This speaks volumes

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by PaulS

Respectfull dissent (from both parties) should be the basis of a democracy.

There was an teaparty rally last week at the Conn. state capital. Given that the capital police est. 750 people were there, I'm sure that atleast 1 sign could have been broadly interpreted as racist.
Yet, I did not see 1 mention of racism in any coverage (granted it could have been that there wasn't any or if there was it was so minor that the news choose not to mention it).

Ok, let me re-phrase. Not every single news piece coveringthe Tea Party will claim racism. Not every single one. But a huge percentage do, and there is zero evidence that the Tea Party supports racism.

[zimmy]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

... and there is zero evidence that the Tea Party supports racism.

Jim, a few people do not represent everyone or necessarily the party, but there is a reason many of us would never associate with the tea party. I think some of the evidence was seen at the Washington rally. I personally know people who went to the rally on a ride w/ a bike club. In private situations, they are overtly racist. One of my friends has a confederate flag tattooed to his shoulder. He does not hide his feelings when we are in private situations. I personally know at least 12 people who are active w/ tea party rallies. They don't represent everyone in the tea party, but they represent everyone I know personally who considers themselves part of the tea party. They are all very bigoted. They are not ashamed of it.

Glenn Beck to Tea Party: Leave Your Racist Signs at Home! | buzz twang

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by zimmy

Jim, a few people do not represent everyone or necessarily the party, but there is a reason many of us would never associate with the tea party. I think some of the evidence was seen at the Washington rally. I personally know people who went to the rally on a ride w/ a bike club. In private situations, they are overtly racist. One of my friends has a confederate flag tattooed to his shoulder. He does not hide his feelings when we are in private situations. I personally know at least 12 people who are active w/ tea party rallies. They don't represent everyone in the tea party, but they represent everyone I know personally who considers themselves part of the tea party. They are all very bigoted. They are not ashamed of it.

Glenn Beck to Tea Party: Leave Your Racist Signs at Home! | buzz twang

The problem with personal/anecdotal accounts is that they are all only tiny slices of reality, or versions of reality. Living in Detroit, most of my acquaintances are black. In private situiations, they are all overtly racist--unabashedly and proudly so. They are all Democrats. Is that a reason to not associate with Democrats? FDR, Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, Margaret Sanger (founder of planned parenthood), the founders of this nation, were all racists. I suppose they should not have been associated with. Maybe most, if not all of us, are or have some degree of racism, and we should all become hermits. Can't we, even with racist tendencies, still have salutary ideas and solutions to political and economic problems? Can't we even be constitutionalists?

As for Twang's thang re Beck's restoring honor rally--just another biased hit piece--and one before the rally even occurred. Speaking of some previous rally, he, as is the common practice, cherry picks a few signs that he considers racist or having racist themes, totally ignoring the host of other signs such as one minutely seen in a background--"congress works for us not the other way around"--which is the predominant animus for the tea party movement. Even most of those he chooses, though rude and crude, are not racist. One refers to religion not race. Another reversed the slavery cliche. Two compared Obamacare to voodoo, another referred to his supposed connection to Islam (Hussein), the Dixie Chicks, and his supposed non-citizenship (Kenya). Another slammed cap and trade and played on the word "trade"--to "trade" him back to his supposed lack of citizenship (Kenya). The last one actually had a racist, mispelled pejorative "niggar." Twang totally spins and paints Glen Beck's positive attempt to unify Americans with, at the time, an upcoming rally, into Twang's misconceived, hateful version--"Beck's decision to blatantly ride on the coat of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights movement is nothing except a badly orchestrated and cynical effort to coopt the gravitas of MLK and the Rights Movement in order to replace the glaring lack of it in the Tea Party movement." Twang's own lack of "gravitas" is evident in his myopic, slanted, name-calling (teabaggers, tea bag party) and too easy and uncritical accusation that the tea party is a platformless group of know nothings. The actual Restoring Honor rally was of a different philosophical "color" than that which Twang tried to paint it.

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by zimmy

Jim, a few people do not represent everyone or necessarily the party...

Zimmy, this is only an accurate statement if you are talking about people who represent conservatives or the far right. On the other hand, there are a multitude of posts (and full threads) on this forum to demonstrate that individuals *do* represent the majority if they are moderates or on the left.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by zimmy

Jim, a few people do not represent everyone or necessarily the party, but there is a reason many of us would never associate with the tea party. I think some of the evidence was seen at the Washington rally. I personally know people who went to the rally on a ride w/ a bike club. In private situations, they are overtly racist. One of my friends has a confederate flag tattooed to his shoulder. He does not hide his feelings when we are in private situations. I personally know at least 12 people who are active w/ tea party rallies. They don't represent everyone in the tea party, but they represent everyone I know personally who considers themselves part of the tea party. They are all very bigoted. They are not ashamed of it.

Glenn Beck to Tea Party: Leave Your Racist Signs at Home! | buzz twang

Zimmy, first you say that "people do not represent everyone or necessarily the party"

Then you say that "In private situations, they are overtly racist. One of my friends has a confederate flag tattooed to his shoulder."

Zimmy, you have a friend who may be racist. That friends goes to tea party meetings, so therefore the tea party is racist?

You contradicted yourself in the span of 3 sentences. Maybe you need some new friends. You may well know some loathsome racists, that has nothing to do with the agenda of the Tea Party.

"I think some of the evidence was seen at the Washington rally."

So you claim there was evidence of racism at a rally, and you don't provide any of that evidence...

Finally, I find it really, really maddening that the left demonizes the Tea Party as racist, and here's why. The principles that the Tea Party supports (small federal government, low taxes, individual responsibility, free market capitalist ideas with no unnecessary federal intrusion) are EXACTLY what black culture needs to escape the cycle of poverty. It's EXACTLY teh liberal agenda that got blacks stuck in the poverty cycle, by making them addicted to welfare, and providing financial incentives to drop out of school, have kids outside of marriage, and to not work.

The liberal agenda has essentially destroyed the black nuclear family and removed all economic upward mobility from the black culture. The surest way out, the only way out, is to support exactly the ideas the the Tea Party represents (menaing, we'll help you if you need it, but having a job is better than being on welfare). Yet the Tea Party is labeled racist?

That, to me, is as insane as believing the president is a Muslim...