Radio Boston's Meghna Chakrabarti caught Mass. Tea Partier Christen Varley dead to rights today. Chakrabarti raised the question of whether racism is central to the Tea Partiers' message; Varley demurred, using the typical trope that really, they're all concerned about government spending, deficits, and whatnot. Chakrabarti not only quoted Tea Party Express CEO Mark Williams (Obama is an “Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug”) to Varley; Chakrabarti also quoted Varley's own blog back to her, including the fake-o “Kenyan” birth certificate — the “tell” of obvious racism if ever there was one.
Look, there's something very ordinary and basic to recognize about the Tea Party: It's a coalition, and the members themselves don't really necessarily know what it's all about. Some folks really, really care about the national debt. Some really, really think their taxes have gone up. Some really really hate health care reform.
And some are racists and loonies.
Varley says they don't talk about racial stuff … and yet she's an obvious racist. Jeff Jacoby et al protest against the outrageous, just outrageous accusations of racism:
To anyone who knows real Tea Party members or has attended a Tea Party event, these characterizations are so absurdly scurrilous that it’s hard to imagine anyone could possibly believe them, let alone utter them in good faith.
Oh my, yes. Scurrilous, Mr. Jacoby. La dee da. That “sliver of disreputable cranks” happens to include the guy who organized the rally. Totally marginal figure, that. Who's he?
And that's coalition politics. Surely not all Tea Partiers are motivated by racism and tinfoil-hat mania. But you know, “National Debt is 5% of GDP!!!!!” doesn't bring out the pure rage-'n'-pain, the white-hot fury of the rallies. Tea Party leaders have to speak out of both sides of their mouth, complaining that they're all so misunderstood to the general public, while circulating the same kinds of base appeals to, uh, the base. This ain't dog whistle politics; it's a wolf-whistle.
Laughably, even Mark Williams tries to play this game:
For the most part that breed of loony tune [ie. birther or other conspiracy theorist] just stands around mute and nobody really pays much attention to them or their banner …
To be sure, Barack Hussein Obama is not even close to being an American in cultural or emotional terms.
Sorry, Tea Party: Your racism is showing. You'll wanna zip that up; and until you do, you'll get the dismissive treatment you deserve.
is, I assume, Charley, a rhetorical question of the “does a bear shit in the woods” form?
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p>Of course the tea party movement is racist. Know-Nothingism always is. It’s not just that there are some people with racist views involved in it – or even that some of them are in high positions in the various organizations. It’s that the movement itself is predicated on racist ideas (“Obama’s presidency is illegitimate,” “welfare for me but not for thee,” etc.). They probably can’t “zip it up,” and it’s a bad thing if they can, because the underlying racist motivations aren’t going to go away, and they’re harder to combat if they figure out how to express those motivations through subtler dog-whistles that they can plausibly deny are racist.
They rail against Obama for creating debt – when more than 70% of that debt comes from the Bush war of Vengence against Irag for threatening to kill his father and the rapacious banksters set loose to rape the economy by Bush deregulation.
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p>While I would have preferred Civilian Conservation Corps style jobs to some of what was done – the Tar Pit that Obama inherited was created by Bush and the Wall Street Coyotes.
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p>(Great name for a punk band, huh, or grunge band that, “Wall Street Coyotes”)
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p>Bush is a white conservative. Obama is a black moderate. There’s no mystery here. The tea partiers are happy to disregard, distort, misremember or falsify any facts that don’t fit their narrative, because they decided on the narrative first. Why this narrative that everything bad is Obama’s fault? Because he must be trying to destroy America. Why must he be trying to destroy America? Because he’s secretly an America-hating Kenyan Indonesian Muslim Communist. Why do they believe he’s not a citizen? Because it’s the best justification they can find for his election being illegitimate. Why do they need to believe his election was illegitimate? Because they cannot accept that a black man is President.
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p>It’s not strange. It’s just racist. Miserably, predictably, typically racist.
Per Dan Kennedy’s analysis of the NYT teaparty poll:
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p>Also (as I’ve already noted):
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p>Stunning, really.
On this clip…
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p>http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp…
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p>(there are a couple of clips on the page… make sure you’re looking at the clip w/ two guys, before the rally)
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p>In the middle of the clip (1:40) he addresses the notion that Tea Party is racist.
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p>He ends the interview talking about a hoity-patoity black woman who wouldn’t shake his hand. Relevance? Not clear.
Is the Jonah Goldberg types going on about how President Obama ‘didn’t do anything in college or law school’, how ‘being the editor of the law review is an easy job’, and how he ‘clearly benefited from affirmative action’. Some others have mentioned how her mother, who married two brown Muslim men must have ‘had a pathological need to bed muslims to show how radically different she was from mainstream America’ and of course charges that his mother and his grandparents were communists (his grampa fought with Patton and his grandma was a bank president, hardly the commie type if you ask me). All of this is part of a concerted campaign to de-legitimize the presidency of Barack Obama because a certain segment of the country is uncomfortable that we are increasingly becoming a white minority country, that the vast majority of Americans elected a black man, and that someone with an atypical background culturally and religiously became President. Its truly scary, the last candidate who faced this much opposition on the basis of his origins was President Kennedy and we saw what happened to him, I really hope Napolitano and the President don’t back down from the pressure, these right wing extremist groups really are terrorists and their goal is to take down this President.
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p>Imagine if people brought guns to Bush rallies would we really be talking about their 2nd amendment rights or would those offenders be carted right off to prison? Why is the Lt. Col refusing to serve President Obama still in the freakin army, didn’t most officers opposing the Iraq War get imprisoned or forced out for disobeying Bush’s orders? What worries me is also how the media and other institutions like the military are doing little to really expose this right wing extremism and root it out of our institutions to both protect the President and protect the American people.
Jonah Goldberg inherited his plush job from his journalist daddy and his lawyer mommy, Obama graduated summa cum laude from Harvard Law which is not too shabby. If Goldberg considers that ‘easy’ than his hero John Roberts is just as much of a coaster.
We have been fighting against a misinformation war for years, now it is finally getting out into the mainstream, but my question is whether it is being uncovered? Are these people actually afraid that Obama is a foreigner, or is this just another smokescreen for hate? Here’s a link to an article we covered on our blog, check out the photo and you tell me:
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p>http://livelovelearn247.blogsp…
In American politics today, those aligned with the Democratic Party seem to be rational players, who believe in facts and can use reason. Many of them have agendas and records that I don’t like, but they mostly all use reason.
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p>I define racism VERY narrowly. Others define it much more broadly. For me to consider something racist, it has to be based solely on race, and not on other forms of prejudice.
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p>Let’s be very generous, and assume that these T-BAGGERZ do not believe in zoological racism.
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p>That still doesn’t mean that they’re not illogical and nutty in their analysis.
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p>”Obama the Indonesian Muslim”
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p>Not only has the man attended a Christian Church in Chicago for decades, he has consumed beer in public, which is against the Muslim religion, which prohibits alchohol.
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p>Also, Mohammed Kasim Reed, known as Kasim Reed, is African-American, the Mayor of Atlanta, GA and is a United Methodist. Not all black people with Muslim names are Muslim by religion.
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p>To this nonsense they add the old red-baiting (he’s a socialist/communist).
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p>The old red bait gets “Bonehead” whites from the suburbs to blame “major minorities” from the cities for all the problems, and NOT blame the wealthy business interests that are really running the show.
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p>Mixing insane nonsense about Obama’s background and the red-bait with claims that “Obama is a Nazi” is INSANELY reactionary. It rests on the premise that any change or progress from the way it was in 1500 leads to concentration camps.
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p>Perhaps it is time to talk to The Nice Man In The White Coat.
We need a new term here. May I suggest Marginalization Dogma. It is practiced by both left and right with a vengance should you deviate from the commonality of news fed political talking points. There is no original thinking. There are no rational debates save the witch burning anger of the left which exceeds the hatred of the original racial divides I truely think most Americans have left far behind.
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p>I don’t hate Obama because he’s black or even if he happened to be a Kenyan Muslim. He is however the prime mover in establishing the global corporate fascist regime which will surpass Hitler’s Nazi Germany. What America was is of less than zero concern to people like Obama.
I also don’t particularly care about Obama’s background either way, but about the policies that the government enforces.
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p>Things are bad, but Obama is no primary mover. The bad policies started before him, and he mostly just maintains them.
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p>He did pass the stimulus bill, which helped a little with the depression.
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p>And there are some good things about the health care bill, such as prohibiting “pre-existing conditions.”
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p>But no where near enough has been done to end the depression and the unjust wars, and get the nation out of the muck and mire.
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p>The Iraq War (Sandbox) and Afghanistan War (Graveyard of Empires) continue on, with no end in sight, and there has even been a troop “Surge” (Lurge-Burge)in Afghanistan.
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p>The Patriot Act continues on. This means that the government is listening to EVERY phone call, as they did in the 1950’s and 1960’s, before the post-Watergate reforms outlawed this.
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p>With all of the flack that Obama and the Democrats took for Health Care, they should have put in Socialized Medicine. This would take the burden of providing health care away from businesses, and it would make sure sick people would get care even if they are broke.
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p>I also don’t see anyone doing anything about the trade deals that transfer US jobs to third world dictatorships with slave wages.
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p>And while we’re at it, how about a MASSIVE government make-work program for infrastructure and for research and development, with free training? This would create jobs and paychecks, and build research and infrastructure for the future.
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p>I agree that things are bad, but not because of what Obama is setting up. These are bad things from before that just keep going.
A little Noam Chomsky review seems right on.