Thursday, August 18, 2011

Who are the Teabaggers? Well it turns out they are EXACTLY who we thought they were.


 Courtesy of the New York Times:

Our analysis casts doubt on the Tea Party’s “origin story.” Early on, Tea Partiers were often described as nonpartisan political neophytes. Actually, the Tea Party’s supporters today were highly partisan Republicans long before the Tea Party was born, and were more likely than others to have contacted government officials. In fact, past Republican affiliation is the single strongest predictor of Tea Party support today. 

 What’s more, contrary to some accounts, the Tea Party is not a creature of the Great Recession. Many Americans have suffered in the last four years, but they are no more likely than anyone else to support the Tea Party. And while the public image of the Tea Party focuses on a desire to shrink government, concern over big government is hardly the only or even the most important predictor of Tea Party support among voters. 

 So what do Tea Partiers have in common? They are overwhelmingly white, but even compared to other white Republicans, they had a low regard for immigrants and blacks long before Barack Obama was president, and they still do.

More important, they were disproportionately social conservatives in 2006 — opposing abortion, for example — and still are today. Next to being a Republican, the strongest predictor of being a Tea Party supporter today was a desire, back in 2006, to see religion play a prominent role in politics. And Tea Partiers continue to hold these views: they seek “deeply religious” elected officials, approve of religious leaders’ engaging in politics and want religion brought into political debates. The Tea Party’s generals may say their overriding concern is a smaller government, but not their rank and file, who are more concerned about putting God in government. 

This inclination among the Tea Party faithful to mix religion and politics explains their support for Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. Their appeal to Tea Partiers lies less in what they say about the budget or taxes, and more in their overt use of religious language and imagery, including Mrs. Bachmann’s lengthy prayers at campaign stops and Mr. Perry’s prayer rally in Houston. 

Yet it is precisely this infusion of religion into politics that most Americans increasingly oppose. While over the last five years Americans have become slightly more conservative economically, they have swung even further in opposition to mingling religion and politics. It thus makes sense that the Tea Party ranks alongside the Christian Right in unpopularity.

Republican racists who want to turn this country into a theocracy.

Color me unsurprised.

Want a second opinion?  Here you go.

When I started going to Tea Party meetings two years ago, I was sympathetic. Just after attending one in North Dakota in August of 2009, I wrote: "Most tea partiers are not bad people. They're just mad. In many meaningful ways, today's Tea Party attendees' lives have gotten consistently worse for the last 20 years, regardless of which party was in power." I concluded that trying to figure out what they wanted was a dead end because what they wanted was simply to complain—that the Tea Party "is not a group of listen and respond; this is a group of respond and respond." 

Two years of Tea Party functions later, and I finally know what the Tea Party wants: A Christian nation.

It appears that these small minded, ignorant racist fundamentalists have completely taken over the Republican party.  And through them they want to take over this country.

What say we keep that from happening.  You with me?

47 comments:

  1. Read "Republican Gomorrah" and "American Taliban" for full description of origins.

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  2. Anonymous4:18 AM

    They'll die out, don't worry. Despite the media coverage, they are no worse than than "The Moral Majority." There are smarter people and more atheists in this country than are given credit for, thank God! lol

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  3. Anonymous4:27 AM

    Darn tootin' I'm with you!!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. cuppajoe4:39 AM

    If this is too long, I apologize. As a Texan/Southerner, I just find it extremely informative.

    http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/08/02/lind_tea_party

    "...Today's Tea Party movement is merely the latest of a series of attacks on American democracy by the white Southern minority, which for more than two centuries has not hesitated to paralyze, sabotage or, in the case of the Civil War, destroy American democracy in order to get their way...

    "...the facts show that the Tea Party in Congress is merely the familiar old neo-Confederate Southern right under a new label. The threat of Southern Tea Party representatives and their sidekicks from the Midwest and elsewhere to destroy America's credit rating unless the federal government agrees to enact Dixie's economic agenda of preserving defense spending while slashing entitlements is simply the latest act of aggression by the Solid South."

    "From the earliest years of the American republic, white Southern conservatives when they have lost elections and found themselves in the political minority have sought to extort concession from national majorities by paralyzing or threatening to destroy the United States…

    "In 1820 and 1850 the South used the threat of secession to force the rest of the United States to appease it on the slavery issue. In 1861, the South tried to destroy the United States, rather than accept a legitimately elected president, Abraham Lincoln, whom it did not control.

    "Following defeat in the Civil War, the former Confederate states regrouped as "the Solid South," a one-party region, first Democratic and now Republican, that has tended to vote as a bloc in national affairs. The South sought to block the federal civil rights revolution by a policy of "massive resistance" to court orders ordering racial integration. Some Southern states went so far as to try to abolish their public school systems rather than integrate them. It is hard to avoid seeing a link between this racist rationale for privatization and modern conservative plans to scale back Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, relied on disproportionately by black and brown Americans and low-income whites, while increasing taxpayer subsidies to private retirement and healthcare accounts enjoyed mostly by affluent whites.

    "As white Southerners, upset with the Democratic Party's racial and social liberalism, migrated into the post-Goldwater GOP, they brought their Dixiecrat attitudes into the party of Lincoln…"

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  5. They don't want small government if they want Christian Sharia law in the land.

    Read True Believer by Eric Hoffer. Explains these people well.

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  6. Anonymous4:56 AM

    Count me in. This is a situation that cannot be ignored. We must all do our part to counteract this threat.

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  7. Anonymous4:58 AM

    I cannot speak for other,s, but characterizing all teapartiers as racist is like characterizing ALL demorats as welfare junkies.

    Just because you're under the FALSE impression that Sarah is racist doesn't make it right to assume all conservatives are.

    Face it. Until President Obama actually divulges his plans as President (how long as he been in office again?) people are perfectly justified in distrusting him.

    Question: How EXACTLY do you defend him? What do you actually know about him? Everyone word out of his mouth has been contradicted BY HIM. EVERY WORD. How can you NOT see this? Koolaid. You are no different from a palinbot.

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  8. Anonymous5:02 AM

    Bull's Eye. They want a Theocracy - they feel that America has "fallen away" and that is the cause of all of our problems(!).

    Of course they are not much interested in the New Testament Jesus "all men are your brothers" but the Old Testament god that kills anybody that even dares to sass their "elders".

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  9. Randall5:02 AM

    Wanting God in politics is the epitome of ignorance - we've seen throughout history that it doesn't work.

    It. Never. Works.

    The founders of this great nation were very careful to EXCLUDE religion from our government.

    A theocracy is one of the most dangerous governing bodies ever conceived.

    You're not allowed to question the authority of a theocracy, because God is never wrong.

    We fought a Revolutionary War to get away from the monarchies of Europe.

    Theocracy = tyranny.

    Please vote against tyranny.

    And beyond that - please tell the teabaggers that they're WRONG.
    And do so very LOUDLY.

    Enough with allowing the religious crazies to have the soapbox - SHOUT THEM DOWN.

    And get out and vote!

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  10. Anonymous5:19 AM

    I want a separation of church and state as the forefathers advised. The tea party people need to be kicked in the cup.

    ReplyDelete
  11. AJ Billings5:19 AM

    Why do all the "conservative" candidates, including Ms Palin preach that you can't be a true blue "conservative", or even American without being a Christian evangelical?

    Whether by subtle implication, or outright declaration , lines
    are drawn in the sand to exclude and marginalize the millions of us who are Jewish Buddhists, Islamic, Hindu, Bahai, atheists or agnostics.


    Even Catholics (23% of all USA adults) are looked on and
    portrayed as "lost" or decieved" by most evangelical groups.

    http://religions.pewforum.org/reports

    We can argue all day about the 1st amendment, and what faith or beliefs the Founders of our country purported to espouse, but it
    does say in plain English that no laws should be made by Congress
    respecting an establishment of religion. That obviously implies that all are privileged to believe whatever we want, including no belief at all.

    What PAYlin, Perry, Santorum, and Bachmann really believe, (though they would never admit it publicly) is that because I'm not Christian I'm LESS of an American citizen.

    Some, like Bryan Fischer, the hateful bigot from American Family Association, even want to limit civil rights for the non-Christians, by insisting that the 1st amendment only applies to Christians

    http://mediamatters.org/blog/201103250014

    That is among his nastiest and most deluded statements, and I'd gladly punch him in the nose for saying so.

    These Teaparty Christian supremacists like PAYlin want to turn America into nothing more than a mega-church, and bring us 100 years back in time to when women and blacks knew their place, and gays and atheists were in the closet, or in prison.

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  12. Nancy In New York5:28 AM

    They're predominantly old, predominantly white and predominantly ignorant.

    The proof? Their anger with no solutions, their misinterpretation of the Constitution, their raging contempt at President Obama when Bush's criminal acts didn't disturb them a bit and their exuberant support of predominantly old, predominantly white and predominantly ignorant candidates. (In what alternate universe would Palin, Bachmann, Perry or Ron Paul seem like rational, level headed and intellectual leaders?)

    Their problem: An intelligent black man in the White House.

    Their solution: Bring down his presidency at the expense of the country they pretend to love.

    And as far as you go anon. 4:58, no not all teabagers are racists. But MANY are. Have you ever heard of any other president questioned about their citizenship before Obama? I know I haven't.

    And as far as Palin goes, one does not have to go around with a white hood on their head all day to be labeled racist. One's words and actions speak for themselves. Palin has spewed the most disgusting and vitriolic words against the President. And she's done so for THREE STRAIGHT YEARS. She's appointed herself the pit bull of the tea party and even when she has been bestowed with the 'honor' of lie of the year (fake death panels) she continues to spew her nonsensical venom out over and over again. She has even gone so far to call a duly elected President of the United States the "temporary President."

    If that ain't proof enough for you, nothing is.

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  13. Anonymous5:35 AM

    My sister is--or at least was a year ago--a huge tea partier who helped organize one of their big demonstrations in California. She is white, childless, a multimillionaire and lifelong avid Republican. She blamed the press for trying to portray the teabaggers as "stupid kooks." I suggested maybe they are in other parts of the country, but she insisted it was all liberal media bias.

    HOWEVER, she is not religious and is pro-abortion. I'd love to know what she thinks of all these Dominionist tea partiers, but I try not to talk politics with her because she goes for the jugular.

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  14. Anonymous5:39 AM

    Question: How EXACTLY do you defend him? What do you actually know about him? Everyone word out of his mouth has been contradicted BY HIM. EVERY WORD. How can you NOT see this? Koolaid. You are no different from a palinbot.

    4:58 AM

    ---------------------------
    You lose credibility when you spout such nonsense. EVERY WORD out of his mouth has been contradicted by him. Really? What kind of nitwit statement is that? Your hatred & jealousy of the President shines through bright & clear. Pathetic!!!

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  15. angela5:55 AM

    Anon 4:58

    "Until Obama divulges his plans".

    What fucking plans?

    Asshole, Birther. I kinda know the "we really don't know who he is" shit. Get off your cousin and buy a clue.

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  16. Anonymous5:57 AM

    New study that will make Teaparty members even angrier then they are now

    Absolutely no surprise. They’re the same weird, eccentric group of religious RWNJs with a brand new Koch-funded name: Tea Party Patriots. What rubbish. They have always wanted a form of government for the USA that’s a straight-up Christian Theocracy, and nothing has changed.

    Sometimes it seems that teahadists needs to be reminded that Jesus Christ was not one of the founding fathers. And, newsflash! Their idea of Christianity is so far removed from mainstream belief that it borders on freakish: Jesus as a gun-toting, white-power, women-belong-in-the-kitchen, immigrant-hating, ‘get your own wine and fish’ conservative Deity, who gladly puts the world on hold to personally speak with politicians like GWB, Perry, Bachmann and Palin.

    But here’s what’s funny — people have already figured out the teaparty:

    Polls show that disapproval of the Tea Party is climbing. In April 2010, a New York Times/CBS News survey found that 18 percent of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of it, 21 percent had a favorable opinion and 46 percent had not heard enough. Now, 14 months later, Tea Party supporters have slipped to 20 percent, while their opponents have more than doubled, to 40 percent.


    http://underthemountainbunker
    .com/2011/08/17/new-study-
    that-will-make-teaparty-members-even-angrier-then-they-are-now/

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  17. Anonymous5:59 AM

    "Have you ever had sex with Rick Perry?"

    An Austin Ron Paul supporter has taken out a full-page ad in the local alt weekly newspaper seeking any "stripper ... escort ... or 'young hottie'" who has slept with Rick Perry, part of his single-minded jihad against the presidential candidate.

    Robert Morrow describes himself as a "self-employed investor and political activist" as well as a three-time delegate to the Texas state GOP convention.

    "Have you ever had sex with Rick Perry?" blares the ad, placed by Morrow in this week's Austin Chronicle. "Are you a stripper, an escort, or just a 'young hottie' impressed by an arrogant, entitled governor of Texas? Contact CASH, and we will help you publicize your direct dealings with a Christian-buzzwords-spouting, 'family values' hypocrite and fraud."

    CASH is the Committee Against Sexual Hypocrisy, of which Morrow is president. "Is it a real group? No. It's just me," he told Salon earlier this week. Here is the ad, which the paper confirmed is running today (click for full size):

    http://www.salon.com/news/2012_elections/index.html?story=/
    politics/war_room/2011/08/18/rick_perry_women_ad

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  18. Anonymous6:00 AM

    The bully the GOP has been waiting for

    Now that he’s declared his candidacy, odds are Republicans will nominate Texas Gov. Rick Perry for president. They won’t be able to help themselves. If Hollywood put out a casting call for an anti-Obama, Perry would get the role.

    Democrats have been chortling about running against yet another swaggering Texas governor. Mother Jones blogger Kevin Drum explains why Perry can’t win:




    "He's too Texan...Even in the Republican Party, not everyone is from the South and not everyone is bowled over by a Texas drawl. Perry is, by a fair amount, more Texan than George W. Bush, and an awful lot of people are still suffering from Bush fatigue."


    I think this is wrong. The cowboy archetype runs so deep in American culture that even George W. Bush couldn’t ruin it. Besides, the Connecticut rancher was a trust fund poser who rode bicycles, not horses. Deep down, everybody knew that. Now that he’s no longer president, Republicans no longer have to pretend they believe the brush-cutting charade.

    Perry, though, strongly resembles the Tommy Lee Jones of "Lonesome Dove." Never mind that while an authentic Texas roughneck, Tommy Lee was Al Gore’s Harvard roommate. It’s the symbolism that matters. Perry also has what appears to be a genuine mean streak. More than anything, Republicans who see a waffling centrist like President Obama as a "socialist" dictator yearn to punish somebody.

    Perry may be exactly the bully they seek. Even executing a seemingly innocent man -- almost everybody who’s looked into the case of Cameron Todd Willingham thinks so -- and then openly tampering with a commission charged with investigating the case, makes him a hero to some.


    http://www.salon.com/news/
    politics/war_room/2011/08/17/lyons_rick_perry/index.html

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  19. Anonymous6:03 AM

    Michele Bachmann Is Not a Doctor

    http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/michele-bachmann-not-doctor-phd

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  20. I can't see how anyone can be a teabagger without being a racist since so many of them are. If they weren't before they joined them, peer pressure will make them racist or they will leave the teaparty because of the peer pressure. These are hateful, bigoted old white farts with their submissive wives. They hate the United States government and they want to bring it down. I say "Down with the teabaggers! Get out of our country and go find an island and make your own country and new government." Let's see how far the old farts get when they no longer receive social security or Medicare. Oh, my God! I just realized that I'm an old fart too, but I'm not one of them! I love the US! I love our government in spite of the problems and I don't want to bring God into it as their government will punish anyone who doesn't believe like them. What is that scripture says, "Evil spirits in high places" and "Wolves in sheep's clothing," and many others. I'm with you too! It's time to take them all on and shout louder than them and over their ramblings! We need to start calling them "Unpatriotic!" We need to become one voice against their bigoted ramblings. Perry wants Texas to secede and I say let them! That can be their new country with their new government, but leave mine alone! Keep your dirty, little grubby hands to yourself and stay out of my government! They'll only die out if we push back against their hatred and bigotry. We can take away their voice because we have found our voice out of our disgust for them! Who the heck cares what Palin has to say anymore? I sure don't. She is so racist as she proved with her racist remarks during the McCain for president campaign. She will go down in history as infamous because she has shown us she is evil! Her brand the religious right brand of religius Christianity is not for me! These people are the most unChristian people on the planet.

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  21. Anonymous6:03 AM

    In the immortal words of Sarah Palin when asked if she'd militarize the Southern Border, . . ."Yep."

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  22. Anonymous6:09 AM

    Getting to know the Tea Party


    It's great to have data, but this is something a lot of us believed all along -- the Tea Party was the Republican base dressed up in silly costumes. Why was the media so quick to declare them a vital new force in politics? Of course there were some innovative twists on the old mix, but those details got less attention than the supposedly spontaneous democratic uprising (against the Democrats, of course). What enlivened the GOP base and made it look brand-new was the cash and savvy of the Koch brothers, Dick Armey and Americans for Prosperity, who quickly noticed small early anti-stimulus rallies and got some of the organizers money and logistical support, so they could spread their Astroturf.




    Most important was the role of Fox News, which did energetic publicity for the early Tea Party rallies. Richard Nixon's media aide, Roger Ailes, finally figured out how to turn his supposed Silent Majority into a Noisy Minority. Glenn Beck founded one of the early groups, the 9/12 movement. The San Francisco Tea Party I attended in April 2009 was promoted by the local right-wing radio station KSFO, home of Rush Limbaugh, at one time Michael Savage, and a host of other righties like Melanie Morgan, who whipped the crowd into an anti-government frenzy that day. A man carrying an "Obama = Imposter" sign handed out fliers demanding that Nancy Pelosi begin impeachment proceedings, because Obama, he told me, "is not a natural-born citizen." There were several hammers and sickles; lots of signs warning against socialism and communism; a guy in what seemed to be a coonskin cap carrying a big sign with a gun that read "Reload for the Revolution."

    Contrary to the Tea Party’s "origin story," Campbell and Putnam write, in which the new activists were often described as "nonpartisan political neophytes," they were "highly partisan Republicans long before the Tea Party was born, and were more likely than others to have contacted government officials. In fact, past Republican affiliation is the single strongest predictor of Tea Party support today."

    http://www.salon.com/news/tea_parties/index.
    html?story=/opinion/
    walsh/politics/2011/08/17/getting_to_know_
    the_tea_party

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  23. Anonymous6:10 AM

    Can I have an AMEN?

    ReplyDelete
  24. Anonymous6:20 AM

    I think that all of this stuff about how angry these ordinary Americans are is nonsense. I want some real investigative reporting into the money behind the movement. The results would be very interesting. I suspect that very few dollars come from the disgruntled nasty electorate and many many dollars come from a few very rich and very mean people and their corporations.

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  25. GBIllinois6:21 AM

    I wrote this in a journal I was keeping on current events 2 1/2 years ago:

    The Wisdom of the Founding Fathers

    ~I just watched a "Hardball with Chris Matthews" video of a debate between Christopher Hitchens and Kenneth Blackwell over the question of whether the United States was founded as a "Christian nation".
    ~After a quick rereading of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, I find it hard to buy into the notion that the founding fathers used religious beliefs of any sort in establishing the United States. There is no mention of God anywhere in these documents, In the Declaration we find reference to rights granted by the "Creator", an obvious attempt by the writers to find a non-religious word to use instead of God. In the Preamble to the Constitution we find the phrase "to secure the blessings of Liberty". Liberty, not God? Wouldn't a "Christian nation" seek the blessings of God?
    ~I would refer anyone interested in another view of the founding fathers' beliefs to find a copy of Joseph Campbell's "The Power of Myth", and find the chapter relating to the images found in the Great Seal of the United States. Campbell, the premier mythologist of his day, found a series of Masonic and Deist images in them.
    ~~~"These were eighteenth century deists, these gentlemen. Over here we read "In God We Trust." But that is not the God of the Bible. These men did not believe in a Fall. They did not thnk the mind of man was cut off from God. The mind of man, cleansed of secondary and merely temporal concerns, beholds with the radiance of a cleansed mirror a reflection of the rational mind of God. Reason puts you in touch with God."
    ~These people were hardly "Christians", even in the terms of their day. They were men who believed that the fundamental order of the Universe was discernable through Reason, not through revelation or religious practices. The fact that they included provisions to protect the religious freedoms of those who did believe in a Christian vision of God doesn't speak to their beliefs, but to their wisdom in making sure that Liberty extended to all parts of the union and covered all possible points of view.

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  26. Anonymous6:25 AM

    Good insights. The influence of the Cock Brothers and Dick "Wad" Armey is a big part of the story, also, too. Would love to see it all laid out succinctly to help persuade fence-sitters.

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  27. I have been listening to several interviews with tea baggers on different radio stations here in the East.
    They never call themselves republicans, they refer to themselves as the Tea Party.
    I was wondering if anybody else noticed that?
    I wonder if the republicans will distance themselves from the tea party or if the tea Party will make a definitive split into a third party. This is where I see a role for palin, she is not making progress within the republican party, but she would fit right in with the tea baggers.

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  28. ibwilliamsi6:46 AM

    They DON'T want the government involved in their churches, they want their churches involved in the government. Morons.

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  29. Beldar Obama2012 Conehead6:49 AM

    Gryphen, dude!!! What's that smell??? Oh... Anon-a-mouse 458am...

    Ya have to hand it to the Right. They have mastered the technique of relentlessly criticizing the Center and Left for all the evils that they themselves are guilty of.

    I'm a gifted bull-shit detector. I saw thru the Screechy Wretch(tm) the moment she was unleashed by Gramps McCain. I see thru the empty suits/skirts of Dubya and Bachmann and O'Connell and Whitman and Fiorina and Angle, et al. And I see thru Boner and Romney and McConnell and Perry chanting about 'protecting the job creators from taxes' when it's vile lie and they know it.

    Obama? He's not perfect and he's made mistakes. He's pursued a highly moderate agenda mostly free from the 'socialism' that his detractors falsely decry. But I believe deeply - and the evidence supports this - that he is a decent guy - not a fake bible thumper - working hard to solve our terrible problems and make this country a better place. And he does it with a calm demeanor, without anger, hostility, or cynicism.

    I can't say that about 99% of the tea-baggers whose words are intelligible enough to comprehend.

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  30. I am so with you. Thanks for putting the Teaparty movement into perspective. You are exactly right. I am so tired of these small, ignorant, complaining and complaining minds. I'm tired of seeing them, hearing them, and knowing of them. 40 years ago people would have thought they were totally crazy with their views of the Lord in politics. Really, other members of the republican party would not have let them NEAR positions of power and they would have been embarrassed by them. Now all the old guard "sane" politions know the teapartiers are crazy, but they just happen to get the lunitic fringe to vote and donate. shame on them!!!!

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  31. Smirnonn7:27 AM

    Ignorant, white, racist bible thumpers. That's who's holding the gotp's leash these days. Scary???? YES!

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  32. Anonymous7:40 AM

    I will fight these ignorant rat bastards to the end!

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  33. The origins of the Tea Party/dominionists is decades long. They are well established in many areas (politics, media, military, oligarchy) and have gotten the right wing authoritarian personalities to follow them. They are very aggressive at promoting their beliefs. It may be too late for us to do anything about it at this point. Remember orgs like Skull and Cross Bones believe in creating two conflicting sides. This is why we have Democrats vs Republicans, communism vs democracy, black vs white, and rich vs poor. They believe in seizing power whenever they can, conflict helps them do this. It also helps them change laws to their favor and make lots of money. Having all the money makes them all powerful. They use their money to redesign society to their liking.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Anonymous7:51 AM

    Sarah Palin is a racist who can't get over her numerous defeats by black people. Here are the facts: She wasn't good enough for Miss Wasilla (defeated by a black woman), she wasn't good enough for America in 2008 (crushed by a black man) and she will never be good enough for anything. She is a complete and utter failure as a human being. Sarah is literally obsessed with President Obama. Its really quite sick. Time to sit down and shut up Sarah. Its over. As hard as it is for you, its time to accept reality. No one likes you and you are the most hated politician in America. Truth hurts I know.

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  35. Anonymous7:52 AM

    Tnx cuppajoe at 4:39. This analysis of the persistent moral corruption caused by slave ownership seems to be deeply historically correct.

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  36. Anonymous8:14 AM

    With you? Absolutely, and then some.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Anonymous8:41 AM

    Many good observations in these articles. But where is the mention of the voices in their heads? The voices from their radio and tv leaders? Some of these rich media mouthpieces are what is helping to make this movement appear real. They really put the ASS in grassroots.

    We have some teabaggers in my area.
    Some of our local teabuggers dress like they are a founding father, or a Colonial Patriot. They also carry protest signs and march on the public streets. Generally confused and slow, but many of these teabaggers seem to support weapons everywhere for everyone. Where it gets a little alarming is when these dress up games and the guns get mixed with the hot tempers and slow thinkers.

    Then there is that sharia law obsession. Not to mention the fear that someone is coming to take their guns away, and send them to the 'reeducation camps" that Michele Bachmann talked about. Michele forgot to specify they are to be run by FEMA, but the tebaggers already know this.

    One thing is certain: between the gays, the muslims, the athiests, the socialists, the Democrats, the union members, the public school teachers, and those that can spell moron correctly; these teabuggers are outnumbered.

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  38. hedgewytch8:44 AM

    @ Cuppajoe,

    I was born and raised in the South. And what you posted is the absolute truth. My family were relocated Yankees, but my father is really a southern right winger even if he was born in Jersey.

    I left the South as soon as I graduated from college and never looked back. And the main reason I left, besides the huge population and strip mall/subdivision explosion of the 90's, was because of these attitudes.

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  39. Gasman8:49 AM

    The overwhelmingly fundagelical leanings of the teabaggers is precisely why they will NEVER support Romney. They don't view Mormons as Christian. They would no sooner support a Mormon than they would a Muslim.

    If Romney is the GOP nominee, look for a third party candidacy from someone like Bachmann, Perry, Santorum, or

    - wait for it -

    Palin to run under the Party of God banner. The fundies want one of their own at the top of the ticket but I don't think that the power brokers in the GOP will let that happen.

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  40. Some time ago, I saw a chart showing Baggers in Congress. (Mebbe here at IM?)

    There is one elected Bagger from New England, where the original Tea Party took place. (Boston harbor. That's in New Hampshire, isn't it?) -:)

    There are more Baggers in Congress from the South than all other areas combined. Surprise, surprise!

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  41. Anonymous9:27 AM

    Alternet is saying much the same thing.

    http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/651861/atheists%2C_muslims_more_popular_than_tea_party_%28also%2C_tea_party%27s_just_a_new_name_for_racist_christian_right%29/

    ReplyDelete
  42. Anonymous9:40 AM

    Our nation must end the tax exemptions for churches and similar "charitable" organizations -- at least for the ones that are clearly political in nature.

    There is no reason a sane tax policy would subsidize a fascist political movement that is trying to destroy the public sphere.

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  43. GBIllinois10:53 AM

    Gasman--

    I agree completely.

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  44. Anonymous1:17 PM

    I say Fuck these journalist. Why the hell did it take so long to call these Teabaggers what they are. For almost three years the media fed into their BS, now they are doing an about face after major damage has been done and a bunch of crazy obstructionists got elected last cycle. Sorry Gryph, had to get that off my chest.

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  45. johnie2xs1:48 PM

    It was so much better,years back, when the overly and overtly religious were treated the way they should have been,....as a crazed fringe.
    Since gay Americans have come out of the closet in such great numbers, there is more then adequate space available for these crazed zealots to take up residence in these open storage units.

    Begone, ye of too much faith.

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  46. Anonymous3:49 PM

    What they want is not a Christ like nation. No matter what they call it Christian or Nazi or Imperial Roman, what they want is power to destroy who every their "enemy" of the day is.

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  47. Anonymous6:17 PM

    I can't speak for others, but Anon 4:58 am apparently mistook crazy glue for Preperation H.
    Anyone have any advice to help the poor soul out?


    For the Record, I'm with you a hundred percent, but their efforts are all for naught, The GOP is in shambles, and it's all good news for the Democrats. Can anyone imagine Bachman, Palin, or Perry surviving one debate against President Obama?

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