During the course of the last year we have seen a definite change in the perception that Progressives have towards the Tea Party. New Tea Party groups began springing up all over the country as soon as the country recognized that despite his centrist campaign, the newly elected Barack Obama had steered his administration hard to the left. Established Tea Party groups saw an exponential increase in membership as soon as the eight-hundred plus billion dollar stimulus bill passed and the focus in Congress turned to healthcare. At first, the organized opposition to the Tea Party was basically to ignore them and the main stream media did their level best; burying stories about Tea Party activists where no one but hard core, cover-to-cover readers would find them. The thought was that without coverage or recognition that they would fizzle out and disappear.
Well, they didn’t fizzle out and they certainly haven’t disappeared. They showed up at town hall meetings during the August recess and while those that got in aired their opinions, the ones that didn’t stood outside with signs and slogans. After the Tea Party launched a massive protest at the nation’s Capitol, the press could no longer ignore the intensity and passion of the people that, until then, were showing up at Congressional offices and town halls all over the nation. Another means of dealing with this threat to the Progressive agenda had to be found. Nancy Pelosi led the charge with accusations that the Tea Parties were nothing more than an annoyance campaign organized by the Republican Party, health insurance corporations and special interest groups. Pelosi claimed they were not an actual grass roots movement; calling them “Astroturf” and manufactured anger. Ironically, while Nancy labeled the Tea Party manufactured anger, MoveOn.org, Americans for Democratic Action, SEIU, AFL-CIO, Organizing for America and more, were orchestrating counter protests and were in some cases, actually paying people to attend; a move which would prove disastrous later.
When Tea Party members began appearing on news programs, mostly on Fox, the main stream media went on an information search to discredit the people that were speaking for the movement. If Nancy Pelosi said they were paid for by the Republicans, surely they should be able to find those links and bring this manufactured hoax to a grinding halt. Looking in every dark corner and alley; under each rock and behind every tree the media found nothing but retirees, small business owners and private citizens that had never even been part of a political protest in their lives. Rather than change her tune when confronted with the total absence of Republican influence in the Tea Party movement, Nancy Pelosi shifted gears and began speaking about the rage that had permeated the town hall meetings and protests. If we can’t prove they are Astroturf, then maybe we can prove they are nothing but an ugly, racist and irrational mob. Pelosi spoke tearfully about how much this hateful discourse reminded her of the anger that had been part of the political scene in San Francisco during the 1970’s and how that anger had quickly descended into violence.
What Ms. Pelosi failed to mention was that the San Francisco mobs inciting violence in the 1970’s were overwhelmingly people on the left; Progressives like herself that did not have a legitimate voice in politics and had taken the radical activist route to force their issues on an unwilling public. The left had always taken to the streets and those marches nearly always became a violent clash between radical mobs and the authorities. Despite the inaccuracies, the main stream media had their new marching orders and began to dig through the Tea Party protests looking for signs that could be interpreted as hateful or racist and started reporting about people shouting out vile comments or wearing Swastikas. Curiously, the photographs that were taken showed plenty of American flags and signs reading “Hands off my healthcare” but none of the pictures were hateful, racist or even vulgar. There were no images of people wearing Swastikas or raising their arms in Nazi salutes. There were miles of footage showing people chanting “Kill the Bill” or speaking about the outrage they felt because Congress had been ignoring them but I still haven’t heard any racial slurs or provocative language. One would think that if any of those things were evident at Tea Party rallies, that the media would have led their national coverage with that. They did not.
Then in August it happened. The Democratic headquarters in Denver Colorado was vandalized. The media storm was immediate and centered on the anger that the Tea Party was fomenting against the supporters of healthcare reform. Every window that had been shattered contained a poster supporting the President’s healthcare initiative illustrating how dangerous these protests were becoming. Within days, the police apprehended 24 year old Maurice Schwenkler for the attack. In a curious twist of fate, Schwenkler was neither a right wing zealot nor was he a member of the Tea Party. Schwenkler was in fact, a Democrat activist and a supporter of the Healthcare Bill. He had previously been arrested for misdemeanor unlawful assembly at the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN and had actually worked for the Democratic Party in the past. Schwenkler had also been paid five-hundred dollars by the Colorado Citizens Coalition, a non profit group that supports Democratic candidates, for his work in a door to door campaign to drum up last minute support for Barack Obama in the 2008 election.
There was very little coverage of Schwenkler’s arrest and no retractions of the damning rhetoric the press used as they attempted to link the attack with Tea Party activists. No indications were ever made as to Schwenkler’s motive for the vandalism leaving us to wonder “why?” It could simply be that he had an argument with people at the office and had an axe to grind with them but it may very well be that Schwenkler assumed that an attack of vandalism launched against Democratic offices would automatically be attributed to the Tea Party providing Nancy Pelosi with new speaking points about Tea Party violence.
Similarly, the charges of Tea Party hate and bigotry hoisted on the news networks after the House healthcare vote have failed to be substantiated with a single video clip or sound bite. Stenny Hoyer is now saying that anyone that doesn’t believe that racial slurs were lobbed at black Congressmen or that they weren’t spat upon are no different than the kooks that believe the Holocaust never happened during World War II. Sadly, there are miles of records and films to substantiate the brutal slaughter of more than six million Jews during World War II. Those films were taken in a nation that was ruled by a totalitarian military regime that had complete control over the media and yet, these films survived and exist to this day. However, here in the United States none of the hundreds of news cameras and microphones that accompanied those Congressmen as they walked through the Tea Party crowds to take their historic vote captured one scrap of evidence…..not one! If I were a member of the Jewish leadership I would be furious at Stenny Hoyer for even suggesting this charade could possibly be compared to the Holocaust.
The main stream news still hasn’t covered the brutal beating of Kenneth Gladney, a black Tea Party activist that was assaulted by counter protesters wearing SEIU shirts and jackets. The Missouri man was knocked to the ground and kicked for handing out literature during a Tea Party rally. A video taken of the incident clearly shows racial epithets were used as the assailants pummeled this man yet, the gang of thugs were basically charged with a misdemeanor when a civil rights violation and hate crime, had obviously taken place. A similar incident happened in Thousand Oaks, California where a 65 year old bystander that stopped to see what was happening at a Tea Party gathering was attacked and had part of his finger bitten off by a paid counter-protester bused in by MoveOn.org, a civilian activist group organized by the Democratic Party. Local police pursued that crime as vigorously as they did the incident in Missouri, with the charges against the attacker being little more than the equivalent of a ticket of littering. If the press really wants to see protest violence, they are obviously following the wrong groups because there is tons of video they can air if they follow the President’s supporters.
Now we have a new name and face to add to the list of Democrats manufacturing anger at Tea Party protests. Obviously the press can’t find the violence that Nancy Pelosi has accused the Tea Party of so he is going to help her by organizing people to infiltrate the Tea Party protests to create the disturbances the press couldn’t legitimately find. Jason Levin, a media lab school teacher at Beaverton, Oregon’s Conestoga Middle School says they want to “exaggerate the group's least appealing qualities, further distance the tea party from mainstream America and damage the public's opinion of them”.
He adds “We’re going to attend their rally, but plan to have a bunch of truly ludicrous signs. Things that say “Obama drinks Christian Baby Blood” or “Jesus wrote the constitution”. The more misspelled words the better…You could also dress in overalls with no shirt, or a stained “wifebeater” t-shirt, But you get the general idea. Some other thoughts are to ask people at the rally to sign a petition renouncing socialism. See just how much info you can get from these folks. The more data we can mine from the Tea Partiers, the more mayhem we can cause with it!!!!”
All Levin has done was to provide the smoking gun the Tea Party needed all along. The main stream media has yet to uncover these crazy signs and acts of violence in previous Tea Party protests so the assumption will now be that any violent or rude behavior at future Tea Party events must be the work of one of “Levin’s Losers”. Like that name? I made it up myself! Levin may have created more problems for himself than simply undermining the effectiveness of his own cause. He has apparently been working on his blog and website while he was supposed to be teaching his Oregon students and has drawn some unexpected and unpleasant attention from the school district. Hopefully his lack of involvement with the students actually spared them from the usual radical indoctrination routinely perpetrated by Socialist teachers and they are now better prepared for the realities of life than Mr. Levin is.
Paul
Well, they didn’t fizzle out and they certainly haven’t disappeared. They showed up at town hall meetings during the August recess and while those that got in aired their opinions, the ones that didn’t stood outside with signs and slogans. After the Tea Party launched a massive protest at the nation’s Capitol, the press could no longer ignore the intensity and passion of the people that, until then, were showing up at Congressional offices and town halls all over the nation. Another means of dealing with this threat to the Progressive agenda had to be found. Nancy Pelosi led the charge with accusations that the Tea Parties were nothing more than an annoyance campaign organized by the Republican Party, health insurance corporations and special interest groups. Pelosi claimed they were not an actual grass roots movement; calling them “Astroturf” and manufactured anger. Ironically, while Nancy labeled the Tea Party manufactured anger, MoveOn.org, Americans for Democratic Action, SEIU, AFL-CIO, Organizing for America and more, were orchestrating counter protests and were in some cases, actually paying people to attend; a move which would prove disastrous later.
When Tea Party members began appearing on news programs, mostly on Fox, the main stream media went on an information search to discredit the people that were speaking for the movement. If Nancy Pelosi said they were paid for by the Republicans, surely they should be able to find those links and bring this manufactured hoax to a grinding halt. Looking in every dark corner and alley; under each rock and behind every tree the media found nothing but retirees, small business owners and private citizens that had never even been part of a political protest in their lives. Rather than change her tune when confronted with the total absence of Republican influence in the Tea Party movement, Nancy Pelosi shifted gears and began speaking about the rage that had permeated the town hall meetings and protests. If we can’t prove they are Astroturf, then maybe we can prove they are nothing but an ugly, racist and irrational mob. Pelosi spoke tearfully about how much this hateful discourse reminded her of the anger that had been part of the political scene in San Francisco during the 1970’s and how that anger had quickly descended into violence.
What Ms. Pelosi failed to mention was that the San Francisco mobs inciting violence in the 1970’s were overwhelmingly people on the left; Progressives like herself that did not have a legitimate voice in politics and had taken the radical activist route to force their issues on an unwilling public. The left had always taken to the streets and those marches nearly always became a violent clash between radical mobs and the authorities. Despite the inaccuracies, the main stream media had their new marching orders and began to dig through the Tea Party protests looking for signs that could be interpreted as hateful or racist and started reporting about people shouting out vile comments or wearing Swastikas. Curiously, the photographs that were taken showed plenty of American flags and signs reading “Hands off my healthcare” but none of the pictures were hateful, racist or even vulgar. There were no images of people wearing Swastikas or raising their arms in Nazi salutes. There were miles of footage showing people chanting “Kill the Bill” or speaking about the outrage they felt because Congress had been ignoring them but I still haven’t heard any racial slurs or provocative language. One would think that if any of those things were evident at Tea Party rallies, that the media would have led their national coverage with that. They did not.
Then in August it happened. The Democratic headquarters in Denver Colorado was vandalized. The media storm was immediate and centered on the anger that the Tea Party was fomenting against the supporters of healthcare reform. Every window that had been shattered contained a poster supporting the President’s healthcare initiative illustrating how dangerous these protests were becoming. Within days, the police apprehended 24 year old Maurice Schwenkler for the attack. In a curious twist of fate, Schwenkler was neither a right wing zealot nor was he a member of the Tea Party. Schwenkler was in fact, a Democrat activist and a supporter of the Healthcare Bill. He had previously been arrested for misdemeanor unlawful assembly at the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN and had actually worked for the Democratic Party in the past. Schwenkler had also been paid five-hundred dollars by the Colorado Citizens Coalition, a non profit group that supports Democratic candidates, for his work in a door to door campaign to drum up last minute support for Barack Obama in the 2008 election.
There was very little coverage of Schwenkler’s arrest and no retractions of the damning rhetoric the press used as they attempted to link the attack with Tea Party activists. No indications were ever made as to Schwenkler’s motive for the vandalism leaving us to wonder “why?” It could simply be that he had an argument with people at the office and had an axe to grind with them but it may very well be that Schwenkler assumed that an attack of vandalism launched against Democratic offices would automatically be attributed to the Tea Party providing Nancy Pelosi with new speaking points about Tea Party violence.
Similarly, the charges of Tea Party hate and bigotry hoisted on the news networks after the House healthcare vote have failed to be substantiated with a single video clip or sound bite. Stenny Hoyer is now saying that anyone that doesn’t believe that racial slurs were lobbed at black Congressmen or that they weren’t spat upon are no different than the kooks that believe the Holocaust never happened during World War II. Sadly, there are miles of records and films to substantiate the brutal slaughter of more than six million Jews during World War II. Those films were taken in a nation that was ruled by a totalitarian military regime that had complete control over the media and yet, these films survived and exist to this day. However, here in the United States none of the hundreds of news cameras and microphones that accompanied those Congressmen as they walked through the Tea Party crowds to take their historic vote captured one scrap of evidence…..not one! If I were a member of the Jewish leadership I would be furious at Stenny Hoyer for even suggesting this charade could possibly be compared to the Holocaust.
The main stream news still hasn’t covered the brutal beating of Kenneth Gladney, a black Tea Party activist that was assaulted by counter protesters wearing SEIU shirts and jackets. The Missouri man was knocked to the ground and kicked for handing out literature during a Tea Party rally. A video taken of the incident clearly shows racial epithets were used as the assailants pummeled this man yet, the gang of thugs were basically charged with a misdemeanor when a civil rights violation and hate crime, had obviously taken place. A similar incident happened in Thousand Oaks, California where a 65 year old bystander that stopped to see what was happening at a Tea Party gathering was attacked and had part of his finger bitten off by a paid counter-protester bused in by MoveOn.org, a civilian activist group organized by the Democratic Party. Local police pursued that crime as vigorously as they did the incident in Missouri, with the charges against the attacker being little more than the equivalent of a ticket of littering. If the press really wants to see protest violence, they are obviously following the wrong groups because there is tons of video they can air if they follow the President’s supporters.
Now we have a new name and face to add to the list of Democrats manufacturing anger at Tea Party protests. Obviously the press can’t find the violence that Nancy Pelosi has accused the Tea Party of so he is going to help her by organizing people to infiltrate the Tea Party protests to create the disturbances the press couldn’t legitimately find. Jason Levin, a media lab school teacher at Beaverton, Oregon’s Conestoga Middle School says they want to “exaggerate the group's least appealing qualities, further distance the tea party from mainstream America and damage the public's opinion of them”.
He adds “We’re going to attend their rally, but plan to have a bunch of truly ludicrous signs. Things that say “Obama drinks Christian Baby Blood” or “Jesus wrote the constitution”. The more misspelled words the better…You could also dress in overalls with no shirt, or a stained “wifebeater” t-shirt, But you get the general idea. Some other thoughts are to ask people at the rally to sign a petition renouncing socialism. See just how much info you can get from these folks. The more data we can mine from the Tea Partiers, the more mayhem we can cause with it!!!!”
All Levin has done was to provide the smoking gun the Tea Party needed all along. The main stream media has yet to uncover these crazy signs and acts of violence in previous Tea Party protests so the assumption will now be that any violent or rude behavior at future Tea Party events must be the work of one of “Levin’s Losers”. Like that name? I made it up myself! Levin may have created more problems for himself than simply undermining the effectiveness of his own cause. He has apparently been working on his blog and website while he was supposed to be teaching his Oregon students and has drawn some unexpected and unpleasant attention from the school district. Hopefully his lack of involvement with the students actually spared them from the usual radical indoctrination routinely perpetrated by Socialist teachers and they are now better prepared for the realities of life than Mr. Levin is.
Paul
No comments:
Post a Comment