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Wednesday, April 15, 2009 7:14:38 PM
Tea Bag Party
Ray Skwire, Philly Bits and Scene in Philly
I’ll have photos of my own later, and possibly some video, but man oh man, Ray’s shot kinda sums it up…
Some of Philadelphia’s dimmest bulbs were out in force today in the rain to rpotest the fact that Obama just gave everyone a tax cut. Oh there were so many funny things at the circus, including some guys holding a banner reading “Ron Paul 2008, several signs promising to teabag Washington DC, and, behind a 16 year old boy in braces delivering a long-winded and lispy diatribe about whatever it is conservatives pretend to care about, a man holding a sign claiming he gave Congress an enema in 2010. he must be a time traveller? Either way, that’ll look good on national TV. another had a sign that said “Progressives!! Destroyed our economy”. Who knew the Bush administration, who never once vetoed a spending bill from the equally irresponsible GOP, was progressive, except int he sense of “prgressively worse, year after year”? I myself was holding a sign that read “Down With Sodomy! Up with Teabagging!” and got several nods of approval from people who clearly didn’t get the joke.
i wanted to ask some people about socialism, but was worried i’d get punched in the head for my efforts. i suspect most don’t realize how much of America is already socialized and what “socialistic schemes” these dim-witted “patriots” already pay for without complaint and would be unwilling to give up:
...............Let’s start with some of the basics – firefighters, first responders and police. If one of the teabaggers’ house was on fire, would they let it burn because of the “waste” of their money going to pay for firefighters? Or if their house was broken into, would they be ok with the police not investigating it? What about on 9/11 – would it have been better if the NYPD or the FDNY didn’t save all of the people in the Towers before they fell?
How about the military? Talk about not supporting the troops. How will we fight all of the wars that the republicans wanted (and want) us to fight? Or take the events from this past week – who would have rescued Captain Phillips from the Somali pirates if our taxes didn’t pay to train the Navy SEALS? Is national security no longer something that the teabaggers are interested in?
Should there be no air travel, since air traffic controllers are public employees, paid with our tax dollars? And should there be no mail delivery, since the US Postal Service is also paid for by our tax dollars (and even with the increasing cost of postage, it is still way better than private courier)? And public schools – which I am sure that many of these teabaggers send their children to as private schools are fairly costly. Should our children continue to fall further and further behind other countries in terms of education?
Take it to the most local level too. Taxes pay for garbage collection, paving of roads, snow removal, salting the roads when they ice over, building and repairing bridges, tunnels and in many instances, public transit. Will the teabaggers never leave their houses to travel on these bridges, roads and tunnels? Will they let their garbage pile up for weeks, months or years?
What about something as basic as food safety? Making sure that food isn’t poisoned with hazardous chemicals and is prepared according to basic standards? How about the FDIC insuring deposits of our hard earned money? Will the teabaggers be happy losing their savings if their bank goes under? What about cleaning up when the private companies spill hazardous waste – take the Exxon spill, the oil spills after hurricane Katrina, train crashes that release toxic chlorine gas (or other gas) into the air. How about parks, prisons, the National Guard, hospitals, the Federal or State court systems and other services that we take for granted?
Mostly though, it was funny to see just how few people were there, considering how much coverage and promotion FOX news has put into this astro-turf (ie, fake grassroots) event (Jane and Christy have lots more about what a sham this is).
Compared to the anti-iraq war rallies of 2002, which were blacked out by the media (I know because i was there and have the pictures to prove it), turnout was pitiful at best. A few hundred teabaggers in Philly, compared to tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of anti-war protestors in DC in 2002. So i guess there’s no substitute for real grass roots, no matter how much we’re ignored.
Quite frankly, by the conservatives’ own definition, these teabag rallies are nothing less than treason. After all, ““Americans…need to watch what they say, watch what they do.”
http://brendancalling.com/
A Brief History of Tea Bagging
http://firedoglake.com/2009/04/15/a-brief-history-of-tea-bagging/
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Treating_dissent_as_treason
Ray Skwire, Philly Bits and Scene in Philly
I’ll have photos of my own later, and possibly some video, but man oh man, Ray’s shot kinda sums it up…
Some of Philadelphia’s dimmest bulbs were out in force today in the rain to rpotest the fact that Obama just gave everyone a tax cut. Oh there were so many funny things at the circus, including some guys holding a banner reading “Ron Paul 2008, several signs promising to teabag Washington DC, and, behind a 16 year old boy in braces delivering a long-winded and lispy diatribe about whatever it is conservatives pretend to care about, a man holding a sign claiming he gave Congress an enema in 2010. he must be a time traveller? Either way, that’ll look good on national TV. another had a sign that said “Progressives!! Destroyed our economy”. Who knew the Bush administration, who never once vetoed a spending bill from the equally irresponsible GOP, was progressive, except int he sense of “prgressively worse, year after year”? I myself was holding a sign that read “Down With Sodomy! Up with Teabagging!” and got several nods of approval from people who clearly didn’t get the joke.
i wanted to ask some people about socialism, but was worried i’d get punched in the head for my efforts. i suspect most don’t realize how much of America is already socialized and what “socialistic schemes” these dim-witted “patriots” already pay for without complaint and would be unwilling to give up:
...............Let’s start with some of the basics – firefighters, first responders and police. If one of the teabaggers’ house was on fire, would they let it burn because of the “waste” of their money going to pay for firefighters? Or if their house was broken into, would they be ok with the police not investigating it? What about on 9/11 – would it have been better if the NYPD or the FDNY didn’t save all of the people in the Towers before they fell?
How about the military? Talk about not supporting the troops. How will we fight all of the wars that the republicans wanted (and want) us to fight? Or take the events from this past week – who would have rescued Captain Phillips from the Somali pirates if our taxes didn’t pay to train the Navy SEALS? Is national security no longer something that the teabaggers are interested in?
Should there be no air travel, since air traffic controllers are public employees, paid with our tax dollars? And should there be no mail delivery, since the US Postal Service is also paid for by our tax dollars (and even with the increasing cost of postage, it is still way better than private courier)? And public schools – which I am sure that many of these teabaggers send their children to as private schools are fairly costly. Should our children continue to fall further and further behind other countries in terms of education?
Take it to the most local level too. Taxes pay for garbage collection, paving of roads, snow removal, salting the roads when they ice over, building and repairing bridges, tunnels and in many instances, public transit. Will the teabaggers never leave their houses to travel on these bridges, roads and tunnels? Will they let their garbage pile up for weeks, months or years?
What about something as basic as food safety? Making sure that food isn’t poisoned with hazardous chemicals and is prepared according to basic standards? How about the FDIC insuring deposits of our hard earned money? Will the teabaggers be happy losing their savings if their bank goes under? What about cleaning up when the private companies spill hazardous waste – take the Exxon spill, the oil spills after hurricane Katrina, train crashes that release toxic chlorine gas (or other gas) into the air. How about parks, prisons, the National Guard, hospitals, the Federal or State court systems and other services that we take for granted?
Mostly though, it was funny to see just how few people were there, considering how much coverage and promotion FOX news has put into this astro-turf (ie, fake grassroots) event (Jane and Christy have lots more about what a sham this is).
Compared to the anti-iraq war rallies of 2002, which were blacked out by the media (I know because i was there and have the pictures to prove it), turnout was pitiful at best. A few hundred teabaggers in Philly, compared to tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of anti-war protestors in DC in 2002. So i guess there’s no substitute for real grass roots, no matter how much we’re ignored.
Quite frankly, by the conservatives’ own definition, these teabag rallies are nothing less than treason. After all, ““Americans…need to watch what they say, watch what they do.”
http://brendancalling.com/
A Brief History of Tea Bagging
http://firedoglake.com/2009/04/15/a-brief-history-of-tea-bagging/
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Treating_dissent_as_treason
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