What Do You Call 60,000 Racist Fools, All In One Place?

Why, a teabagger rally, of course!

Thousands of conservative protesters from across the country converged on the Capitol Saturday morning to demonstrate against President Obama's proposals for health care reform and voicing opposition to big government, what they say is over-the-top spending.

Carrying signs depicting President Obama as Adolf Hitler and the Joker, and chanting slogans such as "'No big government" and "Obamacare makes me sick," approximately 60,000 to 70,000 people flooded Pennsylvania Ave, according to the Washington DC Fire Department.

Oh yes, and signs like this one:

...and this one:


and this one:


really make me think that health care reform is all that's on their minds. And oh yeah, 9/11. And taxes. And losing their freedoms, and and....

What, you may ask, does overt racism, Nazi accusations, and the perpetuation of outrageously false accusations against the President have to do with health care reform, much less 9/11?

Well, Maureen Dowd finally gets it, at least:

(Joe) Wilson’s shocking disrespect for the office of the president — no Democrat ever shouted “liar” at W. when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq — convinced me: Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it.

Let's say that again: some people will never accept a black president. It's not that they've been duped into thinking that health care reform is a bad idea, and will get with the program once it's explained to them how they'll benefit from it. It's not basic ideological differences, unless you admit that their ideology is based upon racism and wholly devoted to opposing an African-American president in everything he does. It's not simple political opposition, the same species of rightwing looniness that FDR, Kennedy, and Clinton had to endure, because none of them were ever accused of being a foreign national, an animal in the zoo, or called a liar in a Joint Session of Congress.

No, nothing could draw together crowds of overweight, Confederate flag-waving, historically ignorant (here's a hint, idiots: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union fought each other in World War II!), sexist, uninformed, uneducated, and unwashed people--spouting off a fool's mishmash of wingnut ideas, attempting to join together the tragedy of 9/11, tax protests, the bank bailout, anti-choice agitation, and opposition to health care reform--and all of them white, unless it's all really about race. Let us not forget, lynching were a family affair not too long ago; people would bring their children and picnic baskets to the events.

Bill Clinton was excoriated nightly by the media, and daily by the man or woman on the street, but no one ever repeatedly asked to see his birth certificate, and refused to believe it valid when produced. FDR was called a traitor to his class, accused of all manner of evil things, and his wife reviled constantly, but no one ever said that his or his wife's ancestors were in the monkey cage at the zoo. No one ever heckled George W. Bush when he lied his way into war with Iraq, called him a liar to his face and before the nation.

No, all of this hatred, vilification, and disrespect has been reserved for America's first African-American president.

Sometimes, I wish Texas and some other parts of the Deep South really would secede--SEE YA! Just leave those ignorant, backwards fools behind. Unfortunately, we're stuck with them, and the president is stuck with a 21st Century version of Kipling's famous poem. President Obama now has the Black Man's Burden, and what has he gotten for it so far? Not much more than "the blame of those ye better, the hate of those ye guard." Let us hope that at least some of our own "half-devil and half-child" citizens wake up soon, and realize that we're all in this together.

The Health Care Speech, with added Comments

I haven't written about President Obama's health care speech, nor the shockingly rude behavior of Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), because I've frankly been trying to calm down. After Wilson's outrageous, disrespectful, and patently false lie against the President, what I wanted to do was to visit harsh punishments with fire, knife, and tongs upon Wilson and his various body parts, while recording it for YouTube. Ever since Wilson had the goddamned nerve to publicly insult my president--and the honor of the House of Representatives and the entire U.S. Congress, for that matter!--during an address to a joint session of Congress, I've been asking myself, "who the hell does he think he is?!"

Well, I already knew the answer to that question. And luckily for Joe Wilson, I had other things keeping me busy this week. But I might be free after next Tuesday....

Wilson's descent into bleacher-bum behavior was, in truth, a minor scar upon an-otherwise masterful address by Pres. Obama. Thank all gods and spirits that the real grownups are back in charge! While House and Senate Republicans acted like stupid frat boys waving blank pieces of paper (the Republican health care "plan"), while hypocrites like Eric Cantor texted away on his Blackberry during the President's speech, while we got an idea of what John Boehner's "I have to eat this shit and smile?" face looks like, and while ignorant tools like Wilson mistakenly thought that they were at Wrigley Field instead of the Capitol Dome and heckled the President--President Obama gave one of the most masterful, dramatic, and inspirational speeches of his career.

The key phrase for me was "no more pre-existing conditions." That's the takeaway for me, and, I suspect, many, many others. Along with the President's proposals forbidding insurance companies from dropping your coverage when you're sick, getting rid of caps on lifetime health care expenses, and placing a limit on out-of-pocket expenses, I think that a plan that was admittedly murky last month, came into sharp focus for many, many Americans Wednesday night. I know that for myself and many close to me, these changes alone could literally make the difference between life and death, as well as the difference between solvency and bankruptcy.

We're in for a helluva fight over this health care bill. I'm thankful that my congressman, Keith Ellison, is one of the House progressives who stand foursquare for a public option; I'm thankful that my new senator, Al Franken, is a total policy wonk with extensive knowledge and deep support for the public option. (Note to Sen. Amy Klobuchar: get with it, willya?!) I intend to be outspoken, intelligent, bold, and unrelenting in this fight. This is the fight of our lifetime, people. This is the big one. We all need to do whatever we can to make this reform a reality.

Guess What the President DIDN'T Say?

Honest to God, I don't know whether to laugh, cry, or get insanely angry at the week-long outcry over President Obama's speech to America's schoolchildren earlier today. The President of the United States of America wants to give a pep talk to returning students at the start of the school year, and some idiots have a problem with that?? Hmmm, could it be that it's not just, as they claim, their fears of what he might say, but of who's saying it?

<SNARK>

Bill in Portland Maine @ DailyKos:

[...]some parents, sensing something was amiss, kept their children away from this president and his "innocent message" on that day. No, they hadn't bothered to read his words. They didn’t have to. They were protecting their brood out of raw animal instinct; the way a mother sea turtle gathers its younglings under her shell and pre-emptively sets up a mortar emplacement when she senses danger.

Despite the mockery towards them---the taunts and eye-rolls and grocery baggers deliberately putting gallon milk jugs on top of their egg cartons at Piggly Wiggly---these moms and dads stuck to their guns and kept their children home. And they turned out to be wise indeed. For the president did have a nefarious trick up his sleeve, which he revealed suddenly and without warning at the end of his speech:

So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it. Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

Now, when I snap my fingers, you will immediately begin operation America Belongs To Kenya Now, Beeyotch. Activation code: six six niner delta roger omega fluffy tango niner eighter later gator. [SNAP!] Go! Go!! Go!!!

</SNARK>

I know some of the wingnuts were expecting Pres. Obama to say exactly that, but they were disappointed. Instead, he told kids to work hard, be responsible, stay in school, be persistent, work hard to succeed, and not grow up to be ignorant, inbred mouthbreathers like some of their parents. But, once again demonstrating that a license is not required to breed, these morons made their children stay at home, and denied them the inspiring opportunity to hear the President address them directly.

We can also thank FAUX News for blowing this issue up far out of proportion, as they have so many other worries of the ignorant and small-minded this summer.

The Rude Pundit:

But the parents are the best. Between the weeping tools (watch the video and see if you can pinpoint the moment the husband realizes what a horrible mistake he's made) and the almost-open racists (like the woman on Fox "news" who admitted that she just "trusted" Ronald Reagan more and would have let her daughter hear him speak), it was a parade of ignorance expressed as reasonable discourse, like listening to a particularly talented chimp try to jabber a manifesto of shit throwing.

C'mon, this is the Leader of the Free World we're talking about! Whatever happened to that line about "if you don't support the President, you're a traitor"? Oh, yeah, that only applied to old, neoconservative white men. If instead the President doesn't look like the guys on the currency, he's a secret Muslim Kenyan socialist fascist racist dictator, you're suddenly upset about a war that started eight years ago, and they want their America back--and we're not talking about Native Americans here, either.

Free-Spirited Ruminations:

When I was a kid I would have been really honored that the President of the United States would even think to speak to me and other kids. I'm getting really irritated at the fact that no matter what our president does, he is disrespected and looked at in a negative light by these people. Education is important for all kids' futures. To have the leader of our country emphasize that can only be good - and this is true whether you agree with him on other subjects or not.

Let's hope that those kids who were kept home today manage to see and hear the president online tonight or over the next few days, despite what their wingnut parents might want. And I'd make a bet that those parents won't even know how to stop them from doing that on the intertubes!


EXTRA CREDIT:

In 1988, what President did use his address to schoolchildren to promote "his anti-government, low-tax ideology, adding that he had supported 'Negro' educational institutions"?

Labor Day Edition: The Party of No

Watch this video, and then try to tell me that the Repugs are serious about "bipartisan health care reform":

80% of the American people support a public option, yet these fatcats--every one of whom is currently receiving government-run health care--is against a public option. The final bill will have a public option, or there will be no bill--and thank the spirits that Nancy Pelosi, Keith Ellison, and others will see to that. The Repugs don't care about reform, they want to kill the idea of health care reform, just like they did in 1994. They want to see Pres. Obama fail, and the Democrats lose their majority. They don't care about reform, about the will of the electorate, about choosing the morally or fiscally responsible thing to do; they don't care about life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, or the general welfare of the people. They don't care about anything except power.

A pox on all their houses. 

And hey, Pawlenty: if you want to run for president so badly, give up your day job. You suck at it, anyway.

Give 'Em Hell, Al!

Appearing the Minnesota State Fair, Sen. Al Franken shows how to deal with idiot teabaggers:



Now that's how you deal with these fools--dazzle 'em with the facts, display far-ranging powers of logical reasoning, and don't give in to their delusions. Franken isn't just a "comedian," as the MSM would have you believe--he's a Harvard-educated policy wonk with several best-selling books to his credit. His grasp of the subject and breadth of knowledge is impressive, and far surpasses that last guy (what was his name, anyway? Coleslaw? Headcold? something like that...), who was a joke. That's my senator!

Another First in the Annals of African-American History

TPM:

Barack Obama (is) definitely the first black man to get attacked by the right for telling kids to work hard and stay in school.

I swear, if he gave away free ice cream to everyone in the country, the wingnuts would find fault with that, too.

Bachmann to Wingnuts: Slit Our Wrists, Be "Blood Brothers" Against Health Care Reform, Or Michelle Bachmann Is a Stupid & Crazy Bitch, Part 1,981

The wingnuttiest wingnut of them all rides again! Congresscritter Michele Bachmann (R-Cloud Cuckoo Land) was in Colorado yesterday telling fellow reactionaries to give their all to oppose health care reform:

"What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing," said Bachmann. "This will not pass. We will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn't pass."

[...]Bachmann also denounced a system under which some Americans pay half their income in taxes: "It's nothing more than slavery."

Notwithstanding the offensiveness of Bachmann's comparison of tax rates on the richest Americans with slavery, I have only this to say about her "slit our wrists" comment:

PLEASE!--I'll even lend you a knife.

Thanks also to TPM.