Tea Party movement lights fuse for right

[SpankMe]

Source: New York Times via msnbc.com

Mrs. Stout said she awoke to see Washington as a threat, a place where crisis is manipulated — even manufactured — by both parties to grab power.

Worried about hyperinflation, social unrest or even martial law, she and her Tea Party members joined a coalition, Friends for Liberty, that includes representatives from Glenn Beck’s 9/12 Project, the John Birch Society, and Oath Keepers, a new player in a resurgent militia movement.

When Friends for Liberty held its first public event, Mrs. Stout listened as Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff, brought 1,400 people to their feet with a speech about confronting a despotic federal government. Mrs. Stout said she felt as if she had been handed a road map to rebellion. Members of her family, she said, think she has disappeared down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. But Mrs. Stout said she has never felt so engaged.

The Tea Party movement has become a platform for conservative populist discontent, a force in Republican politics for revival, as it was in the Massachusetts Senate election, or for division. But it is also about the profound private transformation of people like Mrs. Stout, people who not long ago were not especially interested in politics, yet now say they are bracing for tyranny.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35416483/

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Lets, see...

"includes representatives from Glenn Beck’s 9/12 Project, the John Birch Society, and Oath Keepers, a new player in a resurgent militia movement"

Mrs. Stout said she felt as if she had been handed a road map to rebellion....But Mrs. Stout said she has never felt so engaged.

Is anyone besides me really concerned about this - shitting in their pants, maybe? Are these the first shots in a new civil war?

[sinkingfeeling]

1. This is not breaking news. The MSNBC site reprinted the NYT article.

[SpankMe]

5. You're right.

I should pay better attention to this sort of thing in the future.

But, it was new - and alarming - to me!

[Chicago dyke]

8. please keep in mind that

right wing orgs like this are nothing new, and that compared to say, the number of people who marched and were active against the wars back in the Chimp years were larger by an order of magnitude.

it's time to Set Phasers to Ignore, when it comes to the tea baggers. they're are a pure media creation, a false "movement" and made of really stupid and mostly irrelevant people to boot. only people addicted to the SCLM stream take them seriously, and Villagers.

[SpankMe]

13. I so hope you're right...

I need to hear stuff like this from folks like you to keep my natural paranoia in check.

But, it sure looks to me like these nut bags are gaining steam.

[SteppingRazor]

2. Meh. Was the John Birch Society a first shot in a civil war? Were the militias of the 90s?

Reactionary movements among the right-wing are nothing new.

[ernie1241]

17. Birch Society, Tea Partiers, Sarah Palin

Highly ideological groups such as the Tea Party Movement (TPM) are pre-disposed toward irreconcilable schisms. Consider the following.

(1) In the most recent edition of its "Freedom Index", the John Birch Society scores the voting behavior of Cong. Ron Paul of TX as 100%. Paul is often cited as the father of the contemporary TPM. Furthermore, Cong. Paul has endorsed the Birch Society.

See JBS comments about Ron Paul here: http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/constitution/409 and video of Ron Paul at JBS 50th Anniversary Celebration here: http://www.viddler.com/explore/jbirch/videos/1/

Also see: The New American, 4/28/08, p8 for article entitled: “Ron Paul Congratulates The John Birch Society on 50th Anniversary” for following comment by Ron Paul:

"The John Birch Society is a great patriotic organization featuring an educational program solidly based on constitutional principles. I congratulate the Society in this, its 50th year. I wish them continued success and endorse their untiring efforts to foster 'less government, more responsibility ... and with God's help ... a better world.'

In addition, Paul has stated:

"The beneficial, educational impact of the John Birch Society over the past four decades would be hard to overestimate. It is certainly far more than most people realize. Anyone who has been in the trenches over the years battling on any of the major issues - whether it’s pro-life, gun rights, property rights, taxes, government spending, regulation, national security, privacy, national sovereignty, the United Nations, foreign aid - knows that members of the John Birch Society are always in there doing the heavy lifting. And most importantly, they approach all of these issues from a strong moral and constitutional perspective. Lots of people pay lip service to the Constitution, but Birchers study it, understand it, apply it, and are serious about protecting it and holding public officials accountable to it."

(2) Meanwhile, Sarah Palin has endorsed Ron Paul's son, Rand, in his campaign for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senator in Kentucky.

Nevertheless, the CEO of the Birch Society (Art Thompson), in a 2/10/10 column on the Birch Society website entitled “Sarah Palin and the Establishment” has questioned Palin's bona fides as a genuine conservative and constitutionalist because Thompson thinks she might be a pawn of "establishment" Republicans who take their marching orders from "internationalists" and other "elitists" such as the Council of Foreign Relations -- whom (along with “big government neo-cons”) involve us in unconstitutional wars, conflicts, and alliances around the globe. See Thompson column here: http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/5954-sarah-palin-and-the-establishment

The Tea Party Movement (TPM) is not uniform in its opinions, but it does seem to be generally favorably disposed toward Palin.

Nevertheless, three TPM candidates are challenging Cong. Ron Paul in his re-election bid. See: http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/politics/2918-ron-paul-now-drawing-opposition-from-some-in-tea-party-movement

Consequently, one can expect further major internal rifts within the TPM -- and, most likely, it will disintegrate into more and more schisms and acrimonious claims of apostasy.

[sharp_stick]

3. Oh yeah terrified

a bunch of fat old assholes that follow Glenn Beck. These morons can't even spell properly on their signs never mind begin a civil war.

[AlbertCat]

7. a bunch of fat old assholes that follow Glenn Beck.

A SMALL bunch of fat old WHITE assholes that follow Glenn Beck.


All of us can see that Congress is not working and the Supreme Court is activist....and have been for almost 10 years now. The Teabaggers are just waking up? They're scared just now of the Boogie Man.....Boggie Hussein Man.

[NinetySix]

4. Jesus Christ, am I a damned TeaBagger?

I am by no means a right-winger, but fucked if I don't agree with this statement in principle:

"Mrs. Stout said she awoke to see Washington as a threat, a place where crisis is manipulated — even manufactured — by both parties to grab power."

The right-wingers are out in the streets agitating for representation -- exactly what the Founders were demanding. So where the fuck are we? Keeping our heads down so we don't lose our jobs? I agree that's important, but what about our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor? It doesn't pay to bet small, and if the Government were afraid of ALL of us (Jefferson's very definition of Liberty, by the way), then maybe we on the Left wouldn't have to worry about underrepresentation any more.

Point to note: even the righties are waking up to the threat posed to our collective Liberty by the corporate juggernaut and its ever-increasing share of power.

[AlbertCat]

9. even the righties are waking up to the threat posed to our collective Liberty by the corporate jugge

even the righties are waking up to the threat posed to our collective Liberty by the corporate juggernaut



And though both sides do cary some fault for this....it is not symmetrical. Which side do you think is the heavier? Right or left?

[GoddessOfGuinness]

11. The trouble is...

The division that exists between "right" and "left", created by the corporate juggernaut, serves to keep the masses from joining forces.

[SpankMe]

12. But, where was all this saber rattling during Bush?

I also agree to some extent with these concerns. But, these exact same conditions existed under W. Bush. Where was all the right wing "revolution" talk then?

I don't agree the 'baggers are merely "agitating for representation". They're looking to pick a fight with...someone. They're aligning with militia movements and basing their plans, such as they are, on crackpot conspiracy theories.

Their rhetoric is clearly not about voting for candidates who share their views. When words and phrases like "threat", "despotic", "bracing for tyranny", "patriotic resistance" and the like are thrown around, then this looks like more than just a call for action at the voting booth. It creates a climate of acceptability for violence and sedition. It's a misguided reaction to a perceived threat. It should cause concern.

[denverbill]

15. Maybe we should all start going to teabag parties.

I'm 'taxed enough already' (though I think the rich should pay more)
I want to cut wasteful government spending (on foreign military, government contractors, negotiating drug prices with Medicare, health insurance for Congressmen, eg)


How soon would FOX stop covering their parties if they were dominated by people against wars, against corporate ownership of government, and for tax increases on billionaires?

[Blue_Tires]

16. as i said in another thread

this whole "we hate BOTH parties" schtik is a ruse to make the public think its a real grassroots instead of GOP-backed (and it's also a deflection to the obvious question of WHERE IN HELL WERE THEY DURING THE BUSH YEARS)... At the end of the day, they will still vote republican like the lapdogs they are...

[nyc 4 Biden]

6. NYTimes Jumps the Shark With This Article!!1! (It's official)

I saw this this morning on the way to work and wanted to call out the Times on this horrible peice of journalism, but i was too busy at work and forgot. Look at the sheer size of this article (eta: 4,501 words to be exact). It is the war and peace of the loony right's attempt to justify the tea party "movement."

[swilton]

10. The Left Counterpart

Has been marching in the streets in exponentially greater numbers since the fraudulent election of George Bush and the left wing of our Democratic Party politicians has yet to budge - to use the metaphore of 'lighting the fuse' is to say that our Democratic politicians are made of asbestos...:wtf:

[denverbill]

14. Populism = Tax cuts for billionaires?

They want to fight wars, but not pay for them.
They want tax cuts for billionaires, but no spending cuts to pay for them.
They want to protect Medicare from the government.

They always claim to want balanced budgets but they also want tax cuts and don't want to cut anything meaningful.

They swear that cutting taxes increases tax revenue, (though apparently that is not an option for saving Social Security or Medicare), despite the fact that the biggest deficits in US history were directly related to huge tax cuts enacted by Reagan and Shrub.

I don't know how it's possible to attempt to deal with these people.