I believed it was interesting how this individual viewed the current attack by Democrats on Conservatives and other groups by calling them racist. He believed as I do that labeling the Tea Party and others racists is purely a political ploy.
Agree or disagree that is your choice.
The tea party has direct ties to white separatist/nationalist organizations, and has been plagued by local leadership posting directly racist and bigoted statements since pretty much its inception. It's timing in its emergence as an almost entirely white super nationalist overly funded political organization that focuses on trying to undermine the legitimacy of a newly elected black president under the pretense of "reclaiming the country" or "taking back the government" when they sat on their hands during the administration (GWB's) that was by far the most responsible for the increase of government itself, the government's spending and intrusion of government into people's private lives is not a simple coincidence no matter how much you want to pretend it to be so.
Why is it that suddenly under a black president suddenly the USA's citizens suddenly feel so disenfranchised as citizens and suddenly feel the country is going the wrong direction after watching Glenn Beck talk about Obama's deep seated hatred of white people? After listening to Limbaugh play Barack the Magic Negro for the 15th time on his show? After being told by Sarah Palin that the government is going to create death panels to decide on who will live or die?
So let's be completely intellectually honest and talk about the unbiased, non-partisan non-debatable things that happened under the Bush administration that you'd think the Tea Party were it truly focused on government spending and waste would have had a field day with under the Bush administration:
Two wars with no budget provision to pay for them (The more costly Iraq war of course being waged on a false premise with reasoning that had been debunked by the intelligence organizations of every country including our own that had any amount of surveillance or intelligence on Iraq and still has no justification to this day).
Refusal to ever add any war expenditures to the budget, instead using supplemental deficit spending which inflated our national deficit.
Massive prescription drug entitlement with no provision to pay for them.
Tax cut that disproportionately favored the wealthy with no provision to pay for it (in the middle of doing the first three things, btw, the first time a president has cut taxes during war in the history of the nation).
700 billion government "bail out" TARP fund that became essentially a mess of a slush fund that acquired little to no assets and was almost universally abused under the previous administration before being reformed under Obama (for example, limiting federal funds from being used for executive compensation).
And now people are up in arms because of Obama's legislative undertaking?
Why, because he created a national health care program that not only does not increae the deficit but actually reduces the national deficit as agreed upon by both left and right wing economists and the non-partisan CBO by 143 billion over the first decade and by 1.2 trillion in the second decade?
Because every piece of legislation or program he's proposed aside from his two stimulus programs has spelled out how its paid for?
Because he actually put war and defense spending on his budget and asked congress to figure out how we were actually going to pay for it by making other cuts?
Because he proposed stimulus spending that was an extension of the stimulus spending already authorized by George W. Bush, endorsed by 6 laureates in Nobel prizes for economics, and analyzed by nearly every financial firm as being far better for the economy than taking little or no action?
Please, with that.
No one is claiming that anyone who joins the tea party immediately becomes a racist, but the motives of people claiming that there is no element of racism, bigotry or other race related motive of a substantial percentage of people involved in the Tea Party is basically just outright denial of reality. There is plenty of documented racist signs, and screaming at demonstrations, I've already posted them in one thread, but honestly just google tea party racism on google images, its pretty easy to find examples.
More troubling is the passive-aggressive racial insults and insinuations that are in vogue. Everyone is focused on overt and obvious insults like the n word, but ffs we have Limbaugh on one of the most listened to radio shows playing "Barack the Magic Negro" we have tea party reps coming on facebook and talking about shooting Mexicans and other immigrants, we have a seated senator seriously suggesting bringing back "literacy and civics tests" as a requirement to vote, the exact same tactic that was used continuously in the south to deny blacks the right to vote until the passage of the Civil Rights Act. I have been called the n word more than once in my life. You can dress up the n word in whatever creative way you want... "Magic Negro" one week "Chief Mullah" another) however you want to try and pretend its not that, but its still the n word when you are using it as a derogatory reference toward someone's race which has become the right wing theme since 2008.
All of this is documented, I mean if you are a right wing apologist you don't care about how documented it is, you are probably just going to object indignantly that anyone would call every conservative racist (nevermind that that was never the argument that anyone has ever made) but here you go:
John Lewis, a civil rights legend was actually taunted by tea partiers and called the n word several times recorded on video. You can youtube it.
I mean, ffs, house republicans have had to do damage control by denouncing the racist remarks made toward democrats by tea partiers:
Again, and let me be specific because it seems like a really common theme in this thread to present a false argument that all dems think that all republicans/tea partiers/conservatives/anyone who disagrees with them is racist, and that is not true.
So yeah, let's clear up my opinion on right wing organizations and racism:
Criticizing the president or democrats doesn't make you a racist.
Being a republican doesn't make you a racist.
Being a conservative doesn't make you a racist.
Being a tea partier doesn't make you a racist.
The sheer amount of racially motivated rhetoric and vitriol that has been spewed from Tea Party and right wing organizations since Obama has taken control of the white house DOES make substantial portions of those who follow these organizations racist. The refusal by those members who do not make, believe or agree with these statements to acknowledge the racist fringe that is omnipresent in right wing organizations across the country at this moment, or excuse clearly racist and bigoted statements is at best cowardly and at worst racist in and of itself.
So if you're not a racist, good for you. That's a start. Now its up to you to confront the elements in your party that are and make it apparent that its unacceptable. It is a transparent and obvious element in your community, its appalling and when you ignore it you accept it.
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