Not outer space but from this bus...
I think it's called the Tea Party Express... Oh my God! It was!
The leaders of this national bus tour arrived with their conservative posse, and a crowd of supporters, to decry Congress, higher spending, and "government intervention in the lives of American families and businesses." The tour is sponsored by longtime Republican party activists and other conservatives.
The Tea Party Express descended on Walnut Creek and held their rally in Civic Park, with their leaders using our town's all-American picturesque bandstand, to bleat their message (like characters from an Orwellian fascist scenario?)
(OMG, there I go, revealing my liberal, socialist, leftist, pinko bias! Bad Soccer Mom!)
Their message is that Congress is bad, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are bad, and that President Obama is a socialist--and so is his health care plan.
I attended, mingled amongst the crowds, and listened to some of the speeches, including from this guy named Mark Williams, a leader of the Tea Party movement, author of this book called Exposing the Socialist Agenda, and a resident of the "conservative Sacramento Valley."
(Did I attend this event with a neutral, objective mindset, like a real journalist? Oh, bad, bad Soccer Mom!)
I heard Mr. Williams shout the praises of pundits like Melanie Morgan, and then I heard another Tea Party leader, Deborah Johns, talk about how Michelle Obama and her ilk does not understand what it really means to send a son into war. (As if conservative heroes, Geroge W. and Dick Cheney, the architects of our current wars, understand this choice better.)
Back to Mr. Williams: This former radio host's website and book promotion claims to answer such penetrating questions as:
--Why Sarah Palin captures Americans’ imagination
--How to understand and counter liberals
--Why “liberalism” may in fact be a mental illness
--How to understand and counter liberals
--Why “liberalism” may in fact be a mental illness
As I stifle a giggle, I also saw that Mr. Williams' site lists his ideas of whom he constitutes as "21st Century Nazis." Sure, some of the individuals he mentions are questionable characters.
He also also includes Jimmy Carter, President Obama's church, Democracy Now!, and ACORN, the current right-wing bogeyman.
Talk about piling it on.
I admit, I didn't stay too long at this Tea Party rally. I had to get home and make dinner. Also, as much as I respect everyone's right to free speech and to express their political views, I could only stomach so much. The speakers and the crowd (including some young guy who look like Timothy McVeigh wanna-bes) gave me this queasy feeling--like I had timewarped back into one of Adolph Hitler's Nuremberg rallies.
Uh, Mr. Williams? Speaking of 21st Nazis? Maybe listen to yourself and your crowds sometime.
31 comments:
Oh my, we are dramatic!
Lest you forget, "Adolph Hitler's Nurmberg rallies" were not about Free Speech.
You may not agree with what you heard today but will you at least agree that those attending came by their own free will? No one made you or anyone else show up at Civic Park.
People other than yourself attended because they are frustrated and really believe that this is the only way they can be heard.
You attended simply because you wanted to write a snarky post on your blog espousing your own obviously and admitted liberal views. Your right to do so, but a bit beneath your usual enlightening and intelligent posts.
Congress is bad (check the approval ratings), Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are bad (check their approval ratings). With numbers like they have there are a lot of independents and maybe some dems dissapproving.
President Obama does appear to have socialist leanings, and so does his health care plan.
Remember when Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) said " And, guess what this liberal will be all about? This liberal will be about socializing... uh, will be about, basically taking over and the government running all of your companies."
There's the word...socializing...from a democrat...advocating taking over private companies. And I believe she is a huge Obama supporter.
Wish I'd gone to the tea party.
You all are watching too much Fox news and glen beck and don't really understand much of anything that takes time to think out and analyze. It's just easier to feel good by picking up the the Limbaugh/Fox one liners and actually pretend that it is factual. Hoorah the right wing brainwashing is complete.
Drove by and saw them too,thanks for filling us in. When I got home today I had a recorded message that started with "tea party" and I hung up. They were probably looking for some attendees amongst Republicans of which I am one. I must admit my disappointment at the lack of true leadership within the party.
Was the picture representative of the age of the participants? I wonder how many of them are already receiving "socialist" medical benefits.
LeftCoast proudly upholds the tradition of liberal arrogance.
Not at all, I merely point out how easily people use the term socialist in regard to the current administration while ignoring that there have been "socialist" programs sponsored by our govt. for over 60 years.
You accusation is typical of those who ignore history and only look this administration as the place to bolster the arguments of Fox/Beck and Rush. That doesn't make me arrogant or even liberal for that matter. Seriously do your homework, read and watch other news sites that take a centrist point of view,or that point out the distortions by both parties, it's amazing what you can learn.
This is not the first time I have heard the Hitler/Obama characterization. There are Obama signs at these tea parties with little moustaches and swasticas Charlie Manson style...right in the middle of the freaking forehead.
It would be less ignorant if you were to compare Obama to Stalin or Mussolini.
Two snarky things: As the mother of two young daughters, Michelle Obama can hardly be faulted for having no real 'feel' for what it's like to send a son off to war-- and Americans are fascinated with Sarah Palin for much the same reason we have trouble averting our eyes from a train wreck....
What did the tea partyers think about our new library? They were partying right next to it.
All the "one sided", extreme views do nothing to move us forward. If your one or the other your just a sheep. Find candidates that aren't sheep.
Just report objectively, SM. You're as much of a hypocrite as they are.
Crazy in Suburbia is entitled to her opinion and if you don't like it, don't read her blog. I dismay that anyone compares someone to Hitler, whichever side or political view you hold. If people really knew and understood history, they wouldn't make such comparisons.
Agreed, disagree, speak your mind, but can't people be civil? I guess not based on what I saw yesterday.
A question I can't get answered is why are all of these "Tea Parties" always held on public property? You know public property. That's where all the bad, bad government workers are responsible for cleaning up the mess left behind. Why don't these supporters fund their own parties?
Anon 1:00,
Good point. Tea parties with Crackpots instead of Teapots.
Cleanup paid by taxpayers.
Public parks etc. are there for the public to use. Even though we may not agree with those that use them for their political purposes, they do have the right to use them.
Do anyone really know if the Tea Party folks left litter on the grounds or is this just another Left Wing conspiracy to defame them?
Right but the Tea Party folks don't want to pay taxes for our parks. They only want to pay for police & roads.
apparently, it's the nutjobs from the Lyndon LaRouche group who first started the bizarre Obama/Hitler comparisons.
Conservatives should ask themselves if they really want to align themselves with such a fringe group. Then again, politics make strange bedfellows.
I work for the city and consider myself pretty much apolitical. I must say these folks set up themselves and cleaned up their mess. There were around 800-1000 people there at the height which is the largest rally held at Civic Park in quite some time. By contrast MoveOn.org held a health care rally there a few weeks ago. Only a handful of people showed up and they still left trash on the ground. The anti-war protests held in the park when Bush was President were always a pain to clean up after.
This post made me laugh out loud! I love how worked up you liberals get when someone disagrees with you. Priceless. Let's just take a quick look at the score shall we. Obama's been in office for less than a year made foriegn policy blunder after blunder. His stimulus plan to keep unemployment below 8% has grown it to 9.8% and rising. The rate for one of the groups Obama organizied communities for back in the day, black males under 25, has risen to over 50%! Our deficit is four times larger than the already high deficits under Bush with no end in sight. With the exception of unions and federal government employees people have seen no relief from Obama. People are turning against Obama and the left in droves and you guys are banging your heads on the table trying to figure what went wrong and why it happened so darn quickly. Just to drive the point home that the average moderate (not talking you crazies now) has finally come to his or her senses; Polosi has the lowest approve ratings of any Speaker of the House..ever. Biden's approval rating is far lower than Cheney's was at this point during his term as is Obama's lower than ol'Georgie's when he was ten months in. And since I know you watch CNN you must have caught their reporting on the Gallup poll last week-A MAJORITY of Americans now feel Obama is taking the country in the wrong direction. 2010 is going to be good....
It's all the fault of Bush and the library...
The Library, maybe. Bush, not.
LeftCoast,
Don't bother. These people just watch Fox and spew Glenn's, Rush's, and O'Reilly's talking points.
Do you know how many of these 'astroturfers' (groups pretending to be grassroots movements) don't have a freaking clue that Medicare and Social Security are government programs? They don't understand that Fox Noise gives them too little or misinformation.
If Glenn, Bill-O, or El Rushbo doesn't tell them so, they don't know it.
I know, I can literally cut and paste their talking points from the conservative websites. No knowledge of history whatsoever. 2010 elections won't turn out the way they are being led to believe either.
2:55 and LeftCoast,
Listen to yourselves----you sound just like Keith Oberman, in fact using all of his cutsie phrases.
You have no more original thoughts than those with whom you disagree.
8:47,
It's Keith OLBERMANN with two 'Ns.' Kinda like GLENN Beck. You know GLENN BECK, right?
Actually I like Rachel Maddow much better, but I think Keith is hilarious.
Fox = lies, lies, and more lies. They deliberately twist and omit the truth to stir the pot.
They're not a viable new sources, just entertainment for the TV remote people. These people believe that Fox Noise is actually news, but it's not. It's often ridiculous, often incendiary speech.
Fox Noise should not be allowed to call themselves a 'news' station. At the very least, it's misrepresentation to the consumer.
9:17pm
I stand corrected as to the spelling. Actually not so bad as I sat pondering for a few moments before I could even think of what I thought his last name was.
Not a Fox watcher so would have gotten Glenn Beck's name wrong too.
Both Fox and MSNBC are very political in their reporting so I tend to only local news on TV and then read newspapers.
Print media does not bill itself as 'entertainment' so tends to be a bit easier to sort out as to political leanings.
I apologize for calling you a hypocrite. I've never met you, so can't know your inner thinking. That's all.
Anon,
I don't watch either station. I just understand history, the inflaming of emotion by a relatively uninformed public, and the abuse of fact better than half the people that have posted here. I also understand that neither party really is responsive nor represents us any more.
The news people stir emotions to generate revenue. The candidates do what the party wants. Maddow, Beck and all the others laugh their way to the bank. Neither station is worse than the other.
Your candidate doesn't give a squat about you but does want your vote. Support your local community somehow and forget about the stuff you can't control. Quit watching any of the one sided TV programs.
Worst blog ever.
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