The Tea Party: It’s Worse Than You Think

[marmar]

from Truthdig:





The Tea Party: It’s Worse Than You Think
Posted on Oct 7, 2010

By The Rev. Madison Shockley


A debate has raged over the last 18 months as to whether the tea party movement is racist. Never mind that the inauguration of the first black president in January 2009 was followed in February by the first of the tea party “moments”—when CNBC’s Rick Santelli called for a Chicago tea party on national television from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Never mind that April 15 of 2009 saw the first nationally organized protest of the tea partyers in cities across the country. When the summer of 2009 arrived, all tea party guns (some real firearms were openly carried at Obama events) turned on President Barack Obama and his health insurance reform proposals. Obama was demonized with invective that included being called Hitler, Stalin and the Antichrist.

I propose to put this debate to rest. The tea party is racist. Its followers have deployed a brilliant strategy to deflect charges of racism by using a form of the legislative provision known as severability. Whenever a tea party group or person is “caught” with a racist sign, or saying explicitly racist comments, they simply “sever” that person from the movement by saying, “That person does not represent the tea party.” They get away with it because they claim the status of a “movement” with no structure, leadership or cohesive identity except allegiance to the three magic phrases: “Constitutional Republic,” “Founding Fathers” and “I want my country back!”

I submit that their defense, while clever, is inadequate. Racism virtually drips from their lips when they spew out their ridicule of President Obama. It lies just underneath the surface of all the signs imaging him as a native African, a Muslim or an animal. But, one might note, they never called Obama by a racial slur. They have never said they don’t like him because he is black. Well, they don’t have to say it—he is black. And to say, “I don’t like Obama because he is black” would be redundant.

.........(snip).........

I stumbled across my evidence through an e-mail alert I received for tea party “meet-ups” near where I live. When I noticed a tea party meet-up in south Orange County being held at a church, I couldn’t resist taking a closer look. Five clicks later I was enthralled by a document that I found both horrifying and revealing. The document was titled “The Non-Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment” and written by A.H. Ellett, a retired Utah Supreme Court justice. Ironically, the tea party movement generally “supports with worshipful intensity the constitution of the United States,” according to historian Mark Lilla, but when its followers say “Constitution” they don’t mean the same U.S. Constitution that you and I mean. The recent issue for the tea party has been the repeal of the 14th Amendment. But repeal is just one small step compared to the giant leap that Justice Ellett makes in claiming that the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments (the so-called Reconstruction Amendments) were never legally (i.e. constitutionally) ratified in the first place. When the tea party folk say that they want their country back, I’m starting to understand just how far back they want it—back before the Civil War! ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_tea_party_its_worse_than_you_think_20101007/

[pnorman]

1. K & R!

And THANKS for that great find. ("Now don't get me wrong. I have absolutely nothing against those of the Kenyan race, but......splutter ...splutter!")

[ejpoeta]

2. jesus. these people are fuckng nuts. but the thing is, and i always figured why they are so

angry all the time.... they are outnumbered.

[dccrossman]

3. K&R

I have no words. Thank you for the find, this needs to go viral.

[Caeia]

12. meh

Being angry is a Republican trademark. They have a mascochistic love for being persecuted. It proves them right.

But I can't really say I'm all that shocked. I think we need to admit to ourselves that the American version of "not racist" is not saying nigger. We're not even fooling ourselves anymore.

[tomm2thumbs]

4. it reminds me of kids, kicking and screaming on the way to their baths... oh, but

they will get their bath, despite their kicking & screaming

they are marked for extinction by the new generation

they just scream loudest before they vanish

it has always been that way

hear their death calls

old ways die hard

but they do die

just not soon

enough

for

me

[nxylas]

5. I encourage people to read the whole article

Apart from the paragraph after the snip, the part quoted is the weakest part of the article for me. It looks like the author is saying "Obama is black, the Tea Party don't like him, therefore the Tea Party must be racist". It's only on reading further that you get to the meat of the article and realise that, wow, these people really are saying that a black man can't constitutionally be President.

[Just One Woman]

6. southern bred

Living in the south, I am not surprised, but I am appalled. These people down here were raised that way. Not all churches, but some have preached that blacks taking over is just the start of the trials and tribulations. They really do want to take it back to before the civil war. Ignorance is rampant. I do my part to educate, but my biggest hope is in the generation of the kids coming of age. They just don't see it the same and I am so glad. Since my youngest is 17, I will be here a few more years, but I am looking forward to transplanting myself to a tea-bagger-less place soon.

[progressoid]

7. The final paragraph...

Finally, Patricia Williams said it best in a Guardian article in September when she reminded us of the unguarded words of Lee Atwater, former chair of the Republican Party, who explained the strategy of abstraction this way, “You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced bussing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites. … ‘We want to cut this’ is much more abstract than even the bussing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘nigger, nigger’.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/19/tea-party-language-civil-rights

[LongTomH]

8. It's worthwhile following the link to the Guardian article referenced

Tea Party rhetoric twists the language of emancipation:

Enter Glenn Beck, a recovered alcoholic and cocaine addict, darling of the Tea Party movement, a loose association of arch-libertarians, social conservatives and those who are diffusely angry at "liberal elites". Having hovered at the edge of rightwing shock jock media for years, Beck burst onto the national scene only recently, thanks in large part to the sponsorship of Roger Ailes, former Republican party adviser to Presidents Reagan and George HW Bush, and current head of Fox News.

Beck's poisonous power to manipulate the sense of disenfranchisement felt by white middle- and working-class citizens is serious business. He scares me, he scares Democrats, and he even scares many traditional Republicans who feel he panders to extremists. Listening to Beck is not unlike attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. The world is broken down into simple ideals, laddered steps toward enumerated goals, reiterated creeds of belief and renunciation. As in AA, God is the only authority; admission of an engulfing corruption is the necessary starting point; and "restoration" of sanity is the goal.

Beck's expressed agenda involves rescuing America from what he depicts as its current state of depravity. While Beck frequently claims that he is "not political" – "I'm an evangelist for America" – his diatribes draw relentless divisions among We, You, Them and Those. "We" are "patriots". "They" are "traitors", "progressives", "socialists" and "Nazis". Beck is a masterful narrator of "reverse" race and class grievance. Despite all data to the contrary, he asserts that it is whites who collectively suffer at the hands of black racists – Obama and his seven circles of "radical" "comrades" being the prime and reiterated example. "We" will "reclaim the civil rights movement" in the name of individual rights and freedoms, says Beck. "We will take that movement because we were the ones who did it in the first place."

Moving from Glenn Beck to Sarah Palin:

Palin had not long before tweeted her endorsement of Dr Laura Schlesinger, another Fox radio personality. You may recall that Dr Laura, a perpetually angry authoritarian passing as a psychologist, had taken a call from a black woman married to a white man, who asked what she should do when her husband's friends made derogatory racial comments. Dr Laura told the woman that she had "a chip on her shoulder" and advised: "Listen to a black comic and all you hear is 'Nigger, nigger, nigger' … If you're that hypersensitive about colour and don't have a sense of humour, don't marry out of your race." Thankfully, there was a public outcry. What was Palin's view? "Dr Laura, don't retreat… reload!"

<snip>

This strategy was perfectly explained in a 1981 interview with the late Lee Atwater, former chair of the Republican party: "You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' – that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced bussing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites … 'We want to cut this' is much more abstract than even the bussing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'nigger, nigger'."

You might also want to look at the text of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. These are referred to as "The Reconstruction Amendments," enacted after the Civil War. The Thirteenth Amendment declares that "slavery or involuntary servitude shall not exist within the United States." The Fourteenth Amendment grants citizenship to anyone born within the United States and the Fifteenth concerns voting rights. The Tea Party document referenced objects to all three, although the public rhetoric of the Tea Party usually only mentions their opposition to the Fourteenth.

[felix_numinous]

9. Excellent article.

Tea partiers want to rescind the 14th amendment? OK I admit it, when Barack Obama became President, I had no idea there was still this much racism left in the country. I would love to know their REAL numbers and demographics.

These people have no sane leader at this time, although since they seem to have endless cash, their defeat must be a high priority!! >Out with the racist nutbags!!!<

[onlyadream]

19. True- no real leader yet

get a guy like Hitler in there and it's 1939 all over again. This really scares me. My family tells me that I'm reading too much into this, that I shouldn't concern myself with what's going on. But the saying that "Freedom isn't free, you have to pay attention" rings true here, and it rings loudly. Did the average German person ever imagine what was going to happen at the hands of Hitler and his followers?

[KamaAina]

10. That's right up there with the cranks who think the 16th Amendment (income tax) was never ratified

so they don't pay their taxes, and eventually end up in jail. Some of them got to Wesley Snipes. He stopped paying his taxes. He went to jail.

[MedicalAdmin]

11. My brother in law tells me this every time we talk.

I honestly don't know. Was it ratified by "the books." I've tried wiki and google and talking to a few lawyers and still can't figure it out. If anyone has a link I can send on I would love you forever.

[KamaAina]

13. Sometimes ya gotta dig a little deeper in Wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_protester_Sixteenth_Amendment_arguments

Tax protester Sixteenth Amendment arguments are assertions that the imposition of the U.S. federal income tax is illegal because the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was never properly ratified, or that the amendment provides no power to tax income. Proper ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment is disputed by tax protesters who argue that the quoted text of the Amendment differed from the text proposed by Congress, or that Ohio was not a State during ratification. Sixteenth Amendment ratification arguments have been rejected in every court case where they have been raised and have been identified as legally frivolous.

Some protesters have argued that because the Sixteenth Amendment does not contain the words "repeal" or "repealed", the Amendment is ineffective to change the law. Others argue that due to language in Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co., the income tax is an unconstitutional direct tax that should be apportioned (divided equally amongst the population of the various states). Several tax protesters assert that the Congress has no constitutional power to tax labor or income from labor, citing a variety of court cases. These arguments include claims that the word "income" as used in the Sixteenth Amendment cannot be interpreted as applying to wages; that wages are not income because labor is exchanged for them; that taxing wages violates individuals' right to property, and several others. Another argument raised is that because the federal income tax is progressive, the discriminations and inequalities created by the tax should render the tax unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law. Such arguments have been ruled without merit under contemporary jurisprudence; evading taxes is a serious criminal offense.

:tinfoilhat:

[TBF]

14. "We?" Speak for yourself, maroon. nt

[Kablooie]

15. So besides limiting citizenship...

they want to allow prevention of voting based on race and they want slavery to be made legal again.

Well, there you go.

It sounds like the futile endgame flailings from members of a dead and gone past.

[butterfly77]

16. Everytime,I see one of these articles..

and I read about how the author is so surprised about racism or people post that they didn't realize that many were racists,I wonder how in the hell could you not know.

It was going on during the primaries but everyone tried to pretend it wasn't there,you could tell from all of the commentaries and talking heads who just could not explain what was going on.They sit on television and tell us what many of the teabaggers aren't racist when it is clearly right in our faces and they exoect us to shut up and go along woth the program.

What is/has been going on for decades is: a country full of every race.culture and ethnicity but some have it in there head from growing up watching "Leave it to beaver and Father knows best" that the country was all white,because that is all they saw where they lived.

They tried to run from it they just can get over the fact that whole world is not just caucasian...

[mimisees]

17. Agreed

I was shocked when my mom was for the tea party. I was like how did I come out of that same womb...but they have tactics that really know how to sink it. All we can do is get the Democrats to vote and not be lazy...let's not lose like we did in Massachusetts

[The Wizard]

18. Ku Klux Klan

I've seen them up close.