http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/04/last_weekend_th.php#moreRightbloggers: Don't You Dare Laugh At Our Teabagging!By Roy Edroso
Monday, Apr. 20 2009 @ 12:08AM
===snip===
Meantime the tea parties themselves remain blog fodder, and though pleased with the
high turnout, rightbloggers sought to ensure that nothing distracted from their achievement.
So when they found some people laughing at them, they insisted, loudly, that there they weren't funny -- which, as often happens in such cases, made them funnier still.Several unsympathetic sources had some fun with the "teabagging" nomenclature adopted by the movement in its early days. Though
http://obambi.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/tea-bag-obama/">there
is an http://patriotroom.com/article/in-time-for-national-tea-party-day-patriot-room-buttons-are-here-">obvious
http://www.zazzle.co.uk/tea_bag_obama_mug-168863860633021272">trail of
participants using the unfortunately ambiguous term -- even the impeccably right-wing
Atlas Shrugged proudly referred to her compatriots as "Teabag Patriots" -- they rose as one to denounce the inappropriate laughter at themselves.
Some affected shock at the term's sexual definition. "As decency prevents a clinical explanation of the term," sniffed
NewsBusters, "curious readers not in the know should check the Urban Dictionary with an objectionable content forewarning." Try not to gag!
Fox News was surprisingly more upfront: "Teabagging, for those who don't live in a frat house," they told no doubt astonished readers, "refers to a sexual act involving part of the male genitalia and a second person's face or mouth."
"'Teabagging' -- a sex act," marveled the heretofore enthusiastic teabagger
Atlas Shrugged. "You learn something new from the leftwing media everyday." But she proved a quick study. "To understand tea-bagging," she told her readers, "imagine the dunking motion of a tea bag when making tea. Now instead of a cup, picture someone's mouth, and instead of a tea bag, picture testicles." The internet is a wonderful medium for sharing information, or for oversharing it.
These worthies remained neutral on the value of teabagging, non-protest style, but RedState's
http://www.redstate.com/warner_todd_huston/2009/04/16/the-left-and-teabagging/">Warner Todd Huston was disapproving, calling the practice "immoral, immature and perverted," in contrast to the moral, mature and wholesome sex acts performed by conservatives.
That liberals even
think of that teabagging, Huston declared, showed just how corrupt they are. "As it happens, when talking to an engaged, informed, and patriotic American," he explained, "when a tea party is discussed the images of Boston Harbor, taxes and American history immediately come to mind." If you are reminded instead of little girls serving imaginary hot beverages to their dolls, apparently you come up short patriot-wise, but are still better than those sexed-up liberals, for whom "no thought of America can be found. But sexual perversions are aplenty."
The Next Right decried humor itself as a socialist ruse. They quoted "Rule number 5 of Saul Alinsky's 1971 Rules for Radicals... 'Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It's hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.'" Then they got infuriated and reacted to their opponents' advantage.
"They are retreating to ridicule because it is a strategy of desperation," sputtered Next Right, and insisted it wouldn't work: "People are coalescing around real principles again. And when you get down to people's fundamental believes, ridicule won't get you very far. It's like trying to attack someone's religion." If you find the idea of a teabagging religion funny, of course, you are double-Alinskyite, and the Next Right may have to come back and yell at you some more.
***
To quell the laughter, some went to extremes. Warner Todd Huston
returned to consider the post-tea-party path of patriots. "It may seem ominous, but violence is sometimes acceptable depending on the cause," he said.
"Of course we should avoid violence during these protests today," he added. "I am for sure not advocating a resort to violence. But if elections and the democratic process fail to impress government officials against their habits where does that leave future protests?... Government officials also must take heed before their arrogance leads us all down that road that we do not want to travel."
Five months after Obama's election, Huston is already looking ahead to a time when "elections and the democratic process fail to impress government officials" and thinking about the role violence might play.
Well, that's one way to stop people from laughing at him. But he may not be pleased at the reaction he gets instead.