guess what I’d disagree is that nowadays only The Onion is calling these clowns “the real Berkeley”, while the former half-term governor of Alaska is convinced that the Tea Parties are “the real America”. Like the KKK of the 1920s and the Birchers of the 1950s, the Tea Party movement is almost completely white, largely rural or suburban, monocultural, and deeply steeped in paranoia and ignorance.
April 27, 2010, 4:06 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Andrew J. Lazarus,
I guess what I’d disagree is that nowadays only The Onion is calling these clowns “the real Berkeley”, while the former half-term governor of Alaska is convinced that the Tea Parties are “the real America”. Like the KKK of the 1920s and the Birchers of the 1950s, the Tea Party movement is almost completely white, largely rural or suburban, monocultural, and deeply steeped in paranoia and ignorance.
I doubt that the KKK or the Birchers would’ve been satisfied with “almost” completely white. And it is difficult to call people “deeply steeped in ignorance” when they turn out to have more than median levels of education.
April 27, 2010, 5:02 pmzuch says:
No. I didn’t say that, did I?
Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 5:08 pmzuch says:
Then why are a goodly number of them “birthers”? If it’s not profound ignerrence, what is it? I’m listening….
Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 5:10 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
zuch,
No. I didn’t say that, did I?
Indeed you did not. You merely said that
I would expect (or at least hope for) as much anger and outrage.
You wouldn’t, presumably, expect, much less hope for, the anger and outrage to be visited on innocent people. And yet you do seem to find the riot over Oscar Grant’s killing understandable.
I don’t. I do not see any point in smashing and burning stuff that doesn’t have anything to do with the killer.
April 27, 2010, 5:21 pmzuch says:
I didn’t say I expected and hoped for violence (particularly against innocent people). Anger and outrage are not identical with violence, nor do they necessarily include it. Please learn to read.
Yes. Riots are not completely unknown when outrages on a community have been perpetrated. I don’t approve, but I do understand. When anger and outrage are taken to an extreme, along with frustration and/or other accumulated grievances (either perceived or real), there is a real risk of violence breaking out.
Generally, those that riot are the powerless and/or dispossessed and generally the poor (it is generally they that have the grievances with the ‘system’) … albeit we do have some pathological cases such as the Miami/Dade “Brooks Brothers” Rent-A-Riot, where the Republican Party flew in Congressional staffers on private jets from across the country to pretend to be outraged Miamians and start a riot and disrupt the legitimate political process in Miami.
Neither do I. Where did I say I did?
Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 6:18 pmMark Buehner says:
Why are a goodly number of leftists Truthers?
Look, in any crowd (certainly one as large as the Tea Parties… we seem to keep neglecting the fact that they have a higher party affiliation right now then Dems or Reps) there are going to be a certain number of nutcakes. There are going to be morons. The average IQ will hover around 100. What else would you expect?
This is a huge movement, and despite Zuch’s reaching protestations, its astonishingly uncentralized and organic. That is demonstrably threatening to the clique in power at the moment and their constituents. Its particularly ironic considering these are people normally (or heretofore anyway) absent from the political debate, but now they are strongly involved. And they get crapped on for it, called racists, idiots, potential terrorists.
Is that what you people really think of your fellow countrymen?
newsweek
Were talking tens of millions of Americans that at least sympathize with the tea party sentiment and are listening, not laughing.
April 27, 2010, 6:43 pmzuch says:
The question here is unclear. How many people think that Dubya knew about 9/11 in advance? I dunno, maybe the people that heard about the August PDB? How many are true “Dubya blew up the WTC from inside” Truthers? Too many, but a very small fraction (and there’s some on the right that are that kind of Truther too).
Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 6:56 pmzuch says:
… thanks to 24X7 promotion by RW radio, FreedomWorks, and FauxSnooze…. Oh, yeah: And some blogs too….
More people protested the Iraq war. Strangely enough, not a lot of coverage there. Or political impact.
Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 6:58 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
zuch,
Riots are not completely unknown when outrages on a community have been perpetrated. I don’t approve, but I do understand. When anger and outrage are taken to an extreme, along with frustration and/or other accumulated grievances (either perceived or real), there is a real risk of violence breaking out.
You talk of violence “breaking out” as though it were something like measles. Violence breaks out when people decide that it would be cool to smash stuff, or other people.
You’ve lived here, you say. Have you ever seen rioters attacking a “symbol of authority” larger than a police car? I grant that government buildings, banks, and so on tend to be more heavily fortified than average. But in all the years I lived near Berkeley, Bank of America was never even a target. Even though it was conveniently located at Telegraph and Durant. The Gap, Tower, and other retailers, OTOH …
Mehserle didn’t commit an outrage on “a community”; he committed one on a person. The killers of Tian Sheng Yu likewise committed an outrage on a person.
April 27, 2010, 7:28 pmDesiderius says:
LM,
“I’d prefer Mickey Mouse to Mickey Kaus.”
Gotta love this Kaus quote:
“It’s a stark illustration of the inequities of capitalism that organized labor can only afford to buy one political party, but Wall Street can buy both of them.”
Mattski,
Thx for the feedback. I’ll see what I can do.
April 27, 2010, 7:30 pmzuch says:
Some more on Tea Party demographics.
Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 7:31 pmzuch says:
Nah. That would be in Oklahoma City. I haven’t been there recently.
The “perceived” heavy-handedness of police extends to the community (or at least a significant segment of such). When a specific incident occurs, community anger extends to the overall situation, of which this flash-point is just an egregious example. I thought I explained that; sorry if I didn’t get through to you.
Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 7:37 pmzuch says:
Say, ya think (if we assume your facts here) they might be angry at the police? Imagine that….
Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 7:39 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
zuch,
More people protested the Iraq war. Strangely enough, not a lot of coverage there. Or political impact.
Actually, there was quite a lot of coverage. Cindy Sheehan was on the news and in my local paper constantly. Coverage of protests and protest memorials (you do remember this one, yes?) was intense. The tea party folks were sufficiently undercovered that President Obama, some months into their campaign, could semi-credibly claim he’d never heard of them.
April 27, 2010, 7:41 pmzuch says:
… which probably won’t amount to any kind of apology to me, I’m guessing.
Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 7:42 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
zuch,
.. which probably won’t amount to any kind of apology to me, I’m guessing.
If I were Desiderius, which I am not, I would hold off on any apologies to zuch until after he admitted that his “betcha wet your pants when you hear a rap song” line of talk to me was crass.
April 27, 2010, 7:51 pmzuch says:
Six years after?!?!?
No, there wasn’t a whole lot of coverage at the beginning. Despite a large number of people against the war, and a smaller, but still huge, number of them protesting, off we went. One hundred fifty to two hundred thousand makes the two gazillion Tea Partiers look like chump change, but news media, it seems, luvs them a good war (or something like that).
Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 7:53 pmzuch says:
Oh, it may have been crass. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t accurate.
You never answered my questions. Do you go down to Eastmont Mall, for instance? I went there a number of times to visit the cable office there, etc.. Or do you avoid such “parts of town”?
Cheers,
April 27, 2010, 7:59 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
zuch,
You never answered my questions. Do you go down to Eastmont Mall, for instance? I went there a number of times to visit the cable office there, etc.. Or do you avoid such “parts of town”?
For the last ten years, I’ve lived in Marin County. And as I don’t have a car, I’m rarely in the East Bay at all anymore.
But for seven years I lived at 45th St. just off San Pablo. Technically in Emeryville, although Oakland was a block or two away in three directions. The neighborhood was roughly one-third white, one-third black, one-third Indian subcontinent. Closest store: Janta International (bulk rice and Bollywood videos). Next closest: “Bottoms Up Liquors.” Next closest after that: Black & White Liquors,” just past the Oaks Club (Emeryville’s main poker room). You get the idea.
The neighborhood is of course much transformed now, because what was empty space round Yerba Buena St. is now a massive mall. But when I lived there, it might have raised the hair even on your chest, supposing you to have any. You might remember Your Black Muslim Bakery, yes? That was four blocks north of us. A long while before its owner was accused of having ordered a hit on an Oakland Trib journalist, but well after people assumed that some sort of criminal franchise was being run out of it. And I remember one spectacular New Year’s Eve when the celebratory gunfire was really rather nearby, and someone shot off a clip of twenty rounds or so, and I started dredging up old calculus: Given muzzle velocity V and disregarding air friction, how long is that going to take to come back down? And will the roof actually stop it?
That was the year the Oakland PD found 250+ shell casings in a single block the next morning. It was ten blocks from us.
I have never lived in such a friendly neighborhood in my life. Total strangers said “good morning” to you from down the street. But you did run the risk of mugging or worse.
April 27, 2010, 8:28 pmElliot says:
“Get Involved as an American Values Voter for Obama!”
http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/faithsignup
April 27, 2010, 9:14 pmleo marvin says:
wow
April 27, 2010, 9:20 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
leo marvin,
wow
Yeah, amazing, what?
My husband has a car, and when we need to go somewhere together, he drives. For the rest, I take public transit. I’ve done that practically all my life. And Golden Gate Transit is really rather good. Unlike AC Transit (the Alameda County equivalent) it generally runs to schedule, and the buses themselves are much nicer.
That said, getting over to review a concert in Berkeley is a pain, involving as it does (1) bus to San Rafael; (2) bus from San Rafael to Richmond BART;
(That’s right, zuch, the really-scared-of-black-people girl uses Richmond BART every time she visits the East Bay. How much time do you spend in Richmond? Less than I do, I’d wager.)
and then (3) BART to Berkeley. If the concert happens to be somewhere like St. Joseph Presbyterian (a popular venue, but about 20 minutes’ walk from two different BART stations), you have to factor that in too. Nothing that I review is really closer than 15 minutes’ walk from a BART station, except the Crowden School (something like three blocks from North Berkeley BART).
I need to allow 15 minutes to walk to the bus pad, half an hour from there to San Rafael, about 40 minutes to Richmond BART, and half an hour to Berkeley, although I might luck out and hit a train when I step onto the platform. Throw in the walking time from BART to the venue, and you see why I generally assume I need to leave three hours prior. But you need also to remember that the bus to Richmond runs once an hour; miss it narrowly and you’re screwed.
April 27, 2010, 9:41 pmDesiderius says:
zuch,
“… which probably won’t amount to any kind of apology to me, I’m guessing.”
I call ‘em as I see ‘em. Far as I can tell, you’re an ass, which kind of bums me out, since I know a fair number of lefties who aren’t, and the asses give them a bad rep (same goes for anti-lefties – can’t say I know many actual righties these days).
It’s not the end of the world, I can be an ass too. Ask mattski. Only cure I’ve found is making an effort at introspection and putting oneself in the shoes of others to consider the viability of their positions, given their different experiences, and being on the lookout for common ground. Doesn’t always work, but often beats the alternative.
All I promised Mattski was to be less miserable, so here goes:
bchurch,
“bgates: Right at the same time the southeast became vastly more racially tolerant than it had ever been…
Hilarious”
?
April 27, 2010, 11:47 pmRicardo says:
Being educated and being ignorant are not incompatible. I would not be at all surprised to find out that 9/11 Truthers have higher-than-normal levels of education either. It doesn’t prove anything.
April 28, 2010, 1:13 amzuch says:
I remember one New Year’s Eve in Istanbul at a friend’s apartment six floors up or so, and hearing fireworks outside. I went to the window, and my friend said, maybe not such a good idea; that’s gunfire. Oh, OK. They like their guns over there, and fire them up all the time just for fun. Real exciting after a soccer game, when everyone is in high spirits. This causes problems in that part of the world sometimes, as they do this for weddings too … with the end result that the U.S. military has taken out more than one wedding party in the past.
Almost got an apartment there back when I first moved out.
So what’s this sh*te about hair on my chest, eh?
FWIW, the only time I’ve been beaten up in recent memory was by one cop in a holding tank with six of his brave buddies around waiting to join in the fun (I didn’t fight back; just went the next day to get some pictures taken), and the closest I got to a fight in Oakland was in a biker bar with some big white redneck azo.
I still think you cross the street.
Cheers,
April 28, 2010, 1:36 ammattski says:
You are welcome. And I wish you the best.
And sorry about the erratic internet access.
:^)
April 29, 2010, 7:40 am