Because any time you try to whip conservative crowds into a populist, anti-librul frenzy, you’re going to attract people who are off-message at best, and lunatics at worst.
I can understand the anti-union groups trying to piggyback on the tea parties to "[spread] the word against the Employee FORCED Choice Act" – they’re the exact same people who hate upper-bracket taxes. And opposing EFCA is sort of populist, right? I mean, they’re protecting the little guy from being intimidated into joining a union where he might be forced to make more money… so he has to pay more taxes!
But the anti-EFCA people are positively benign compared to the lunatic fringe that’s planning to crash the parties. Check out the tea party YouTube at the top of this post, which is chock full of "birthers" who don’t believe Obama was born in the U.S. – and therefore do not recognize him as the rightful President Of The United States.
Or how about the ALIPAC people who are planning to "support" the parties against the organizers’ wishes? In case you’ve never heard of ALIPAC:
The [Anti-Defamation League] says that ALIPAC… is “a xenophobic anti-immigrant group…publicly branding undocumented immigrants as murderous criminals and disease carriers".
Of course, no gathering of conservatives would be complete without full-on white supremacists, who seem to think the tea parties might be their version of The Rapture:
Ladies and gentlemen, I think every WN needs to not only attend the April 15th Tea Party nearest you… but then stay involved and help provide leadership to this movement.
I believe that this is the white revolution we’ve been waiting for.
It doesn’t look what we expected but this is it.
Needless to say, they’re looking at the tea parties as a recruiting bonanza of disaffected white people pissed off at people who don’t look like them.
And the best part of all? Liberal bloggers and journalists are going to be all over the tea parties with video cameras, capturing countless precious moments of OMG-I-can’t-believe-they-just-said-that and holy-crap-what-is-wrong-with-these-people, and posting them on YouTube for all the world to see.
I predict Epic Messaging Fail tomorrow, as the conservative movement’s innate extremism will be revealed in all its foamy-mouthed glory to once again terrify everyone who isn’t crazy.




99 Comments





Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
Thanks Eli – you’ve cheered me up considerably.
Yep, nothing like being reminded that one of our two major political parties is completely batshit insane.
gawd, I hope that there is no party in Indy. Dumping tea into the White River would just aggravate the three-headed carp, getting them all caffeine-juiced and more obnoxious than usual…
Wired to the gills, as it were.
sorry.
Heya Eli!
This is such fertile Max Blumenthal ground.
I cannot wait for this art.
Digg right here!
Heya, jayt!
Max will be legion tomorrow. But yeah, I expect good things from him.
Thanks to the Newt This Post has been DUGG!
Eli !
((( NPB )))
Petro!
It’s so nice to see all these Repugs coming out of the closet finally … hmmm ? what ?!! Never Mind !
Dude … y’all have all the fun an’ all we get are mild recessions and milder Neocons !
yay 4 Epic Messaging Fail !!!111
Yeah, lucky us.
Don’t have a Cow, man !
I happen to think that Obama has been doing a pretty good job.
You know, what with being a Kenyan fascist baby-eating socialist gun-hater, intent on raising taxes by cleverly disguising them as tax cuts, and all…
Quite an assortment of Winguts. Wingnuts are dangerous bigots who live in constant fear. Bogyman fear.
Here is a link debunking some of their fears.
“David Shuster: GOP “Going Nuts” For Teabagging, But They “Need A Dick Armey”"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..86815.html
Bin Laden and his boys will think the U.S. of A. has gone truly potty !
I think these guys were at that party in the video.
If Obama wasn’t racist, he would have gotten a White Dog ! /s
Jim ! How’s the young ‘un ?
I’ve been hearing of Tea Baggers all day and thinking of Eric, John & the others with their version of it …
Eli, thanks for this post! So looking forward to the fail.
Hey, don’t laugh. Twenty bucks says it will be raised.
OK, go ahead and laugh.
And if he were really an American, he would have gotten an *American* Water Dog.
Next thing you know, he’ll be filling the Garden with Spanish Roses …
McCow!!!111
i scraped my old web dir when i finally dumped my old mac. so… no’mo McCow ;’(
Can I interest you in Fauve Kali?
bastard! At least he could have named it Bruce…
The foal turned three months old yesterday. I need to take some new pictures. She’s a real charmer…
Some peeps from the left are also falling into the trap. Despite telling everyone about his kid’s allergic condition, they’re still up in arms about why he couldn’t take a Dog from a shelter …
I thought that Brazil had Portugese Roses….
WOW … that is brilliant !
But but the Dog has White gloves on his front paws… doesn’t that count?? I mean he has two colors Black & White… Just Like Obama!
Allergies are all in your head.
Let’s ask Tom Brady …
BTW, Barack is going to Trinidad & Tobago with Hillary … any bets on who will be on the Beach at midnight, smoking Mary Janes ?
you better or else
I’m calling it RainBo™, on account o’ that colorful Lei.
ROFL !!! I have to remember that one.
((( sadlyyes )))
Not always Newt… asthma (airway constriction) is caused by allergies..
Who painted these ?
:D tx
so, not to digress too far but some of the nuttier wings i heard over the last month was that obama was going to allow other counties to vote. I still don’t understand. These three guys onj a crew i was working on was all up-in-arms about obama letting other countries have vote over out own. it simply still doesn’t make sense to me.
Remember how Kerry was supposedly going to give the UN veto power over our government?
Wha?! You didn’t know i was fdl’s dead beat artist in residence ?!
O/T — but GREAT NEWS, re dick cheney,
out of the federal courthouse in denver, tonight:
dick will now be deposed,
and stand civil trial, as early as
september 11, 2009 (check irony of
the date!), for arresting steven
howards in beaver creek, colorado, in
2006 — when howards told the veep that
he disagreed with the administration’s
policies in iraq. his personal remarks,
to the veep — who was doing a public
meet-and-greet, were deemed cause for
arrest.
my, how times have changed. dick will
likely settle with howards before trial, now.
namaste
na, tbh i had to advert my eyes for that election.
Yes of course, it all makes sense now … get those darned Euro-peens and Ay-shuns to vote with the Africans and voila … Mugabe will run America For Evvah !!!
my petPETRO
Hillary’s not really a stoner; it was originally prescribed during the course of marital counseling.
That stoned-laugh of hers has to be a buzz-kill, I’d think….
Sorry I was a little slow … too much MSG in the food or something. You’re an amazing talent !
JEEBUS
We’ve already had eight years of preparation.
G
MUHAHAHAHAHAhAhahaha
I’ve been on the comp for 13 hours straight … time to give my eyes a rest and watch a movie on my big Plasma TeeVee ! *g*
Have a great night, y’all and enjoy tomorrow’s party !
Rightwingers warn against DHS extremism.
Goodnight. Don’t step on any discarded teabags tomorrow!
fixed
NITE PETRO
I linked to Neiwert’s great post about that: DHS talks about right-wing extremists, and the conservatives immediately take it personally.
Funny, that.
I’ve been working on some preparatory studies for a piece in the fauve kali series. The subject is ‘Breath.’ A subject, that I assume, would interest you. I should send you one of the studies.
Krugman: ’Right-wing billionaires…manufactured’ tea parties
David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster
Published: Tuesday April 14, 2009
In spite of President Barack Obama’s middle-class tax cuts — swooping rates to well below those of President Ronald Reagan — some persist in the belief that Obama is ”the taxingist taxing taxer in all the taxing history of taxes,” joked MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Monday night.
Playing off a Sunday op-ed by New York Times economist Paul Krugman, Maddow touched on the issue of ”AstroTurf” in the tea parties, which Krugman suggested are in-part ”manufactured” by ”right-wing billionaires.”
great Work!
Now I am getting scared about my reporting job tomorrow in Sac. Shit fire boys, what if they yell at me or something.
I think it’s a damned shame that the Thugs have to spoil everything for all of us. Now they’re going to go and ruin tea.
yell back. lily livered cowards will turn tail and run
after tomorrow, these people who go teabaggin’ because their against _______________ (fill in blank)are gonna see their e-mail boxes fillin’ up with stuff from groups they never heard of and may not even like or care about and that’ll put an end to their fling with citizen activism
Yell back and bring rotten eggs for defense /s
boo!
This could be fun. I am taking my camera and my notepad. I am going to wear a hat with a piece of paper in the brim.
I remember that from old movies. And I am going to have my secret FDL super t-shirt on under my other nondescript clothing.
hey soooze. long time.
but what should mary yell at ‘em??
PIRATES ATTACK US SHIP WITH ROCKETS, AUTOMATIC WEAPONS… NO ONE INJURED… SHIP DAMAGED BUT UNDER US NAVY ESCORT
Yeah the Navy to the rescue!!
do you know what tea bagging means?
down a couple quick Miller’s before you go. with some left over eggs from Easter. Beer farts are a good defense. Actually, pretty offensive. trust me on this.
that was to bfl at 68
can’t be doin’ this twice every week, though. i don’t think.
oh.
I hear that the answer sucks….
They are trying.. iirc they hijacked 4 other ships this week already.. it is only Tuesday!!
sorry, that was my suggestion what mary should yell back
wonder what they’ll yell back. we’ll find out tomorrow. i’m gonna look up my town. think there’s one here. maybe i’ll stroll down at lunch.
right. i gotcha. no need to ’splain.
good suggestion too. wonmder how many can answer. correctly.
Mary, I was thinking of getting a Mad Hatter or March Hare outfit and heading down there…but some of my students have to take belated midterms. But I might be able to go down after 3 PM and lend some moral support.
Drive by …
Mary, found out I have to work tomorrow :(
If I can weasel my way away early I’ll try to call you or try meet you there. Since it might rain I’ll wear my green and white windbreaker and white Kings hat (so you can spot me)
Say Hi to Ron
You could put a tag in it that says “In this style, 10/6″
http://www.cssplay.co.uk/opacity/teaparty.jpg
They’d probably think it was a reference to a biblical verse!
hey. lookie. central FL tea baggers are, like, do-gooders
We ask attendees to bring canned goods, non-perishable food or personal hygiene items to donate to a local homelss outreach center. The purpose for this is to send the message to our politicians that we the people do NOT need government to expand their charity business and that we can take care of the needs of our community from within the community.
Items needed include canned goods, non-perishable food items, toothpaste, shaving cream, razors, brushes, combs, deodorant, toothbrushes, handtowels, over-the-counter medications, etc.
gee. collectin’ shaving cream. great idea. who needs a safety net?
the party here doesn’t start until 6 pm. i’ll be home by then.
looked at the website. they have 10 of these planned. i think the next one is 4th of july. jeez. people are sick of this shit and they haven’t had one yet. who’s gonna give a damn by the time they have 10?
I wonder how many towns and cities with tea parties will see an increase of hate attacks.
The sacramento Kings? what happened to them? i don’t follow the west that much. they used to be good.
The Sarah Palin voter was very cute and the craziness makes her even hotter.
see in my 83 how they’re asking people to bring stuff for the homeless to prove we don’t need no gummint programs for such stuff? these same people were gung-ho behind a local ordinance that prevented “group feedings” which was passed by the city council after Food Not Bombs used to feed the homeless dinner every wednesday at a park downtown. thankfully a federal court struck it down.
It’s funny that there are even homeless shelters that would NEED these items if these conservatives were adequately helping out. In fact, why would there BE Homeless Shelters. All these people would be housed in the homes of these Republicans who so believe in volunteerism…when it’s good publicity.
BTW Most Homeless Shelters receive large Federal and State Grants and would definitely not survive on charity alone.
And someone should interview the people there and ask if the donation is tax deductable, and if not, why.
lisa has late night upstairs
Most of these people come from neighborhoods and suburbs that have a deliberate policy of avoiding serving the homeless and destitute. The local police give them bus passes -one-way- down to Sacramento or San Francisco. Thus places like Sacto ends up with thousands, many staying in homeless camps as our fairly sizeable Homeless Shelter system is overloaded.
Of course they just closed that down…so now I’ve got a bunch of guys drinking and talking until 4 AM that are camped out down below my window in the alley behind my studio apartment. Thanks Mayor Johnson.
(((cinnamonape)))
wow. what a festival of smugness we have going here. this feels exactly like reading comments on a right-wing blog about one of our own events.
Because any time you try to whip […] crowds into a populist […] frenzy, you’re going to attract people who are off-message at best, and lunatics at worst.
Do the words “pot” and “kettle” bring anything to mind? Has anyone here been to, say, an anti-war rally in the last 10 years? Or as recent as the “New Way Forward” protests this last Saturday?
I’m not saying that there aren’t lunatics, or that the teabagging dick army isn’t kind of sad in its way, but geez louise….
oh Eli, so sorry I missed your thread . was coming over to give you this. huh, now I know why :D
and thanks for the reminder about David, want to hear his forecast for tomorrow – truly hope there’s nothing untoward going down, just the usual abject embarassment
The left-wing fringe is goofy; the right-wing fringe is frightening.
Heh. Thanks, cbl. I’m rooting for strictly harmless ugliness, but I can imagine all kinds of nightmare scenarios.
Comparing the current bailout plan to the original Boston tea party is absurd. These are our elected officials, not some Monarch. Using our money for different projects is what happens to taxes. Where was the tea party when our money was going to support Halliburton in Iraq?
Some need to control their intake of Fox News.
http://www.zrdavis.com
I think that we all know this…large crowds bring in groups with personal agendas and that are “off message”…or at least believe the message is different. This has been known on the left for decades. The problem, as I see it with the Tea Baggers, is that the main message IS a FRINGE and irrational one. In fact, because that theme makes no sense itself (”We are being taxed more by Obama”????) that will bring in a motley crew with other messages.
I don’t think that anyone is saying they should not have the right to peaceably protest whatever their issues are. At the same time are you saying we should not mock groups whose message is so bizarre that they represent nothing more than dis-education.
At the same time it’s not the protesting that we need to be concerned about…it’s the recruitment efforts by many well known paramilitary-type groups with more violent agendas.
And yes…I’ve been to several anti-War rallys in the last ten years. No violence at all. Mainly middle class people, rational, and vets. There were no people calling for revolution, advocating the purchase of high-powered semi-automatic weapons, or ammunition. Groups were remarkably well focussed. There were no “Pro-Choice” protestors or “Free Mumia” signs. The focus was on the war or the causal factors of the war.