moe tucker goes to georgia teabagging rally

[cc]

Can someone quickly explain the politics of these teabaggers to us Brits & Europeans? Are they just a bunch of right wing busybodies???

yes, they're meant to be recreations of the Boston Tea Party--unfair taxation and the middle-class revolt the U.S. was founded on. Apparently the word "liberal" has lost its rhetorical force as an insult now that a considerable majority of the country has voted for liberal policies, so right-wingers have turned to "socialist" to make their paranoia attractive.

[MJG196]

Can someone quickly explain the politics of these teabaggers to us Brits & Europeans? Are they just a bunch of right wing busybodies???

These "Teabag" rallies are generally held by the more conservative arm of the Republican party. During the closing months of the Presidential elections, the rhetoric generally became more malicious, including this "Socialism" tag on Obama. Much of US infrastructure/social services is based on "socialised" elements, where nation-wide income taxes go towards supplementing various government/country-wide projects. The Teabaggers choose to ignore the socialized part of our economy and focus on a series of tax decisions being made by the current administration to change tax policies to those of both the Reagan and Clinton administrations. In America, accusations of "Communist" and "Socialist" were at their most popular (and dangerous) during the 1950s. Now, the popularity of these terms is coming back...almost always by right-wing elements.

This type of person attended the rallies (EDIT: though not filmed at a rally). Average "patriotic" Americans: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjxzmaXAg9E

This is based on the "Boston Tea Party":

From Wiki: The Boston Tea Party was a direct action protest by colonists in Boston, a town in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the British government. On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor. The incident remains an iconic event of American history, and has often been referenced in other political protests.

The Tea Party was the culmination of a resistance movement throughout British America against the Tea Act, which had been passed by the British Parliament in 1773. Colonists objected to the Tea Act for a variety of reasons, especially because they believed that it violated their constitutional right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives.

Although the Boston Tea Party was based around the concept of "taxation without representation" (see the last sentence quoted above), the motto is being used by American conservatives in opposition to current US economic policy. Common ideas presented at these rallies are extremely right-wing and not representative of the Republican party as a whole: Obama as Hitler, Obama as terrorist, Obama as fascist, calls for "revolution," and more...Invectives that became more popular during this last Presidential campaign and that I have never seen before in mainstream American politics. So, in sum, the Teabaggers are a vocal minority within the Republican party.

A great comedic take on it can be found here (watch the whole thing): http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index ... x-protests

And here is a British (comedic) take on it, also from the Daily Show (you Brits are gonna LOVE this one): http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index ... ty-tyranny

[MJG196]

IS THIS WHAT MOE´S AFRAID OF?

Better than this:

[bobbldr]

IS THIS WHAT MOE´S AFRAID OF?

Better than this:

God bless Photoshop.

[bobbldr]

[MJG196]

God bless Photoshop.

That isn't photoshop. It is from a widely-covered visit by the Crown Prince to the ranch in Crawford, Texas.

[bobbldr]

MG, look at the prince's goatee... if that isn't Photoshop, I'll eat my sealed banana.

[sars]

MG, look at the prince's goatee... if that isn't Photoshop, I'll eat my sealed banana.

[MJG196]

This one is 100% not Photoshopped, taken from a joint Saudi/US communique issued after the visit, available at the Saudi Embassy web site: http://www.saudiembassy.net/ReportLink/ ... l%2005.pdf



I guess I'd rather have my leader talking to repressive regimes that holding their hands at picnics.

All that being said, Moe is running with a great crowd of people! If only the Khmer Rouge was still in power...she'd have someone to hug!

[bobbldr]

Well, now I am speechless. How does one respond to that kind of thinking? How do our Velvets fans in Socialist countries feel about everything here in the USA?