… who is eagerly quoted by the Herald today:
Tea Party Express chairman Mark Williams, a Bay State native, is giddy over the reception he thinks Palin will receive.
“Boston is the cradle of liberty and it’s also the cradle of left-wing loonies,” Williams said. But he predicted Bay Staters have had enough of that, and that’s why the national tour is making Boston its final stop before heading to Washington D.C. for Thursday’s Tax Day protests.
Mark Williams in his own words: Obama is an “Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug” … and “racist in chief”.
Good thing Williams is coming here to teach a lesson to us loonies. Remember that this is the guy whom Sarah Palin is “palling around with.”
Questions for State GOP chair Jennifer Nassour, and anyone inclined to welcome this rally:
- Do you believe that President Obama is an “Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug”, and the “racist in chief”?
- Do you find such language offensive? Racist?
- If so, why do you welcome the presence of Williams and his group?
Discuss
29 Comments . Leave a comment below....if Boston is the "cradle of leftwing loonies" precisely BECAUSE it is the cradle of liberty. I actually think we have a consistent pattern of being progressive, from independence, to abolition, to public education, to equality.
I didn't hear the clip to the end, but one thing I noted is that Mr. Cooper was very concerned about Williams saying extreme-sounding things. He didn't like the idea that Americans were yelling at one another. He wanted better enforcement of manners.
The problem it seems to me is that what Mr. Williams tauts as certainties are falsehoods. If not a liar, Mr. Williams is certainly very self-indulgent with his fantasies. Having our national discourse taken over by things that are false is much worse than calling Obama bad names.
Heck, on financial reform, I'm willing to call Obama bad names.
Palin Pulls in Big Money
(h/t Taegan Goddard)
Charley - Williams is affiliated with TEA Party NATION, a for profit corp. in Tennesse. TEA Party EXPRESS who is bringing Palin here is actually a different group.
(I am not Jenn Nassour and don't even play her on TV - BUT -
I do NOT think Obma is a welfare thug, racist in chief, etc. And before you ask, yes, I HAVE heard TEA Party leaders condemn such language, but that is because I've actually gone to some of their meetings instead of relying on who Anderson Cooper thinks will make good copy.
I DO find such language offensive and racist.
And as said, Williams isn't actually part of the group Nassour is welcoming)
but I think you've got the various groups mixed up. From Mark Williams' website:
So, sadly, Mark Williams is indeed the head of the group that is bringing Palin to town. I don't know anything about "Tea Party Nation," but whoever they are, they seem to have nothing to do with the rally, or with Mark Williams.
Also, to be clear, Williams is "part of the group Nassour is welcoming" -- in fact, he's the head of it. Awkward...
Tea Party Express
This is the same group being welcomed by Nassour. You're welcome to change your position anytime.
from conservatives of decency. Things are a little tangled here.
And what David said: Williams and Palin are decisively linked. Same group.
The entire public posture of these extremists is dishonest, disgusting, and dangerously destructive. The racism is flagrant and repeated. The simple ignorance, together with careless disregard for truth and facts, is staggering. The willingness of the GOP — including people like yourself — to shrug their shoulders, wink from time to time, and encourage such outrageously offensive statements enables and encourages them.
You say you "find such language offensive and racist" — what steps have YOU PERSONALLY taken to publicly stop it? You are an elected state representative. Have you used your resulting visibility to publicly and loudly reject the Tea Party and all the vile things it stands for? Have you stepped before local news cameras to say that you want no part of Mark Williams, Sarah Palin, or the Tea Party? Have you mobilized your staff, supporters and contributors to join you in persuading Jennifer Nassour to reject this offensively racist mob? Have you publicly proclaimed that you would prefer this traveling lynch-mob to stay away from Massachusetts?
When you write "I do NOT think Obma is a welfare thug, racist in chief, etc.", you remind me of similar denials from George Wallace, Lester Maddox, and Ross Barnett during the civil rights era. Oh — and by the way — it is "President Obama" (not "Obma"). Isn't it time for elected GOP representatives like you to show a tiny bit of respect for the office?
If you genuinely find these tactics repulsive, then start acting like it.
I do not now, nor have I EVER, had a staff. Also, we HAVE no local news down our way, so their cameras are hard to find.
I PERSONALLY have written about it, contradicted it, and deplore it.
You say, "The entire public posture of these extremists is dishonest, disgusting, and dangerously destructive". You also say the ENTIRE TEA party needs to be rejected - and I do not think that is true. From a local web site - "EMBRACE PRINCIPLES, NOT POLITICAL PARTIES. We are unified around our core values: Limited Government, Lower Taxes, Border Control, Personal Freedoms, Support of Small Business, Free Speech, 2nd Amendment Rights (right to bear arms), Supporting our Military, Upholding our Constitution".
I don't expect you to agree with all that, but I do NOT see anything that I would need to reject.
A few years ago, when Cindy Sheehan was camping outside the Bush ranch, she was joined by the neo-Nazi group Stormfront as they liked her stance on Palestine. Nobody said she was ruled by these people. Nobody said they were typical peace demonstrators. Then again, nobody publicized it either (which didn't make it less true).
Anybody who says all people involved with the TEA PArty is racist is willfully blind. You are entitled to disagree with its aims, but not slander thousands of ordinary people.
BTW - I realize Obama is President. I also think I have treated him with far more respect than people on BMG ever showed for President Bush when he held office.
So you're saying the tea partiers - unanimously or at least in large majority - believe that women's right to bodily autonomy, including unfettered access to safe abortions, is a fundamental human right; oppose any involvement or influence of religion or religious organizations in the government, and demand that public policy be justifiable in non-sectarian terms and based on reasonably accurate understanding of the relevant science; oppose illegal wars of conquest such as our invasion of Iraq; and don't want the Executive branch to be able to indefinitely detain suspected enemy combatants without charges, whether on US soil, at Gitmo or Bagram, at CIA black sites, or anywhere else, or torture anyone, or eavesdrop without warrants on American citizens, even if the Presidency is held by a Republican? A lot of then-future 'baggers were out marching against imperialist warmongering in 2002, were they?
Good thing no one here said that! Although, actually, I will say it, so I guess no one said it yet: everyone involved with the tea party - as well as everyone not involved with it - is at least somewhat racist, because we all live in a racist society, and it is impossible to have grown up in America without absorbing and internalizing its racist messages. I'm not going to do your research for you, but look up the recent research on implicit bias: racism (and sexism and other biases), it turns out, actually does work the way liberals have always said it does, and not the way conservatives try to insist it does. (Cue standard Stephen Colbert quote.) I think that on average the tea party "movement"'s membership is probably somewhat more racist than the average across American society as a whole, but of course there's a range.
In my experience, TEA party members actually ARE more likely to be pro-choice than Republicans - it's seen as a Libertarian issue. And yes, I am pro-choice myself for exactly that reason. Even the ones who are pro-life tend to be less about enforcement and more about advocacy.
BTW - your assumption about how choice is viewed would argue you experience a little implicit bias yourself against conservatives.
I can't make heads nor tails of that. What are you talking about? I certainly have implicit biases myself, though I try to be conscious of them and to minimize their effect on my thinking and my interactions with people. But while my framing of the choice issue - that it's about bodily autonomy - reflects my view of the issue, I can't for the life of me figure out how you think that constitutes bias against conservatives. Unless, of course, you join with many of your fellow conservatives in thinking all disagreement constitutes bad-faith personal attacks motivated primarily by quasi-tribal animus.
Or, I suppose, you could be suggesting that in expressing doubt that a large majority of tea-party conservatives hold expansively pro-choice views, I'm displaying bias against conservatives - but I hope you're not, because that would be far too absurd.
(I note that, yet again, you've picked out a single point of mine, and offered a qualified and unconvincing rebuttal of that one point, and ignored everything else I said.)
As an elected representative, you do occasionally find yourself on Beacon Hill, right? Are you suggesting that if you, as a Republican state representative, arranged an on-camera statement on the steps of the State House rejecting the Tea Party and its extremism, nobody would cover it? I think not.
I think you like the buzz. I think you like the "support". I think you are feeding on the shameless demagoguery and appeal to raw xenophobic anger that motivates this movement — as exemplified by Sarah Palin.
I think you might be a little uncomfortable with the flagrant racism — but not enough to do or say anything to dampen the blood lust. I think you, as a Republican, fear drawing the fire of this movement — displaying the same astounding absence of courage that the national GOP leadership shows when it bows and scrapes before Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.
You cherry-pick a quote from an unattributed "local web site", and claim that it is representative of a political movement that you "do not see anything [you] would need to reject".
Let me offer some other blind quotes, all from the same source. Do you see any need to reject this:
How about this:
Or this:
After you let me know whether not you see "anything you would need to reject" in the group that offers these, I'll happily identify their source.
Your attempt to compare the Tea Party movement to Cindy Sheehan and Stormfront is as dishonest as the material you claim to oppose. The outright bigotry, lies and racism are promoted by the organizers of the mob you defend; it is the mainstream of the movement, hence its media attention. In fact, you have the analogy precisely reversed: a more accurate portrayal would be a resurgent movement led by Stormfront, with a "local web site" fronted by Cindy Sheehan offering a reasonable counterpoint (and being ignored).
Any civilized person who pays attention to the media barrage shouted by the Tea Party recognizes the pervasive and disgusting racism that permeates it. When thousands of "ordinary people" line up behind signs like that offered by Tea Party leader Dave Weigel (see below), describing them as "racist" is not "slander", it is objective truth.
I find your support for an offensively racist ignorant mob disgusting. In my view, your posturing about this epitomizes the reason why the GOP is, rightly, an endangered species in the Massachusetts legislature. I believe that as an elected representative, you have a responsibility to maintain a level of respect for the office of the President — and beyond that, for rational and civilized political exhanges — that your comments here in defense of these Tea Party extremists fall far short of.
I am under the impression from several of your many exchanges here that you are an elected State representative. Perhaps I am mistaken.
It doesn't change the substance of my comments very much, though. It is embarrassing that the MA GOP is welcoming these thugs, it is embarrassing that no Republican representative has (to my knowledge) stepped forward to repudiate them, and the comments you've made encouraging the Tea Party remain repulsive to me (whether or not you are elected).
And beyond that, I will say nothing other than to ask you to respect PP's anonymity.
I certainly have no desire to compromise PP's anonymity, I thought he/she was a state rep.
...she is a Republican State Committeewoman. I think I'm OK on anonymity grounds since I have no idea of her name and only have exposure to her via BMG.
That's an open secret that we have to pretend not to know.
We're supposed to pretend PP is just another right winged commenter. Anyone who's been over to the "other side" knows better. It's almost as bizarre as the RoTR enforcement.
She appears to be a party official, and her comments encourage the worst sort of race-baiting and demagoguery. I frankly don't care and don't want to know her identity — "unnamed GOP party official" is just fine with me.
By the way, PP, what say you about my blind quotes? Do you see anything you would need to reject?
...over on RMG, she's quite open about it. It's only here that it's some dark secret.
... free to associate where you will. From my perspective (and I suspect many others) though, these people you object to have poisoned the well. They've done it enough that it causes us to look askance at any who would swim in that water. Make no mistake, you're swimming in it. If your desire was to have a principled movement that rejected the crazy, you've failed so far because they have hijacked it. In civilized company, when someone scrams Nazi, they are invited to leave by everyone else in the room. That's not happening here. The water is poisoned, and they have accepted it as acceptable.
why they're so pissed. We just don't understand who they are and why they are so angry. They really aren't bigots. They are mainstream Americans who understand the deception that Obama is perpetrating on our Constitution.
And, who's to say that all those misspelled signs aren't planted liberals just out to make tea partiers look bad? There's always the fact, too, that there are several versions of the tea party out there, and there may be a few bad apples in each one, so it's not fair to the true patriot tea partiers who aren't bigoted or homophobic or ignorant to paint them with such a broad brush. They value real America and the concerns of real Americans. Also.
Do I have that right?
Another deft piece of rhetoric from lightiris.
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