Whose Country Is It?

[bairdi]

March 27, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist
Whose Country Is It?
By CHARLES M. BLOW

The far-right extremists have gone into conniptions.

The bullying, threats, and acts of violence following the passage of health care reform have been shocking, but they’re only the most recent manifestations of an increasing sense of desperation.

It’s an extension of a now-familiar theme: some version of “take our country back.” The problem is that the country romanticized by the far right hasn’t existed for some time, and its ability to deny that fact grows more dim every day. President Obama and what he represents has jolted extremists into the present and forced them to confront the future. And it scares them.

Even the optics must be irritating. A woman (Nancy Pelosi) pushed the health care bill through the House. The bill’s most visible and vocal proponents included a gay man (Barney Frank) and a Jew (Anthony Weiner). And the black man in the White House signed the bill into law. It’s enough to make a good old boy go crazy.

Hence their anger and frustration, which is playing out in ways large and small. There is the current spattering of threats and violence, but there also is the run on guns and the explosive growth of nefarious antigovernment and anti-immigrant groups. In fact, according to a report entitled “Rage on the Right: The Year in Hate and Extremism” recently released by the Southern Poverty Law Center, “nativist extremist” groups that confront and harass suspected immigrants have increased nearly 80 percent since President Obama took office, and antigovernment “patriot” groups more than tripled over that period.

Politically, this frustration is epitomized by the Tea Party movement. It may have some legitimate concerns (taxation, the role of government, etc.), but its message is lost in the madness. And now the anemic Republican establishment, covetous of the Tea Party’s passion, is moving to absorb it, not admonish it. Instead of jettisoning the radical language, rabid bigotry and rising violence, the Republicans justify it. (They don’t want to refute it as much as funnel it.)

There may be a short-term benefit in this strategy, but it’s a long-term loser.

A Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday took a look at the Tea Party members and found them to be just as anachronistic to the direction of the country’s demographics as the Republican Party. For instance, they were disproportionately white, evangelical Christian and “less educated ... than the average Joe and Jane Six-Pack.” This at a time when the country is becoming more diverse (some demographers believe that 2010 could be the first year that most children born in the country will be nonwhite), less doctrinally dogmatic, and college enrollment is through the roof. The Tea Party, my friends, is not the future.

You may want “your country back,” but you can’t have it. That sound you hear is the relentless, irrepressible march of change. Welcome to America: The Remix.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/opinion/27blow.html?src=tp

[Revere]

Why does Barack Obama want to divide this country? Why is he making Americans Angry?

[bairdi]

Why does Barack Obama want to divide this country? Why is he making Americans Angry?
Where did you get these crazy ideas from?

[mrmeangenes]

I would guess he mistakes GOP fundraising efforts (which involve stirring up wild emotions, then sitting back aghast and saying, "Who, me ? I never said that !") for "division by Obama".

[CommonCents]

Where did you get these crazy ideas from?

Gee, have you taken a look at the public opinion polls concerning the things Obama is pushing?

When the majority of the American people are against health care, Cap & Trade, government spending, etc... wouldn't you say that qualifies as "dividing the country?"

Probably not. Your a progressive, so logic doesn't apply.

[slowhand]

Why does Barack Obama want to divide this country? Why is he making Americans Angry?

Ask John McCain the about division..That division is why he is still a Senator, and not the Prez

Ask your party constituents why they are cronically obstucting govt, rather than participating in it?

Were you jumping up and down in the street when Bush signed Medicare Part D into law?

[Smurf-Herder]

March 27, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist
Whose Country Is It?
By CHARLES M. BLOW

The far-right extremists have gone into conniptions.

The bullying, threats, and acts of violence following the passage of health care reform have been shocking, but they’re only the most recent manifestations of an increasing sense of desperation.

It’s an extension of a now-familiar theme: some version of “take our country back.” The problem is that the country romanticized by the far right hasn’t existed for some time, and its ability to deny that fact grows more dim every day. President Obama and what he represents has jolted extremists into the present and forced them to confront the future. And it scares them.

Even the optics must be irritating. A woman (Nancy Pelosi) pushed the health care bill through the House. The bill’s most visible and vocal proponents included a gay man (Barney Frank) and a Jew (Anthony Weiner). And the black man in the White House signed the bill into law. It’s enough to make a good old boy go crazy.

Hence their anger and frustration, which is playing out in ways large and small. There is the current spattering of threats and violence, but there also is the run on guns and the explosive growth of nefarious antigovernment and anti-immigrant groups. In fact, according to a report entitled “Rage on the Right: The Year in Hate and Extremism” recently released by the Southern Poverty Law Center, “nativist extremist” groups that confront and harass suspected immigrants have increased nearly 80 percent since President Obama took office, and antigovernment “patriot” groups more than tripled over that period.

Politically, this frustration is epitomized by the Tea Party movement. It may have some legitimate concerns (taxation, the role of government, etc.), but its message is lost in the madness. And now the anemic Republican establishment, covetous of the Tea Party’s passion, is moving to absorb it, not admonish it. Instead of jettisoning the radical language, rabid bigotry and rising violence, the Republicans justify it. (They don’t want to refute it as much as funnel it.)

There may be a short-term benefit in this strategy, but it’s a long-term loser.

A Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday took a look at the Tea Party members and found them to be just as anachronistic to the direction of the country’s demographics as the Republican Party. For instance, they were disproportionately white, evangelical Christian and “less educated ... than the average Joe and Jane Six-Pack.” This at a time when the country is becoming more diverse (some demographers believe that 2010 could be the first year that most children born in the country will be nonwhite), less doctrinally dogmatic, and college enrollment is through the roof. The Tea Party, my friends, is not the future.

You may want “your country back,” but you can’t have it. That sound you hear is the relentless, irrepressible march of change. Welcome to America: The Remix.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/opinion/27blow.html?src=tp


BREITBART: I am Kenneth Gladney

The first round of protests against the Obama administration's chaotic and rapid-fire expansion of government came in the form of grass-roots "tea parties," which were predictably met with scorn by the Democrat-Media Complex (the natural coalition of the Democratic Party and the mainstream media.)

CNN's Anderson Cooper and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow led the charge, declaring concerned Americans "tea baggers," an allusion to an absurd sexual fetish beneath describing in a family newspaper. This attack on hundreds of thousands of people practicing their constitutional right to protest speaks volumes not just about the hardened sociopolitical leanings of America's journalistic elite, but about the brazenness with which they are now wielding their unprofessionalism.

Last week on the grounds of the once-venerated White House, Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, taking his cues from his allies in the media, referred to last week's health care town-hall protesters as "tea baggers."

How far we have fallen.

Stepping up the rhetoric from mockery to pure hatred, and absent any evidence, Mr. Olbermann has called the president's public protesters "worse than racists." Political activist and comedianJaneane Garofalo colored them "racist rednecks who hate blacks." And at the somewhat higher end of the food chain, liberal economist Paul Krugman in the New York Times wrote last week that they were motivated by "cultural and racial fear."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is having a hard time these days explaining the president's Israel policy to her Jewish constituents, blatantly lied and said that the protesters were wielding "swastikas and symbols like that."

Supporters of the president understand what is going on. So do his detractors.

The mainstream media and the Democratic Party are working in concert to make sure that what happened to President Bush -- sustained organized grass-roots protests ("mobs," if you will), relentless media criticism and permanent opposition-party obstructionism -- does not happen to their guy. Complicating matters, the media's fate is directly tied to the president's. Without them, Barack Obama would still be a backbencher from Illinois.

But the mockery. The recklessness. Unsupportable libel isn't working. The tea parties and, now, the health care protests at town-hall meetings have only gotten bigger and stronger. The anti-big-government movement is pure. Its participants represent something close to what used to be considered normative in this country.

Tea Party attendees and health care town-hall protesters share the common belief that the extravagant spending of President Obama and the Democratic Party -- absent any checks and balances -- will eventually lead more people into government dependency, higher taxes and, perhaps, our country's financial ruin. These are legitimate fears felt by millions of Americans.

That's why the media and the Democratic Party are scared and are throwing outrageous and hateful accusations at everyday Americans -- hoping that people stay home out of fear.

I've attended two tea parties so far. One was in Santa Ana, Calif., on April 15, where my 81-year-old father-in-law, the actor Orson Bean, joined fellow actor Gary Graham and newly naturalized American citizen Ian Mitchell, from the Scottish '70s music sensation, the Bay City Rollers.

I saw no "tea bagging." Blacks and Hispanics carried signs along with the white majority. But there was a sketchy dog dressed in a red, white and blue sweater.

Make of that what you will, Mr. Olbermann.

Last week, a black gentleman named Kenneth Gladney went to a town-hall meeting hosted by Rep. Russ Carnahan, Missouri Democrat. While passing out "Don't Tread on Me" flags, he was viciously attacked by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) members. One called him a "nigger."

These union thugs were directed by the White House to go to the protests and "punch back twice as hard." And they did.

While the attack was captured on video and is available on YouTube, Mr. Gladney's horrifying story is absent from MSNBC's 24/7 media cycle. Mr. Krugman has yet to write about it. And Mr. Cooper has yet to condemn the attack.

On Sept. 12, I will be attending a tea party in Quincy, Ill., joining Instapundit professor Glenn Reynolds, Gateway Pundit's Jim Hoft, and Tucker Carlson.

With the Democratic Party in control of all branches of government and the Fourth Estate acting as the Democratic Party's protector, the tea party movement is the closest thing America has to checks and balances.

If that isn't enough to motivate you, perhaps showing your solidarity with Kenneth Gladney, a fellow patriot, is.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/10/i-am-kenneth-gladney/print/

http://carlsagansdanceparty.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/tea-party-protestor1.jpg

http://afrocityblog.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/black-man-tea-party.jpg

http://nikolasschiller.com/photo/tea_party_912_2009/tea_party_912dc_12_blowing_mad_money.jpg

http://cache.trustedpartner.com/images/library/NationalBlackRepublicanAssociation2009/NBRA%20Supporter%20with%20MLK%20Was%20A%20Republic an%20T-Shirt%20web.jpg

[bairdi]

RpOUctySD68