While I definitely agree not all Tea Party/anti-Obama people are racist, I think racists constitute far more than a “tiny fringe” of the movement.
See post #35. The problems the NAACP et al. complain about still exist in America – you know they won’t get solved unless someone keeps up the pressure, and if the NAACP et al. don’t do that, who will?
:dubious: This is a whoosh, right?
You’ll be pleased to know that Carl “HORSE PORN” Paladino has spent $1.7 million on his quixotic attempt to be governor of the State of New York.
$1.6 million of that money has been his own.
You know what they say about those who are soon parted from their money…
The one thing I never doubted about Paladino was his willingness to put his money where his mouth is. He’s pledged to spend $10 million of his own money for this run.
I’d actually love to see someone win against the Anointed One for Governor. I just would prefer that it be someone smart enough (according to his own defense) not to blindly forward racist imagery. I know, a totally unreasonable expectation, but I never claimed to be reasonable.
OK, let’s assume that, as OtakuLoki opines above, “It’s not simply a lunatic fringe of the Tea Party. It’s a lot more central than that.”
What could be better news for Tea Party opponents? Does anyone think there are many more explosive charges than that of overt racism in the U.S. political spectrum? Who, apart from the actual racists, would support such an organization? Wouldn’t this statement, if true, relegate the Tea Party to a John Birch Society-like status as richly deserving political pariahs?
In other words – if true, it would seem the problem would take care of itself.
Only fools and horses?
Oh, I’m sure the Tea Party will take care of itself. The think is, even the Birchers had a few years of being taken seriously.
And I will also quote an unlikely source I agree with:
This assumes I’m actually satisfied with the opponents to the Tea Party as being bastions of effective governance.
This is not a reflection of reality.
I’m in NY. We’re about 110 days late for the state budget. With all the resulting chaos that imposes down the line as local jurisdictions work to try to figure their own budgets without a clear answer about how much state aid they can count upon. I have taken to calling the state legislature a bunch of kleptocrats, because IMSNHO they’re taking salaries without actually providing work for it. As an example, the rat-fucking bastards are on recess all this week, and have been since before the Fourth of July holiday. With the goddamned budget getting later every day.
Of course, the electorate is being assured that the budget is a priority for our kleptocrats.
Which party controls both houses of the state legislature? The Democrats. Which party controlled both branches of the Legislature last year when they passed the budget last year that set us up for the massive defict we’ve got, now? The Democrats. Which party took time out from their busy debates about how to close the nearly $10 billion deficit to vote meaningless reform bills in each house of the legislature that don’t have any provision for a matching bill from the other house? The Democrats. Not that the Republicans are a whit better, the bastards last year had a leadership battle with a couple of turn-coat Democratic Senators who felt that they had to act to protect the state from their colleagues. What was the issue that got them up in such fervor? Was it the no-debate budget that got passed last year that upped spending by 8% while revenues dropped by some $20 billion dollars? No. The rat-fucking assholes were concerned about the possibility of SSM.
I don’t trust either major political party here in NY. They’re both concerned solely about lining their pockets, and maintaining their power. To the detriment of the state as a whole.
I’d love to see viable third parties affecting how the issues are framed in public debate, and especially given the idiots with a sense of entitlement for themselves, or their candidates (Yes, I’m looking at you, Andrew Cuomo, Caroline Kennedy, and all your supporters in the press.) currently infesting our political environment. I’d love to see third parties start shaking up the political calculations by putting people into office in the legislature.
Which is what particularly infuriates me when the Tea Party is willing to use its influence to support someone like Carl Paladino, and then claim that the racists are a fringe part of the movement. I’m stuck with their asshole, or an asshole from one of the major parties, even if he or she is on a minor party ballot line. Which leaves me the choice of supporting the current clusterfuck, or voting for someone whom I believe has proven himself to be a racist, sexist idiot and asshole.
That I believe the Tea Party likely to go the way of the Birchers doesn’t change that I believe, now, it’s going to be a few years in doing that.
It also depends upon the electorate paying attention to old news, not just what the pundits are saying this week. Before this challenge from the NAACP came out all the local stories I’d seen about the Tea Party were framing their references to it as being beleaguered with a racist fringe. If the racist fringe is represented with one of your candidates for state-wide office, it’s not properly a fringe, dammit.
You win the thread.
What, black people can vote now so everything is peachy?
Racism still exists, bub. For example, minorities are more likely to receive custodial sentences than whites, and to serve longer ones when they do. As a white male, it is the height of fucking arrogance for you to believe your opinion on the NAACP counts for shit. Is it a pefect organization? Hardly. Do we need it. Yep.
Well, since the Tea Parties are all largely independent, quite a bit more, since I’ve heard only a couple of leaders say it and there are hundreds of TP groups.
Not really. After the civil rights movement, during times of prosperity in the U.S. overt racism would indeed doom a politician or organization; covert racism, however, has been persistent (and, during times of economic strife, can become explicit once more).
Following the election of Obama, pundits joyously proclaimed the end of racism, even as others pointed to the emergence of “racism 2.0”.
Well, it seems like the John Birch Society has been welcomed back into mainstream conservatism, so…that’s an interesting analogy.
Nobody’s looked at the best line yet.
He has since edited that out of his blog. He’s not racist at all.
Of course, he’s not a spokesman for the Tea Party, because the Tea Party has no spokesmen. It’s just a bunch of people who think alike about small government and lowering taxes.
What I love and that’s barely been addressed is Williams’ lumping of the NAACP with It’s time groups like the NAACP “with all the other vile racist groups that emerged in our history”, as if the NAACP was founded for the same reasons as the KKK (either founding- 1860s or 1910s), the Aryan Nations, or the American Nazi Party, or even the Nation of Islam (which while no less crazy or openly racist perhaps is nowhere near as diaboloical to the innocent or openly violent as the others named). This is the biggest “the fuck? What the fuck what the fuck?” part of his commentary imo and one of the most racist things I’ve ever read that was associated with the Tea Parties. REGARDLESS OF HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT THE MODERN DAY NAACP, it simply does not invite comparison to groups that were born, matured, and specifically and explicitly designed for racist agendas- it’s like comparing AARP to al-Qaeda, it simply doesn’t work.
My own opinion of the NAACP is similar to my opinions of the ACLU- I don’t always agree with them and they sometimes do things that make my eyeballs roll but I generally think the nation and its most vulnerable people are one helluva lot better off for their existence than they would be without them, plus they get beaucoup bonus points for pissing off all the right people.
And in other news Michele Bachmann is starting a House Tea Party Caucus.
I would love for somebody more A-V adept than I am to make a fanvideo of Michelle Bachmann to the tune of FYC’s She Drives Me Crazy, only with the refrain She’s Bat-Shit Crazy.
IF ONLY! No, if the assholes aren’t called on their racism every step of the way, it will go like it did in the Reagan Revolution*: They’re repackage their racism in ways that make it sound mainstream and superficially reasonable, and they’ll get away with it.
- And, yes, you are an idiot if you think African-Americans are better off now than they would be if the Reagan Revolution had never happened.
Alright, I stand corrected: those are the biggest “What the Fuck” racist stupid and crazy statement he’s made.
Wonder if there will be a maximum IQ qualification test.
They’ll need to measure the hat size first.
Sorry, but where has Bricker called for the dissolution of the NAACP? In this thread, he’s stated that he agrees entirely with their message on this issue.
You, and some others in this thread, are taking it for granted that the NAACP is actually “keeping up the pressure” or otherwise advancing equality. It does neither. It’s as ineffectual as a street preacher. You won’t catch me making those claims about the ACLU, for instance. At least they’re actually making a difference in the world, whether you agree with them or not. NAACP? Not so much.
Those are independent statements. Rand Rover is correct. So is Bricker. That doesn’t mean I think those two have the same stance.