This sign on the left just about sums it up doesn't it?One man carried a gun on a holster. Another had a rifle. Signs decried "Obamacare" and warned of creeping communism.
A unifying principle clearly was antipathy toward the president.
"(Obama) is a fake, he is an illegal alien, he is a fraud. Barack Obama, where is the birth certificate!" event speaker Bob Bird, last year's Alaskan Independence Party candidate for U.S. Senate, said to scattered cheers from those gathered.
Richard Sloderbeck of Anchorage, standing watching the speakers, said he believes Obama was elected through voter fraud, and, "I know he is Islamic in my heart." He said Obama is trying to take people's guns away and destroy the Constitution.
Sloderbeck and others said they heard about Saturday's event on the Eddie Burke talk radio show.
Burke, who was one of the speakers, led shouts of "You lie!," a re-creation of South Carolina Republican Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst during President Obama's speech to Congress on health care. Wilson later apologized to Obama for his House chambers catcall.
Damn I looked all over yesterday trying to determine if there was going to be a protest here in town that coincided with the Glenn Beck inspired "9-12" movement. I knew it would have to have been organized by Eddie Burke because he is the only one simple minded enough to want to participate in this opportunistic, anti-American bullshit.
But I could not find a single mention of it anywhere, and not one of my more educated friends had heard anything about it. That is too bad because I really wanted to interview a few of these spazzes and get the footage out to our local affiliates. I even practiced some questions.
"Were your parents first, or second cousins?"
"Would you agree that, while fascism alone is bad, that fascism combined with socialism is much, much worse?"
"Are your children in foster care? Is there anyway I can help make that happen?"
"Since you contend that Obama is a racist, and he is in fact half white, do you think he walks around all day just hating himself?"
"Is there an IQ test that must be passed to join your group? And how low must the result be to gain admittance?
"Do you believe that Barack Obama has a bellybutton?"
Oh I would have had SO much fun. But oh well I missed it. Maybe next time.
By the way Dennis Zaki also has a report on the 9-12 protests over at the Alaska Report.
Idiot racists on parade - "Amercia" must be where the citizens don't know how to spell and don't like it when someone with more melanin is educated and in charge.
ReplyDeleteNothing like a crowd of old, uneducated, angry, racist white people with hatred as a cohesive. Glad they were photographed; documentation matters.
ReplyDeleteThey will try to inflate their numbers; notice how they claimed 1.5 million in D.C. when there were only 50.000 - 60,000 at most.
Is that really the best they can do? If so, there are less of them than we thought.
Gryphen, I wish I could copy here. Shannyn had a photo up on her blog yesterday (post before her radio show blog) of a corner teabagging party and it was so funny. You need to check it out!
ReplyDeleteThat was great, Gryphen! I am still laughing!
ReplyDeleteThe man who said he knows in his heart Obama is an Islamist. If that were true, he wouldn't have any female people in his Administration. And even if Obama practiced the Muslim faith, wasn't our Country built on freedom of religion? I know that I learned that part well when I was in grammar school. As a matter of fact, both my parents were emigrants from two very different parts of the world. One of them came from a place where their wasn't any freedom of religion. That was one big factor for them to come here.
These people are truly under educated. And to be a little more blunt, effin stupid racist bastards.
Hey Gryphen - I accidentally drove past the Teabaggers rally in Westwood last night (near the UCLA campus in Los Angeles) on my way to a friend's house. It actually completely freaked me out. There were hundreds of people with signs, leering at the cars driving by. But, despite my expectations, these were not hillbilly-looking people. There were many pretty, blonde, Beverly-Hills type women and young, clean-cut college-age guys. Of course, they all had anti-Obama signs and "stop socialism now" signs. I even saw one "Bury Obama Care with Ted Kennedy" sign.
ReplyDeleteIt left me with a really uneasy feeling in my stomach. The teabaggers aren't just uneducated rubes. They are racists of all types and all econonmic levels.
I wish the media would stop covering them. And I wish there was a way to stop them.
Years ago, corporations conspired to dumb down the American workforce so they would not question the corporate boss. Corporate America wanted to do away with the stronghold of organized labor after the war.
ReplyDeleteSamuel L. Blumenfeld wrote many books on the issue. The schools began shifting to whole language instead of teaching intense phonics and rote memorization of arithmetic facts. That escalated the amount of folks having learning disabilities. I entered the public school system in the 50s; I was never taught phonics in school or rote memorization of arithmetic facts. I have learning disabilities as do my children.
Google Dr. Blumenfeld and look for his book, NEA: Trojan Horse in American Education.
I think that is what we are seeing today. Folks are being incited by corporate propaganda to hate their neighbors, to promote the corporate agenda. No difference than a labor union, really. Of the people, by the people, for the people, yep, no difference, just on a larger scale. And the fear mongering tools, i.e., racism, nazi, Hitler, communism, birthers, teabaggers, Beck, Palin, Rush, and the rest are all being funded by corporate elite.
Don't question authority (boss, preacher); rather, like serfs for the corporate elite. That's why Americans accepted the 9/11 propaganda; wars; crashing markets, etc. Then corporate mouthpieces started placing all blame on the new administration while promoting civil discourse to derail for failure.
The irony is, these folks that argue that the supposed health-care reform legislation is leading to socialism, are in fact, supporting socialism.
ReplyDelete_________
Comrade 1: Have you heard about this healthcare mess going on in the U.S.?
Comrade 2: No. I haven't had time to, I've been working very hard at the factory. Plus, you know that the state doesn't provide me with a television set of my own.
Comrade 1: Well, it seems that those Americans have to pay money to "insurance" companies to get approved to see a doctor.
Comrade 2: What?! You mean they can't just go to the doctor when they are not feeling well?
Comrade 1: I know! That's what I was scratching my head over. It seems if you do not make enough money to pay the "insurance" companies, you can't see the doctor.
Comrades 1 & 2: (LOL)
Comrade 2: Well, I guess that proves that capitalism is the superior model. Except I would personally hate to have to step over all of those dying bodies in the streets…
Comrades 1 & 2: (LOL)
_____________________
Health is not a commodity to be traded for in the marketplace.
"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
1) Life is relative to health
2) Liberty is relative to health
3) the pursuit of Happines is relative to health
End of story.
Doesn't Eddie Burke get his Health care from his wife who is an aide for the school district? Just asking.
ReplyDeleteLeadFoot: Racists come in all shapes and sizes. If you look at the crowds in these "rallies", they are all ages, but they are only one color.
ReplyDeleteSomeone who is driving this movement is wanting trouble - not just marches, protests, etc. The wingnuts may be a very small number of actual individuals, but they want war, with blood and body counts.
We've been down this road before. It was amazingly ugly. Those of us who remember, also recall that the south has found integration since the early 60's. They've always been racist pigs.
But it doesn't help that they are being driven by Corporate Greed and they are to stupid to get it.
Excellent questions. I especially liked "Are you parents first, or second, cousins?" That is priceless.
ReplyDeleteSORRY, meant "the south has FOUGHT integration".
ReplyDeleteI thought we decided this was why the south WANTS first cousins to marry.
(OMG just had a vision of the little boy with the banjo in Deliverance) ....
Take a look at that crowd yesterday, close your eyes and think Civil War. They all marry their cousins because no one else wants them. That gene pool is toxic.
Gryphen ~ the problem with Tennessee is that there is no law against marrying your first cousin.
ReplyDeleteThis makes for Republicans who are either an idiot, have bad eyes, or both.
http://tinyurl.com/cousin-laws
Reporters need to start asking questions when they go to these things and film, don't just let them say crazy sh-t. I did this at an event i went to and they couldn't answer any question I asked them, they quieted right down.
ReplyDeleteYour questions are great...thanks
In Wasilla the Republicans were their usual joyful, friendly (and sparse) lot.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.zannel.com/viewupdate.htm?id=I4P6F