Prejudice and principle brew at tea party meet

[FourScore]

Prejudice and principle brew at tea party meet

600 delegates from all over the US descended on the cavernous Gaylord hotel to plot strategy as opening speech harks back to America's segregationist past

Ed Pilkington in Nashville
The Guardian, Saturday 6 February 2010

America's disparate army of angry ­conservatives assembled under one roof yesterday at the first national tea party convention in Nashville, amid controversy over an opening speech which preached bigotry bordering on racism.

Up to 600 delegates from all over the US descended on the cavernous Gaylord hotel to plot a strategy on how to take back the country from the perceived threat of the Obama administration. Sporting a shirt made from the Stars and Stripes, Tim Peak from Arizona said he had travelled so far because it was "time for the silent majority to stand up and start speaking".
Tea party movement: 'It's time for the silent majority to speak' Link to this audio

But amid talk about fiscal conservatism and the "subversive threat" of the green movement, there was also a strong undercurrent of a cultural bigotry which previously had been kept to the margins of the tea party phenomenon.

Tom Tancredo, a former Republican congressman from Denver in Colorado who ran for president in 2008, devoted most of his opening speech on Thursday night to illegal immigration. He said the fabric of US society had been eroded by the "cult of multiculturalism", "Islamification", and large numbers of immigrants who did not want to be Americans.

In his most incendiary comment, he invoked the segregationist methods of the southern states, saying that Obama had been elected because "we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country". Southern segregationist states used to prevent black people having the vote by setting them restrictively difficult qualification tests, a historical allusion lost on few of the delegates present.

Tancredo went on to call on delegates to launch a "counter-revolution" that would "pass on our culture based on Judeo-Christian principles. Whether people like it or not, that's who we are."

That remark received a standing ovation from the audience...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/05/tea-party-united-states

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. I guess they weren't wearing their hoods?

[provis99]

3. The Klan wouldn't have Tancredo as a member.

They do have SOME standards, after all.

[OHdem10]

2. There were more RR than Teabaggers at this meeting.

Teabaggers are not into all the Cultural Stuff.
Palin seemed to be talking to her base(RR who pushed McCain
to put her on the ticket). In fact, she took on the Joan of Arc
mantle at one point--will live and die for this country.
At another point, exhorting them not to be afraid to
speak up and express their religious feelings. Teabaggers
seem to be fiscal conservatives and this is their most
important concern. Libertarian otherwise which means
small government to them.

I am not implying there are not lots of teabaggers.
There are cells all around the country I understand.
There were Teabaggers meeting in other sites in Tennessee
at the same time.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

4. I wonder will they support her if there is a major scandal about her

sadly they probably like law breakers