Credibility And The Tea Party Movement

In a video at link below - after some brief side discussion between people with both the Libertarian Party and the Constitution Party - a fairly obvious nutcase gets up in an open mic forum and makes some outlandish claims. Contrary to Charles's claim the audience as a whole is not eating it up. But of course Andrew Sullivan is quick to jump in to use it as proof that the Tea Party movement is deranged.

I neither know, nor care what lgf's problem with Glenn Beck is. But in allowing his own bias to get the best of him, Charles is casting aspersions where they don't belong and squandering his own credibility in doing so. It's unfortunate to see.

At Glenn Beck Tea Party: 'Burn the Books!'

This is some really deranged stuff, and the audience is eating it up.

Looks like the Tea Party people need to switch to decaf.

I thought the idea of the tea parties was a good one. Unfortunately they seem to have been hijacked by the kooky right.

Where are all the sane Conservatives?

The problem is that they were given airtime and the audience was allowed to respond in such a way as to show that they agreed with them: demonstrating the kinds of people who attend these kind of events.

This makes conservatives look bad.

Comments

[Pat Curley]

Beck has gone loopy in my opinion, so I agree with the LGF crowd there. But I agree with you that it's unfair to say the crowd was eating it up, although I would have preferred to see some of the grown ups there shout the guy down when he started in with the "cable boxes are a plot to brainwash us" bit.

BTW, I think the poster of the video is the gal who yells out "burn the books" and it is far from clear to me looking at her YouTube page as to whether she's really a conservative (as she claims in the comments) or if she was just out spoofing.

It's no surprise that right-wing cranks are going to try to hijack the tea party movement just as left-wing cranks for Mumia and fair play for Cuba latch themselves on to the antiwar movement. I hope that the responsible conservatives will oppose these diversions.

[Brian]

The thing is that Johnson knows when he does this that he's going to get to play the "Rightie Calls Out Fellow Righties!" foil and he's doing it on purpose.

/Because of the credibility!

It all stems from his inability to be atheist without being a fucking dick about it. Something I got over about the time I graduated from college as it's unbecoming to act like a pissy little brat rebelling against your parents making you go to church on Sunday when you're a 40+ year old man, Chuck.

I'd like to think that he'd get over it but it's fair to say that he's charting his own path here. He's falling in love with his traffic from lefty blogs and there's no turning back now.

Goodbye Little Green Footballs, Hello Politburo Diktat V.2.1a

And now, for a photo of the spokes on my bicycle.

[Kat]

Brian, I got the Politburo Diktat V2.1a reference. Steve really jumped the shark with his lurch to the Left. I would agree that LGF is headed that direction.

[Jana]

I'm not saying that I agree with everything Beck says. He's just getting a lot of attention right now because his show is such a smashing success, but it isn't like this is anything new if you're familiar with his work. Now. I just want to point out that if you had predicted the current economic/political situation a few years ago, most would call you a crank. So...you know. I am keeping my mind pretty open these days.

[JadedByPolitics]

I just hope we can all remember the purpose of the TEA Parties is to the government to STOP JUST STOP and take a freaking breathe before you spend anymore of our children and grandchildrens future down the hole! This is not a right or left issue it is an American issue. This government under both Bush and now Obama has LOST ITS MIND. If attending a TEA Party just single out the nutjobs both from the right and the infiltrators from the left and make them pariahs! Let us NOT allow this message to go unheard by those who WORK for US We The People of the United States of America!

[nick]

I used to read LGF quite frequently. He must have started drinkin or somethin and gone off the deep end casting aspersions on anything that even smells of the Right that comes within spittin distance. And now he`s on this anti Creationist Jihad attacking Jindal and Texans. What the hell got into him.

[wolfwalker]

I neither know, nor care what lgf's problem with Glenn Beck is.

Pretty simple: Charles made the mistake of judging based on inadequate information. Beck's on-air persona is a bundle of contradictions, which has developed -- partly on purpose, partly not -- over his several years on the radio. Those who have only discovered him now, after his jump to television, won't know what to make of him. He is, on some subjects, a total and complete nut case. On other subjects, he's worth listening to. He has a screwy sense of humor, such that some of the wacko things he says are actually intended as jokes or satire. He has a serious problem with ADD. He's desperately afraid of what is going to happen to the USA over the next few years as all our past debts come due and our stupid "leaders" keep piling-on new debt. And he occasionally suffers from very bad judgement in picking his sources.

In all of which he isn't much different from any talk show host, left or right.

[Rick]

I've stopped viewing LGF, it got tiresome.
I believe Glenn Beck is doing what needs to be done. The great majority of people do not read this or any other political blog or much of anything political. These people see problems in their lives and do not/cannot put their finger on the reasons. Beck is putting reasons in simple, easy to understand language and demostrations. If the message is going to be effective it has to be at the level that the receiver is.
That does not mean that the receiver cannot achieve/understand other levels but that the political level where they are currently is where the starting point is.

[DaveinPhoenix]

Yep. Us on the "kooky right" will be attending these "kind of events" to:

Protest a federal government gone wild: $42 trillion in debt (including total present value of future expenditures in excess of future revenue for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid).

Protest the $ billions spent each year dealing with illegal aliens.

Protest the fact that 60% of Americans aged 16-25 are functionally illiterate, despite spending $700+ billion a year on public education.

Protest a federal government paralyzed by a rowboat full of "pirates" who have virtually shut down commercial shipping in a strategic area of the world.

Protest a government which penalizes success and rewards outright failure.

Protest the cost of complying with government regulations - $4,680 per person - $1.4 Trillion - 14% of the economy.

And protest a generation of public officials and representatives who care more of their re-election chances than doing what is right for America.

Yep. That's us: the "kooky right". That's what fearful people call the silent majority who have decided to finally raise our voices. Get over it. It's just beginning.

[Sam the Plumber]

To Dave in Phoenix:

If you think the popular solution to all of the problems you lay out is capitalism, deregulation, and the free market, then you truly are kooky. First of all, it will be a cold day in hell when S. Security and Medicare are shut down. If they were, poverty amongst the elderly would go sky-high like it was before the entitlements.

Illegal aliens? Obama is just doing what he promised. If you want to protest that, fine, just make sure you consult Norquist and the Chamber of Commerce before you ship all the aliens south again. Your party sold itself down the pro-corporate road long, long ago.

Illiteracy? So what is your solution? Rote memorization? Outlaw the arts? Kill critical thinking? I can agree with you the teachers unions need to ease up. There's some common ground.

Pirates? Paralyzed? Really?

Failure rewarded? Yeah, I'm sure Joe the Plumber would prefer to stay broke than make $250,000 a year and pay a little bit more taxes. Our taxes are still very low. You guys must really hate Eisenhower. Next time you romanticize the fifties, check that top marginal tax rate. Acting like 39% equals Joseph Stalin is so laughable it's pathetic you could make that argument.

Government regulations? How old and tired is this argument? We've seen what deregulation did to banking. The unfettered free market is so obsessed with the bottom line that it will slit its own throat (forget the consumer) for short-term gains. You know that.

Re-election vs. doing what's right? We need to make it easier for more Americans to vote so we can get rid of them. Oh wait--the only reason the Republican party exists is low voter turnout. If we had 80% voting, this country would probably have bullet trains, universal healthcare, and electric cars.

It's not that you're kooky, it's that you have no solution that isn't something that has been tried and beaten to death a million times already. Face it: you just hate Obama and hate losing. If you guys had any sack you would have been in the streets protesting Bush. But you didn't. So you have no credibility, no ideas, and no leg to stand on.

I can't wait for the teabaggers to hit the streets so we can show our children what the last, desperate gasps of a dying ideology looks like. God's mercy on you.

And, oh yeah: most of you are pretty kooky too. Can't wait to take your guns and put you in a FEMA camp.

[Rick]

To Sam the Plumber: Oh yeah!!!!
There's so much claptrap in what you say it's laughable. You make me laff.

[john]

Sam,

A person who thinks the majority of Americans are pining away for bullet trains and electric cars is in no position to be calling anyone else a kook.

[Sam the Plumber]

John,

Oh yeah, screw technology that does things like keep us from buying foreign oil or gets us from DC to NY in an hour without dealing with airports. What hell that would be.

I brought those up as examples about how our infrastructure is so stone-age that we make China look like it's from the year 3000.

Keep the bar low, John. That's they only way you teabaggers can explain away how your tax cuts on the rich have yielded so little for our country.

[JadedByPolitics]

So Sam the Plumber

"Illegal aliens? Obama is just doing what he promised. If you want to protest that, fine, just make sure you consult Norquist and the Chamber of Commerce before you ship all the aliens south again. Your party sold itself down the pro-corporate road long, long ago."

Perhaps you were knocked out on DRUGS during the illegal immigration debate but WE on the RIGHT busted our party and those like Norquist and every Chamber of Commerce in every state and WE WON! So while the elected stooges sold itself We The People DID NOT! When you tool liberals start holding your idiots to some standards you can then call us out UNTIL then SHUT UP!

Obama promised "open" government and still to this day the gov website does not show where all the spending has went, Obama promised to end the Patriot Act BUT he is only strengthening it, Obama promised to end don't ask don't tell BUT he isn't doing that, Obama said he would bring the troops home from Iraq BUT 50K will be there through 2011 and he is escalating the war in Afghanistan. HE IS the politician WE KNEW HE WAS!

[Gary Ogletree]

As an early attendee of the first Rainbow Gathering near Rocky Mtn. Nat'l Park in June of '72 and smaller such events over the years, I watched how the effective unscripted meeting format evolved. First, you sit or stand in a circle. The one who has the stick or flute has the floor and it is passed around the circle stopping where someone wants to speak. Of course, the flute was too phallic, so a bowl became the speaker's talisman. The guys politely refrained from pointing out the bowl was too womb-like, after all, Sisterhood is Powerful when there are a lot of them around to pounce on you. Some meetings ran smoothly, but as the numbers escalate, the people with issues arrive and get a little crazy. The trick is to let them blow off steam as they insist everyone agree with them and execute their brilliant plans. Once they see that's not happening they stomp off and the patient practical people get down to business. As in: we need volunteers to dig slit latrines well away from wet areas, make sure you drink plenty of water in this heat, don't eat from a plate that someone has just used, go wash it first, give the porcupines a lot of space, and consolidate our fires, there's too much smoke, etc. Of course, there were no media and no Acorn plants. Just an occasional sheriff who could be charmed into not closing off the road in.

[syn]

Keep in mind that Charles Johnson splatters his spleen at the mere sight of scarfs; the guy has some serious mental and emotional problems.

[syn]

"it will be a cold day in hell when S. Security and Medicare are shut down"

That cold day is coming to your world quite soon and you will realize it when Herr IRS Man (aka tax cheater Timothy Geithner) comes knocking on your door demanding you get down on your knees to pay the $52 trillion in unfunded liabilities (aka Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare)

Sam the Plumber, you may enjoy being on your bended knees sucking the Slavemaster's Serfdom, however I am a liberated woman and I don't do Statists. I'm too good to give my pleasures over to tyrants with smiley faces.

You, on the other hand, seem quite eager to satisfy your Slavemaster in every which way stupid; such impotence, how sad.

[bansharia]

Charlie from lil green footballs has credibility?
NO SALE