This video by REDSTATEUPDATE is a parody played for educational purposes. There are those who do not realize these guys are making fun of stereotypical rednecks who fall for whatever BS Fox News is selling this week. Just read the comments at YouTube .
Obama School Speech: Watch This Instead
Dear School,
As an alternative to Obama's controversial speech to students, we have provided you with this less political, more patriotic option.
Love,Red State Update
Anyway Glenn Beck's 9/12 Tea Party march on Washington was not the turning point in America as he thought it would be. A million protesters did not materialize but rather according to the UberConservative Washington Times only 70,000 managed to show up. And looking at the videos and photos of the event what we see are people just aimlessly wandering around or when marching have spread themselves out on purpose to appear greater in number or this is just a matter of chance sort of an easy-going laid back protest or poor organizing .
Glen Beck claims that over a million people showed up but the Mainstream Media which is now under Obama's spell as it were reported much smaller numbers. Of course this has happened before to those on the left who claim a hundred thousand appeared at their protest and the Media reports only 50 thousand. But here the difference is so large that someone is not merely over or under estimating but is fabricating numbers. It appears Glenn Beck is wrong and those who claim the number to be 30 thousand to 70 thousand are closer to the mark.
It will be interesting to hear what Beck and Malkin and others will make of all of this. Most likely they will blame the Liberal controlled media. Once the numbers game becomes a dead issue will they come up with some sort of cover story to explain the low numbers as in the Obama administration put out disinformation or intimidated citizens etc.
And so the anti-Obama hysteria continues South of the border. Though Beck's big idea fizzled and his TV show may be now in jeopardy unless Murdoch can still use him these misguided souls have managed to connect a number of fledgling and those which were almost extinct ultraconservative groups through their networking. Will these groups be able to find a common cause or will they just retreat and remain on the fringes without much power or influence but still able to strike out through violent actions against the Obama administration and its supporters and others whom they see as UnAmerican traitors and therefore the enemy.
Jim Greer over and over again argues Obama is a danger to the United States. He like other Republicans and Conservatives argues Obama plans to reshape America as a Socialist State. Sirota brings up the inconvenient truths about the Anti-Obama faction which includes Birthers and those who still claim Obama is a secret Muslim and other extremists including racists and Conspiracy Theory crackpots.
CNN: Discussing Racism In the Right-Wing Tea Party Protests, 9/12/09
I appeared on CNN with Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer to discuss South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson (R) yelling at President Obama, the "controversy" over Obama's speech to school children and the rise of racism/racial undertones in the right-wing tea party protests.
"God Hates Barack Obama & Gays"
Interview of Michelangelo Signorile who talked to Pastor Anderson
"Killing Obama would not be murder" Pastor Anderson
Hate speech from pulpit - Sept 13, 2009
As Faiz Shakir points out the Tea Party/ 9/12 Project included a number of astroturf phony grassroots organizations along with well established conservative groups and what is more troubling they managed to attract a number of Far Right militant groups. These groups talk about how the situation now is similar to the situation just before the War of Independence and so believe an Insurrection would be justified.The problem is that the rhetoric of Glenn Beck and others has become so extreme that this gives credence to these Far Right militant groups . Its like letting the genie out of the bottle can they be controlled or managed to keep them from committing acts of violence.
"RADICAL RIGHT: Glenn Beck's 9/12 Project " by Faiz Shakir at The Progress Report/Think Progress September 11, 2009
RADICAL UNDERGROUND EMERGES: The official sponsorship list of the rally reveals a subterranean, extreme element of the American right in attendance. One of the top sponsors is the extremist organization Grassfire.org, which runs ResistNet.com for "Patriotic citizens who are opposing the Obama-led socialist agenda." Members of the ResistNet -- who promote anti-semitic Nazi propaganda, claim Obama is a Muslim, and praise the assassination of doctors -- are organized on Grassfire against health care reform ("Government-Run Socialized Health Care"), clean energy reform ("Cap-and-Trade Tax"), and immigration reform ("Amnesty for illegals"). Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) -- who is sponsoring and speaking at the 9/12 rally -- has praised Grassfire.org for its "great service to the American people." The National Association for Rural Landowners, a bronze sponsor, references the incidents at Waco and Ruby Ridge to call for attacks on "government entities" and liberals. In a YouTube video posted in July, the group makes the case for a secession, followed by a violent civil war. Similarly, another 9/12 cosponsor, FreeRepublic, is a forum for various radical right causes. As ThinkProgress reported, the shooter at the Holocaust museum found a welcome audience for his writings on the website. Despite the inclusion of such anti-government extremists, Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) all plan to attend and speak
"Why I can’t take the 9/12 movement and the GOP seriously" by Michael Preston at True/Slant September 13, 2009
I must confess I don’t posses the intellect needed to assess the actions and motivations behind Glenn Beck’s “9/12 Project”, a conflation of disparate conservative activists which culminated with a march on Washington, D.C. yesterday to protest…what exactly? Taxes? Spending? Health care reform? The creeping socialist/Nazi/Islamofascism policies of the Hussein X Obama Stalin administration? Ever since the Tea Party movement appeared on the national stage last spring, I’ve grappled with how to talk about it and how much seriousness it should actually be given because I feel like I must be missing something.
...But the bigger problem I have with this movement is its supposed focus on fiscal responsibility. Bruce Bartlett, a conservative whose bona fides should not be in doubt, has written several scathing pieces in recent months criticizing the tea party movement, and the GOP in general, for not grappling with the reasons they lost power. As Bartlett points out in the Daily Beast, there’s a certain hypocrisy that is pervasive among those who are having their come to Jesus moment now that a Democrat is back in the White House:
In my opinion, conservative activists, who seem to believe that the louder they shout the more correct their beliefs must be, are less angry about Obama’s policies than they are about having lost the White House in 2008. They are primarily Republican Party hacks trying to overturn the election results, not representatives of a true grassroots revolt against liberal policies. If that were the case they would have been out demonstrating against the Medicare drug benefit, the Sarbanes-Oxley bill, and all the pork-barrel spending that Bush refused to veto.
"The GOP's Misplaced Rage" by Bruce Bartlett at The Daily Beast Sept. 12, 2009
Leading conservative economist Bruce Bartlett writes that the Obama-hating town-hall mobs have it wrong—the person they should be angry with left the White House seven months ago.
Where is the evidence that everything would be better if Republicans were in charge? Does anyone believe the economy would be growing faster or that unemployment would be lower today if John McCain had won the election? I know of no economist who holds that view. The economy is like an ocean liner that turns only very slowly. The gross domestic product and the level of employment would be pretty much the same today under any conceivable set of policies enacted since Barack Obama’s inauguration.
Glenn Beck's '9-12' logo based on communist and socialist designs by Christopher Knight, Culture Monster at Los Angeles Times September 13, 2009 |
But do Beck; the corporate-sponsored astro-turf group, FreedomWorks, headed by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas); the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights; the private-property group, the National Assn. of Rural Landowners; and the rest of the march sponsors know the symbol's origins?
Unity and resistance are what the fist represented in 1917, when it was first employed by the Industrial Workers of the World, a union organization founded by socialists. And in the 1940s, when it stood for various nations' communist party organizations.
First Progressive Labor Party That's also what it meant when it was revived in the 1960s, appearing as a symbol for the SDS, as well as anti-war and feminist movements. It was the basis for the black-power salute given by John Carlos and Tommie Smith at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. And today, it's the symbol for the Progressive Labor Party (pictured), a political outfit whose website says it "fights to smash capitalism."
"THE PENANCE HAS NOT BEEN PAID...." by Steve Benen at Washington Monthly, August 15, 2009
THE PENANCE HAS NOT BEEN PAID.... Following up on this item from yesterday, I had an interesting conversation via email yesterday with Bruce Bartlett, a veteran of the Reagan and H.W. Bush administrations. Bruce made a point that really resonated with me, and he was gracious enough to allow me to republish it here.
I believe that political parties should do penance for their mistakes and just losing power is not enough. Part of that involves understanding why those mistakes were made and how to prevent them from happening again. Republicans, however, have done no penance. They just pretend that they did nothing wrong. But until they do penance they don't deserve any credibility and should be ignored until they do. That's what my attacks on Bush are all about. I want Republicans to admit they were wrong about him, accept blame for his mistakes, and take some meaningful action to keep them from happening again. Bush should be treated as a pariah, as Richard Nixon was for many years until he rebuilt his credibility by more or less coming clean about Watergate with David Frost and writing a number of thoughtful books.
One reason this isn't happening is because the media don't treat Republicans as if they are discredited. On the contrary, they often seem to be treated as if they have more credibility than the administration. Just look at the silly issue of death panels. The media should have laughed it out the window, ridiculed it or at least ignored it once it was determined that there was no basis to the charge. Instead, those making the most outlandish charges are treated with deference and respect, while those that actually have credibility on the subject are treated as equals at best and often with deep skepticism, as if they are the ones with an ax to grind.
I am truly baffled by this situation, as I'm sure you are.
Bush/Cheney policies failed so spectacularly, Republican candidates and officeholders are generally reluctant to associate themselves with the tarnished name of the previous administration. But Bush/Cheney policies are still those of the contemporary Republican Party. Nothing has changed. Failure and defeat haven't chastened the GOP at all, and if given a chance to govern again, Republican leaders are quite anxious to return to the exact same agenda they embraced when they were in the majority.
And the political mainstream seems to think this is sane.
The same Republicans -- literally, the self-same individual people -- who were astonishingly wrong about pretty much every area of public policy in recent years, are the same Republicans who feel confident that they're still credible, knowledgeable, and correct. Not because they've changed their larger agenda or worldview, but because a brief period of time has elapsed.
and so it goes,
GORD.
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