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Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Don't believe the hype: Teabaggers are GOPers

Posted by Chris Haire on Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 8:52 AM

Driving into work yesterday, I was listening to The Morning Buzz with Richard Todd. I don't do this as much as I did in the months leading up to the presidential election. Since then, the normally right-neutral Todd has veered a little further onto the partisan propaganda off-ramp for my tastes, but he's still one of the most level-headed of talk radio hosts around. He still allows his guests to speak and he still disagrees with the GOP overlords. And that's a good thing.

But here's what's not a good thing: Continuing to try to portray the Tea Party phenom as anything but a movement of pissed off right-wingers, mainly Republicans. Come election time, the vast majority of these folks will vote for the GOP, while a few anti-establishment types will cast their ballots in favor of a fringe Xian group like the Constitution Party or the also-ran Libertarians. You know it, I know, we all know it.

That said, hosts like Todd, congressmen like Jim DeMint, and many a Teabagger will claim that the Tea Party movement is not partisan, but anti-government. Fine. But, as we know, of the two major parties, only one has oxymoronically portrayed itself as, um, "anti-goverment" for 30 years or so, and that's the GOP. Rightly or wrongly, the Dems are a big government-loving party — the Republicans, not so much, at least when it comes to rhetoric. (The other parties are minor leaguers in a major league world; they simply aren't a part of the debate, no matter how vocal they may be from time to time.)

So come on, guys, lay off the BS. The Tea Party movement is partisanship politics at its best. And I mean that sincerely.

Topics: National Politics

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The tea bagger movement is not a non-partisanship movement. Look at who is leading it. Tea Party movement is controlled by Freedom Works. Freedom Works is head by Dick Armey a former republican congressman. He is anything but non-partisan. Fox news is the main drive behind tea party events. Fox News isn't a non-partisan news agency. The main finacial supporter of this movement at the moment is the health insurance industry. Maybe when the tea bag movement first began there was some non-partisanship to it. But it has been taken over and is now run by far right republican lobbying groups. Do some research as to who is leading this and where the money is coming from. Don't be fooled into thinkng this is grass roots. Sorry, it is all being orchastrated by republican lobbying groups. And they have embraced the fringe elements. You cann't be a tea bagger and not be associated with the fringe wing nuts. They are the most vocal and visible of your group. And I mean that sincerely

Posted by Charlestowne on September 16, 2009 at 10:17 AM | Report this comment
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I think that Tea Party is just showing how afraid the left-wing nuts are of real people. What a shame that Obama run NBC, CBS, ABC has no guts to show the mass of people in Washington this past weekend peacefully demonstrating their views. A shame.

Posted by DOWN HOME on September 16, 2009 at 11:12 AM | Report this comment

Chris is not entirely wrong here. The worst aspect of the tea party movement is to the extent that it is pure GOP partisanship or worse - being co-opted by the Republican Party.

Chris is not entirely right, either. The best aspect of the tea party movement is that it is full of middle class Americans who traditionally vote Republican but are as fed up with what Bush left behind as they are with Obama's agenda. There's a good reason most Republican politicians are afraid to show their faces at these events. Pols like Jim DeMint are accepted - and rightly so - because they have been consistent in their anti-government message, even during the Bush years (except on foreign policy, which is a whole other debate).

It is also worth noting that there exists a significant libertarian contingent that did not vote for McCain or Obama in the ranks of the "teabaggers" (liberals' favorite descriptive term for the obvious reasons).

BTW American Left - Obama is keeping intact the PATRIOT Act and expanding our efforts in Afghanistan. Didn't he put his name on the map as the anti-war, pro-civil liberties candidate? Where in the hell is this "change" we keep hearing about?

Posted by Jack Hunter on September 16, 2009 at 11:54 AM | Report this comment

The war Bush started in Afganistan was legitimate. That is where the 9/11 attack was planned and staged. But Bush decided to ignore Afganistan and start a needless war in Iraq. President Obama campaigned to bring the war in Iraq to an end but bring the war back to Afganistan where we should have been the last 8 years. It might be over by now if Bush would have persude it. President Obama is keeping parts of the Patriot Act. But let's see how it is implimented and what safe guards are added. It is difficult to dismantle everything a previous administration did as wrong headed as it might have been. You can't undo 8 years of turmoil in 8 months. Wait and see what develops over time. I think you will find change we can believe in and you won't acknowledge

Posted by Charlestowne on September 16, 2009 at 3:28 PM | Report this comment

Say down Home, are the "real people" the ones with the Nazi signs or the ones carrying guns to rallies? Are the "real people " only white? Are those the same "real americans" Sarah Palin was talking to. The ones yelling hate and death threats? We are afraid of these 'Real Americans" because they seem to express the worst of America instead of it's best. Instead of honest debate they show hateful and racist tendencies. Read the comments your fellow "Real Americans" make on sites such as these. Listen to the deathers, birthers,10thers,that are part of your "Real Americans" Listen to the people with their Nazi signs and others with vitrol language which have nothing to do with the debate at hand. Who is leading the "Real Americans"? What person is at it's head? Funny isn't it, no name comes to mind because Dick Armey's Freedom Works lobbying organizaton is at the lead. Their main finances don't come from the 'Real Americans" but from insurance, drug and other groups who have a financial stake in this. Do you think they care about the "Real Americans"? You have legitimate concerns but you are being used by corprate intrests. That is what scares us. Americans being duped to act against their best intrests by greedy corporations and not even knowing it.

Posted by Charlestowne on September 16, 2009 at 3:54 PM | Report this comment

Where were some of these Teabaggers when BUSH lied us into a multi-trillion dollar war??? http://www.buzzfeed.com/5trokerac3/what-te…

http://www.moronswithsigns.blogspot.com/

Closer to home, here's a look at some folk up in Raleigh (click the link and look at the second photograph in the multimedia gallery):
http://blogs.newsobserver.com/multi/first-…
Also, photo number 3. Clearly aged hand, undoubtedly a Medicare recipient, holding a sign saying "Goverment Hands Off My Healthcare!" Gotta love that one.



Posted by militarywife on September 16, 2009 at 7:49 PM | Report this comment

If the Republican Party had indeed become the party of the right wing "teabaggers" and proud of it, be forewarned, "you cannot expect to organize the village, nor would want to live in the village that has been built to suit the villiage idiots." Republicans beware whom you allow to lead your party and in what direction they take you, because I have a hunch the Glen Becks, Rush Limbaugh's, Dick Armey's and even the Joe Wilson's don't intend to live in the village they are creating. They don't need the village jobs, or a break on the health insurance. Dick Armey has stated more than once he wants to get rid of medicare and social security. Once they get what they want, i.e., power and wealth, these guys will leave the village, the villagers and the idiots to sink or swim.

Posted by shirl2121 on September 16, 2009 at 11:01 PM | Report this comment

I don't see what the big deal is about these "teabaggers" with their homemade signs. If they are all just right wing nuts, then they will have little impact on future elections, because the last election had a record turnout and the Dems won big everywhere. If, however, they really are pissed off middle Americans, then the 2010 elections will be a watershed moment in American politics, as career bureaucrats will be thrown out in record numbers. There is no other credible excuse for the left to lose ground in the mid term elections. With complete control of both houses of congress and the white house, and two years to implement and demonstrate the efficacy of the progressive agenda, it should be easy to sell the American people on more of the same. Setting up tea baggers as a straw man to blame for the failure of the progressive agenda is both cowardly and utterly transparent. It's really no different than calling someone a racist because they disagree with the policies of a president who happens to be half white. Why doesn't the left just ram health care through right now when they have the votes, and when that policy is a "smashing" success, they can tar and feather the right wing obstructionist nuts and put an end to their relevance once and for all! With a progressive policy gun to the head of the republicans, why not pull the trigger? To quote dirty Harry, "Go ahead, make my day."

Posted by I P Yuengling on September 17, 2009 at 2:48 PM | Report this comment

Tea baggers are another great example of what Lunatics Republicans have been and are. In fact Republicans are worst than Lunatics:

What makes Republicans worst than Lunatics is that the Republican party is really composed of 2 distinct groups:

1- The Super rich and Big corporations who want to make as much money as possible, damn be the American people or anyone else if that would reduce their ability to make $400Mill per year and fly in $50Mill private Jets, and this group controls the US Media to a 99% extent.

2- Highly uneducated, untraveled, consumed by fear, consumed by anger, believers that Armageddon is coming and that in the ensuing world calamity which to their lunatic minds is good Jesus will take them to heaven in a Rapture, and other crazy's and "White Trash", who are easily brain washed by the lunatic lies of the right-wing Media to act against their own self interest and instead act for the interest of those
groups that owns most of the US Media.

So the 1% of Republicans who control the Big corporations, Big Media, are very very smart, it is just that they are controlling with lies the uneducated masses (aka White Trash that listens to Rush, Beck, etc.) who are truly lunatics to fall for and in fact live these lies.

4 sake of this post not getting 2 long here, U can read the full text of it here:
http://www.anoox.com/blog/real_news.articl…

Posted by RealNews on September 17, 2009 at 5:44 PM | Report this comment

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