In this entry, after examining its associations, I begin making a comparison between the Tea Douche-bag Parody of 2009 and the Boston Tea Party of 1773, what then leads me to my answer to a deceptive piece of reporting about Obama’s recent speech on the economy. Actually the 2009 parody’s seeking of legitimacy through their misuse of the Boston Tea Party of 1773 should have already backfired since the very beginning had somebody checked what the Boston Tea Party of 1773 was really about.
Then I post a short opinion about gay marriage and bow to a demand for pictures in my section. Even though as a liberal I cannot reduce my entries to 12-word slogans, I finish this entry, as a token of flexibility with respect to the criticism I have received about too many words and no pictures, with a picture.
I. Supported by Fixed News (a.k.a. Fox News), Boss Limbaugh, newspapers like The Examiner and by the Republican Party, which usually alleges to have national security as its first priority, and amid accusations of fascism, anti-Patriotism, and anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim slogans, warnings against child slavery and white slavery, accusations of socialism (understood as any situation in which any kind of income taxation or regulation is even thought), calls to burn books (specially of science, including, I guess the dictionaries who dare to give a definition of socialism not approved by the lunacy of this group), alarm about evolution and brain-washing colleges, anti-abortion and anti-immigration screams, survivalist-style calls to not pay income-taxes, calls to tax the poor and to stop what they consider "wasteful spending," and photocompositions picturing Obama as Hitler and Mao, the Tea Douche-bag Parody made yesterday its bizarre demonstrations nationwide. We could even see recently one of its leaders making a diagnosis of the present crisis: it is the result of a communist plot born in the 1950s that had supposedly sown sleeper cells in the government and the civil population only to now take over the government... through the popular vote with a margin of about 10 million votes in November of 2008.
Furthermore, as soon as a memo of the Department of Homeland Security about many the groups surrounding the parody of 2009 was known, many of its supporters automatically complained against the concern of the government with far right groups and called it an attempt to silence the Tea Douche-bag Parody. The leaders of the bizarre manifestation, when given the opportunity to explain why Obama was fascist, they declared that Obama was a fascist because he was a fascist and always sought legitimacy by comparing themselves with the Boston Tea Party of 1773.
Nevertheless, this far right catharsis and its sponsors have not taking into account that:
- Even though the association of groups even farthest at the right than the Tea Douche-bag Parody with the Tea Douche-bag Parody is not a reason to suppress this bizarre demonstration, it cannot be a reason to take those extremists groups lightly. When far right calumnists (Not "columnists"; i.e., David Brooks is a conservative columnist; on the other hand, Boss Limabaugh is a calumnist) decried the Department of Homeland Security memo warning of the activity of right-wing groups as an attack against the Tea Douche-bag Parody, they willingly ignore that these groups prey in the anguish and uncertainty accompanying recessions and in the ignorance and fear of those who find a reason for unrest in the election of a black president. The experience of Nazism and other far right wing groups show that times of recession and potential change are particularly fruitful in the recruitment for these groups, in both their soft form (White Supremacist groups led or influenced by Willis Carto and David Duke in one end and Buchanan, Roy Beck and Tom Tancredo on the other end) and their hard form (Timothy McVeigh and Robert Mathews’s the Order).
Perhaps trying to avoid similar results to those gotten by Bernard Goldberg, Roy Beck
(http://www.numbersusa.com/content/learn/about-us/no-immigrant-bashing/no-immigrant-bashing.html) has made a call to persecute and asphyxiate illegal immigrants humanely.
Also Dana Milbank (Homo Politicus, New York, 2008; pp. 118-119) reminds us why certain messages result so appealing for certain groups. In February 2006 Tancredo gave a speech on the Capitol grounds to the Minutemen, with the support of the American Nazi Party and in September of 2006 a Tancredo’s speech to the U.S. Immigration Reform PAC and the Council of Conservative Citizens also found the sponsorship of the South Carolina League of the South, which favors Southern secession and opposes equal rights, which gave him a podium draped in the Confederate flag in a room full of Confederate relics.
Talking about secession, another message present in this bizarre manifestation, Rick Perry, former Karl Rove protégée and governor of Texas, has suggested his state to secede from the Union, so demonstrating that Glenn Beck is not the only one inhabitant of his solipsistic world.
When these dangerous associations end up in deaths, you know you will see the Bill O’Reillys calling the killers "nuts" even though they had previously labeled as persecution the Department of Homeland Security memo warning about these extremist far right groups and, of course, they will not ask the Tea Douche-bag Parody to denounce these groups as they demand Muslim groups to denounce al-Qaeda and Hezbollah daily.
Finishing with the immigration side of this paranoia, I must mention the contribution of another Daily Kos contributor, LatinoDem, who has already shown the link between these groups surrounding the Tea Douche-bag Parody and white supremacist sponsors in his entry "Immigration ‘experts’ tied to white supremacist" (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/4/13/103356/549). I’ll leave the anti-abortion and anti-child slavery charges to other contributors/psychiatrists.
- The real Boston Tea Party of 1773 actually bears little resemblance with the Tea Douche-bag Parody of 2009. While the real one of 1773 objected to the British Tea Act because they believed it was their constitutional right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives; the parody of 2009 objects any tax, no matter the source. While the real one of 1773 risked their members’ skins to the British reprisals, the parody of 2009 is persecuted by nobody.
Nevertheless, what is really annoying is that the parody of 2009 pretends to reduce the real one of 1773 to a bunch of jackasses whose shenanigans were directed to save them some bucks in taxes, for which they hid behind impressive but empty declarations about freedom, justice and other values.
With respect to the reason of the Boston Tea Party of 1773 to subvert against the British Tea Act, the belief that they could only be taxed by their own elected representatives (like Obama, elected in general elections in November of 2008), this reason is also present in the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776. Among the complaints against the King of England, the Declaration includes:
"For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent"
Making a small digression, actually, among the complaints against the King of England is also his restrictive immigration policy "He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands" but the supporters of the parody of 2009 conveniently then say this is not relevant today using an also convenient Malthusian excuse because, guess what, they are also the only authorized official interpreters of the real Boston Tea Party of 1773, even against the express words of the Boston Tea Party of 1773.
Thus, while the real Boston Tea party of 1773 risked their members’ skins for the principle to be taxed only by their elected representatives, in a very delicate moment for the nation the supporters of the parody of 2009 rise allegedly to save themselves some bucks in taxes not matter the tax policy of the legitimately elected representatives and the danger in which their delirious demands could put nation into. Worse, different from the real Boston Tea Party of 1773, whom I trust would have advocated solidarity, the Tea Douche-bag Parody, advocating selfishness, lies when implies a general tax increase as 95% of the population will actually experience a reduction and even though the other 5% will come back to the taxation levels not even of the Reagan era but to the lower levels of the Clinton era, which therefore should have been the upper level of socialism.
II. Different from the very conservative editorial line, The Examiner has always impressed me with a clean reporting. The exception was Julie Mason’s report on the recent Obama’s speech on the economy (http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Obama-continues-to-send-mixed-messages-on-economy_04_15-
43004252.html) in which her bias or her ignorance about economic themes made her say that Obama had sent "mixed messages" on the economy. Why is this important? Because the less bizarre flag of the Douche-bag Parody, and so the one it uses to pretend to be a grassroots movement, is its opposition to wasteful spending and because ‘Fixed News’, as well as The Examiner, has supported this bizarre demonstration showing this more presentable face of the parody of 2009. Notwithstanding this bizarre group’s right to dissent and demonstrate, this parody should honor the real Boston Tea Party of 1773 not inviting the American people to sabotage their elected representatives by stop filing tax returns just because the tax policy of the elected representatives is not of its like. Instead, it should imitate the selfishness of those who risked their skins in solidarity with the rest of the nation while the members of the parody of 2009 don’t want to open their purses to contribute with the health of the nation. Had the real Boston Tea Party opposed the tax and/or spending policy of the elected representatives, it would have elected different representatives in the next elections instead of conspiring against those same elected representatives.
Nevertheless, one point remains: This group considers wasteful the spending that, in a very limited band-aid approach, is not strictly directed to a very short term stimulus. Is this responsible? To answer this, let me repeat the answer I posted in a rush in the same Web page where Julie Mason posted her misguided reporting:
"Come on, guys! Is this reporting or your editorial opinion? It is true that Obama didn't say many new things (just that they had considered but discarded to manage toxic assets without private participation but without giving enough reasons. He also gave an update of the advances in the credit market but not giving enough numbers), but I don't see the contradictions. What he is describing is the turning point of the crisis, in which economic indicators may behave inconsistently. As you should know, unemployment is a lagging variable. It is important that the President explained to the people the reasons behind his plan: you have to invest in education, health care and infrastructure if you want to improve your projected cash inflow and you have to cut unnecessary spending in imaginary heavy weaponry wars. Also he explained that we need to get into a path of higher savings and exports, what will imply a more modest domestic consumption but a more sustainable growth. Didn't you notice all this?
No serious projection could ignore the main financial challenges it will have to face: 1. bottlenecks: entitlements (Social Security and Medicare) and oil declining supply; 2. conditions: need to regulate the financial markets in order to create an environment where economic agents can project their cash flows instead of a jungle where crooks can swindle those who believe in the market; 3. Improve cash outflow: cut unnecessary spending in unlikely wars, use the market to reduce overpriced health care-related supply, etc.; 4. Improve cash inflow: improve education and infrastructure to increase our competitiveness; 5. Find a savings rate that makes that projected growth sustainable. To stimulate the economy ignoring these facts is ludicrous. What a communist agenda! Right?"
III. I didn’t want to finish this entry without mentioning an issue to which Rolandz (http://www.dailykos.com/user/uid:70194) has given more thought then me: gay marriage. I do support the 4 states’ and probably DC’s steps to legalize gay marriage. I, who have condemned the persecution of illegal immigrants, cannot avoid supporting gays and lesbians, who finally are finding some justice amid the insanity and prejudice of the right. I don’t need to be gay to see the justice of not stigmatizing people due to sexual orientation despite their character, as gays or straights don’t need to be immigrants to not blame those immigrants guilty of having been born in the wrong family or country despite their character.
What is really bizarre in the debate about gay marriage is that the anti-gay activists say to defend the traditional marriage meaning the secular marriage, created by the same Napoleon who did so to take power from the Church and was even considered the anti-Christ in his times, but immediately give religious arguments taken from isolated parts of the Bible as if somebody was demanding that their churches perform gay marriages. Besides that, how many real heterosexual marriages have been destroyed because somewhere else two gays or lesbians decide to find happiness joining their lives in a secular marriage? Maybe only Glenn Beck, who publicly has said that the real intention of pro-gay activists is to perform gay marriages in Christian churches, can give that number. Proof of that number? The voices in his head told him so.
Finally, bowing to the frequent complaints of some of the 10 people who still visit my section about too many words, too long paragraphs, too many pages and no pictures, this time I am including a picture.