Redneck piss-tests

Hahahaha, no, they didn't have to "cram" for it, an image I'd rather not have in my head now, and it's of G.G. Allin ('nuff said).

But what is a redneck piss-test? Easy: your'n.

That'll learn 'ya (or not).

Is there really a Tea Party Movement?

No, there is not. There's a loose conglomeration of the reactionary right, conservative (whatever that means) senior citizens who have been mislead in thinking that their Medicare is going to be cut, closet racists who had no problem with eight criminal years of Bush II but don't like having a black president, tax protesters, gun rights activists, the rural and suburban unemployed, wacko evangelicals, Libertarians, disgruntled former Republicans, militia nuts, neo-Nazis, and a lot of other people I'd never invite over for a drink or a cookout anytime soon.

What the so-called "Tea Party movement" is constitutes reactionary, rightist populism. In other words, misguided, misdirected populist rage that's apparently not willing to be "co-opted" by the GOP let alone the DNC.

In some crucial sense, they're the opposite side of the coin to the progressive left, meaning the majority of the public when you look at the polls regarding social issues and the spending to combat social problems. The majority is for a leftward reformist model, not a rightward trend. Where does that leave these red-headed stepchildren of the right? As far as anyone can tell, an ineffectual demographic minority that, yes, gets it that Wall Street is the problem, yet doesn't like the idea of New Deal reforms and progressive taxation of the wealthiest.

You know: the dumb assholes who still cling to the American Dream.

There is an off-chance that some of these folks will have that "road to Damascus" conversion and actually see that their own interests are best represented in joining the antiwar and progressive left in the streets (as well as on the Internet), in joining together to stop the corporate assault on our rights, but so far it's a pipe dream. Instead, we all harp on more fringe elements of this demographic, and while that's not entirely misplaced in its importance, it's not all about the problem children, it's about the overall group that's been labelled as "Tea Party." Some have implied that many of these self-styled "Tea Baggers" could only attend many of these events by being small business owners, and indeed, there's a kernal of truth to this. But it's not the entire story, some are simply retired baby boomers.

I'm not really sure why the GOP would even want this disparate gaggle of the terminally confused, but what else do they have left as a base? Yet, as stated before, the demographic is fundamentally mistrustful of the entire political establishment and stubbornly resists being used, of being co-opted. Regardless of that, they have been used pretty effectively by both the GOP and DNC to assist in a creating a smokescreen so that bogus health reform could be passed. It doesn't surpise me that this pseudo-movement began with Texas congressional representative Ron Paul since it's as confused in its viewpoint and message as much as he is. To add to the confusion, the mainstream corporate media affixed the labels to them and let things fly, and fly they have, right out the window.

Is there really a Tea Party movement? I don't think so, and it's not going to decide any national elections anytime soon. What it will do, and has done, is to provide one more spectacle, one more distraction, from the worthwhile goals of reformists and the dreams in the hearts of American populists of every stripe. The Mesopotamian priests used the corruption of language to control the builders of the Tower of Babel--but it went bust, and no one could understand each other anymore, and the pillar that was the society of that time, the work towards real civilization, remained unfinished and the people disbursed. The show was effectively over. Funny that religion is part of the equation again, but if it's broken don't fix it when it comes to holding onto power.

Why do the Tea Baggers, militia nuts, and screechers get more coverage?

This seems to perplex a lot of people, and it's understandable: why would a truly lunatic fringe movement get this kind of airtime when the public opinion is almost completely against them on social issues like health care reform and all the others?

Why? The reasons are manifold and go back to that other period of near anarchy, the 1920s. But it took time after the Republicans handed the airwaves to business, though on a thin legal leash. There was that post-New Deal chipping away, but the big first was when we lost the Fairness Doctrine at the FCC in 1987 thanks to Republican President Ronald Reagan. The doctrine wasn't law, but it guided the broadcasting standards of the United States for decades and allowed for a more equitable access to the airwaves for differing opinions and viewpoints, and it worked. There was at least some variety, not that it was stellar or truly representative of the social/cultural landscape, but it was better.

It also worked because the structure it brought about would never have allowed for the existence of the current echo chamber of the right we now inhabit, and that's including CNN and the major networks that were already traditionally to the right thanks to ownership. This is why Republicans and enemies of free speech everywhere don't want anything approximating a return to something like the Fairness Doctrine. Never mind that the public technically owns the airwaves and has from the start, the interests of big business are more important. But day after day, we see the right-wing nuts on the idiot box. Why?

It's not that complicated, and there's another reason why all the useless flailing is all over the airwaves: it's because the Tea Baggers, the militia nuts, white hate groups, Ted Nugent, Sarah Palin, lost white girls, the "birthers," the operatives like James O'Keefe (the "ACORN pimp"), and yes, the multimedia gaggle of mumbling, anti-abortion nuts, Libertarians, babbling morons like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, both of whom have resorted in recent weeks to all but advocating acts of violence against the current President of the United States, Barack Obama, aren't a genuine threat to the status quo in America.

In reality, these mutants and wackos are badly needed by a pro-big business and finance Republican Party that has nearly lost its entire base over the administration of George W. Bush. After that, all you have remaining are the wackos, the fringe, and crumbling establishments often reach for the closest set of cranks when the curtain's about to close on them (including within the political establishment). Some say this is "all part of the plan" (which one?), but I disagree. You couldn't make this shit up, and that's why even the GOP cannot control them. These babbling jackasses, these morons, these throwbacks to the time of the Frontier hick and the lynch mobs that once ran riot in America are, in fact, in many cases, their very descendants. Yes, there is an element of "astroturf" to a lot of it, but these goobers are here, now, and they've been with us, hobbling the rest of us, from the beginning of this nation and will for the foreseeable future.

The message? There is no message coming from these people except, "More of the same." That's pretty pathetic considering many of them are now or are going to be the victims of the very policies they're advocating. Some of us simply like to shit where we eat because it's easier in the beginning. Of course, there is the underlying racism in these protests and the movement, and for many of these lost fools, the biggest fools alive on this rock called earth, it's the only reason they're at a Tea Party rally or why they were at a health care protest against reform: they're angry that a "nigger" is president. The thread connecting the economic elites of America and the white underclass is that they're all Eurotrash and can never truly be "European," no matter how much they prattle on about their respective heritages. Why wouldn't we see them on television, print, and Internet media all of the time?

These idiots are really chasing after an America that never was, but everyone likes watching a spectacle, even me. That'll learn 'ya (or not, maybe ever)!

Some more thoughts on the word "retarded"

Now that Sarah Palin's tried very feebly--as is her wont in all endeavors--to control our language when she can't even control her own, it's time to pull our collective-heads out of our collective-asses and realize that this is just a word and that the context it's used in and the intent behind it are what's important. The word itself is unimportant, and mature adults know this and accept it for what it is. People say hurtful things, get over it, grow-up.

But we's a reactionary people--bawss--and we go off half-cocked all the time since many of us "natives" (Eurotrash) are descended from lynch mobs, though that's another fairy tale for another time. Does it have to be said that this is just a word? Yes, apparently, it does: it's just a word, folks. You can't shield yourself or your kids from everything, and sometimes, sometimes, we have be tolerant and take our licks like everyone else. That's life, and part of being a real adult. You accept that there are things that are never going to go away and that you cannot get rid of them.

When you stampede like a wild herd of mindless buffaloes (OK, that's unfair to the bison), as many of us did in the immediate aftermath of the events of September 11th, 2001, you start fucking-up all over the place. We all blew it, myself included, for various reasons. In my own case, I should have been far more defiant and opposed to the Bush II administration even in the aftermath of that event. I was not, and I was not alone, not by a long-shot. And wasn't the manipulation of language at the core of their misrule for eight very long years that the Tea Baggers (Tea Tards) seem to have missed entirely? Words like "terrorism," "weapons of mass destruction," "mushroom clouds," "attacks," "suspects," "terror alerts," and so many others, were injected with and took on new and very hollow meaning to whip-up fear in an already reactionary society and culture.

The bastards knew their marks well, and they not only rifled-through our wallets, but convinced many of us to hand over our hard won rights as Americans. This was not only stupid, it was, and still is, pathetic, and stinks of a people who probably don't deserve their liberties, if they ever did. That's not to say we can't fix what happened, but we have our work cut out for us, and that means endlessly demanding of the current administration, and probably the one after it, that there are real investigations into the crimes known or suspected of being committed by the administration of George W. Bush. We're either a nation of laws, or merely one of words, and now we seem to even want to hand over one of the last things that makes us truly unique as a nation: a historically rare and wide-ranging freedom of speech and press.

So, for an obviously corrupt and moronic woman and former politician like Sarah Palin to tell anyone what they can and cannot say is absurd and should be met with horselaughs from all corners of American society. The upside of this is that she's actually accelerating the demise of the GOP and causing incredible division in the ranks of the Tea Party (bowel) movement, a group comprised mostly of reactionary small business owners who, until very recently, were either apolitical lumps who flunked civics class, or outright ignoramuses. Instead of the Boston Tea Party, these misguided morons invoke the memory of the same kinds of idiots that gave us the Teapot Dome scandal, courtesy of the gift that keeps on giving, the GOP, a party that makes no bones about being for the big-shots and conglomerates.

Yet many of these same turds that gave us some of the mess we're in think they have the answers when they clearly don't at all. To say that these petty bourgeois fools shit where they eat would be redundant and their reactions are just that: the dysfunctional flailing of retarded children. Put that in your meth-pipe and smoke it tonight, Bubba.

On the Tea Party crowd and the tantrum throwing right generally

In reality, they're a tiny minority who don't truly matter, but the economic elites are having their little puppet show with their silly asses before the curtain closes on their mutual dumbshow. Fuck 'em. The economic elites and elements of the poor and working poor are some of the most dysfunctional people in our society and are dragging the rest of us down, it's a fact.

This doesn't fit into the accepted identity politics and victimology, but that's all a bunch of crap anyway. It's not politically correct to say or write it, but since when have I given a fuck? The Democrats? Are they even an opposition party at all? Is there any difference between them and the Republicans anymore?

No, there's hardly any difference these days, and everyone thinks they have all the answers while our rights are being rolled back. I mean, really, it's more important to argue and split-hairs about bullshit while the Supreme Court passes a ruling enabling corporations to spend whatever they want on candidates without us even being able to find out who donated that money, I know. Being right, is being right, and wrong. And, really, quit calling yourself part of "the left" when you don't even know what the fuck it means or where it's been, quit fooling yourselves.

The time has come for a national strike and groundswell, the time is now...

For those of us on the progressive left (meaning the majority), the time has come to make ourselves heard. The majority of Americans want socialized medicine, a special commission to look into 9/11, a special prosecutor to investigate serious crimes committed by the Bush II administration, relief aid for the growing-ranks of the unemployed, deep and meaningful reforms in the financial sector and how it does business, and general restoration of New Deal controls and protections that have served the public well for over 75 years, like the Glass-Stegall Act. Who got rid of Glass-Stegall, a barrier that kept banks from running amuck? A Republican controlled Congress, blue dog Democrats, and the Clinton administration, that's who. It gave us much of the economic crisis we're inhabiting right now. The time has come to rollback these policies, the time is now to mobilize.

If those on the right really love their country as much as they say they do and wish to join us in a common cause, they need to drop their bizarre obsessions about race, immigration, and other ideological fetishes that are going nowhere fast and will never fix the problems we're facing right now. But don't think that disruption's going to be tolerated. Don't think that you're going to hijack anything, because we're wise to you and your games and your agenda. We can spot you in a moment. You won't be accepted and will be driven out, and quick. The time has come for all of us to realize that the common enemy is concentrated wealth and the abuse of it. The time has come for Americans to quit shopping at Wal-Mart (fine, get the cheap drugs there if you have to). The time has come for the return of the boycott, the general strike, and the shutting down of everything for a few days to send a political message to unaccountable power. We are that accounting, we are the government, and we are the answer to our nation's problems. Politicians cannot and will not do this, at least not without the application of incredible pressure to do so. The time has come, the time is now, and there are no more valid excuses.

Call in sick. Afraid of losing your job? When did that become a new thing? Don't buy anything for a week except the barest-of-necessities. For the love of God, quit using credit cards all the time, use cash. Don't even use checks. Make the banks scream for mercy. Keep writing, phoning, faxing, and haranguing your representatives. Educate yourself on their pasts. Give them hell, give them an earful like they've never had it before. But don't break the law and keep it as civil as possible and adhere to non-violent civil disobedience when the time comes, it's key.

The best part? For many of us, we won't have to do anything--that's actually the point: to stop engaging in negative behaviors that keep empowering the rich through what we eat, what and how we often we drive, work, and what our daily routine is comprised of. Grow a garden. Drive less, a lot less. Quit watching TV so much. Get your news from the Internet and read multiple-sources, including the foreign press. We have everything to gain by asserting ourselves in a civil manner and showing power that we're not kidding around at all.

Where did all the yelling Town Hall rednecks go?

WWW--You don't hear those town hall people (I know, don't look a gift horse in the mouth...), so what happened to them? You might think they were told to stand down now that it appears people like me who want socialized medicine or at least a public option as a start are in the majority and have no intention of backing down. We know they have no real concept of how democracy works and that they're kin to the lynch mob, but they understand math and being outnumbered, at least for now until they nail themselves up on the cross again.

I've been told that a percentage of these people and the Tea Baggers are disgruntled farmers and geriatrics who have been misled into believing some their Medicade was going to be taken away, and other fantastical tales like that there's no Obama birth certificate online when there's been a copy available for over a year. That's a religious belief you got goin' there. The cries of "socialism" (and the inevitable misspellings) and "communism" have continued, but they lack the general fervor we saw in August and September. What do they always say in the end? That the big, bad government "is the problem," when a child knows better. The government is the boogeyman.

That's funny considering many of these farmers I've been hearing about are probably going to see their crop subsidies cut. They need to make up their mind: government assistance just for them and a few narrow, selfish interests, or a social safety net for everyone. Hypocrisy comes easier for some than for most. But they seem to have tired themselves out, and nobody gives a damn about a boor like Joe the Plumber when times are bad. Soon, the myths of the system are going to collapse. People also forget that the Boomer generation had people in it who didn't have a problem with the Vietnam War, hated the Civil Rights movement, and so on. This was their final moment to make an ass of themselves one more time, and they went for it like a beggar to a bowl of gruel. They're tired, Jim, they're spent.

Teabagger leader Mark Williams finally taken to task on CNN

WWW--Is he a racist? Are the Tea Baggers generally comprised of the ignorant, and are most of them racists? Absolutely. You think that if they yell "nigger" in coded-language they'll bring back white-skin privilege and get their jobs back? No, I didn't think so either, but apparently many of them think that racial solidarity means something to the rich, and they're mistaken. CNN has given this idiot and his gaggle of racists so much free advertising that it was becoming embarrassing, so they finally had to really be journalists for a few moments and ask honest questions. Williams didn't come off any better than he usually does.

Recently, Mark Williams, one of the founders and leaders of the Tea Bagger bowel movement has called President Obama the "racist-in-chief" (?!) and "an Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug." No, nothing in those statements would lead me to think that Williams is either a racist or a demagogue pandering to slack-jawed bigots and racists, not at all. Is this asshole Father Coughlin and Gerald L.K. Smith rolled-into-one or what? I'd say they should unfurl the swastikas at these events, but they already have...

Take the second statement: "...an Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug." This statement is going to make more sense to people born before the 1980s when the GOP and even some Democrats like Patrick Moynihan were criticizing the welfare state and the recipients of welfare. Never mind that more whites in the Appalachians were on welfare, it was "single black mothers," the real threat to the (white) American family and our future. This is the same cultural matrix Williams is appealing to, besides the old tried-and-true nigger-baiting that's so popular with redneck racists, most of them in the South. You'd think George Wallace was alive and unrepentant again.

The "Indonesian Muslim" part is so obviously racist and xenophobic, pandering to bigoted evangelists, that it really deserves no further comment beyond its relation to the "birther," really part of the same excretion, from the ass of the American South. President Obama's fully-authenticated birth certificate has been online for over one year. It's irrefutable. At that point, you know what you're dealing with has nothing to do with logic or reason, and the needle points once again to racism and an inability to cope with the fact that we now have a sitting African American president. Why?

President Obama is hardly much better than George W. Bush. He's even protecting the last administration in numerous court filings. He's keeping us in Afghanistan and Iraq. He's doing everything humanly possible not to nationalize the major banks, protects their privilege, and is taking us in the same direction that the Bush II administration would have, namely, keeping the same rotten barrel. This will keep the economy crashing for years to come and we're not likely to see a real recovery anytime soon as a result of his corporatism, ultimately the same kind as that of the "Bushies." Let me state it again: he's hardly any different from the last president at all.

But that's not good enough, and to prove it, look at how little they yell about the wars (hey, they're killing infidels, darkies); the lies that got us into them; the use of torture on terror suspects (more fun with darkies); the U.S. Attorney firings and the politicization of the Department of Justice; all the scandals involving white Republican incumbents; the revelations of FBI whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds; the warrantless wiretapping program; the atrocities at Abu Ghraib; the stolen elections of 2000 and 2004; the atrocities at Guantanamo; the clear unconstitutionality of the provisions of the Patriot Act; and on, and on, and on. And today, Obama's calling to keep most of the worst provisions of the Patriot Act. Will any of these morons speak out against it? Of course not, it has nothing to do with the fact that he's black.

That's because they don't have any problem with these moves towards authoritarianism, they just hate the "nigger" who had the temerity to win a democratic election. This is because they are anti-democratic, totally irrational, and criminally-minded, that rich soil for tyranny. Williams is standing behind these recent, racist comments. It's like Ma and Pa Kettle calling the pot black...and "nigger," "socialist," and "fascist" (they would know) for good measure. It's time to shut these bastards down, now. There are limits to freedom of speech and they've gone too far. But let law enforcement take care of them once they really start acting-out, because that's coming. As a matter of fact, it's already begun.