Tea Party just racist?

[WAKWIB]

"No, I don't think all Tea Partiers are racist. But, I do think it has roots in racism and I'm afraid no one, especially the Tea Party folks themselves, pundits on Fox News or any other right wing talking head, will be able to give me any statistics, talking points, a nice picture of a couple of blacks or Hispanics attending a rally, numbers of signs or lack thereof, or anything else to convince me otherwise."

 

Wow...talk about being stuck with racism on the brain.

 

If you want to find that racist boogy-man you can. Just say it's there and POOF there it is.

 

 

[GernBlansten]

"The anger has been building for years. It started coming to a head under President Bush because he spent too much. "

 

NO IT DIDN'T come to a head under Bush. It came to a head after the first black man was elected president. The birth of the Teaparty happened after the election. You teapartiers would have more credibility had you expressed your anger before B. Hussein Obama took the oath of office. You cannot re-write history. Face it, had McCain won, the TeaParty would not exist.

[vol_scouter]

Wrong Gern. There were many conservatives angry about the TARP bill. It sunk McCain. Had McCain gotten elected he would not have surrounded himself with extremists and probably would not have spent money as Obama has done. If he did the same things as Obama, the Tea Party would have still been born. However, I doubt that he would have supported the health care bill. The racism and hatred that I see emanates form the left who viciously attack those who do not agree with them and call them names. This certainly applies to the way that the tea party is being treated. Polls show that Obama is well liked but his policies are not. People can vehemently disagree with Obama's policies and not be racist.

[Scoutfish]

Yeah, the anger has been there. Been there for a while. It probably has always been there to a monor extent, but I think the War in Irag turned up the heat. We were chasing Sadam in the name of stopping something Bin Laden did.

 

People were angry about so many Americans losing their lives in Iraq under the justification of WMD's that were never found and who's existance were constantly being questioned within government circles.

 

We were spending a fortune on a war that was not even related to the event that happened to us.

 

What really got alot of people's goat was this: Bush pretty much said to his constituents:

 

" If you question what I do in any way, then you are not patriotic! If you do not agree with me, then you support terrorism."

 

No, the tea party may not have been formed yet, but the anger was there.

[WAKWIB]

"Racist" is such a handy term to toss around. It always gets flung as the weapon of last resort. It's so easy to pack, and stinky, and it sticks well on your enemy.

The only problem when you fling poop is that nasty residue it leaves on your hands.

 

There are folks out there that could conjure up a lot of "evidence" (maybe real, maybe imagined, maybe both) that the BSA is a racist organization.

 

And so brothers, the same poo you threw, can come right back on you.

[packsaddle]

WAKWIB, since you mention poo, I remind you that it WAS a shameful and cowardly and racist attack on McCain in the 2000 SC primary that turned things for the Bush campaign. That was Republican on Republican and about as racist as is possible. You think any 'members' of the current Tea Party might have been involved?

[GernBlansten]

"No, the tea party may not have been formed yet, but the anger was there."

 

So, what as the tipping point? What forced the TeaParty to emerge?

You call it a simmering teapot, ready to boil.

No sign of them before Jan 20th, 2009. The TeaParty suddenly sprang up. Enraged. Outraged. Angered. Just by Obama taking the oath of office. All that penned up rage, suddenly released. What was the straw that broke the camel's back, on Jan 20th, 2009? What had Obama done besides taking the oath of office to cause such an overboil of anger? Towards him?

 

 

[WAKWIB]

pack: I have absolutely no clue of the event you are describing. Please share.

[packsaddle]

McCain had kicked butt in NH. SC was looking good for him. The Bush campaign needed SC to turn the tide. From Wikipedia: "An unidentified party began a semi-underground smear campaign against McCain, delivered by push polls, faxes, e-mails, flyers, audience plants, and the like. These claimed most famously that he had fathered a black child out of wedlock (the McCains' dark-skinned daughter Bridget was adopted from Bangladesh; this misrepresentation was thought to be an especially effective slur in a Deep South state where race was still central..."

I consider this to be especially low, even for a state like SC.

 

I blame myself for hearing and reading this kind of stuff and still giving Bush the benefit of the doubt once he was in. I was wrong. Bush denied any involvement in these slurs but he sure benefited from them. As I said, Republican on Republican. Nice.

[BrentAllen]

No, Gern, the anger started with the $700 billion financial bailout that was voted on (and failed) in September, 2008. That was what started it all. The phones in Washington were ringing off the hook from constituents telling Reps and Senators to vote against it - that's why it didn't pass. We were against the bailouts from the start, which began before Jan. 20, which began before the election on the first Tuesday in November.

 

Anyone who thinks the Tea Party is racist, or has racism at it's core, is STUPID.

 

 

[83Eagle]

Face it, had McCain won, the TeaParty would not exist.

 

You're probably right because, for one thing, there would be no ObamaCare or, for that matter, the number of other government intrusions into and downright takeovers of the private sector.

 

Face it, people see the Tea Party (of which I am not a member) the way they want to see it. People who want to see racism there will find it while ignoring the own racism of other political movements, whether that racism is manifested in the long-term results of detrimental public policy or is overtly manifested in actions such as a party's opposition to the Civil Rights movement.

 

What I find interesting is that what the Tea Party is angry about are policies and actions. What Tea Party detractors are angry about are Tea Party members themselves and their attacks are personal--whether it's individual name-calling or casting the whole movement as "racist." It really just exposes a predisposition and a shallowness of thinking. And, as such, it's hardly worth even debating it because those minds will never be changed no matter how many facts are presented.(This message has been edited by 83eagle)

[BrentAllen]

pack,

SC was not looking good for McCain in 2000. From David Broder:

 

The effect was to dramatize how far McCain had come, in eight years, in co-opting the heart of the Republican establishment, with several of the state's most popular Republicans -- including the senior senator, Lindsey Graham, the state attorney general and the speaker of the state House of Representatives -- all vouching for him.

 

Graham had been almost alone in backing McCain in 2000, when the establishment Republicans who looked to former Gov. Carroll Campbell for guidance all lined up behind Bush.

 

The campaign that unfolded back then was notably ugly, including anonymous slurs on McCain's behavior in a North Vietnamese prison camp and unfounded rumors that the child his wife had adopted from a Bangladeshi nursery was actually the product of an extramarital relationship between McCain and another woman.

 

No one can be certain how many votes were shifted by this underground campaign. Last week, McCain told reporters he attributed his 2000 defeat not to the sneak attacks, but to the depth and breadth of establishment support for Bush.

 

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/01/south_carolina_a_different_pla.html

 

I'm sure you were equally disgusted when the liberals made all those nasty claims about Sarah Palin's son Trigg, right?

[Beavah]

Yah, I think packsaddle is talkin' about the smear campaign that was run against McCain in some southern states in 2000, claiming that he had fathered an illegitimate black child off a prostitute.

 

The anger has been there. Obama is the head of the party that is most rapidly heading the country to ruin. The republicans are not well liked either and are seen as the problem as well. The anger is towards all.

 

Yah, OK, I get being mad at the lot of 'em.

 

What I don't get is the focus on Obama and the explosion of energy after his election.

 

TARP was Bush. The GM bailout was Bush. The Medicare expansion into Rx drugs was Bush. Earmarks were the Republican congress under bush. Expansion of the Department of Education with the No Child Left Behind Act was Bush. Two off-budget wars were Bush. The largest expansion of the federal debt was Bush. Foreign nation-building was Bush too, eh? In not one but two nations. Clinton never got sucked in that way to the former Yugoslavia.

 

Yep, Obama gets and deserves low marks for da health bill, and especially for the 3000 page do-nothing financial reform act and not prosecuting any of those bad actors for fraud. The "stimulus" was on his watch as well, which while it saved many jobs saved mostly government jobs at da state and local government levels by keepin' the states from going bust. It never was big enough to make it out to actually help those in the private sector. And at least he's been runnin' the Afghan war on-budget.

 

What I don't see is the difference, eh? So I don't understand all the added anger and "heading the country into ruin" rhetoric.

 

Is it just that people are slow? I can believe that. Most folks don't understand that it takes 4-8 years for any fiscal policy to really show its effects, so they're always blaming the current guy for what the previous guy did. No different than those who blamed Bush for the mess that Clinton's tech bubble created, or who gave Clinton credit for the economic boom that was really created by the end of the Cold War and da first gulf war.

 

So is that it? This is just da unfocused anger over the 2008 mess and the near-depression it caused, and the current guy in office always gets blamed? I could buy that I guess. Ordinary voter cluelessness, not racism, with racists like my friend's in-laws comin' along for the ride.

 

But then here's another thing I don't get, eh? If you're mad at the whole lot of Congress for being ineffective, partisan, not-too-bright, self-interested goofs, yeh think you would put up some bright, intelligent, statesman-like non-partisan fellows. But the Tea Party candidates almost to a man don't fit that bill. Half of 'em are nutters. Rand Paul is talkin' about voting against raising the debt ceiling (causing the U.S. to default on its sovereign debt), fer crying out loud. Murkowski in Alaska was one of da most consistently reliable conservative voters in the Senate. Joe Miller is another nutter.

 

Yah, I'm really just dense, eh? I just don't get it.

 

Beavah

 

[Trevorum]

Anyone who is genuinely interested in looking more deeply into this issue is invited to read the study by the University of Washington on race and politics.

 

http://depts.washington.edu/uwiser/racepolitics.html

 

http://depts.washington.edu/uwiser/tp_content_analysis.htm

[Beavah]

the anger started with the $700 billion financial bailout that was voted on (and failed) in September, 2008. That was what started it all. The phones in Washington were ringing off the hook from constituents telling Reps and Senators to vote against it - that's why it didn't pass.

 

Yah, but it passed less than a week later, eh?

 

I can understand being angry about the need to bail out the banking industry. I can understand being furious about lettin' all those people who gambled with their depositor's money get away with big bonuses and no jail time.

 

But yeh do understand that without TARP we would have had The Greater Depression, right?

 

And I just don't see the fury I'd expect over all da folks who got a walk, nor the anger I'd expect over the completely ineffectual "bipartisan" financial reform bill.

 

B