Members of the Tea Party Movement have, after almost a year of sometimes fractured and other times factionalized events and protests finally come together and issued their first cohesive list of core values (relax, I am making this up). The announcement was made at a Tax Day TP (think about those initials) express cross-country rally. The document is called "Our First Cohesive List Of Core Values...Until We Can All Agree On A Better Name, That Is."
Unfortunately, in its eagerness to acknowledge the concerns and convictions of everyone who is not actually a member of the Tea Party (because the Tea Party is not a Party but a Movement, and therefore has no members, as its members keep insisting), the document is 42,896 pages long and consists of 67,756 individual complaints and concerns ranging from anger and distrust of the Federal Government to questioning whether United States President Barack Obama was actually born a Black man in America or is he just a kinda White guy from Kenya, or Fiji, or some other damned foreign place and finally ending with the special concern of one of the delegates to the conference, Festus P. Hymen, that being, "Why is there never a decent goddamned parking space outside the Arby's in Billings, Montana?"
As a political thesis, it is brilliant in its clarity, monumental in its obtuseness and precise in its lack of specificity. It is also virtually unreadable. Still, there are some universal concerns that all nonmembers of the Movement seem to share. First and foremost among them seems to be whether or not the Tea Party is actually a legitimate political Party or instead a Movement. The question seems to be at the very heart of the Movement, or even at the bowels (making the TP a bowel movement?). Even the document's title (which is too much trouble to repeat here - see paragraph one) is perhaps the greatest tribute to the diverse nature of the Movement that is called the Tea Party.
Unnamed Tea Party Source Wegman (Pudgy) Watercloset, speaking on the condition of anonymity, explained: "Members of the Tea Party always insist they're not members of a 'Tea Party'. That's how you know 'em. Because, you see, the Tea Party is not a Party, it's a Movement that just happens to be called a Party because it has the word Party in its name, but it's not. A Party, that is. It's a Movement...well, maybe it's a little of both, a Movement and a Party...or a Marty or a Povement, if you will. Anyway, if you say you're not a member of the Tea Party, then you are one. By the same token, if you say you are a member, you're not."
The two next greatest concerns, while seemingly completely dissimilar, often go hand in hand for most Tea...persons. These are the twin demons of abortion and runaway Federal spending. Watercloset, continuing to speak on the condition that if he inadvertently knocks up a drunk Tea Party chick at a rally somewhere she's got to keep the kid whether he's around or not and the government had better not support her with it either said, "You've got to understand, we want the government to keep out of everything, and by that I mean everything but abortion rights, of course. It's time for the Federal Government to get its hands out of the wallets of rich bankers and businessmen and back into women's vaginas where they belong."
The Manifesto is also somewhat surprising for what it does not contain as well. For instance, there are only 2,300 references to Sarah Palin, mostly referring to how cool it would be to have a hot looking redneck chick for a president. In contrast, it mentions that guy who got booted off CNN and went to Fox I think...oh, what's his name...Glenn Beck! him, 2,301 times, making him the clear spiritual leader of the Part...uh, Move...the MartyPovement.
The Manifesto is available as an app from the i-Tunes store (cost - $16.99, but you also get a free download of the 'Collected Works of Fred Phelps', a $20.00 value, included as well). It may also be found in book form at your local Wal-Mart (minus the Fred Phelps download) in the Lawn & Garden Department, near the five gallon pails of Ortho Round-up. For more information and a schedule of TP events, speak to your local TP representative; usually it's your Republican Committee, Council or Congressman. If they tell you they're not in the Tea Party, don't worry...just keep calling and calling them, or stand outside their homes until they break down and admit it. Then go away because they're lying to you. Such is the nature of 21st Century politics.
These are signs seen primarily at Tea Party Protests. They are unintentionally hilarious. They all feature "creative" spelling or grammar. This new dialect of the English language shall be known as .......... "Teabonics":
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pargon/sets/72157623594187379/
more: http://www.csmonitor.com/CSM-Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Copyediting-Tea-Party-protest-signs
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197 comments:
The Tea Partiers are being countered by a start-up group called "The Other 95%," which descended on D.C. on Thursday to protest "right across from the Tea Party rally."
"Obama passed 25 separate tax cuts," Sheryl Stein, founding member of "The Other 95%" said in a statement announcing the group's plans, "including $300 billion in middle class tax cuts -- one of the largest in history - as part of the stimulus package. Unlike President Bush's 2001 tax cuts, which went to the wealthiest 2.2%, President Obama's tax cuts overwhelmingly benefit working and middle class families -- in fact, 95% of all Americans."
http://theother95.com/
Hate to spoil the tea party, but taxes went down for most this year. But keep having your rallies, because our President remains black.
59% of tea-party identifiers have a favorable view of Glenn Beck; 7% of all others do.
In order to gain the political power they've enjoyed for decades, Republican moderates and fiscal conservatives made a pact with the devil (faux Christians, bigots, racists, sexists - teabaggers) to achieve the numbers they needed to defeat Democrats.
They made a strategic decision to manipulate and exploit the ignorance, fears and hatreds of dysfunctional and vulnerable voters in order to win elections rather than lose them by being intellectually and morally honest.
Today, those who conspired with the devil are caught between wanting to disassociate themselves with and casting out the demons they empowered and the karmic reality that they don't have the numbers to hold on to or regain power without continuing to accept and "advocate" the immoral values, hypocrisies and corruptions that are dividing and destroying their party.
The survival of today's shrinking Republican Party is so dependent on extremism that they have no significant power left WITH or WITHOUT the support of America's increasingly pernicious lunatic fringe.
The idiom "caught between the devil and the deep blue sea" is appropriate as Republicans are facing the dilemma of choosing between two equally undesirable alternatives that both result in Republican impotence in mainstream American politics. They are suffering the consequences of their treachery.
Their irresponsible propping up of George W. Bush cost them their credibility, and the dysfunctions of teabaggers, birthers and deathers exacerbated by the irresponsible exhortations of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are costing them their viability.
The Wise One speaks wisely. Guess we're done here. OK, comments are now closed. LOL
Please, those of you who are in states where there will be elections in November, register to vote and make sure you Vote! Do not let the Republicans take control of Congress or the Senate again!
The day the Bush administration took over from President Bill Clinton in 2001, America enjoyed a $236 billion budget surplus -- with a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion.
When the Bush administration left office, it handed President Obama a $1.3 trillion deficit -- and projected shortfalls of $8 trillion for the next decade.
But Bush was a white dude, so it's OK.
There's no need to go to the Tea Parties to embarrass them. They're doing fine on their own.
The Great Republican Dilemma, so many people to Hate, so Little Time !
Doc's satirizing their faux manifesto highlights that they don't even what they are fighting for.
When did the so-called Tea Party members start getting riled up? When it looked like a black man might be elected president.
When did the so-called Anti-government Extremist start getting ammoed-up? When a black man WAS elected president.
Bigots, Racists, Secessionists, White-Supremacists, Nazi's, Nutbags, Birthers, Deathers... they are the Tea Party movement.
Did I leave out anyone?
Where was the Tea Party member's outrage and calls for impeachment when Bush was president?
Here's just a few of the many of Bush's greatest/worst hits
Failure to protect America from attack- 9/11
Using said attack to invade the non-responsible nation of Iraq
Corporate deregulation- led to the financial meltdown/crisis
Killing hundreds of thousands in an immoral war for oil
Usurping the Constitution by spying on Americans
Putting party and corporations ahead of the American people
Where you when Bush was the real FUCK UP?”
When I look at the angry crowds that gather at many of the Tea Party get-togethers, I do not see ANY black faces.
Is it only white people who are so mad about government spending? (by the way, where were all the tea-partiers when President Bush and the Republican Congress ran up year after year of enormous deficits (2001-2009) WITHOUT having a global financial crisis to respond to?)
I am forced to conclude that some percentage of the Tea-partiers are driven by fear that they are losing their country. Many of them admit it right on their signs.
How many of them are really saying, "White America is losing its automatic place at the front of the line and it scares the shit out of me?" There is certainly an element of racism in some of the Tea Party membership.
“Beware of the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry, [who] infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How will I know? For this I have done. And I am Julius Caesar.”
Julius Caesar
Wow - hey Julius, welcome to doc's blog.
photo
I'm going to speak in tactical terms. From a military standpoint, domestic terror groups have absolutely no chance against the government, nor any minority group, nor any perceived enemy they may have real or imagined. People are rude, crass, selfish, stressed and growing increasingly impatient, but if some fringe group began to attack the public, they would be destroyed. I don't dismiss their ability to do terrible things....what I do know is they underestimate that some of us might be ready for a fight.....
Amen
I'd be shocked if the average teabagger even knew what % of their total income goes to taxes.
I asked on guy on his way to the Boston rally if he thought it was in anyway hypocritical to take government subsidized public transportation to a protest against government subsidy.
These people didn't bootstrap themselves into a parking spot on the Commons yesterday.
well yeah. Attempting to drive in Boston is insane. These people may be morons, but they're not insane.. at least one or two may be marginally sane..
sure, but they're bitching about federal subsidies. While taking federally subsidized public transit to a public park where federal employees watched out for their safety and public parks workers picked up their trash.
Check out this video:
Who are the teabaggers? They're unemployed, stay at home moms, disabled, or government workers.
http://multimedia.boston.com/tn/11/local_news.htm?bctid=78033624001
Statistically, 47% of them don't pay income tax. So they're protesting because.... Sarah Palin told them to?
naturally they love Sarah Palin, whose rallies I would point to as the precursor to (if not the genesis of) the whole thing.
I can see them imitating their matriarch...
"Which policies do you support?"
"er... All of them."
Keep in mind that many view 'tea parties' as a social event where they can cavort with similar people.
Just as the (much larger) anti-war movement in the 60's and 70's was infiltrated by fashionable wannabes and people just looking for a good time, the 'tea parties' are catering to the Cracker Barrel set.
Sure, some of them are genuinely angry (over what, specifically, they never say), but I bet that many of them are just there for the hell of it.
The fact that they can't even grasp current taxation should be a clue as to the seriousness of this 'movement.'
The one thing unifying them and driving them is Obama being elected president. It's the same ugly tone that started at the Palin rallies, except now the guy they were told would ruin the world is President.
On the way to class last night I heard a commercial on the radio for a Tea Party Tax Day thing where I live. It was in a park and, I quote, "Please bring respectful signs."
The commercial said that the reason for the gathering was to protest high taxes.
So, you're protesting taxes in a public park, which is paid for by taxes?
Unfortunately I had a test that night, so I couldn't show up carrying a sign that says "Free Socialist Commie Liberal Hugs".
I know the race card gets played a lot, but I still believe that the true antipathy from the right comes from the simple fact that a successful Obama presidency after the epic debacle of the Bush years would mean easily 20 years without a republican president.
So given their (generally) advanced ages, if Obama doesn't fail, they are doomed to never see a GOP president again in their lives.
The racism card gets played a lot, because it's true. 18% of our country's population are racist in some way or another. No, they aren't lynching racists or refuse-to-work-with-black-people racists, but they have a deeply-seated racism that they cannot overcome. Having a black president has just unhinged all of them.
So:
There's a small group of people who have no clear ideas or ideology, no clear leadership, who don't know exactly what they stand for, who don't make up a large enough voting bloc to change anything but who are getting a disproportionate amount of media coverage of them holding misspelled signage to cover up for the fact that they are mostly Old White Southern Christian Republican Men who "hate the government" for some reason?
Is this right?
Yes. Just like all the splinter groups from "Life of Brian"
A few months ago we had a guest on the local affairs show that I produce. He loudly and confidently condemned Obama for starting TARP. After we were done filming, I asked him if he knew that TARP had begun under Bush. He actually argued about who started it for a bit, then admitted that he doesn't watch the news.
You gotta hand it to teabaggers. They are selfless enough to throw giant hissy fits over small tax increases for rich people that wouldn't give their toothless white asses the time of day. Very Christ-like and all.
Life of Brian ~ Lisa
hahahaha exactly!
"All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"
I think I overheard the TV mention that Sarah Palin made about $12M in speaking fees and book deals since quitting her post in Alaska. I wonder how long she can continue the charade of caring one bit about the government beyond it being a tool she can use to make money off of.
Regarding the tax day protests, for people complaining about being hard working and taxed enough, they'll sure find any reason to take a day off in the middle of the damned work week.
It was a work day, do you know where your employees were? Or are these all unemployed people?
most of them worked and now are retired.
A lot are retired and getting Social Security and Medicaid.
They just don't want YOU to get those benefits, too.
Misspelled signs of protest.
Complaints that have no basis in fact.
Confusion of "socialism" and "facism."
Racist invective.
Ah, yes. Springtime brings out the Tea Party loons.
Teabaggers have jobs and pay taxes? Not many i'm betting. That would be a better poll.
Most just watch foxnews all day while they collect their SS check and get socialized health insurance through medicare.
The teabagging militia of the future doesn't seem too intimidating.
New York Times/CBS News Poll: National Survey of Tea Party Supporters
Total N = 1580
Tea Party N = 881
30% of TP are on social security.
28% covered by medicare.
32% retired.
53% declare sean hannity and glenn beck as "news"
63% watch fox mainly
5% have bought gold bars in the last 6 months
47% get their info about the tea party by TV
only 18% have attended a rally and 7% donated money to the TP
84% believe that the tea party reflects the views of most Americans
52% say the amount of tax they pay is fair.
40% believe that Roe vs Wade is a "good thing"
24% believe that violent action against the government is justified while 72% say it never is
73% say that black and white people have an Equal chance of "getting ahead" in todays world
16% support gay marriage and 41% support gay civil unions
31% say global warming is impactful while 51% say it's not serious (15% say it doesn't exist)
Oh man this is just full of wonderful numbers
92% believe Obama is moving the country toward socialism
30% say he wasn't born in the US
56% say his policies favor the poor
64% say that obama has increased taxes for the majority of americans
73% say obama doesnt understand the needs of people like themselves
75% say obama doesnt share the values most americans live by
40% say Palin has the ability to be an effective prez (47% say no)
Gotta check the real source:
http://documents.nytimes.com/new-york-timescbs-news-poll-national-survey-of-tea-party-supporters?ref=politics#document/p41&h=5c8fd4524043384a33acfd43da51dbe6
I kind of wish '24' had one more season just so we could see Jack Bauer taking on some extremist tea bagger-esqe domestic terrorists.
Watch, as I put this magical bag in this cup of water, the water is unchanged. But now, BEHOLD, in this cup of water, the magical bag has created TEA! Thus ends the transubstantiation of the water. This miracle has drained my strength, I must retire to my chambers.
LOL
Attention impotent teabaggers: you can't spell "socialism" without "Cialis."
Aw, I'm just kidding. You can't spell anything.
So, in a parallel universe, is Sarah Palin REALLY smart, or just aware of how fucking stupid she really is?
Politics aside, "Tea party" has got to be one of the most pansy-assed names for a political movement I've ever heard. It's like a gun's rights movement full of camouflaged asskickers called the "Pattycake Bunch" or "Le Ponce du fleur."
Fox News really does keep their viewers 'infromed', though.
I am intrigued by the the idea of an infro-med. Is that a sort of infomercial that affects you like meds?
NOT A EXTREMEST
JUST EXREMEY
OVER-TAXED!!!
NO AMESTY
This might be a new favorite of mine.
Oh fuck, I just realized he has a teabag hanging from his sign, that's even better.
Bonus: Mexicans stealing are consonants
They're only stealing the consonants that average Americans won't steal.
I don't get it, doc. All those signs are written in perfect American.
It's spelled 'Murkin.
I almost feel bad for these people. You'd think they have enough "activists" at this point that, statistically, someone should be able to fucking spell. Also, someone else should be intelligent enough to see that the guy who can spell should look over these things as people show up.
You know, so they don't look like fucking morons. All the fucking time.
The bad news is that these people vote. The good news is that they don't know how to properly read a ballot, so they don't make a difference statistically.
I really don't see how all this crazy being whipped up by the right is going to end other than in violence. Eventually they right-wing hatemongers will inspire another McVeigh to do something really horrible and then those same hatemongers will have the gall to ask how did that happen.
I find it funny and an amazing amount of cognitive dissonance that the righties love the phrase, 'Freedom isn't free'. Yet ask those super-patriots to pay a penny more in tax and they scream about it to no end. I guess what they mean is, 'Freedom isn't free, I just expect someone else to pay for it'.
Nope freedom costs a buck-oh-five.
they won't ask how it happened, tommy. they'll say it was obama's fault for being a scoliast
Something I wanted to do was show up at an anti-gay marriage rally with a sign "PROTECT MARRIAGE: BAN DIVORCE"
But I didn't want to get beat up :(
I'd also like to walk around with furry arms and a sign saying "I have the right to bear arms"
Just some thoughts from someone who grew up in the sign business, and who still paints a mean sign. This is not specific to tea party signs, but would extend to anyone's sign that looks like the signs in the pictures do.
You know how a manic, schizophrenic person's signs look? A piece of cardboard crammed with many tiny letters and more words than any passerby could possibly read? You can recognize instantly looking at that something about the mental state of the person who wrote it. You can see the racing thoughts in the packed-in text. You can often see the bizarre connections between thoughts in the seemingly random underlined words and the tiny add-ons scrawled in margins and between lines. Perhaps something can be inferred about the thought processes of the people who have written these signs.
When you make a sign, you have to go through a few steps:
Choose text
Choose media
Determine layout of text into lines
Count the letters and spaces in each line
Divide width of media minus margin by number of letters plus spaces to determine letter width
Pencil in the line on which you will write the letters
Mark out the space on the line allotted for each letter
Lightly pencil in the letters
Check for corrections that need to be made
When no corrections need to be made, paint or draw in the letters
These people seem to
Choose text
Choose media
Draw text on media with marker
They don't take apart the text into its components of letters and spaces. They don't plan out how to put the text onto the media. They don't plan for what to do if they make a mistake, and they don't check to see that they haven't made a mistake. To my eyes, it speaks of a general lack of attention to detail, a lack of attention to context, and a tremendous overconfidence in the signwriter's own correctness.
The signs may also be seen as complete objects, and the text on it nothing more than decoration on a prop. By the time the sign is written, it is no longer something to be read, but something to be held up and waved around. The ideas themselves, represented by the slogans, which are represented by the signs, may yet be props and symbols representing the identity of the sign writer.
Rather than parsing the text after it is written as language, which would reveal the misspellings, the person who has written the sign may just see "my sign with my slogan on it". They see the idea that they had in mind, but not the reality in front of them. The reality has to be the same as the idea, and is in their mind determined by it.
It was my understanding that freedom costs about tree fiddy.
I don't want to make sweeping generalizations, but in every picture of Tea Party rallies, the majority of people I see attending are old, white, and some degree of obese, and clearly borderline illiterate. This is so obviously not about taxes, and more about a mix of xenophobia and anti-intellectualism, that it becomes hilarious.
It's about losing power. They're getting to the point age wise where, culturally, they would begin to rely on their society. However they have this idea in their head that from the cradle to the grave, we're independent of everyone and sink or swim solely by our own efforts. As they age and their retirement and pension vanishes this is dispelled, so they feel attacked (and with good reason, for many other reasons as well). They buy into the Fox News propaganda that the democrats are sadistic and want to hurt them and decide that the government is what is robbing their power, by taking their money (power) and rights (power).
They really need a hug. Seriously. Fear and uncertainty has been manipulated into hatred by the right wing. They just need to see that, all this time, the rest of the country are in the same boat, not just themselves.
I bet a lot of people in this country need a hug.
We need the return of love-ins and be-ins
Doc - Thanks for updating the blog with those links to teabagger posters, which weren't there last time I visited. Loved 'em!
BOSTON - At a Tax Day rally held by the Tea Party movement, hundreds of Teabaggers assembled to voice their opposition to government, taxation, and other three-syllable words.
Rallying the faithful, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin sought to clarify the mission of the Tea Party movement: "We are not just against big government. We are against big words!"
Gov. Palin added, "We are 'The Party of No,' and you know why? 'No' is one letter easier to spell than 'yes'!"
According to a new poll, one out of ten Americans define themselves as Tea Party activists, with that number even higher if one includes the people who responded, "What does 'activist' mean?"
LOL
Keep 'em coming doc! :)
I'll bet that there are even some teabaggers that can't spell 'no'
'On mor tackez'
Strange results from a Fox News poll, as their core audience is undeniably far to the right. However, a Fox News poll indicates that even THOSE viewers / readers feel that the Tea Party movement is racist.
As of the the time I posted this comment, there are 210,835 votes. 80 percent of them selected the option that the Tea Party movement is "A fruitless mix of racism and conspiracy theories."
http://snafu-ed.blogspot.com/2010/02/tea-party-movement-racist-fox-news-poll.html
the lovable TEABAGGERS are a DIVERSE bunch:
- militia men
- racists
- xenophobes
- birthers
- klan members
- confederate reenacters
- middle school dropouts
- rednecks
- war mongers
- seniors on 'social' security who hate 'social'ism
- closeted homophobes
- morons
- sean hanninazis
- gun clutchers
- white separatists
- paranoid homeschoolers
- limbaugh dittoheads
- minute men
- yokels
- bible bangers who like to watch lesbian bondage
- flat earthers
- ruby ridgers
- secessionists
- greedy pricks
- survivalists
- Fox news shit kickers
- neofascists
- Ayn Randians born on 3rd base who think they hit a triple
- creationists
- wingnuts
- tongues chanters
- reactionaries
- neocons
- GlennBeck bots
- john birchers
- snake handlers
- red baiters
- and illiterate goobers who think Jesus rode on the back of a triceratops
Yup, that just about covers it. Kudos.
T baggers are cheap, lying, no good, rotten, four flushing, lowlife, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fatassed, bugeyed, stiff legged, spotty lipped, wormheaded, sacks of monkey shit.
Teabaggers never got over having to share a water fountain with a black guy ... much less a White House.
Tea bagger sign seen at rally:
"ineed a raise in my social security disability to travel to all these rally's."
I don't get how people can push for a theocratic form of government, and call for freedom at the same time.
The only things missing from these teaparties were a double-wide and broken down pickup.
What's un-American is the Sarah Palin's of the world screaming that if you come from towns big enough to have subway systems and culture that doesn't include a jug band, then somehow you're not a part of the "real" America. That is the kind of crap that makes the opposition lack any sort of credibility. Democracy doesn't only count when your side wins.
Thank you doc, and the tea party signs for making me laugh today.
Teabagger complaints only apply when democrats are in power. When republicans are in power it's perfectly alright for them to trample over the constitution and spend trillions and trillions of dollars on illegal wars.
I'm so glad that none of those people know where Canada is.
There are two things tea Partiers can't stand more than anything
1 - being called racists
2 - black people
LOl
sums it up nicely
Since Dick Armey is the fuctard behind the tea bagger movement and he is a racist to an almost epic degree, I would find it astonishing for them to do anything but fuel the flames of racism within their "organization" as well as the population in general to whatever extent that they can.
Tea Partiers: We really could have used you during the Bush era.
I just can't get over what pathetic hypocrites these folks are. They don't complain about Bush making trillion dollar deficits. They pretend to admire Reagan yet ignore he started the trend of trillion dollar deficits and raised taxes higher then any time since the forties. Yet as soon as the right controls government again these clowns will vanish. I would be ashamed of myself if i was this much of a hypocritical loser.
Tea Partiers are grumpy, older, well-off Americans who think white people are oppressed; in other words, Republicans. Or else they're poor, racist, angry, redneck white trash who are oppressed by Republicans; so they're also Republicans.
The tea party is funded heavily by Republicans.
The tea party features Republican speakers like Sarah Palin and Dick Armey.
The tea party endorses people who are, by and large, Republicans or conservatives.
The tea party is fighting for lower taxes at a time where taxes have been lowered or kept the same for the majority of people.
The tea party harbors racists, homophobes, and insecure old white folks who think their country has been taken away from them by younger people of mixed ethnic backgrounds.
If they supported third party candidates, that'd be one thing. But they don't - they act like they want some sort of revolution and then support the same old ***** they purport to be against - and of course, most of the people they support are just a bunch of Republicans anyway.
So it sounds like what we always suspected / knew - the tea party is just a front for the Republican party. A way to try to sound new or relevant in the face of their worst decline in decades.
"Tea Party" = "Sarah Palin Retirement Fund"
We were at a campground and one of the cars had a teabagger sticker on it. Parked in front of a $400,000, 2008 model Class A diesel pusher RV. Top of the line. Both the owners were retired, both on socialized medicine.
As much as they want to see themselves as part of a grassroots uprising, the tea party is being funded and manipulated by the GOP using it as a fund raising vehicle.
The Tea Party is a very loosely organized broad cross-section of disgruntled folks who don't want what FOX News has told them the government will do to actually happen, when really there's nothing to be so outraged about.
Lots of brainwashed young people. Lots of lower-middle and middle class folks that the government has actually been actually HELPING.
Tea Party is
1. Racist
2. Xenophobic
3. Brainwashed
4. White, Old
5. Live on Social Welfare - SS and Medicare
6. Dont care about the poor and needy in US
7. War hawks - will rather blow billions on middle east wars
8. Drug addicts and red necks
These people are exactly who they're portrayed to be. THEY have been in charge of their own public relations campaign...a bunch of white trash carrying around misspelled signs trying to claim socialism, communism and marxism are all the same things.
BE SCARED! We're not sure of what! Just be SCARED of SOMETHING!
You can't really blame republicans for wanting to re-brand their image. It's just a pity that it's being done by the lunatic fringe instead of the "rational, intelligent, educated conservatives" we keep hearing *about* but never seem to hear *from.*
Tea Party Rallies? If staging public gripe fests gives these people something to do, then great. It's outside. It involves handicrafts, the making of signs and costumes. It's like Scouting for irked middle-aged white people
True. The 'baggers have probably gotten more exercise in the last year than in the entirety of their sad, disappointing lives. Change you can believe in.
At least if they are caught in a rainstorm outside they will not, like turkeys, look up with their mouths hanging open and drown.
At least I don't think they will.
"It's like scouting..."
I rofl'd. What I find hilarious is that these are the same people who got all snarky about lefties protesting the war and other Bush era policies.
How's that first amendment workin' out for ya? Good stuff, ain't it. Have a *ball* with your bootstrappy selfs.
If it were a crowd of black people protesting higher taxes or redistribution of wealth or what have you, the Teabaggers would be the first to say "If they've got time enough to stand around protesting, they've got time enough to find a second job."
I think it is less like scouting and more like Renaissance Faire weekends.
Take that any way you like.
There was a Renaissance Faire last night on 'House', whatever that means.
You have to be careful about what time you schedule a rally. Skipping nap time makes them cranky all day and fussy at dinner. Which leads to cleaning applesauce off the wall and an early bedtime for Mr. I-Don't-Wanna-Eat-My-Vegetables-Carrots-Are-Socialist.
If doc's links to sign pics are any indication, a whole lot of T baggers are miles away from getting their sign-making badges.
Angry stupid white people in large groups are funny, until someone starts passing out the badges.
take this any way you want, but I was at one and the majority of men looked liked sex offenders.
What they don't seem to realize is that should they be successful in their goal of installing anyone other than the evil dems, there will be no substantive change in policy and they're going to get the same appreciative treatment that Ibn Saud gave to the Ikhwan.
"We have no idea who that is, but if he's not a black Democrat and bans gay, abortions, and divorce, we're all for him." - Tea Party
I think we should come up with some scout badges for these people.
"Cognitive Dissonance"
"Reagan Criticism"
It's like scouting if the scouts were angry and demonizing the peace corps and trying to undermine their funding so they would have more for themselves.
Another idea for a badge:
"Idiot Pawn Of Billionaires"
It's retards in a circle jerk.
With all the dressing up, the role-play and the non standard English, it's more like a renaissance faire for the elderly.
So can we sign em up for kindergarten for 66 yr olds w/ entitlement issues?
so they are basically the douchebag, lazy trustafarians' parents?
The radio played a sound bite of Sarah Palin at the Boston event. She sounded like a screechy cheerleader who doesn't really belong. I can't imagine her as vice president.
The state's new Republican senator, Scott Brown, did not attend. That was probably a smart decision.
For amusement we wandered over there after eating lunch. We saw a sign that said "CAN YOU HERE US? STOP RAISING TAXS!!!" Tried to take a picture with the phone but it didn't come out well.
The weirdest ones to me were the ones that said "OBAMA'S WAR" in reference to Iraq/Afghanistan. Seriously? Tea Partiers are blaming Iraq on Obama now? I mean, I know they're rather divorced from reality, but that really takes the cake.
Next Tea Party national event: "You-Kids-Get-Off-My-Lawnapalooza."
about 90% of their merit badges are misspelled
i call them 'neo-yokels.'
how could anyone take them seriously when they're now aligning themselves with the same republican politicians who were - to a man - staunch supporters of the previous president who initiated this economic collapse?
1865, 1965, 2010...
Angry white people who like to waive the rebel flag don't have a good track record of being on the right side of history...
But President Bush gave me a check in the mail!
Imagine how these people will feel when they pay less in taxes this year. Then they have no argument, except the deficit.
"We're not racist!" (even though 87% of us are white)
"We're against big government!" (which is why we stage our rallies in public parks and fully utilize public services like Medicare)
"We're against higher taxes!" (failing to recognize that middle-class taxes are the lowest in 50 years)
A friend recently posted the whargarbl about Obama cancelling the National Day of Prayer as his Facebook status. When I posted a few links debunking it (including one to Snopes), one person's response was to say "even if it isn't true, it sounds like something Obama would do" and to cast doubt on Snopes because "it's a husband and wife team".*
These people aren't interested in the truth, they're interested only in railing against the President, almost always for fallacious reasons.
*To my friend's credit, he cleared his status after I posted the links, and another conservative friend, who had agreed with the status, admitted to being wrong and expressed regret for being caught up in it.
Tea parties are for little girls with imaginary friends.
It's amazing how many racists and retards the teabaggers can have on their side while still denying that their platform is racist or retarded.
I'd love to show up at a few teabagger rallies with my own incoherent signs:
"More cheese for bahgers!"
"Obama eight my balz!"
"I have a sine! It haz words on it!"
"Stop the penguins!"
Just one big white trash block party where they can get out and be ignorant with others of like "mind". Corporations love these people.
Have they considered bringing beer? I'm sure their events would be much bigger, happier, and media friendly, if they had free kegs of beer. Sure it may end up looking like a Dave Matthew's concert, but the Media wouldn't have to use footage from another event to inflate attendance numbers.
It's awfully convenient that the Tea Party people were largely totally fine and good with government spending when "their guy" was the President. Government spending is only bad to them when their party isn't the one deciding on the spending. MAYBE 10 percent of the Tea Partiers have actually been consistent. If they voted for Bush, they really have no valid complaint. If spending was OK then, it's OK now two years later. Nothing magically changed in that time. Well, except we have a black Democrat as president now.
I was interested in seeing some actual, real-life teabaggers so I went to a tax day thing here in town. I saw only white, functionally illiterate, middle aged or retired men and women who look like they spent their entire adult lives drinking alcohol on a daily basis, in excessive quantities. Say what you like, but the cumulative neurological damage of long term alcohol consumption is permanent, has severe negative affects on thought patterns and cognation, and is very well documented. I loathe hiring anyone who drinks on a daily basis, its is obvious that there are serious cognitive deficits in such people.
Not to mention the near-daily hangovers, and the corresponding generally obtuse and nasty attitudes that goes with them. Such behaviors are exactly what I see in the 'baggers. Selfish, manipulative, mean and kind of generally dense about even basic concepts, especially when it is something they've never really been interested in researching or studying before. They are very lazy thinkers, and highly reactionary.
Be as that may, one 'bagger I tried to reason with several months ago was an individual who SWORE up and down that the "Obama census" was unconstitutional, and that the President was a traitor for doing it (and should be impeached for trying it), everyone in Congress should be hanged for allowing it, and the Founding Fathers would never have tolerated it.
Sigh.
They simply don't know what they're protesting. If it's the economy, they would have been here nine years ago. That's what makes people come to the 'racism' conclusion. That and all the racism.
Have fun libs ....we baggers actually vote and pay a way big portion of your tax structure. Lets see what happens when we decide to not pay.
What happens when you decide not to pay?
You rot in Federal PMITA prison for tax evasion and the Feds get more money (via fines and penalties and interest) than you would have paid them in the first place.
Brilliant plan, Einstein.
That must have taken several hours out of your day as a ditch digger to come up with that one, because I can't imagine it was thought up by anyone who has the cognitive function to hold down a professional job.
What happens when you decide not to pay?
The fun part is that if you have a regular job, ie: one where you get a W2, you're paying already. You could underpay once all is said and done, but you're already paying.
The Tea Partiers have a large intersection with the set of people who said we should deport over 10 million people, so if they think we can do that, busting a bunch of people who don't pay their taxes shouldn't be a problem at all. At the very least the government can fine the crap out of everyone who tries it even if they run out of jail space. If people don't like paying their taxes, wait until they have to pay double because they were stupid enough to try to not pay them (not to mention possibly paying a lawyer to defend them from the charges).
I went over to see what the Chicago tea-party was all about during my lunch break, especially since I saw some of these guys exiting the train station with their idiotic signs, it appeared that a sizable portion of the crowd was there to either mock the tea-partiers or as counter protesters. I also found it rather amusing how many of them took public transportation to the rally.
Don't get me wrong, they are well within their rights to take to the streets and express their concerns, I just happen to think they are a bunch of idiots, and I saw nothing at the rally to convince me otherwise.
docwang: The fun part is that if you have a regular job ie one where you get a W2, you're paying already. You could underpay once all is said and done, but you're already paying.
Yeah, people don't get that. If you did have to pay on the 15th, it means that you got to hold on to that money until the last minute, which is a good thing. Anyway, if these teabaggers are really richer that the average, they most likely enjoy tax shelters and don't pay their fair share in the first place.
Tea partiers who protest against taxes while benefiting from Social Security and Medicaid remind me of environmentalists opposed to coal mining who use computers to further their cause and refrigerators to store their food, and who walk lighted streets at night.
If environmentalists sincerely want to stop coal mining, I think they should turn off their computers, shut off their refrigerators, and demand that the municipal authorities where they live shut down their street lights. And if tea partiers are opposed to Socialist-inspired government handouts, then they should send back their social security checks and pay for their own medical care once they hit 65. That'll be an example for the rest of us.
Oh, yeah, and don't take Amtrak to any of the rallies, either.
These Tea Partiers protesting "Socialism!" weren't out protesting when the Bush administration was nationalizing the financial industry. Most of them simply don't like the current President and just want to shout crap, as opposed to presenting any cogent, actionable ideas.
Doc's blog is right on the money satirizing their nonexistent 'Manifesto'.
The truest thing to be said about the teabaggers is that they can't even formulate a common ground; some hate health care, some hate immigration, some hate taxes, some are fat, some are racists, some are scared of their own shadows.
Even the people they get to speak at these rallies generally just shout slogans and nonsensical shit about everything they hope the crowd finds appealing.
It's just a mishmash which bands together because rallies for an individual issue like "don't take my hoverround" would really only attract people with hoverrounds and be roundly ignored by everyone else.
Wow...these people really do have a lot of contempt for our gov't and our country. They are anti-tax, anti separation of church and state, anti "democratically elected President". They've got a lot of freaking nerve calling themselves "patriots".
I despise the Tea Party because I go snowblind whenever I look in their general direction.
So where the hell were they eight years ago? Funny how we're only now hearing from them after a relatively moderate black man takes office...
'Baggers in reality:
1. Uninformed. Uneducated. Very little to no knowledge of the Constitution, though they try to hide behind it.
2. White, bitter, old. Feel like America was supposed to be a white, christian country and they feel they're losing that false sense of security.
3. People who ENJOY vastly the benefits of the 'big' government yet still claim to be against it. Hypocrites at the highest level. People who rally against health care reform but use Medicaid and Medicare every day. People who get social security but try to claim that America is becoming a socialist country.
4. Freeloaders who think they THEY should be allowed to live off of the government but that minorities shouldn't be allowed to.
Birthers are the worst and that's the category most of these uneducated fools fall into, unfortunately. I have been to their 'rallies' and I've seen their signs, read their interviews and watched them speak. They ARE, without doubt, the LOWEST common denominator of simpleton Americans out there.
Ignorance can be dangerous and that's what scares me. They lack the intellect it takes to understand and create change so they default back to the only thing they've ever learned: Violence and anger create change.
And that IS the lowest form of intellect in the world.
Teabagger: We don't care that George Bush tripled the deficit and lied us into a war. The new administration only cut taxes for 90% of the population... fascists. Let's go throw some Lipton tea bags into a fountain!
Teabaggers are:
...the people who support the Patriot Act Bush signed, and then call for Obama's head for stealing liberty by spending money to avoid a depression.
...the people who will call someone a fascist and a communist at the same time.
...the people that think Thomas Paine would shake hands with Glenn Beck.
...idiots.
Let's face it: the Teapublicans are manning the ramparts to fight for the tax breaks of their bosses. They've been so brainwashed into thinking that all taxes are bad that they don't even realize they aren't fighting for their own self-interest, their fighting for their boss's self-interest.
Good peasant, here's a cookie.
Taxing the wealthy will kill the economy...
Hmmm...
Gee, did taxing the wealthy kill the economy in the 90s?
Yeah, didn't think so ;)
People are upset Obama hasn't solved all the problems yet. C'mon, he's only been in office one year...the man went to Harvard, not Hogwarts.
lol
Politics is like driving. To go backward put it in R. To go forward put it in D.
awesome dude.
I'm gonna be stealing that!
The great fraud of tinkle down economics. Give rich people more money and they'll invest more money. Seems almost funny anyone ever bought that. Best sales job of all time. And the chumps slurped it up, they still believe it. ROFL!
Nice. Sure, it robbed the country of greatness and turned America into a corporate fiefdom, but you have to admire the sheer gall of it.
I never did understand why the worthless peasants defend their disgustingly rich corporate masters.
Funny, seems the rich were taxed over 90% until 1964. I don't think the economy was dead then. Could use the extra money actually to pay off the debt but oh my god the rich may not be able to play my yacht is bigger then your yacht if we do that. We had rich people in the 50's and 60's. Let's go back to taxing the rich - and shut up about redistributing wealth since they have redistributed it away from the us for quite awhile now. They just get all the stupid people worked up about it by telling them they will be the ones hurt when they (the stupid poor people defending them) are the ones who would ultimately benefit.
Your paragraph hurt my eyes.
Careful gang, keebiejeebie the paragraph policeman is monitoring your comments.
Here's the historic rates:
http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php
The rate jumped around quite a bit, going as high as 91% for incomes over $400,000.
Even in the "good old days" that conservatives like Glenn Beck harken back to, the tax rate for the rich was WAY higher than our present day allegedly impending socialist takeover.
"To preserve the independence of the people, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. Considering the general tendency to multiply offices and dependencies, and to increase expense to the ultimate term of burden which the citizen can bear, may it never be seen here that ... government shall itself consume the residue of what it was instituted to guard. To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, "the guaranty to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it."
— Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Samuel Kercheval (12 July 1816).
Keebiejeebie is gonna go all whup ass on Thomas Jefferson for not making more paragraphs when he wrote that.
99% of the wealth is owned by 1% of the population.
Taxing them up the ass isn't hurting ANYONE.
"The Occidental Petroleum Corporation officers disclosed last week that Chief Executive Ray R. Irani took home more than $460 million in compensation in 2006."
See, now the middle class, as well as the US government, should all give him more money and protect his bank account so it can trickle back down.
Teabaggers: Obama’s a Muslim because he takes his shoes off
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0405/tea-party-leader-obama-muslim-shoes/
President Obama took his shoes off because he was having a sushi dinner at a Japanese restaurant, you teabagging hick terrorists.
I occasionally scratch my balls; I guess that makes me a third base coach.
If he didn't eat shellfish at the sushi restaurant it proves he is a Muslim. Why won't he release the original dinner bill? What is he trying to hide? This is very suspicious.
So all Scandinavians are Muslims because they take off their shoes when at home and when they go visit someone else's home! Why are these TEABAGGERS so STUPID!!!!!
I ask people to remove their shoes when they enter my house. Do you suppose they think I might behead them?
What we really should be talking about is ........ Why does it matter what religion he does or does not practice?
Teabaggers have it in their stupid brains that ALL Muslim's are terrorists. That thinking is clearly delusional.
Teabaggers clearly don't think all Christians are terrorists because of the Hutaree mess in Michigan. But, extending the same logic to Muslims would make too much sense.
Obama is a Christian. Any person with an IQ higher than their shoe size knows this. These people are absolute fucking morons.
Collectively speaking, the teabaggers are mentally ill.
They are sick people whose vision of a white male dominated society has been shattered and the only thing they know how to do is strike out at the people they imagine caused their pain.
There's an old Chinese saying that states "The reed that doesn't bend in the wind, breaks" The teabaggers inflexibility will only cause them inevitable grief.
The teabagging knuckle draggers have caused the USA to become a laughing stock world-wide. They will not let up. The real reason they hate President Obama is that he's black. They are such a pathetic bunch of brainless bigots, and they've sullied the reputation of our nation.
If ever there was a shining example of the dangers of a poor educational system, this group is the perfect example.
Brainwashed by talk radio and Fox News, undereducated, not especially keen on the learning process, afraid of changes and doing things differently, and determined to stay ignorant because it's easier than thinking things through, ladies and germs, I give you The Tea Party.
I completely agree with you. Just today, I listened to guys who make under $40,000 complain that Obama was stealing their money, forcing health care on them, bringing them and some of their family home from Iraq and Afghanistan against their will, and pushing the falsehood of global warming. These aren't bad guys. They are completely brainwashed and ignorant. It's pathetic and scary.
Who would have guessed that all Russians must be Muslim as well since they take their shoes off when entering a home? I also didn't realize that the Japanese are also Muslim (we all know they don't wear shoes in the home).
Seriously, though, there are significant advantages to taking one's shoes off inside the home such as leaving dirt out side. We don't allow shoes to be worn inside our home and it certainly keeps the floors cleaner.
I am German and I take my shoes off. OH MY GOD OBAMA ISN'T AFRICAN-AMERICAN, HE'S GERMAN-AMERICAN!
Oh noes my shoes are off! That means I'm a Muslim, which means I'm a terrorist, which means I need to blow myself up (how many virgins do I get?)
You can call it the “Tea Party” all you want; but I know the Klan when I see it.
40 years from now, children in Texas will be reading in their textbooks how the 'Teabag Party' battled a muslim dictator & founded America.
Also, when did being Christian become a prerequisite to holding public office? If I ever get in to a political office I think I will be sworn in on Cosmos by Carl Sagan.
Actually, their problem is not so much with the shoes as with the color of the feet inside them.
Who cares about the Russians or Japanese? My folks had beige carpets in their house, and we all took our shoes off because they were dirty.
That is, they were FILTHY INFIDEL SHOES UNWORTHY IN THE EYES OF ALLAH!
Oops, sorry, that was my ancestral Norwegian-Minnesota Secret-Muslim breaking out. Just a side-effect of the lutefisk.
So apparently half of the population of Key West are Muslim as well. Incidentally, what does that make you if you wear sandals?
Sad to watch ignorance embrace itself so willingly
Does this mean Jesus was a Muslim?! Help me, Glenn Beck! I'm so confuuuused!
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.
- Albert Einstein
57% of republicans actually think he's a Muslim, not that there's anything wrong with being one. Scary.
This just underscores what a bunch of cultureless clods the Teabaggers are.
If only we could harness this stupidity as an energy source, we could power the world!
the tea-bagger organization is kind of like the anti-Mensa, if your IQ isn't below 60 you can't join.......
Never in all my years have I seen a more ridiculous bunch of idiots, buffoons, bigots and hate mongers. They are truly the very worst that America has to offer.
They are white trash who are terrified of the world. I'd almost feel sorry for them if they didn't have guns.
I'm not wearing shoes either. I'm gonna put them on and go buy a burkha.
Well here in TN the teabaggers are just plain against it. Whatever it is. They seem to hate anyone who is not a carbon copy of themselves. They like church, but only some religions. They also talk a lot about the Constitution. (Don't know church and state are separated in it. Or don't care.) Generally they are older, white, and think guns rule. I often wonder how many of them can read.
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