Frank Schaeffer: Tea Party Movement Returns w/ Much More Dangerous, Explicit 'Judgment Day' Rhetoric

[Hissyspit]

http://www.alternet.org/story/143554/tea_party_movement_returns%2C_this_time_with_much_more_dangerous_and_explicit_rhetoric

Tea Party Movement Returns, This Time with Much More Dangerous and Explicit Rhetoric
By Frank Schaeffer, AlterNet. Posted October 27, 2009.

It's not too hard to guess where talk of 'Judgement Day' can lead to in the context of a right-wing, gun-loving movement.

According to the "Tea Party" website, Tea Party Express II: Countdown To Judgment Day" is underway. Here's how their website describes it:

All throughout the recent Tea Party Express national bus tour we kept receiving calls from people around the nation who lived far away from the route our buses took across America. We vowed at the time to keep the Tea Party Express effort alive -- and that’s exactly what we are doing.Join us from October 25th to November 11th, 2009 as we tell Congress and the White House: “Enough!” Let’s stand up and stop the bailouts, cap and trade, out-of-control spending, government-run health care, and higher taxes! We’re back and determined to take our country back!
What will happen on their predicted "Judgment Day"?

If you buy the biblical spin of the Religious Right folks -- that make up the bulk of the Tea Party movement -- the implication is clear: Jesus will soon return, send all Democrats, gays, blacks, progressives, liberals, college-educated unbelievers, etc., to Hell, while saving what Sarah Palin calls "us" "Real Americans" -- in other words unreconstructed frightened and resentful white lower middle class Americans.

- snip -

If you put the secular/right's "tree-of-Liberty-must-be-watered-by-the-blood-of-tyrants-Timothy McVeigh spin on the Judgment Day scenario; then there will soon be a hoped for bloody day of reckoning for the occupant of the White House.

- snip -

When the Tea Party folks say they want to "take back our country" who do they want to take it back from? It turns out it's going to be taken back from the democratic process itself. The effort here is to reverse the last election result.

- snip -

Since democracy is not so easily undone, the implication is that to "take back" America must needs involve, not votes but "Judgment Day." In the view of the right Democracy Herself has failed "we" good God-fearing, "birther" "deather" "he lied!" "Obama is Hitler!" Americans. So we must now turn to "other means."

First Tea Parties then Judgment Day. Get it?

What do you think "We Real Americans" have all those guns for?

MORE AT LINK

[Solly Mack]

1. K/R

[elleng]

2. The combination of watching LOST and reading this may be toxic!

Aux armes, citoyens!

[elleng]

3. Their base:

'unreconstructed frightened and resentful white lower middle class Americans'

Recruited by rover for '04. Now what can we do?

[malaise]

6. They're a fringe minority

and many of them will soon be in jail for breaking the law.
Give them the rope, they'll hang themselves because they are really really stupid.

[felinetta]

9. I agree. They are legends in their minds only. Besides Faux touts itself as

having a lot of viewers.  They really don't.  So the group is
extremely marginal.

[dgibby]

10. It's their "handlers" that worry me.

The professional agitiators, like Dick Army, etc, that scare me. They know exactly what they're doing. The rest of them are just useful idiots.

I did hear on the news yesterday that the term "judgement day" referred to the 2010 elections; however, the term itself is a great dog whistle for the fringe.

[starroute]

12. I don't think they *do* know what they're doing

I think they've let something loose that's beyond their ability to handle and things are just going to get stranger and stranger over on the right.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. That is the OVERT meaning, you are correct

[Joanne98]

4. They're terrorists!

[Joe S]

5. K&R

[Hissyspit]

7. .

[Odin2005]

8. The Christo-Fascists.

[krabigirl]

11. Well, their base is aging fast, so I don't see them having much power in 10 years.

(note: Of course not all of the over-60 set are like this...not even close. But I do notice that many teabaggers are in the older generations.)

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. From Sunday's event

mean age was 60.

There were four African Americans and three Hispanics in the crowd...

And yes it was quite Lilly white.

Oh and the language was full of code and dog whistles... and of course Soros funds the opposition. To the people Soros is a bogeyman... to the leaders he is an OBVIOUS target... all those democracy projects you know.

on this subject... You may have the first amendment to be here, but I got the second amendment (translation, I got guns and I am not afraid to use them)

I answered... so do I... are you making a threat? Guy paled and walked away.

So going into the lion's den... I say Shaeffer knows his stuff (and of course he grew up in that culture)...

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. oh and one last thing

stop making fun of them... they are the heart of a very dangerous movement.