Talking Points Memo has put together an interactive map compiling the acts of vandalism against Democratic representatives and their families. Right now, there are six incidents listed, but I would be surprised if it doesn't get updated. There have been widespread reports about Congressmen receiving death threats, as well, but so far they're not on the map.
Teabaggers aren't evil. They're acting like thugs, but they're not evil, per se. They're just scared out of their (limited) wits and are lashing out at anyone their leaders tell them is a threat. Beck, Limbaugh & the rest have got them feeling terrified and cornered, so there's really only one option in the fight-or-flight response.
If the government had been taken over unlawfully, what would you do? If they were going to round up people like you and put you in internment camps, what would you do? If someone were going to kill your grandmother, or your baby, what would you do?
You'd fight. Tooth and nail, you'd fight.
None of those things are happening, but that doesn't make the threat of Armageddon any less real for the gullible and the paranoid. All the lies Fox and the Republicans been telling their audience have been leading to this. Death panels, socialism, fascism, revolution. This is what Beck, Limbaugh, Palin, Boehner, Bachmann, King and the rest have been feeding them. This is the swill they've been living on.
They say guns don't kill people; people kill people. Maybe so. Certainly if you're smart, and unscrupulous, you don't need a gun. Not when you've got access to so many frightened, angry people -- people you've already invested so much energy into frightening and angering. Who needs a gun? Just aim the crowd in the general direction, and someone's bound to get hurt.
Rob
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Terror Firma
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5 comments:
not to say that i condone any of this kind of behavior on either side of any issue but here is some food for thought
on the matter
secondly, by wrote of you calling members of the teaparty movement "teabaggers", you're already kind of cashing into the the insulting ideology that someone like rachel maddow uses to one the one hand drive her point home but at the expense of infantalizing the opposing viewpoint.
take for instance the following:
liberals aren't evil, they're just acting like smug insulting cocksuckers, but their not evil per se.
scared out of their wits rob? come on, you're better than this.
Yeah, calling Tea Partiers "teabaggers" is smug and insulting. I can own that. There's been plenty of insulting language going around this week; compared to what some reps heard on the way to the House on Sunday, teabaggers is mild. I probably shouldn't use it, though -- it seems to be turning into the first racial epithet ever that actually makes white people mad. ("Cracker" and "Honky" never really cut it, did they?)
As for the list you link to, I almost stopped reading when he accused me of murdering millions of babies every year, and idolizing people who killed tens of millions. It seemed a little insulting.
There are a number of things on the list that are perfectly legit, though: No one should vandalize political offices, or bite off fingers in an argument, and, of course, ecoterrorists are dangerous assholes. But the Amy Bishop murders seem completely devoid of politics -- they seem to have happened because of career frustration. Bill Ayres is just a dinosaur that conservatives like to point to to paint liberals as radicals. And Joseph Stack's rant wasn't a liberal one -- it was anti-tax, anti-government, and anti-bank, which sounds like there's a lot of overlap with the Tea Partiers as well as liberals to me. (Everyone can find something to hate in Joseph Stack, and both sides are trying to pin him on the other.)
As for what's happening right now, I might be overreacting. I posted it in the morning, but it was late when I wrote it. Reports of threat after threat had been building all day, culminating in the cut gas line. But Beck, Limbaugh & Fox ought to be trying to calm this shit down. I don't think there's much that statements by Boehner and Cantor (whose statement this afternoon boiled down to "everybody calm down, but the Democrats are asking for it.") and other congressmen can do, simply because they're not the leaders of the Republican party anymore. Rush and Beck have already showed that they'll sic the dogs on anyone who doesn't toe their line, so it's up to them to pull back from this before someone else's gas line gets cut.
It's also up to all of us not to engage in violence. And yes, that includes me calming the fuck down, too. And hopefully this will all blow over.
i just threw that one out there to get the dialog rolling. the killing millions of babies thing just tows the line for that site in particular.
there just seems to be alot of talk about it well firstly because it's news but the elephants across the aisle never seem to forget the perception in their mind that when the right is attacked that they don't get nearly enough press as when the shoe is on the other foot. i don't think that far back in time to say shit like, "they wouldn't be reporting on this if these were democrats"
fact is, they would, if it's newsworthy.
and as far as the conservative media, it's their job to pipe up, just as it's rachel maddow's job to piss off people who get annoyed about filibusters.
that said, people need to calm down. i am. but that might just be the bourbon
Three cheers for bourbon!
I've got some friends who are starting to get into rye, though I haven't tried it yet. Have you?
no i haven't.
but i'm listening
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