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Today a man who once called our first African American president a racist on national TV, asked the first Muslim congressman to prove he wasn’t working for Al-Qaeda, and referred to the victims of hurricane Katrina as “scumbags” held a speech on the Lincoln Memorial and framed it as part of the ongoing civil rights movement. The mostly all white crowd ate it up with all the fervor you’d expect from the mindless throng of spoiled right wing masses who are still bitter that the Bush / Cheney years finally came to an end. Their self perceived monopoly on patriotism has now been married with the notion that they are the “new oppressed”, living under the tyranny of a Marxist / Fascist / Imperial / Legion of Doom regime. In their minds, they are the American “Bravehearts” and President Obama is none other than King Edward the Long Shanks…
He was joined by the half term governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, who has somehow crept into our national attention much the same way a pervert on a subway makes his way towards a row of seats occupied by a cheerleading squad. She is the Boadicea of the conservative movement now, and the standard bearer of the death of American intellectual curiosity. Her abject stupidity is marketed as “folksiness” as are her other shortcomings, and all those who disagree or oppose her views are guilty of wanting to kill her baby. In her world, the environmentalists are guilty of the Gulf Oil Spill, not the oil companies who cut corners in their perverted hunger for profit. And you can say the odious “n-word” fifteen times in a single broadcast on national radio and garner her support, but God help you if you say “retard” in private. Because that means you want to kill her baby.
So the Mad Hatter and the Red Queen had their tea party on the very same spot Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave one of the most heartfelt, uplifting, and unifying speeches in human history. And as with everything else on their side of the looking glass, up meant down, right meant left, big meant small and full meant empty. The main focus of the speeches was “restoring honor”, and without going into any more hyperbole I would ask these questions:
1.) How are you a victim of oppression and injustice if after this event you can go home to your cable TV, riding lawn mower, and ponder Applebees or Bennigans for dinner instead of facing fire hoses, beatings, and police dogs?
2.) How can you be a proponent of unity and togetherness if you hate gays, Muslims, the poor, liberals, and everyone else who thinks your values are hogwash so much?
3.) When exactly was it that America lost its “honor” in the first place? Was it when we invaded a country that didn’t have anything to do with attacking us and killed hundreds of thousands of civilians thereby making MORE terrorists? Was it when we started implementing torture against our prisoners? Or was it when we decided we wanted poor people to be able to see a doctor?
4.) Have you noticed how your wacked out conservative “values” just so happen to fall lockstep with the desires of the wealthy big business interests who are also bankrolling your events? Complete coincidence, I’m sure…
5.) Did you even look at your tax stub this year and notice that big bad Obama actually lowered your taxes? If you make more than $250, 000 a year, please disregard the question and accept my heartfelt “ha-ha” in its place.
6.) How does coming from a small fly poop town make you more or better of an American than someone from the city? Did our revolution start in Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston or Green Acres? Did the terrorists attack NYC, or Mayberry?
7.) Did you know that protesting the last president got you put in jail, sometimes just for wearing a t-shirt at one of his events?
8.) Do you have any clue of the millions of dollars that Beck and Palin are making by stirring you into this borderline dangerous frenzy?
The truth of the matter is that as much as I disagree with the tea baggers and their perverted sense of patriotism, their inverted sense of right and wrong, and their inability to question their handlers, I know Dr. King would support their right to express themselves. I do as well. And I would gladly give my life for their right to do so. But I would be remiss in not questioning the event coordinators’ motives for picking this particular day. It seems to me to be just another obvious ploy to create more division amongst all of us. Had anything stupid happened because someone’s emotions got the better of them, it would have been blamed on the “angry left” and given Beck an extremely rare chance at saying “I told you so”. Thankfully this didn’t happen.
And honestly, if the shoe were on the other foot (which it was for eight long years), and a group of liberals staged a similar stunt on the anniversary of one of Ronnie Reagan’s famous speeches, there would be mass arrests and enough mock indignation on Fox News to fuel a Goodyear blimp for a year. In other words, I fully believe that they would not be as gracious as me in defending their opponent’s right to free expression.
In closing I would like to say that it is the nature of spoiled children to howl when they don’t get their way. And this is all the tea party movement represents. A bunch of spoiled, uninformed, and oftentimes willfully ignorant white people still sore at the fact that they lost an election. But I support their right to howl, even though they branded me a traitor when I did the same thing for more legitimate reasons during the patriotic orgy leading up to the Iraq war. I don’t think that Dr. King is rolling in his grave over this anymore than I think the civil rights movement is in any danger of being hijacked by a bunch of quite un-oppressed demagogues. But I will say that it is just not entertaining to watch anymore. And when the next Tim McVeigh rises from their ranks like in the 90’s when Clinton was the “big bad commie threat”, they will have no one to blame but themselves.
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