Who Knew that Racists Drank So Much Tea?

photo courtesy Progress Now Colorado

The Tax day Tea-bagging circus promoted and fomented by Fox and Rush and the RWNM (right wing noise machine) are not about taxes, the are about losing. These folks lost the election and they don't know what to do about it. And since there are no reasonable people leading or uniting the republican party-- the vacuum is being filled by the fringe elements and the greedy news media.

Unfortunately the tea bag party has clearly become the happy home of racist, angry, and yes crazy people and they are more than willing to be the literal poster children for the GOP. (like this lovely young racist above)

During the scary Palin rallies it was the left who exposed photos and stories of some of the racist and violent elements that Sarah was stirring up. Like the grandpa that took the Obama monkey to a rally only to hide it and then give it to a kid when he realized he was on a CBS news camera,

(he was proud out in line when he thought it was just a regular person filming him)

During the election the racists were happy to share their propaganda with each other but were not displaying it so opening in the news. The media was downplaying it all back then-- calling the left hysterical when we pointed out the hatemongers that the GOP was whipping to a frenzy. But things are different now.

In their minority status-- the GOP and Fox have decided to encourage their followers to lead the charge and so the crazy racist slogans and hate speech are suddenly all over the news-- not just the blogs. FOX has put hate speech front and center-- and given the racists and crazies a national microphone.

I'm hopeful that this will turn out to be a huge mistake. I think be so out front with your racist hate and bile will turn off more and more people, shrinking the gop like a pair of tea bags in the icy cold ocean on an early summer swimming day in the northeast. (sorry couldn't resist-- too much Rachel Maddow this week)

cross posted from Fightingliberals.com

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Hate Talk Express

Haaretz: McCain attacks on Obama creeping toward 'hate speech':

"The manner in which Senator McCain, Governor [Sarah] Palin and their supporters refer to Senator Obama is creeping toward hate speech," Rabbis for Obama said in a statement on Thursday.
...
"They [the McCain campaign] recently used a uniformed sheriff to warm up the crowd at a rallyby emphasize the senator's middle name," the rabbis wrote. "At another event Senator McCain seemed shocked when one of his supporters stated that Senator Obama was an 'Arab.' That false belief is the fruit of the McCain campaign's emphasizing Senator Obama's middle name."

The rabbis also accused Vice Presidential candidate Palin of asserting that "Senator Obama pals around with terrorists," a claim that denounced as "false" and "built on three distortions and a lie."
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"They [Republican Jews] know that in the Jewish community this is the moral equivalent of crying fire in a crowded theater," the liberal rabbis said, adding: "The RJC approach harkens back to the classic Republican red baiting tactics of Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon from the early fifties."

Now I'll tell ya'. If there are any people who know from hate talk, it's them Jew-ish rab-bis. They has been hate-talked to foah ye-ahs.

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Hate-Radio Attacks Latina Public Defender

I grew up in Tucson. My mother still lives there. Mom's a Magistrate (a judge)(part-time) in the Tucson City Court. Tucson is home; I keep up on its politics and happenings.

One of the people I personally admire enormously in Tucson is Isabel Garcia, Pima County Legal Defender.


Isabel Garcia, Tucson Strategy Meeting, June 3, 2000. photo unknown.

With grace and poise, she manages an office which is perennially under budget, caring for the least fortunate among us.

Now Ms. Garcia is under brutal attack from right-wing hate groups for daring to point out that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is an asshole.

Well, he is (an asshole) and good for her for pointing it out. The camera hog was out of his county, on a book tour down to Tucson, and there was a protest which Ms. Garcia attended, during which piñata's of the sheriff were beaten. She laughed, and ended up with the head of one of the piñatas.

Clobbering a piñata of a hated politician is of course, an old and honored tradition. Though it drove the right-wing haters nuts.

That's different from what the radio shock-jock above did to Ms. Garcia. He took a piñata head, fondled it, objectified the body he attached it to, and was just, creepy.

Isabel Garcia has been defended by supporters throughout Tucson, Arizona, in letters and in editorials. And now the hate-jock is in full retreat as his advertising base crumbles.

Never retreat from a bully; always fight back.

Bravo Isabel Garcia, my favorite strong person of the day.

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Who are you? Where are you from?

When economies turn sour, when trouble starts, often anger from the in-group turns against those identified as outsiders. The identifying is done either by the powers that be who benefit by having a scapegoat-- or by the people themselves. This often comes from a desperation to protect the perceived minimal resources that people have during times of crisis and fear.

This week in South Africa angry mobs are beating, stabbing and setting immigrants on fire as they rampage through Johannesburg and other cities.

Mobs of South Africans shout: “Who are you? Where are you from?” as they maraud through the narrow streets they share with immigrants. They order people from their homes, steal their belongings and put padlocks on the houses.

Shops and businesses — many of them owned by Zimbabweans, Somalis and Pakistanis — have been looted. Many victims are legal residents with all the proper immigration documents. Some are being assaulted by neighbors they have known for years. -from the New York Times

Fear of immigrants is as old as immigration, which is to say almost as old as civilization itself. Too often profiteers and politicians help propel and inflame aniti-immigration sentiments.

In our own country we have been battling with fear and racism and unfair immigration policies more in this last 4 years than we have in decades.

The tragedy is to see this hatred promoted by our government and whipped up into a frenzy by the wingnuts and hate-radio-hosts as well as the corporate media. The outcome of this fear mongering has not yet plunged us into the type of chaos now rampant in South Africa, but this fear and panic needs to be dealt with head on. We need to call out the fear mongers and scapegoaters. Stop them in their tracks and refute their phony claims.

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