Tea Party Movement Lights Fuse for Rebellion on Right

[Purveyor]

By DAVID BARSTOW
Published: February 15, 2010

SANDPOINT, Idaho — Pam Stout has not always lived in fear of her government. She remembers her years working in federal housing programs, watching government lift struggling families with job training and education. She beams at the memory of helping a Vietnamese woman get into junior college.

But all that was before the Great Recession and the bank bailouts, before Barack Obama took the White House by promising sweeping change on multiple fronts, before her son lost his job and his house. 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.

She was happily retired, and had never been active politically. But last April, she went to her first Tea Party rally, then to a meeting of the Sandpoint Tea Party Patriots. She did not know a soul, yet when they began electing board members, she stood up, swallowed hard, and nominated herself for president. “I was like, ‘Did I really just do that?’ ” she recalled.

Then she went even further.

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.

More...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/us/politics/16teaparty.html

[bluestateguy]

1. And I should care about what people in Idaho think be-cause....?

Who gives a shit? Isn't that where the Aryan Nation is headquartered?

[dgibby]

3. I'm guessing by your post that you didn't read the entire article. n/t

[sharesunited]

4. People getting together talking about rebellion in a country brimming with guns.

I'd say it's worth keeping an eye on.

[Alias Dictus Tyrant]

14. Trust me, they've been talking that way in Idaho for as long as I've been alive.

It is practically the official state past-time. They are best ignored as always.

[rpannier]

6. Did you bother to go to the story???

Because if you did, you'd have seen it was not just about some woman in Idaho

[Posteritatis]

12. Dammit, now I need to replace my irony meter. (nt)

[msongs]

2. could it be she's wh....wh....wait for it....white lol it's ALL fear of a black president nt

[PSPS]

5. What's the news? White Idaho woman suddenly hates 'gubmint' when black man becomes president.

[Posteritatis]

13. Excellent job reading the article instead of reacting to the first few percent of it. (nt)

[The_Casual_Observer]

7. This is a "movement" of extreme right wing nut jobs. It's a fraud.

[FrenchieCat]

8. She got mad in April of 2009?

Must be a "coincidence" that she "found" a group to join to protest just in the nick
of time, less than 3 months after a new President was sworn in. She couldn't even
allow him to find out where all of the light switches were in the White House before
here ass was out there with who knows what sign! Seems "odd".

[EmeraldCityGrl]

9. Interesting...

" And in Indiana, Richard Behney, a Republican Senate candidate, told Tea Party supporters what he would do if the 2010 elections did not produce results to his liking: “I’m cleaning my guns and getting ready for the big show. And I’m serious about that, and I bet you are, too.”


Wonder how many politicians are genuinely concerned about their own well being given
the implied threats and suggestions of violence. I imagine the Secret Service and FBI have
seen an increase in this sort of activity. The above quote stood out given that that Behney
is from Evan Bayh's state. It sounds very threatening.

[MidwestTransplant]

10. You think the Club For Growth (GOP) will regret feeding the crazies? I bet they will.

[agent46]

11. Meanwhile

For the past 10 years these same patriots have been collectively wearing out their knee pads at the altar of George Bush and the Neocons. This country has soared way past absurd into uncharted regions of morbid farce.

[quaker bill]

15. Good article. The Glenbeckistanis will find

that starting a revolution is easy but harnessing one for a desired political outcome is almost impossible.

They will be surprised by the results, perhaps we all will be, but the ones who thought they knew what they were doing will be most shocked.

[agent46]

17. When the mask comes off

I agree, perhaps we'll all be surprised - even the ones who see it coming. There are intended consequences and unintended consequences because all the variables can never be known.

[TexasObserver]

16. Pam Stout is like most Tea Baggers. Amazingly ignorant.