Happy Tax Day / Tea Party Day: An MSNBC Video Tribute to Fox News and the TeaBaggers

TEA BAGGERS are SWALLOWING WHOLE the Fox News STAFF's SCHTICK

MSNBC’s David Schuster: If You’re Planning Tea Bagging Across The Country, ‘You’re Going To Need A Dick Armey’

This is pretty damned funny! He uses most, if not all, of the innuendo I’ve already heard floating around…

I took the liberty of transcribing it:

“For most Americans, Wednesday, April 15th will be Tax Day, but in our fourth story tonight it’s going to be TEA-BAGGING day for the right wing and they are going NUTS for it! Thousands of the WHIPPED OUT the festivities early this weekend and though the parties are officially TOOTHLESS, the protesters are FULL-THROATED about their goals. They wanna give President Obama strong TONGUE-LASHING and LICK government spending. Spending they did not oppose when they were under Presidents Bush and Reagan. They oppose Mr. Obama’s tax rates which will be lower for most of them, and they oppose the tax increases Mr. Obama is imposing on the rich, whose taxes will skyrocket to a rate that’s about 10% less than it was under Reagan. That’s TEA-BAGGING, in a NUTSHELL. Taking it’s inspiration from the Boston Tea Party when colonists tossed British tea into the sea because the tax on it had not been voted on by their duly elected representatives. That’s exactly the opposite, of course, of todays’ taxes, which is known in some quarters as ‘Taxation With Representation’. But as New York Times coumnist Paul Crudeman points out today, this time the TEA-BAGGING is not a SPONTANEOUS UPRISING, the people who came up with it are a familiar circle of Republicans, including former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich, and former house majority leader Dick Armey, both of whom have FIRM support from right wing financiers and lobbyists, as well as Washington prostitute patron, Senator David Vitter who has issued statements in support of TEA-BAGGING, but is publicly type-left. Then, there was the media, specifically the Fox ‘News’ Channel, including Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. Both are looking forward to an UP CLOSE and PERSONAL TASTE of TEA-BAGGING, themselves at events this Wednesday. But most amusing of all is Neil Cavuto, a member of the network’s executive committee. Neil’s online bio says he joined the network in July 1996, three months before the Fox News channel went on the air. Cavuto, defending his network’s promotion of TEA-BAGGING, said, quote ‘We are going to be right in the middle of these [TEA-BAGGERS], because at Fox we do not pick and choose these rallies and protests. We were there for the Million Man March.’ Can we roll that footage, the footage of Fox News at the Million Man March, back in October of ’95? Of course the Million Man March occurred, as NewsHounds.org points out, almost a year before Fox News was on the air. We can only speculate why widespread TEA-BAGGING made Cavuto think of the Million Man March… Unless, he got them confused with DICK ARM[E]Y. And in Cavuto’s defense, if you are planning SIMULTANEOUS TEA-BAGGING around the country, you’re going to need a DICK ARMY!”

What David Schuster failed to include in his brilliant report, and what makes me fear for my country, much as Glenn Beck does (or pretends to), is that many of the NUT-JOBS that host and attend these NUT-FESTS to express their opinions in a (hopefully) peaceful manner, and to have a BALL (or two) with some good friends or like-minded strangers are the same people that believe, as many TEA-PARTY websites and flyer’s propose, in a “revolution”, and the same people who are buying conservative t-shirts that say “vote from the rooftops” (with pictures of sniper rifles), inferring that they wish to assassinate President Obama. I saw one conservative t-shirt for sale online that said “R.I.P. The American Dream, 1776-2008″. I thought a black man becoming the president was a pretty clear indicator that the American dream is alive and well. Perhaps these revolutionary TEA-BAGGERS who believe in “voting from the rooftops” (with sniper rifles) are racially motivated? I guess their American dream doesn’t include people who aren’t white. Or maybe it’s just jealousy? They are openly into TEA-BAGGING, so perhaps they are jealous, as black men are popularly known for having larger TEA-SPOUTS than they do…

I’m afraid that many of the TEA-BAGGERS attending the TEA-PARTIES today are lost souls, searching for a new direction, possibly a violent one. As Anderson Cooper said on CNN when describing why it’ been HARD for the Republicans to find their voice after the election, “it’s hard to talk when you’re TEA-BAGGING“

I’ve got to say, whoever created and has promoted this movement really made quite a snafu by not researching the social connotations of their terminology, but, I guess there’s no such thing as bad press. I just hope for the Republicans sake that they don’t, as I saw one guy comment on Glenn Beck’s 9-12 Project website “make up places to protest flag burning and call the Old GLORY HOLES“.

Keith Olbermann also did a funny segment about TEA-BAGGING, including some more good innuendo, including:

“SPILLING into the streets, CHOKING off traffic … pushed their own vision of TEA-BAGGING DOWN THE THROATS of the TEA-BAGGERS … SEMINAL moment … ONE LUMP OR TWO?”

And, for the enjoyment of those who are just becoming familiar with the sexual slang used for decades, and for the enlightenment of those who still don’t get it, I’ve included the following links to some definitions on Urban Dictionary:

TEA-BAGGER TEA-BAG TEA-BAGGING TEA PARTY

Barack Obama's Patriotism (and mine too)

Barack Obama has been accused of being un-patriotic, and therefore, anti-American, because he doesn’t like the American national anthem, doesn’t like saluting the American flag, and doesn’t like wearing American flag pins.

Which definition of patriotism are we using here?

According to [ http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/patriot ], a patriot can be:
1.) a person who loves, supports, and defends his or her country and its interests with devotion.
-OR-
2.) a person who regards himself or herself as a defender, esp. of individual rights, against presumed interference by the federal government

I think it’s obvious that while most conservatives and Republicans, including John McCain, would regard themselves as personifying the first of these two, many, if not most liberals and Democrats, including Barack Obama, would lean towards the second definition to identify themselves as patriots, as would I. This is because the second definition allows you to remain an independent individual who is able to question the government and it’s motives and actions, whereas with the first definition, you pretty much have to do what you are told, regardless of any ethical, moral, or logical objections.

Now that we have established that there are two types of “patriots”, perhaps you can see how having moral objections to ceremonies worshiping symbols doesn’t mean that a person hates their country, but only necessarily implies that they either are not big on symbolism and ceremony, which is a trivial, cosmetic, personal choice that should not be a big deal to anyone, or that they refuse to put faith in symbols and ceremony unless certain conditions are met wherein those things are backed up by methods and actions that they can believe in.

I personally disagree with some of the content of our anthem, and no longer salute the flag, and refuse to wear red white and blue symbols of an American ideal which is far from our American reality, but that does not make me a terrorist or a traitor or a threat to our national security.

Maybe, like me and many other American citizens today, Barack is ashamed of what our country has become, and finds it hard to submit himself to displays of blind, unquestioning patriotism to symbols that now represent a nation far removed from what it was supposed to be.

Perhaps, as I do, Barack has ethical objections to some of the content of the anthem. In particular, I take offense to the lyrics “Oh, say! does that star-spangled banner yet wave … O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”, due to the bitterly poetic irony that our freedoms are being stripped away by our own government and the corporate and foreign interests which seem to have far more power over it than “we, the people” do, and as such, we are no longer nearly as “free” as we were when this song was popularized. And as or bravery, is empire building for profit an act of bravery? Is attacking a stone aged people who use sticks and stones and old, malfunctioning Russian guns and missiles with our vastly superior technology so that we can meddle in the affairs of a region to control the oil interests of our ruling elite really that brave?

Of more likely, he finds the fourth verse, which is far less well known than the first, to be problematic to him personally:

“Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust”:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

America is supposed to have separation of church and state and be a multi-cultural melting pot with freedom of religion. These lyrics imply that God (the Judeo-Christian God, I assume) not only endorses America above all others (which is laughable), but actually helps us to achieve military victory in violent conflict with other nations. Perhaps Obama, as a Muslim, or if he is a Christian, as a person of middle eastern and Muslim descent, feels, as I do, that this kind of Religious-Patriotism is a dangerous thing that promotes violence between faiths and cultures. I don’t think God supports one party in a war any more than choosing a side in a football game, despite what players seem to think.

The Pledge of Allegiance asks one to be even more unquestioningly obedient to the actions of one’s government, while also being exclusively monotheistic:

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation under God, indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for all.”

I for one will not swear my allegiance to any one. I choose to lead rather than follow. I choose to be “free” and “brave” and make up my own mind by observing and thinking and feeling, rather than by being told what to believe and accepting it because some authority declares itself an authority.

And how is their liberty and justice for all, when only the two corporate candidates are allowed in the debates because the corporate sponsors are afraid that someone might say something anti-corporate and pro-people and incite a riot. Not very free or just, huh? How is their liberty and justice for all when the rich buy their way out of prison, and usually even out of trials, for conspiracy, mass-murder, and theft of billions of dollars from millions of people, while the poor rot in jails for far lesser offenses, like using herbal pain relievers that God made for them rather than support pharmaceutical companies that poison the masses?

I was an Eagle Scout, and used to be all about flag etiquette and the other symbolic aspects of being a so called “patriot”. Then I grew up and learned that the America I live in doesn’t always represent truth, justice, and freedom. I realized that powerful financial interests had long ago taken over my homeland, and turned it into an uncaring, unfeeling, corporate behemoth stomping on the weak at home and abroad in the endless pursuit not of happiness, but of the almighty dollar and the power that it brings over others.

Perhaps Barack, as I do, takes such great offense to some of the things that America has done and is doing, to people of other cultures and colors and faiths, and even to it’s own poor and working classes, that he doesn’t want to salute the flag or wear flag pins or whatever other ceremonial patriotic gestures that the average person does, until these injustices are corrected to his satisfaction. As a man who talks about hope and change and fighting against racism and intolerance, I would be willing to bet that he has intentions of making America a place that he and I and other similar minded folks can once again be proud of.

Maybe once we stop letting the rich drive the workers into poverty, and stop having privatized corporate wars for profit, and start acting like a moral, ethical nation again, I could bring myself to wear a red white and blue flag pin. Maybe Obama will too…

Barack Obama’s Patriotism (and mine too)

Barack Obama has been accused of being un-patriotic, and therefore, anti-American, because he doesn’t like the American national anthem, doesn’t like saluting the American flag, and doesn’t like wearing American flag pins.

Which definition of patriotism are we using here?

According to [ http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/patriot ], a patriot can be:
1.) a person who loves, supports, and defends his or her country and its interests with devotion.
-OR-
2.) a person who regards himself or herself as a defender, esp. of individual rights, against presumed interference by the federal government

I think it’s obvious that while most conservatives and Republicans, including John McCain, would regard themselves as personifying the first of these two, many, if not most liberals and Democrats, including Barack Obama, would lean towards the second definition to identify themselves as patriots, as would I. This is because the second definition allows you to remain an independent individual who is able to question the government and it’s motives and actions, whereas with the first definition, you pretty much have to do what you are told, regardless of any ethical, moral, or logical objections.

Now that we have established that there are two types of “patriots”, perhaps you can see how having moral objections to ceremonies worshiping symbols doesn’t mean that a person hates their country, but only necessarily implies that they either are not big on symbolism and ceremony, which is a trivial, cosmetic, personal choice that should not be a big deal to anyone, or that they refuse to put faith in symbols and ceremony unless certain conditions are met wherein those things are backed up by methods and actions that they can believe in.

I personally disagree with some of the content of our anthem, and no longer salute the flag, and refuse to wear red white and blue symbols of an American ideal which is far from our American reality, but that does not make me a terrorist or a traitor or a threat to our national security.

Maybe, like me and many other American citizens today, Barack is ashamed of what our country has become, and finds it hard to submit himself to displays of blind, unquestioning patriotism to symbols that now represent a nation far removed from what it was supposed to be.

Perhaps, as I do, Barack has ethical objections to some of the content of the anthem. In particular, I take offense to the lyrics “Oh, say! does that star-spangled banner yet wave … O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”, due to the bitterly poetic irony that our freedoms are being stripped away by our own government and the corporate and foreign interests which seem to have far more power over it than “we, the people” do, and as such, we are no longer nearly as “free” as we were when this song was popularized. And as or bravery, is empire building for profit an act of bravery? Is attacking a stone aged people who use sticks and stones and old, malfunctioning Russian guns and missiles with our vastly superior technology so that we can meddle in the affairs of a region to control the oil interests of our ruling elite really that brave?

Of more likely, he finds the fourth verse, which is far less well known than the first, to be problematic to him personally:

“Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust”:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

America is supposed to have separation of church and state and be a multi-cultural melting pot with freedom of religion. These lyrics imply that God (the Judeo-Christian God, I assume) not only endorses America above all others (which is laughable), but actually helps us to achieve military victory in violent conflict with other nations. Perhaps Obama, as a Muslim, or if he is a Christian, as a person of middle eastern and Muslim descent, feels, as I do, that this kind of Religious-Patriotism is a dangerous thing that promotes violence between faiths and cultures. I don’t think God supports one party in a war any more than choosing a side in a football game, despite what players seem to think.

The Pledge of Allegiance asks one to be even more unquestioningly obedient to the actions of one’s government, while also being exclusively monotheistic:

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation under God, indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for all.”

I for one will not swear my allegiance to any one. I choose to lead rather than follow. I choose to be “free” and “brave” and make up my own mind by observing and thinking and feeling, rather than by being told what to believe and accepting it because some authority declares itself an authority.

And how is their liberty and justice for all, when only the two corporate candidates are allowed in the debates because the corporate sponsors are afraid that someone might say something anti-corporate and pro-people and incite a riot. Not very free or just, huh? How is their liberty and justice for all when the rich buy their way out of prison, and usually even out of trials, for conspiracy, mass-murder, and theft of billions of dollars from millions of people, while the poor rot in jails for far lesser offenses, like using herbal pain relievers that God made for them rather than support pharmaceutical companies that poison the masses?

I was an Eagle Scout, and used to be all about flag etiquette and the other symbolic aspects of being a so called “patriot”. Then I grew up and learned that the America I live in doesn’t always represent truth, justice, and freedom. I realized that powerful financial interests had long ago taken over my homeland, and turned it into an uncaring, unfeeling, corporate behemoth stomping on the weak at home and abroad in the endless pursuit not of happiness, but of the almighty dollar and the power that it brings over others.

Perhaps Barack, as I do, takes such great offense to some of the things that America has done and is doing, to people of other cultures and colors and faiths, and even to it’s own poor and working classes, that he doesn’t want to salute the flag or wear flag pins or whatever other ceremonial patriotic gestures that the average person does, until these injustices are corrected to his satisfaction. As a man who talks about hope and change and fighting against racism and intolerance, I would be willing to bet that he has intentions of making America a place that he and I and other similar minded folks can once again be proud of.

Maybe once we stop letting the rich drive the workers into poverty, and stop having privatized corporate wars for profit, and start acting like a moral, ethical nation again, I could bring myself to wear a red white and blue flag pin. Maybe Obama will too…

The Third Red Scare (2001-2008) – Fake (Anti) America VS Real (Pro) America

Sarah Palin & some other Republicans, namely Fox News reporters, are in the process of starting the Third Red Scare.

A “Red Scare” is a “witch hunt” wherein the rich and powerful, fearing that the poor and powerless are asking for more wealth and power in exchange for their labor, condemn and accuse and black list the working class for questioning war, asking for socialized medicine, or asking for better wages or lower prices, by calling them “fake America” or “Anti-America” or communists, or socialists, or spies, to scare them from speaking up, and preventing progress for the middle and lower classes.

Much as the methodology of the Third Red Scare is similar to the First Red Scare during World War I and the Second Red Scare after World War II, the causes are

A little history [from Wikipedia]:
The First Red Scare began during World War I in which the United States fought from 1917-1918. Tensions were further elevated during this time frame owing to a widespread campaign of violence by various groups inspired by the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and the ensuing Russian Civil War (1917-1923). Historian Levin B. Murray described the First Red Scare as “a nation-wide anti-radical hysteria provoked by a mounting fear and anxiety that a Bolshevik revolution in America was imminent–a revolution that would destroy property, church, home, marriage, civility, and the American way of life.”

A little more history [from Wikipedia]:
The Second Red Scare took place in the United States after World War II. It coincided with increased fears of espionage by Communists and heightened tension from Soviet oppression in Eastern Europe (beginning in 1946), the Berlin Blockade (1948–1949), Chinese Civil War (1949), and the Korean War (1950–1953). These fears spurred aggressive investigations and the red-baiting, blacklisting, jailing and deportation of people suspected of following communist or other left-wing ideology.

A little future history [from Mark Baland]:
The Third Red Scare, began after planes crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City on 9/11/2001. “Patriotic” Americans blindly and faithfully supported George W Bush in bombing Iraq to retaliate against Osama Bin Laden. Supposedly “unpatriotic” Americans point out that Osama was widely believed to be not in Iraq, but in Afghanistan. Bush’s detractors also noted that it was likely that George W. was attacking Iraq to finish what his father George Sr. failed to do in the fist Gulf War, which was to take out Saddam Hussein, whom the Republicans themselves trained, funded, armed, and put in power during the Cold War against The Soviet Union. The “unpatriotic” Americans also questioned why Vice President Cheney’s company Haliburton seemed to be running a corporate war where hired mercenaries killed people so that Cheney and others associated with Haliburton could make more money.

The Third Red Scare is intensifying during the 2008 presidential elections, where John McCain wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years and give multi-billion dollar tax breaks to oil companies that are posting record profits during the corporate war, and liberal Democrats would rather spend our money at home so people can keep their jobs and homes and fuel their cars and afford health care and invest in alternative energies to declare independence from terrorist nations and save the world’s environment. Conservative Republicans like Sarah Palin, to garner support from the party’s key demographic, small towns in the middle of the country, are claiming that people who don’t support corporate wars and instead care about the quality of life of the poor and middle classes are “anti” or “fake” Americans.

In the 1940s and 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy, and his “partner” Roy Cohn attacked real and supposed “communists” and “homosexuals” for their own political gain, but under the guise of protecting America,  destroying lives and livelihoods and families by accusing many liberal people, mostly Hollywood producers, directors, writers, and actors, of being communists, and thus possibly spies for the Soviet Union, and of being homosexuals (although they were probably lovers).

Now, in the 2000s, Sarah Palin and FoxNews are out to discredit Democrats and other liberal or independent thinkers by making them out to be, in Palin’s own words, “anti” or “fake” America. Apparently, from Sarah’s point-of-view, people in small towns that support Republicans are the only “pro” or “real” Americans. I guess big city people (and small town liberals) are just too well educated and free thinking to be American.

All of this witch hunting to make poor and middle class workers into scapegoats for our problems is just to draw attention away from the fact that McCain/Palin and their bourgeoisie supporters want to continue to reduce wages and benefits, increase prices, and make wars, all to allow the ruling rich minority to escalate their obscene profits to ultra-obscene, all at the expense of the struggling working class proletariat.

It would seem to me, and I would assume to other thinking people, that according to Palin and FoxNews and the Republicans who follow them, that the framers of the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights were fake or anti American, since they believed in freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom or the press, and the right to question the actions of your government.

I’m calling the ruling class of corporate elitists and the conservative Republican mob that support them what they really are: greedy, hateful, fearful, lying, stealing, cheating hate/fear mongers.

I hope that if enough people respond to this Third Red Scare promptly, we can nip it in the bud, before it becomes the Second Civil War.

Patriotism

I’ve got a message for all the angry, naive, hateful, fearful hillbillies, rednecks, white collars, elderly, and various other conservative republican zombies out there:

How can “YOU PEOPLE” throw around so much shit about whether Obama stands for an anthem, or wears a flag pin, when your candidates and politicians of choice, the old, Caucasian, red-white-blue wearing, propaganda spouting, close-minded, supposedly Christian (apart from lying, cheating, stealing, killing, and being mostly homosexuals) guys buy and sell the common man like an expendable commodity?

Barack “Hussein” Obama is no more of a threat to America than George “Hitler” Bush or John “Hitler” McCain. Now, I know that their middle names are not actually Hitler, but if they were, for the Democrats to automatically associate them with Adolph would be as silly as the way Republicans associate Barack with Saddam. Maybe the white politicians are not Muslim, or of Middle Eastern descent, or are bigger fans of flag pins and salutes and the national anthem, but while I suppose that it is possible, I highly doubt that Barack Obama can do any more damage to our failing empire than is already being done by the old white dudes, who I might add trained and funded and used Saddam and Osama.

The Republicans only “protect” America from the “enemies” that they created. Put that in your red, white, and blue pipe and smoke it.

To get off on a tangent for a moment, I don’t think that “honor thy father and thy mother” from the bible should apply if your father and mother are rapists or murderers. In that same vein, I feel that patriotism for one’s country should be earned, not just granted.

When I was a child, and in the Boy Scouts (I am an Eagle Scout, actually), I was taught, for the most part, by public school and my parents, and the Scouts (which I now feel is just a para-military organization to prepare young men to go and die in needless wars to make old men richer) that America was the good guys. I wore flag badges and saluted and so on,.

But when I grew up, and saw what the working world was like, and watched the news, and paid attention to the actualaties of our world, I began to see this country for what it really is and what it really does. I am patriotic about ideas of what America might have been, not about some colors or words or songs, regardless of what they have come to represent. Blind patriotism is no better than religious fanatisicm or any other psychological disorder.

And before I get any comments saying “love it or leave it”, please keep in mind that were I financially able, I would leave it. Until that time, I have to say “love it or fix/change/improve it”, and since that seems almost impossible at this point, and I don’t have the power on my own to do so, I leave you with “love it or dislike it but at least argue about it”. Isn’t that more American than love it or leave it anyway, since we are supposedly both a democracy and a melting pot?