Tea Partying Like It’s 1929

“This bill is the greatest threat to freedom that I have seen in the nineteen years I have been here in Washington”
John Boehner
November 5, 2009

The greatest threat to freedom in nineteen years? Oh, dear!

I derive a great deal of pleasure from doing what I do. But there are a few points of extreme unpleasantness to be sure. One of these is the fact that I am forced to spend a lot of time thinking about people like John Boehner. The greatest threat to freedom in nineteen years? Where was this asshole on September 11, 2001? Or when the Patriot Act was passed for that matter. Where was this fool in 2000 when the Supreme Court put a stop to the vote counting in the state of Florida and installed the Bush Mob in the White House? The greatest threat to freedom in nineteen years? Have another sip, Mr. Faux Tan Man.

Another convention of half-witted, pissed-off and clueless white people stormed into Washington, DC yesterday determined to destroy the type of health care reform that – if it goes into effect – will surely save the lives of most of the protesters who were in attendance (or their loved ones). It was the sort of weird, indescribable spectacle that makes the train-wreck of American politics (not to mention the got-busting stupidity of so many Americans) such a perverse delight to behold these days. Let’s face it: crazy people are always loads of fun to watch – and the jackasses who showed up in Washington yesterday didn’t disappoint.

At least one person held up a huge sign that showed a pile of bodies, victims of the European holocaust of the thirties and forties. Above this gruesome reminder of humanity’s capacity for evil were the words:

NATIONAL SOCIALIST HEALTH CARE – DACHAU, GERMANY, 1945

Isn’t that sweet? That seems to be quite a popular thing to do these days – equating anything connected with this administration and this president to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. It kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it? But the highlight of the day (for my money anyway) was Congressman John Boehner. He held up a copy of what he claimed was his own personal copy of the Constitution and proceeded to quote from “it”:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident – that all men are created equal.”

That’s not from the Constitution, Johnny. That’s from the Declaration of Independence – which was written thirteen years earlier! Were we able to go back in time to 1966 – when I was in the third grade – I could have told you that then, too. When we’ve gotten to a point where our elected representatives can’t even get basic American history right, we’re in, as Harry Truman liked to say, “one hell of a fix.”

“KILL THE BILL! KILL THE BILL!”

The crowd (which was invited to the event by everyone’s favorite extremist poster girl, Michele Bachmann, during an appearance on FOX Noise) could have been hired form Central Casting for all anyone knows. Although some of the signs they held up were crude, homemade affairs, a number of them were professionally made and more-than-likely distributed by the politicians who planned the event. The size of the crowd was estimated by the police to be between three and four-thousand people. Examining all of the news footage I could, I did not see any African American faces among the protesters. That is not meant to imply that there were none there – I am most certain that there were a handful of token Uncle Toms placed in strategic locations throughout. There always are:

“Hee! Hee! Hee! Oh, Mistah White Folks, you sho’ is sly!!!”

“I would love to have every one of your viewers join me so that we can go up and down through the halls. Find members, look at the whites of their eyes and say, ‘Don’t take away my heath care.'”

Michele Bachmann
October 30, 2009

“The whites of their eyes”??? As in: “Don’t shoot until you see….”??? What the hell is it with this imbecilic woman and her penchant for violent language? This is the same idiot who less than a year ago said on national television that she wanted to keep people “armed and dangerous” on the subject of taxation. Nice!

What is happening (just in case you failed to notice) is that many of the far-right extremists – within Congress and without – are inciting the brainless masses to violence. Does that sound overly alarmist on my part? As Eliza Doolittle said in My Fair Lady, “Just you wait, Henry Higgins, just you wait.” Given the current explosive atmosphere which certain Republican members of Congress have made possible with their irresponsible, inflammatory rhetoric, another domestic terrorist incident akin to what happened in Oklahoma City in 1994 is not only possible – it’s damned-near inevitable.

When that happens – Oh, brother! – watching the Republican spin machine surge into overdrive will be quite amusing to say the least. Mark my words: there will be more-than-a-few sleepless nights at Rupert Murdoch’s media corporation. Trying to pin the blame for something like that on the Liberals is going to be a tad tricky to say the least. But so brazen are these people you can be sure that they’ll give it the old college try. I can see it now….

A small organization of disgruntled Birthers decide that they are going to save their beloved nation from the Big, Black, Bolshevik Bogeyman. They concoct a scheme to blow up a government building in – South Bend, Indiana; Davenport, Iowa; Goshen, NY – take your pick. They make their move just when people are arriving for work. Over one-thousand men, women and children perish in the massive explosion. All of this is done in the name of Jesus Christ, by the way. Go figure.

That night Glenn Beck will look his viewers in the eye and say:

“My friends, can’t you see how the evil left wing is driving the good citizens of our beloved country CRAZY?”

The following afternoon, Rush Limbaugh will literally be foaming at the mouth – a side effect from psychopathic, righteous indignation and habitual narcotics abuse:

“I lay the carnage of yesterday’s massacre at YOUR DOORSTEP, Liberals! You did this to the good people of [South Bend, Davenport, Goshen]! Their blood is on YOUR hands!”

Would something as horrible as another homicidal attack on our government by a Tim McVeigh wannabe spell certain doom for the loony right wing? More than likely. When that happens, the American people will finally have had enough – which once again proves the old adage that behind every dark cloud there is indeed a silver lining.

As Uncle Bobby Zimmerman once said in a slightly different context, a hard rain’s a-gonna fall, baby.