A Surprise Tea-Party Confrontation

[Kadie]

A Surprise Tea-Party Confrontation

By Richard L. Fricker
March 28, 2010

Editor’s Note: Oklahoma-based journalist Richard Fricker was with his wife on a spring-break vacation to Washington when he came face to face with the Tea Party furor.

In this first-person account, Fricker describes how a cell-phone comment apparently upset the protesters, who chased him and called him (cover your ears!) a “professor”:


When I visited the Capitol grounds on March 21, the day the House of Representatives passed healthcare reform, I was aware that some protesters there had been directing violence, threats and insults against members of Congress, but I was surprised when I ended up on the receiving end of some abuse myself.

In what seemed like a surreal moment from “Night of the Living Dead,” a group of Tea-baggers accosted me after one of them overheard my phone conversation with another reporter – or at least thought he did.

I soon learned that fact and truth have no place in Tea Party land, and like zombies of Living Dead fame, they were eager to chase down and devour whatever they perceived as a challenge to their way of thinking and behaving.

In their strange world, there are endless numbers of Communists, Socialists and Nazis who must be discovered and exposed, though it didn’t seem to me they really knew which was which. Still, they are pretty sure that President Obama is one of these, if not a combination of all three. So, there were plenty of placards covering all three bases.

March 21 was Washington’s warmest day of the year, and my wife and I were enjoying our spring break from Oklahoma. We were visiting a couple who were both journalists working for European publications.

Since the husband journalist needed to write about the healthcare debate, I was accompanying the two ladies for a tour of the sites. (“Accompany” may be too strong a word, since the ladies were engaged in their own conversation. I could have been abducted by space aliens and not been missed.)


more...
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/032810d.html

[MadMaddie]

1. This is a familiar story have you noticed there is a rage

against anyone that has achieved a level of education in this country? Anti-intellectualism is on the rise in the country? Dumbing down the masses attacking those that have educations? Attacking specific Universities in the US.

This is dangerous territory....we can look back in history and see uprisings around the world that started with anti-intellectualism and ended with the murders of millions.

[zbdent]

3. and I heard a RW caller in the Saturday AM (leftish) talk show

bemoaning the low number of "American" smart kids ... gee ... with all the worshiping we had of the drunken frat boy mediocrity (at best) becoming President on his own merits (yeah, right ... Senator Grandpappy and Senator/VP/President Pappy and all the SCOTUS stooges in place), I wonder why there are so many SMART kids in the country ...

[RedCloud]

8. They went after the universities right after 9/11 to shut them up.

I guess money trails and things like that can prove too embarrassing.

[1monster]

18. Reminds one of the Red Army and the Cultural Revolution in 1960s and 70s China.

"Elitist" intellectual entities were attacked first: colleges and universities, professors and teachears, plays, then playwrrites that were, however obscurely critically of Mao.

Mao lost control of the Red Army and the damange done harmed China for ten years and took a long time to clean up.

[tblue37]

24. Remember _The Killing Fields_? The young Red revolutionaries

guarding the re-education camps in Cambodia asked if anyone had medical training, implying that such people were needed. When people identifed themselves as doctors or nurses, they were marched out the next morning and shot. Anyone who wore glasses was presumed be educated--and shot.

That is what all this anti-intellectualism reminds me of.

[pscot]

2. Worthwile to read the whole thing

n/t

[Kadie]

10. Absolutely.

I hope everyone does. It is really a great article.

[G_j]

11. great writing nt

[RKP5637]

4. IMO these people are cut out of the same piece of cloth as discussed below...

"It’s my fear that the Tea Party movement will continue its campaign of intimidation, much like the Brown Shirts of pre-war Germany or the armed right-wing American militias in the 1990s, until there is serious destruction, injury or death. The GOP leadership has disavowed the violence but has encouraged the extreme rhetoric."

The GOP today can only IMO be considered evil. The old-time republicans you could work with and they had some good ideas, compromise was achievable often for a better solution. These fools today, for the most part, are dangerous.

[Mist]

7. Ironic--even those fools, the Rethugs the 'baggers actually *like*, have college degrees. nt

[RKP5637]

9. True, quite true. I've met them... n/t

[SeattleGirl]

5. Wow, that would have scared me and pissed me off both.

These fuckers think they have the right to manhandle somebody who doesn't toe their line of acceptable thought.

[demosincebirth]

6. I seem that they should like Nazi's. They're "kissin' cousins." Or Maybe just cousins

[Roland99]

12. wow. just....wow.

[opihimoimoi]

13. Brown shirt crazy book burners....THEY are the real NAZIS

[Canuckistanian]

14. “He’s on the Horowitz list,” she shouted over and over"

Wow.

Anti-intellectualism that wouldn't be out of place in the Chinese Cultural Revolution or the Khmer Rouge.

[progressoid]

16. Unfortunately, that irony is completely lost on them.

[1monster]

19. Should have read ahead. I thought the same. (post 18)

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. They are INSANE

After observing the scene, I called my reporter friend to pass on my observations. My assessment was something to the effect that there were several hundred people, lots of God and Constitution placards, white-faced Obama posters and hymns. It looked rather disorganized and sophomoric.

I had no idea that my report would upset anyone, or that anyone would even care. However, a couple apparently overheard bits of my report and began following me through the crowd, yelling for my attention. The man, with a three-day growth of beard, finally stepped in front of me yelling that he was no redneck. I had said nothing about rednecks.

“I don’t know you,” I replied. “Stop bothering me. Just leave me alone.” I thought that would be enough, but the yelling continued as we walked.

He told me that he had an MBA from somewhere. “I guess that just proves the sorry state of American education,” I responded.

Then, came what I can only assume was the greatest insult that he could muster. Pointing at me, he said, “I think you’re a professor!”

[The Wizard]

17. Well Professor

You have no right to speak or think freely in a fascist society. These cretins have no original thought and the thoughts in their damaged brains are constantly colliding, hence the mental instability. Most of them drive cars or trucks at high speeds on our socialist highways. Some do it with a phone in one hand an a bottle of cheap liquor on the seat next to them.
They really need some kind of military discipline imposed on them or have their government handouts cut off.

[Political_Junkie]

20. Scary stuff.

Said years ago we were heading in this direction.

[tom_paine]

26. So did I, and more than half of DU STILL thinks we're nuts

99.9% of people outside, too.

Look at the ACORN and Cantor Bushiganda Psyops, not to mention the whole Teabag Psyop with the total compliance and complicity of Corporate M$M doing their usual, artificially swelling the numbers of the RW while diminishing or non-covering much larger LW and antiwar gatherings.

It still amazes me and creeps me out. But as I have also been saying for years, there is no truth, no fact, so demonstrable that the RW Lie Machine/Corporate M$M fusion can't obfuscate it. No lie so frequently debunked that it can't be laundered into "conventional wisdom", such as the phony ACORN "pimp" tape.

I have seen it literally hundreds of times since 2001 and it's effectiveness still boggles my mind.

Any nation with an information stream as poisoned and corrupted by RW Authoritarianism (or any authoritarianism for that matter but in our country authoritarianism is consodlidated on the Right) is capable of ANY atrocity.

[BeHereNow]

27. Indeed- hate radio acclerated the massacres in Rwanda.

Palin, Beck and their ilk are extremely dangerous
and their sway on the crazed masses should not be underestimated.
They are just waiting for an opportunity.
Be careful out there folks.

BHN

[h9socialist]

21. For some reason, this brings to mind . . .

. . . an old Frank Zappa song called "Flakes."

Can't escape the conclusion that
It's probably God's will
That civilization will
Grind to a standstill
And we are the people
Who will make it all happen
While your children are sleepin' and
Your puppy is crappin'
You might call us flakes or
Somethin' else you might coin us
We know your so stupid that
You'll probably join us

. . . this should be the basis of the Tea Party Anthem

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[h9socialist]

28. Well, being from Indiana myself . . .

. . . I'm not surprised. We got some real lame brains here too!

[LiberalEsto]

23. This is Reagan's legacy

He helped close down the nation's mental hospitals.

Decades later, we're still dealing with the problem of deeply disturbed people who won't stay on their anti-psychotic medications, running loose on the streets committing mayhem.

It's incredibly hard to commit people involuntarily, as law enforcement agencies are well aware.

I hope the healthcare reform bill provides some options for hospitalizing and treating these poor sick souls.

;)

[awoke_in_2003]

25. You know...

in the last 2 months I have had 8 zombie dreams- something I have never dreamed about in my 42 years. The dreams were all the same, trying to get away from the zombies. Maybe being here in Texas is affecting my dreams.