Add LGBT persons to the list. Let's not forget that they hate them also and for the same reason: FEAR

steve: Asked why the protestors were almost exclusive white people, DeMint added, "It's probably just the time and organization and the media that promoted it."

GOP 2009: only 11% of republicans are minorities

- Gallup 6/1/09

anyone surprised?

Am i nuts or are these people all crazy?

"We've Become A Rural And Southern Party." - Ex-GOP Rep. Tom Davis 7/29/09

"The party's being taken over by southerners." - GOP Sen. George Voinovich (Ohio) 7/27/09

hey demint...

wouldn't it be ironic....

if southerners...

were the gop's..

waterloo..

mr.irony: GOP 2009: only 11% of republicans are minorities

Seems high.

It's amazing to me. I saw a bit on the tea party, and I was stunned at seeing all those white people - I haven't seen that many caucasians assembled in one place in a long long time. I live in Houston, and that surely isn't representative of my world. Thank God!

The contrast in the tones of the Obama rally in Minneapolis and the tea party nonsense is just overwhelming.

I'm ashamed for the republicans because they don't have enough sense to be embarrassed of themselves.

Steve:

This entry could have been fit your typical "This Week In God" series as I think religion plays a large role in the way this segment of the GOP thinks. What I mean is that they have beliefs not based on facts or reality and when facts and reality contradiction or challenge those beliefs, then it's a sign of evil. They could never question their own beliefs.

GOP 2009: only 11% of republicans are minorities

- Gallup 6/1/09

converse...that is all kinds of minorities...blacks...asian and hispanic..

fyi....

to put that in perspective...

the united states is roughly 1/3 minorities..

"These kind of sentiments would be a lot easier to take seriously if not for the fact that we didn’t see these people marching out in the streets when George W. Bush used the threat of terrorism to justify secret, illegal warrantless surveillance, detention without trial, torture, etc. Indeed, the very same people who spend Monday, Wednesday, and Friday complaining that Barack Obama’s “czars” are a threat to liberty not only weren’t worried about czars in the Bush years, they spend Tuesday and Thursday worrying that Obama’s not doing enough to ensure that intelligence operatives can break the law with impunity."
link

Pretty well covers it.

Jilli@5.48p - WHAT coverage of the Obama rally in Minneapolis?? I was just on the CNN site and while there is plenty of coverage of those idiotic "tea-baggers" (I bet they don't know the meaning of the word!), I saw nothing on Obama in Minneapolis.

"Liberal media", uh huh...

"...and the media that promoted it."

gosh, jim. what media would that be?

A lot of the tea baggers have yelled that they want to take their country back and they're angry over the "tyranny of the majority at the ballot box" which obviously means they're pissed that their side lost in November. Has anyone done any polling of these folks to see how many of them voted in November? Or to see if they're even registered to vote?

"It's probably just the time and organization and the media that promoted it."

That would of course be the right-wing paranoia network. Also a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican party.

Oh Jilli, don't feel ashamed for the Republicans:

They have no shame, they're Republicans.

The absurd and the grotesque - angry white Americans trying to take back their country! The signs showed no shame! The rhetoric was hate inspired! The crowd was about 30,000, and the focus was on extremism!

These nuts belong in a huge ball-sac! -Kevo

I was looking at the NPR report on the protests, and comparing it to the "rules for attendees" which I read (and cannot find): nobody was listening, apparently. There were the Nazi-themed stuff, the Joker-themed stuff, the Confederate and anti-Muslim stuff, the birther stuff, and one hilarious self-reference to "Freedom Riders" (because this crowd is demographically and politically indistinguishable from the people who beat and killed Freedom Riders).

The bitch parade. Show us your gripes and dis-satisfactions as scattered as they may be. Surprised they didn't add "we don't like fat people".

The whole point has nothing to do with actual issues...it is a parade to demonize Obama and the democrats... when it should be a parade of gratitude for Obama pulling us back from the cliff of the 2nd Republican Great Depression.

It only increases the tremendous weight of Beck's ego which we will all have to contend with. These fools are helping to build a corporatocracy which will enslave them all if given half a chance.

America's stupidity on display.

Thank God they are a small loud mouth minority that we can literally laugh at them. Even their use of the term "Tea Baggers" is complete hypocrisy as the original episode was to rebel against a monopoly who was avoiding paying taxes so they could undersell local businesses...just like the very corporations and the very wealthy sponsoring the modern day "tea baggers" parade...they pay little taxes and got the Bush tax cuts as well so our gov is underfunded.

They don't want answers or solutions if they don't fit into their already formed opinions. They stick their fingers in their ears like children when the hear the truth or the solution.

Assholes of America...unite...here come the 'Beckshirts'

They don't like health-care reform, though it's not clear why. They don't like gun control, though it's not clear why they think anyone's coming for their firearms. They also don't like taxes, immigration, abortion, Muslims, the U.N., and the idea of "socialism," though their understanding of the word is tenuous at best.

I actually think the essential Beck quote is one Steve Almond at Salon pulls: you're supposed to have "creeping sense that SOMETHING JUST DOESN'T FEEL RIGHT. America has let thieves into her home ... Our country is about to be stolen ... Open your eyes ... These people are robbing us blind. They have set our house on fire and blocked all the exits." The "Sense" in "Common Sense" isn't an inchoate feeling that gives rise to anger. Once you feel it, then you can go figure out specific policies to justify it, but the main thing is not to think about it too much, just go with your feelings.

And for a lot of people the thing that "just doesn't feel right" about Obama is not something they're prepared to admit, especially to themselves. So instead it's all Some Dark Conspiracy having to do with crypto-commie plots and illegitimacy and muslims 'n' stuff. And castration--let's not forget that--whether in the symbolic sense ('they wanna take away mah guns!') or the more literal sense their party leader Limbaugh keeps weirdly circling back to.

"isn't an inchoate feeling" >> "is an inchoate feeling"

Million Racist March.

It might seem "crazy", but there's a pretty simple sociological explanation. These are mostly undereducated people, emboldened by the hypocrisy of religious rationalization, who once enjoyedthe delusion of entitlement based on nothing except the color of their skin.

Reality is knocking on their door, and they are angry, real angry, feeling they've lost their rightful place at the top of the heap.

I would say "pity them", but they're so such an embarrassment for our country, I'd rather they just die off. And they will, in another generation or two.

"It's probably just the time and organization and the media that promoted it."

The media which skews white, organizations that skew white, and the time... well, the demonstrations are scheduled during business hours, when DeMint knows non-white folks are busy being lazy.

It's a diversion.

The Money Party loves this chaos. (We always get what the Money Party wants us to have so we have specially orchestrated name calling, lying, insinuating, chaotic mob mentality at this time.)

All this uproar is a diversion so that no one is looking at or blaming the finance industry for our economic woes. The Money Party has their talking heads directing you and the not so bright Republicans to look in the wrong place. Might also have to do with this special supreme court matter effecting the future of corporate free speech which diminishes individual rights.

"Look at this, don't look at that", where 'that' is always the important thing.

White? You fail to account for the audience's warm reception of Hi-Caliber the Republican Rapper (among other diverse acts on the bill).

Check and checkmate.

This is one of the best Steve's posts.

(A bit o/t) Do our nation a big favor, in a move not to stop until all sane citizens participate, Glenn Beck needs to be called the name he has certainly deserved - Glenn Beck is our modern day Elmer Gantry, plain and simple.

I for one will call him that to everyone I know and to everyone who will listen. The original flimflam man hiding behind his self-perceived piety! -Kevo

But Beck's a Mormon. There are no flim-flam Mormons.

There are "no flim-flam Mormons"?

The state of Utah is home to the largest number of economic flim-flam artists in the country, selling everything from bogus land to charity dupes.

Those good Mormons just love to cheat the "Gentiles".

Anonymous (@6:53 PM), you obviously don't know that many mormons. As an ex-mormon, I can tell you that there are plenty of them, though since the LDS church is very heirarchical (sp?), much like the catholics, you won't find it in the clergy so much, like you would in the southern baptists. Their [LDS} flim-flam artists work mostly in real life, not in religious settings. Unless you count tithing. :)

James DeMint epitomizes the GOP's sorry state. A turning point in modern Republican Party history occured in 2008 when John McCain was unable to take command of the GOP after his nomination. Once McCain became the GOP's presidential candidate, he was far more a prisoner of the GOP than its leader. That was clear from the Sarah Palin nomination that was forced on him. It was also clear from the incoherence of the messanges coming out of the Republican Convention in which McCain seemed to head a political party that thought of itself as angry rebels battering down the ramparts of the very government that they controlled.

In 2008, no one who might have been able to take control of the right wing-dominated GOP base could have been elected. And no one who could get elected could have taken control of the base. That problem remains today and is why no effective leaders have been able to step forward to reverse the GOP's suicidal slide into a nihilistic rage, feeding both on itself and on anyone -- of either party -- who gets in its way.

It is important to keep the true nature of the GOP in mind when we think about politics today and the policies that somehow are able to emerge from what is now a deeply dysfunctional system. The founders created a constitutional framework that made it very difficult for anything to get done unless there was at least some measure of good faith understanding between the contending factions that everyone had to put their more extreme impulses aside and work toward the common good. That understanding broke down during the Civil War when the South came to think of itself as a separate nation and culture under seige from the modernizing, industrializing and ever more culturally diverse North. Many of those same destructive and separatist impulses are evident in the conservative movement today.

Our system is not likely to work if one of our parties thinks of itself as belonging to a different country, but that is what is happening because the GOP is no longer a political party. It is more like a well-organized hurricane that has turned back into a tropical depression, a powerful party that is now once more a political movement.

And political movements are by their very nature extreme -- radical, in the dictionary sense of that word, which means "root" and suggests "purity." The history of political parties in this country is that such radical movements tend to be absorbed and assimilated into a larger party where the movement's rougher edges are then smoothed down and converted into a shape that the nation as a whole can digest.

With today's GOP, the process has been reversed. Insteading of becoming one part of a larger Republican governing coalition, the Conservative Movement has infiltrated and absorbed the host party itself. Once that happened, the GOP that we have recognized since the Civil War was effectively destroyed and the victorious conservative movement that was its assassin was once again free to indulge its most radical and extreme instincts without the stability and moderating restraints that national political parties built on coalitions have been able to bring to our country since America first became a democracy built on popular soverignty.

Re today's protestors: What ignorant people.

However, if they're the price of having adult, responsible leadership in the White House, put up with them we must.

Better to have them displaying their ignorance on the Mall than reveling in their electoral victories in 2008.

When I see this kind of crap, I wonder why Charlie Cook and others think 2010 will be the usual midterm referendum. For every American applauding their protest, at least four more have to be watching this thinking "WTF?" or "Gawd, this is embarrassing ... I thought our country moved past this a long time ago."

Say it with me:

Elections have consequences.

The wackos (that would include Beck) are working to totally dismiss all of Obama's Changes. It's Romney in 2012 easily defeating a completely ineffective Obama.

The Money Party has played the conservative Christians and will soon be playing the Mormons.

Meanwhile the Supreme Court diminishes individual rights in favor of corporate rights.

That's what the Money Party wants.

AKA, cranks.

Why on earth would any racial minorities want to appear with this bunch of dangerous fools? Wavy Confederate flags, calling Obama a Nazi, likely to be carrying weapons?
If you're brown, you might end up being a casuality as one of these shindigs.

When I see this kind of crap, I wonder why Charlie Cook and others think 2010 will be the usual midterm referendum. For every American applauding their protest, at least four more have to be watching this thinking "WTF?" or "Gawd, this is embarrassing ... I thought our country moved past this a long time ago." Posted by: Elizabelle on September 12

Actually, I think 2010 will be one of those moments that history views as a huge test of our nation. 2008 was important, but 2010 will be carried out at the peak of the backlash against the maturity shown in 2008.

And what will be frustrating for most of us is that, other than encourage our friends, there will not be much we can do about the outcome: the nearly sole burden of "the test" will fall on (1) non-party or independent voters and (2) educated, upper-middle class urban and suburban Republicans.

They will be the indicators of whether the Beck-Limbaugh dumbing down effect repulses the great majority, or whether that hateful mob-think is contagious.

If the moderates, the educated, the middle class say "i don't want to be grouped in with those nutjobs," their efforts will be repudiated in 2010, and the energy of their movement will start to drain away from lack of any positive reinforcement. If the moderates and the educated republicans "catch" the persecution complex, 2010 could be 1994 all over again - right down to the wholesale buying of foolish, superficial sloganeering from transparently deceitful wingnuts like Gingrich. and what follows will be a ratcheting back up of W's damage on a geometric curve.

These under educated, unintelligent, bigots need to feel superior some group and the negros and Mexicans are the obvious victims. These bigots are ones who would benefit most by insurance and minimum wage reforms, but they listen to the predatory influences of the demons who preach hate to lead they astray, while these demons line their own pockets.

Racism

That big white elephant in the room,
That everyone with a microphone and a camera
Pretends not to notice.

So the media fixates on friendlier fictions.
And says sotto voce:
If we ignore the obvious racism then it doesn't exist.

But for all concerned:
Playing dumb to overt racism is non-sustainable.
The n-word is just boiling away out there.
Bubbling and a-bursting to escape in various heckles:

"That foreign born nigga nazi...
Kenyan socialist.
I'm mad as hell. White is right.
I want my fucking country back."

Good luck America...
Trying to keep your racism bottled up on the one hand,
And pretend it doesn't exist with the other.

The MshillM said tonight (NBC) the dick Armey was a "grassroots" movement out there today, who are we to argue with them?

BTW any bunch who only criticizes the government and not private institutions and corporations too, is a fraud. But I do like how they ragged on the Federal Reserve and the debt (If Bush hadn't run it up so much, we'd have the wiggle room, and need the stimulus, but debt is still not good "as such.")

Benen descends into simply ludicrous lying. Again and again.

Matt Welch was actually there and wrote up his initial impressions. See if you can count how many times his observations directly contradict Benen's assertions:
http://reason.com/blog/show/136041.html

The MshillM said tonight (NBC) the dick Armey was a "grassroots" movement out there today, who are we to argue with them?

If you're a wingnut, and got the bucks, InfoCision will create you a "grassroots" movement.

I think it fairly obvious that money spent to kill brown people is considered money well spent.
Money spent to improve the health of brown people is considered an outrage.

"The rhetoric was hate inspired! ...

These nuts belong in a huge ball-sac! -Kevo"

Yeah, unlike yours.

Can any of you explain to me why "white" citizens are not allowed to voice an opinion, even if it fails to match yours? I'd prefer an answer from someone of colour please, since, you white folks don't have a reason to speak.

I'd prefer an answer from someone of colour

We only answer questions from patriots who know how to spell English in American.

"We only answer questions from patriots who know how to spell English in American."

Oops. Sorry, I was reliving my days in Europe as an American expat. Can you not avoid the question now?

Do we have to play this game every time? Yes, fools have the right to gather peaceably and vent their foolishness. And, contrariwise, non-fools have the right to gather peaceably and call them motherfucking fools.

Wouldn't it have been interesting to find out the education level of those in attendance? I mean results of an actual survey. Of course, they wouldn't have to tell the truth, but I'll bet most wouldn't understand why they were being asked.

Think how incredibly far away you would have to be to think Democrats are Nazis, what wintry distant perch you would be stuck upon on for your view to be so blurry, ill-formed and indistinct.

It's either astronomy or perfect blank stupidity.

Beck, as usual, is right in the wrong way. America has let thieves into her home ... Our country is about to be stolen ... Open your eyes ... These people are robbing us blind.
The US spent $7,200/person on health care in 2007 compared to Japan at $2,300; the UK at $2,900; France. $3,048; Switzerland (the highest OECD country) at $4,000.

Yes, they are stealing us blind, we're being systematically looted and he's worried about Obama wanting a health care bill that will cost MORE money????
The bills being considered mean we will pay more to still have less than any other developed country.
Looted? Bet your ass. By Obama and the Democrats? Not so much.

Touche

Do we have to play this game every time? Yes, fools have the right to gather peaceably and vent their foolishness. And, contrariwise, non-fools have the right to gather peaceably and call them motherfucking fools.

Proof of concept: My daddy is a motherfucking fool

Can any of you explain to me why "white" citizens are not allowed to voice an opinion, even if it fails to match yours?

strawman.

no one here is saying you can't voice an opinion. but as one white citizen to another, i wish you wouldn't because you make the rest of us look bad when you "march" for something so f*cking foolish, baseless, paranoid, and hateful.

Can any of you explain to me why "white" citizens are not allowed to voice an opinion, even if it fails to match yours?
Posted by: LAG on September 12, 2009

You are on a thread discussing about thirty thousand white peeps who were obviously "allowed" to spend the day getting their hate on.
So, there is no real way to answer your question because the premise of your question, that people are not allowed, when you can clearly see that they are allowed is faulty.
Not only is it faulty, but it is absurd in the face of all evidence to the contrary.

"Can any of you explain to me why "white" citizens are not allowed to voice an opinion, even if it fails to match yours?"--LAG

Nobody has said whites can't voice an opinion. Criticizing their speech is not an attempt to silence it. It's a Rush trick: talk, and then when people respond disapprovingly, wail that you're being silenced.

If disdain and criticism frighten right-wingers into shutting up, that's their cowardice at work.

LAG, if you knew how crazy you people look to the 70% of Americans who aren't members of your cult then you'd be begging for someone to stop you.

LAG--it's not that you cannot comment. It's that we demand that facts based on real research be used in our debates. This means no Fuch Noose or rw radio propaganda because it bores us. BTW, I am an AA female, and would wager that I am in the minority on this site, but I comment here quite frequently without incident, but of course, I know I must use facts and make sense when I comment, otherwise I come off as a babbling fool. Come with the facts if you expect your comments to have value.

The tea-baggers cloak themselves in the flags, garb and even in some of the language of patriots but they don't do something a true patriot does -- debate. They preach to their white choir and they rant in radio or TV studios where they can't be challenged by people who disagree. When they are given the opportunity to debate, like at the Health Reform Town Hall meeting I attended in August, they shout, confront and disrupt -- even while waving their flags.

By their actions Tea-baggers dishonor the heritage of America's true patriots. They confuse the urge to impose their emotional state on the rest of us with the process of democracy. Like a controlling colleague they insist people aren't listening when we hear them loud and clear but disagree with the points they are making.

When we win arguments using facts Tea-baggers claim they are being silenced and somehow victimized for their views. They accuse Obama of being Hitler not so much because he is but because they want people to believe Obama is victimizing them like Hitler victimized the Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and others. What rubbish.

The Tea-baggers as I know them are a bunch of ideological zealots, polemicists, obstructionists and provocateurs who will say anything to prevent rational policy debate. They are American only in name.

I don't think I've seen the language in the First Amendment that requires us not to laugh at people who are making themselves ridiculous. Perhaps LAG can point it out to us, what with being such a super-patriot who just happens to use European spelling because shut up, that's why.

All the white people could just leave the US, and then reconquer the place - Indian Redux part II.

Come on, you know that's what they are dreaming of, when they go all "we're ready when the day comes, you betcha" on their loonsites.

Can any of you explain to me why "white" citizens are not allowed to voice an opinion, even if it fails to match yours?

Anyone of any color can voice just about any opinion anywhere.

It's only the emotionally insecure whiners that expect not to be called out when others view their opinion as erroneous, offensive or stupid.

For example, Joe Wilson obviously thought Obama's provably true comment about the status of illegal immigrants in the health care bill was erroneous. He expressed his opinion loudly and proudly when he shouted "You're a liar!"

Obama demonstrated emotional maturity by brushing it off. Just a bit of playground name-calling after all.

Let's see if Joe Wilson can handle it when thousands of his fellow citizens express their opinion about his opinion. Apparently his election opponent has over a million dollars worth of "free speech" in his campaign chest that he didn't have before Wilson's moronic utterance.

Will Wilson take it like a man or will he blubber like a crybaby about how he's being treated unfairly for what he said?

I'm betting the latter. It seems to be the hallmark of modern Republicans. The party of perpetual victimhood.

William Butler Yeats makes the point:

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

The worst (the right) are full of shit, but that doesn't matter, because the best (the left) lack the 'passionate intensity' to be heard above the screaming.

Can any of you explain to me why "white" citizens are not allowed to voice an opinion, even if it fails to match yours? I'd prefer an answer from someone of colour please, since, you white folks don't have a reason to speak.

You have every right to voice your opinion. Do you ever wonder, however, why you are all white? Why is that? And do you realize that, being all white, you have no future in American politics since the electorate is approaching 40% people "of colour".

Could it be that you don't represent all of America? Your group seems to have left certain segments of the American population completely out of the equation. That can't be a coincidence. Don't be offended that so many of us notice it.

BTW, I am not "of colour". You are now free to insert the "Democrat plantation" argument always used by conservatives, but at least try to be aware of how offensive that might be to some people who don't look like you.

what the libertarian far-right "senses" but cannot ( or simply will not) articulate is what the far-left (me) has theorized and now sees proven: capitalism doesn't work any longer. Moderates, liberals, progressives and true conservatives cannot explain WHY the "center does not hold", they cannot respond to libertarians, egalitarians or small d democrats concerns because of their allegiance to capitalism.

These disgruntled folk don't seem to see the irony in the big government intrusion of the Republicans and the Fox News right wing arm of the Republican party in the Terry Schiavo
end-of-life case, and miss other ironies as they rail against big government and all things Obama.
It is blind racism.
I watched hours of CSPAN through the night and saw the racist signs...one said bury obamacare with Ted Kennedy. Another had the phrase kill obamacare--not to subtle, and yet another had a list of our Democratic senators to eliminate --with Ted Kennedy's name crossed out in big red pen. Hateful big posters ugly people.
It was horrifying.

pj in jesusland

You have very succinctly, accurately and in detail described how the today's right wing radicals in their irrational and hysterical assaults on reasoned deliberation have lost touch with the democratic values that we identify as "American." Of course, pointing this out makes you a Nazi! Welcome to the club.

although this should be stating the obvious i've never seen anyone say this..the only people going to the anti-obama rallies or shouting folks down at the town halls are people who didn't vote for obama in the first place.....that explaines the shortage of younger people and/or minorities....

Dave:

"What the libertarian far-right "senses" but cannot ( or simply will not) articulate is what the far-left (me) has theorized and now sees proven: capitalism doesn't work any longer. Moderates, liberals, progressives and true conservatives cannot explain WHY the "center does not hold", they cannot respond to libertarians, egalitarians or small d democrats concerns because of their allegiance to capitalism."

I agree with you in part. I started saying back in the 80s that capitalism which is based upon an ever-increasing population base, and an ever-increasing consumption of natural resources, is unsustainable. We're starting to be up against that wall now, and it disturbs me that no one in a position of power seems to articulate this thought which is really a truism.

Also, those of us who don't worship at the altar of the free market realize that the free market does some things very well, such as manufacture and distribution of durable goods, or even perishable food, because people can actually act as "rational" consumers, with the time, if they choose, to comparison shop, and with the result that businesses which do not offer decent products at reasonable prices go under. Of course this also depends on sensible regulatory laws to prevent rapacious people from creating monopolies, and so that we can trust that the products we buy meet minimal standards of service and/or purity.

BUT, a huge BUT, this breaks down with health care, as we sensible lefties realize. It also doesn't work well with those efforts needing a lot of collaboration, esp. across jurisdictional border lines. So we already have a "socialized" police force, firefighters, highways, etc. AND military. In fact, when you try to outsource military functions to outfits such as Blackwater, look what happens. Outsourcing prison functions has also proven a huge and expensive boondoggle.

But there is still a role for capitalism. Tackling environmental problems will require international cooperation on a scale never yet seen, but businesses can contribute by offering solar or wind energy, making the products necessary to harness the renewable resources, etc. With a single payer healthcare system, businesses can still be making the beds, the MRIs, and all the other paraphernalia going into healthcare.

How to make capitalism sustainable without increasing use of nonrenewables, or without increasing the number of consumers? I don't know. All I know is that this question HAS to be asked and MUST be addressed for the survival of our species.

And wanted a day out browsing the (world-famous, government-owned and managed, and free-to-all) museums on the mall.