From The “Dude You’re Not Helping” Files
It probably shouldn’t shock most of my regular readers that I am not particularly a fan of the Tea Party movement. I don’t agree with them on most issues, and on the ones where I do have a similar attitude, I tend to disagree with their proposed solutions. I know this is a bit of a generalization, as for the most part they are a loose confederation of people with similar attitudes.
But I do feel that they get a bit of a bum rap when it comes to race. Yes there are racists within the Tea Party. Hell take fifteen seconds for a Google image search and you will have photographic evidence of that. But there are racists in damn near any organization that exists. People are like that. Put ten people in a room and chances are at least one of them will have at least a few prejudices. The central beliefs that TPers espouse do not necessarily make them bigots. It means that they are regular human beings, and that they weren’t media savvy enough to have figured out how to marginalize the racist elements that they attracted. Disliking protesting, or even hating the President, does not automatically equal a racial bias. Even if they are angry for a reason that seems hypocritical to an outsider.
You can protest the current administration. You can protest the administration for specific issues that you ignored in the last administration. Hell you can get all worked up at this administration for problems that were created by the last administration, or even one fifty years ago. The fact that our current President is black does not magically transform political dissent into racially charged pogrom.
Sure, they have more racists than they should probably be comfortable with, but the Tea Party has demonstrated that they can learn from their earlier mistakes and has been taking noticeable steps the reduce this problem.
And now, noted racial rights activist* David Duke has come out in support of the Tea Party, to defend them against allegations that their protests were ethnically based.
Well I suppose that as a former leader in the KKK he’d be an expert in this field. He’s even made a helpful video explaining his position in a way that is informative, and should in absolutely no way backfire to hurt the people he is attempting to aid.
Dude, you are so not helping.
*Technically this is true, just not in the way you would normally use this phrase.
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April 29th, 2010 at 9:41 am
It is surprising when you find some of the pictures of Tea Party protests that have not been cropped in the news. You will have people holding up quickly made signs saying that the idiot holding racist or other moronic signs are not with them.
One of my favorites is hearing Ken Blanchard (author of The Racists Roots of Gun Control and a black minister from Washington DC) talk about they people who are shocked that he supports some of what the Tea Party groups want. I love his Urban Shooter podcast, especially when his buddy. the armed Rabbi, joins him. The Rabbi calls him his preacher and Ken calls him his Rabbi.
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April 29th, 2010 at 10:00 am
Wow, I didn’t know Duke was still around. I remember the good ol’ days when he was running for governor of Louisiana. His opponent wasan indicted felon so the race was “The Klansman vs. the Crook.” Fortunately the crook won.
Captcha: migrated to: anywhere but Arizona!!
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April 29th, 2010 at 10:12 am
I must not be very politically sensitive, but the whole time it was hard for me to stop imagining setting his white beard on fire. But that just might be me. Though it also reminded me of a guy at work who got all worked up saying that the one loudmouthed guy on the news was the only one telling the truth. I wanted to tell him that it doesn’t matter what group a newsperson supports, the pictures will always be cropped and the videos will always be taken out of context. Thats why I don’t watch the news, I’d prefer to nuke the world and start over.
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Jim C reply on April 29th, 2010 2:21 pm:
No need for nukes. One day we will get hit by an asteroid, there will be a true pandemic, or just a good old fashion famine will reduce the population by a significant percentage. Of course our highly efficient government will be there to rescue us. in other words we are doomed.
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David reply on April 29th, 2010 3:16 pm:
Is that a white beard? It is freaky! The picture is so bad, I couldn’t tell if he had a white beard or white patchy vitellego like Michael Jackson. The horrible bad hair-piece should have been a dead giveaway, as it is a dead ringer for a dead, um, dead thing. That hair can’t be natural.
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Minty reply on April 29th, 2010 7:49 pm:
I believe that is the classic “people won’t think I’m a real man unless I have a beard, so I’m going to coat my face in peach fuzz” facial hair one occasionally sees the male of the species sporting.
Either that or he’s trying to appeal to the hipster crowd with his “ironic” beard.
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Shadowydreamer reply on April 30th, 2010 3:19 am:
I was thinking his physical appearance is as freaky as his brain.
But y’all know I’m a tree hugging Canadian.
April 30th, 2010 at 5:01 am
I recall when DD was running for president, and he was talking about campaigning in Maryland. Then he rememberd the welcome Wallace got, and he thought better of the idea.
Captcha: Indian umlauts — I thought umlauts were German? Candrabindu, on the other hand….
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April 30th, 2010 at 6:35 am
Virginias 12th congressional district received 2 million dollars in stimulus money. Problem is, there IS no VA 12th District- so who got the money? Where is it? New Mexico has only 3 congressional districts I believe, yet THEY got 2 mill each for something like over 50 districts, all of which are imaginary.
It is things like that which concern me as a member of the Tea Party movement. Fiscal Responsibility. Limited, constitutionally based and contained government. Free markets!
I didn’t intend to get as involved in tea party activities as I have, that was the result of a funny accident really. You see, I went to the first Washington DC Tea Party on February 27 last year, and had a great time, so I wrote an email to the just organizing national Tax Day Tea Party group to ask where and what time the one on April 15th would be held.
They thanked me for volunteering to be the Washington DC coodinator! I tried refusing for the better part of a week- I am just a grandma in Virginia and had never done ANYTHING like that before, what did I know about getting a stage, a sound system, security, requesting use of the park? Well…I learned. And at that tea party in the pouring rain with 3700 attendees we had ANYONE who wanted to, come up and talk about thier opinions on TARP, bank bailouts, automobile takeovers, etc. One African American gentleman felt so empowered by being allowed to speak out that he is now running for office in Maryland as a Republican. Those true grassroots speakers included locals of ALL shades, I didn’t care about the color of their skin, just the color of thier politics! That is STILL how I operate, and how everyone I know of in the movement does too. If someone has a racist or insulting sign at events which I attend, they are quietly asked to go away, or put the sign down, or not to stand near our group. Those “Obama/Hitler” signs? Look on the bottom of them- in nearly EVERY case they say “LaRouche PAC” on the bottom. LaRouche is a democrat, kiddies…
Meanwhile, the old saying that if you tell a lie enough times, people will start to believe it holds true. The left has been smearing people who just want to keep the money they earned instead of having it “redistributed”, people who think that they can make better decisions about their health care then some nameless, faceless fool in DC, people who want to live under and by the Constitution. I am not a racist, nor a knuckle dragging redneck homophobic brain dead follower of conservative radio pundits. I research, I learn, I listen to a lot of things before making a decision. I am a grandmother, an army wife, former Sgt, army mom and mother in law and aunt of 2 soldiers recently back from Iraq; former school teacher, current Sunday School teacher. I am your neighbor. I AM the Tea Party!
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skippy reply on April 30th, 2010 7:06 am:
A few things JoAnn
1) “Cheryl Arvidson, a government official, said the errors were simply the result of reports that were “inaccurately filled out by people who received the federal money.”
“Recipients simply did not know what their congressional district is, or when they were filling out their report they may have made a typographical error,” said Arvidson.”
2) LaRouche Democrats have displayed Hitler/Obama propaganda. However most of what I can find through a basic image search shows a ton of Tea Party nazi usage that makes no mention of the LaRouche PAC.
3)”if you tell a lie enough times, people will start to believe it holds true” dangerous quote for a political activist. The Tea Party repeats a lot of things that other people question the accuracy of.
4)”I am not a racist, nor a knuckle dragging redneck homophobic brain dead follower of conservative radio pundits.” I said as much already, granted not about you personally, as I did not know that you were in the Tea Part.
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April 30th, 2010 at 7:51 am
The comments there aren’t helping either. Apparently Jews are trying to take over the world. And infiltrate the Tea Party, among other things. The comments regarding the video are ASTOUNDING.
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April 30th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
I got bored after 2 minutes. Not much else to say…
Good thing I’m Canadian >.>
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May 1st, 2010 at 8:14 am
Never mind all that:
What is their position on the immediate Lizard invasion?
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May 3rd, 2010 at 5:37 am
Lizards -1
Humans – 0
Capcha: Glides – Human… Human glides along till he hits ground with loud THWAP!
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May 5th, 2010 at 11:19 pm
Most of the folks I’ve talked to who are becoming politically active these days, under the Tea Party banner or not, are doing everything they can to prevent a revolution because they love the United States and the Constitution it was founded upon. Race has nothing to do with the movement itself, save that the reforms they see as required to prevent fiscal insolvency and excessive government control tend to affect perquisites some minority activist groups have obtained.
What really angers a lot of people interested in Tea Party goals is that minorities get hurt more under government programs designed to help them, and that the activist groups seem more interested in making permanent victims instead of successes. I stopped letting people with drug problems into my life over twenty years ago, but I remember the futility of trying to help users. That’s what it feels like talking to members of minorities who are used to justifying the assistance they get on the basis of race. I really stopped caring how drugs made users feel a long time ago because of how it made them live and prey on others. I suspect a lot of Tea Party interested people are uninterested in maintaining continuing drains on the economy based on they way it makes minorities feel, because of the way it makes them live and prey on others.
I am certain that everybody who is serious about the Tea Party is serious about not wanting to get the rest of the nation hooked on government intervention.
Besides, look at how much trouble Skippy caused after he volunteered to serve in one of the most experienced and efficient part of the Federal government. Imagine a million Skippy’s forced into brand-new and untested government programs against their will.
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