The North Iowa Tea Party began displaying the billboard in downtown Mason City last week. The sign shows large photographs of Obama, Nazi leader Hitler and communist leader Lenin beneath the labels “Democrat Socialism,” “National Socialism,” and “Marxist Socialism.”
[I]Beneath the photos is the phrase, "Radical leaders prey on the fearful & naive."[/I]
I especially love the ironic tag about radicals preying on the fearful and naive. I mean, were they really that stupid that they didn’t realize that they were preying on the fearful?
That was a rhetorical question, by the way - yes, they are that cosmically stOOpid.
And yes, I realize it is succumb - massive brain fart (I succumbed to Murphy’s Law).
Gnarly Titz was defeated in a run for political office in California and slapped around by the courts for being a cosmic doofus. She’s probably sulking somewhere for the moment.
Ok this makes no sense, I hear people say many times why wont the repubs or the national leadership denounce things like this. So they go ahead and denounce it and now that means nothing. Make up your mind please.
You’re right - but in some ways I could wrap my head around the whole Christian Coalition, family values schtick. I don’t agree with 99% of it, but I can grokk where they’re coming from.
These Tea Party people are from fucking Planet Zebulon Theta Six. I don’t think even they grasp what they’re pushing for.
I think the National Tea Party Leadership happily agree with the message the Iowa dweebs were making, they just wish they wouldn’t be so damn open about it. ‘Yeah, we think Obama’s a Socialist / Communist / Martian / Whatever too - but we have an election to win here, people. Keep the tin foil hats under the bed until we get into office.’
Just my take on it…
For what it’s worth, I’ll be the last person you hear demanding the Tea Party denounce the whackos. Let your freak flag fly. Say what you mean and mean what you say.
The understanding i had was that the various “Tea Party” organizations are all pretty loosely affiliated, and there isn’t any actual hierarchy, strictly speaking. So, the national organization (one of many?) condemning them doesn’t really hold alot of weight.
Also, I don’t think you win a lot of brownie points for denouncing this particular billboard, you just don’t lose sanity points.
This is awesome. I can’t really call it Godwinning. I’m not sure what the hell it is.
Williams [spokesman for the Tea Party Express] contends that it’s actually the NAACP that’s being bigoted.
“You’re dealing with people who are professional race-baiters, who make a very good living off this kind of thing. They make more money off of race than any slave trader ever. It’s time groups like the NAACP went to the trash heap of history where they belong with all the other vile racist groups that emerged in our history,” Williams said.
Charges of racism against the Tea Party flared after African-American congressmen said they were heckled, spat at and were assailed with racial slurs by Tea Party supporters during a demonstration at the U.S. Capitol
Sure, the NAACP is doing some self-promotion by targeting high profile issues like, well, the behavior of some Tea Partiers. Then again…I can’t be the only one who sees the trend over there. Whether it’s spitting on black Congressmen or Rand Paul saying that private business should be able to segregate or some of the awfully racist posters and mailers circulating around.
When Stormfront’s giving you the thumbs up it might be time for a little more critical self-examination and a little less idiotic indignation. Then again, look who I’m talking about.
Williams [spokesman for the Tea Party Express] contends that it’s actually the NAACP that’s being bigoted.
“You’re dealing with people who are professional race-baiters, who make a very good living off this kind of thing. They make more money off of race than any slave trader ever. It’s time groups like the NAACP went to the trash heap of history where they belong with all the other vile racist groups that emerged in our history,” Williams said.
Here’s Jonah ‘Liberal Fascism’ Goldberg (an author I’m sure most of the Tea Party folk are familiar with) on the flippant use of ‘Nazi’ in denouncing one’s political foes:
Which brings up the appropriate response to such accusations. Calling someone a Nazi is as bad as calling them a “nigger” or a “kike” or anything else you can think of. It’s not cute. It’s not funny. And it’s certainly not clever. If you’re too stupid to understand that a philosophy that favors a federally structured republic, with numerous restraints on the scope and power of government to interfere with individual rights or the free market, is a lot different from an ethnic-nationalist, atheistic, and socialist program of genocide and international aggression, you should use this rule of thumb: If someone isn’t advocating the murder of millions of people in gas chambers and a global Reich for the White Man you shouldn’t assume he’s a Nazi and you should know it’s pretty damn evil to call him one.
However, if you’re not too stupid to recognize the difference, but you just think saying such things will get you more attention from the press, make you a hero to some constituency, or simply makes you sound impressive, than you deserve to be socked in the goddamn face.
