Can someone link me the video where the “n-word” was being chanted or of the spitting? If it existed, it would be playing on television 24 hours a day. But whether it actually happened doesn’t matter to those who find it convienient and are doing thier best to repeat it enough so that it becomes part of the narrative.
From the video I saw, at least two people in the slow stately march of the Congressional Black Caucus through the hostile crowd were carrying cameras but apparently came up dry. I’m sure they were praying for something of that nature to happen so they could revel in playing the martyr and try to equate themselves with those who truly suffered 50 years ago. And yes, I know John Lewis was beaten at Selma. He and all the others who fought for their rights back then deserve respect and a salute. That’s why it’s all the more sad to see him cheapening that sacrifice for cheap political theater. It’s also sad to see people like Sheila Jackson-Lee posturing while trying to create a “Selma moment” to further their agenda and personal “struggle” bona fides.
Video? Videos can be faked. Until I see one admit it under oath in front of live TV cameras, I will never believe that a tea partier—themselves the epitome of gentility, reason, and good grace—would *ever *stoop to making a racist or homophobic remark. It is utterly unconscionable, clearly much less likely than the whole charade being a politically-motivated conspiracy.
Both sides have people they would rather have in the background. But I think think most politically active people are savvy enough to realize that it’s not a good idea to give the opposition ammunition to use against them. I used to shoot news for a living. I know full well that people behave differently around a television camera. Lewis and the rest of the CBC were performing for it and praying that someone would do something stupid. If the tea party people are the racist idiots many of you fervently wished they were, you would have plenty of ammuntion to use by now.
How many is “all of them”? Would they benefit personally and politically from such drama?
What seems more likely to me is that they are trying to discredit their political opponents with the moderates that are fleeing them in droves. What better way to do that than to portray them as racists?
Not so much anymore. Cameras are literally everywhere. Anyone in a crowd at a political event would have to assume they were being taped.
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This is playing into the attempt to create the assumption that the tea party movement is based in racism rather than frustration over far-left political and economic policy.
The Democrat’s healthcare reform bill included a lot of originally conservative, GOP ideas. The argument that Obama is somehow a socialist doesn’t hold water for two seconds.
This wild hatred for him and his policies makes no sense without the explanation of racism. All that idiocy the tea baggers want to believe about him: Muslim, socialist, not really an American, maybe the anti-Christ: at it’s root, it’s because many of these people cannot stand a man with dark skin being in charge.
There are reasonable objections to Obama’s policies. I’ve heard a number of them on the SDMB, cogently stated by people who are clearly not racist. The tea baggers are a very, very different story. That apoplectic rage is impossible to understand on its face, until you realize how much it makes sense if the enraged tea baggers are really just basically racist. Occam’s razor.
They want to believe Obama is not really American, was really born in Kenya, is really a Muslim. They want it to justify their hate and give it the appearance of not being racist. But I’m convinced it is.
Uh, I do tell guys that show at rallies with items like that that they are idiots, but I can not tell them that they are racists, I wonder why that could be?
Yeah, I’m not so concerned about the ones that call Obama an evil despot dictator blah blah blah. But there are more than a few that attack his race, not his ‘politics’.
Oh, I agree. The one with Curious George brings to mind the association of African-Americans and monkeys that was a part of racist art. I’m not saying that the line wasn’t crossed somewhere in the thousands of signs held by thousands of people at hundreds of demonstrations. People carrying them should have been aware that carrying them takes away from the message they are trying to send because those who disagree with them will take a picture of the sign and try to tar the entire group with the racist brush.
There has been a desperation to paint the tea party people as gun-toting, violence-advocating racist idiots from the beginning…because that is what their philisophical opponents think they really are. By seizing on the actions of a very few, the attempt is made to marginalize the thousands of others.
It’s going to be a fun seven months until November. I’m going to enjoy the brave faces and the confident rhetoric of the Democrats. I’m going to enjoy pundits on the left trying to explain away the polls fortelling doom and telling me how the tea party is going to destroy the Republican party. I’m going to enjoy watching the Obama administration trying to explain why moderate Democrats don’t want him on the campaign trail this fall…and finally, I’m going to enjoy the bloodbath on election day.
The difference is, those left wing accusations are all true. The Republicans do cut taxes on the rich, they did lie the country into war, and their polices did fail disastrously.
Except that there is no “far left political and economic policy” going on here, or even a moderate left policies. What we have are as best centrist and generally moderate right wing policies being pushed by Obama; and nothing but frothing lunacy from the teabaggers. T
Please. Opposition to Obama from the Republicans from the beginning has had a strong racist tinge, including quite a bit of racist imagery. Which is to be expected, since whether you want to admit it or not the Republican party is clearly dominated by the racists, sexists, homophobes and pretty much every other k kind of bigot you can name.
Because that is exactly what they are; ignorant, lunatic thugs. The American version of Brownshirts.
You are in case you hadn’t noticed. The way to not defend them is to say something like “I condemn the racism and calls for violence” in every post where you talk about the racism and the violence and how they are giving a bad image to your party. But you don’t. Why is that?
The Republican Party, its members, its leadership and its media outlets does not condemn the whipped up hysteria, but instead take turns fomenting it. If you lay down with a pig like Limbaugh, you are going to be tarred with his constant lies and fomenting of hatred.
I’ve been curious about Airman Door’s reaction to the calls for violence as well. He’s very soothing: “It’s nothing to worry about.” I, for one, am not soothed.
