THEY CAN HAVE MY TEA BAG WHEN THEY PRY IT FROM MY COLD DEAD MOUTH

[defrog]

I’ve been resisting the urge to blog anything about the Conservative Tea Bag meme, mainly because when I first heard about it, my first thought was, “That’s not only a lame metaphor, it’s also a terrible historical comparison. There’s no way it’ll catch on.”

Which goes to show how much I know.

So, seeing as how April 15 is officially Tea Bag Obama Day, with events planned all over the country, and seeing as how Fox News is actively promoting them ahead of time and even branding them FNC Tax Day Tea Parties®, and since I have a blog and crap, I guess I should say something.

And as everyone’s already seen Rachel Maddow’s take on it by now (and if somehow you haven’t, I recommend it, though it helps if you know what “teabagging” means besides what the conservatives think it means), I’ll direct yr attention to Andrew Sullivan’s take on the Tea Bag meme, which is that it’s not so much a movement as an “amorphous, generalized rage” with no intellectual honesty or even a positive counterproposal to Obama’s fiscal policies.

These are not tea-parties. They are tea-tantrums. And the adolescent, unserious hysteria is a function not of a movement regrouping and refinding itself. It's a function of a movement's intellectual collapse and a party's fast-accelerating nervous breakdown.

He has a point. Have you seen what the Tea Parties so far look like? Little Green Footballs has unearthed footage from a “Project 912 Glenn Beck Tea Party” (possibly in Ohio), which doesn’t have any Glenn Beck in it, but it does feature some guy (at the 1:58 mark) babbling about how marketing is the secret to defeating Obama’s tyranny, which is part of a 50-year plan by the Communists to take over America. Oh, and he believes digital cable boxes and universities are “brainwashing machines”.

And that’s nothing compared to the woman off-camera near the end demanding that college books on “the evolution crap” and other “brainwashing books” be burned.

Watch the fun.

To be fair – and Maddow makes the same point – the batshit conspiracy contingency may not necessarily reflect the majority or the core concerns of the Tea Bag crowd, and I agree that just because batshit conspiracy theorists agree with you, that doesn’t automatically make you a batshit conspiracy theorist.

On the other hand, the main spokesperson for this group works for the most-watched news channel in the country, which is also putting its own name on some of these events and also features its hottest personalities blathering about Obama The Tyrant.

I’m just saying.

Fahrenheit 451,

This is dF

Comments

[bedsitter23.livejournal.com]

I listen to Beck on occasion and thought about mentioning this, but didn't really feel it was worth it.

I think it would be deserving of a mention if it felt like a real grassroots campaign. Istead, it comes off as something planned by someone with an agenda. I really don't see this picking up steam outside of those who listen to Conservative (as if there is any other kind) talk radio.

I am sure they will get a few headlines, but I can't see themgaining too much steam outside Beck's audience. I could be wrong of course, but I don't really see any difference between this and crowds getting together to shout "Baba Booey! Baba Booey!"

[def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com]

Good call, and that's one reason I haven't really touched it until now. If I blogged every crazy thing that came out if Glenn Beck's/Michele Bachmann's/Michelle Malkin's mouth, I'd never get any work done.

But I am struck by the fact that Fox News is actively promoting these events. Granted, they're only doing it because they know good TV when they see it. And because Glenn is pulling awesome ratings right now. Still, imagine CNN actively promoting anti-Bush rallies.

But admittedly, it's only really getting any attention at all because Maddow hipped us to the "other" definition of teabagging.

[dinopollard.livejournal.com]

All the more reason to love Rachel Maddow.

I really hope Jon Stewart tackles this story.