While Mom and I sit and watch the uproar going on in Egypt, she says this is what Sarah Palin wants in America. This is what Sharron Angle was talking about when she referred to second amendment rights, and Glenn Beck when he calls Obama a dictator hell bent on destroying America..."Shoot them in the head" Beck said about the evil liberals...
I guess you can ask yourself, why aren't our unemployed citizens protesting in the streets of America? Our government takes from the poor and gives to the rich, wouldn't you agree? Here's where it gets complicated... President Obama is NO dictator, yet some wingnuts call him that... Our government in fact does bend over backwards to please the rich, the banks, Wall St; while some in our government are fighting everyday to help those who are poor, needy, unemployed, homeless... with out help from those who are calling for a revolution, they want an armed and dangerous population, a rising up of US citizens against the big bad government takeover....we are indeed a very confused people...
Here's a good article from The Los Angeles Times...
A call to protest ignites a call to arms. The
reaction to Frances Fox Piven's essay urging the unemployed to protest
for change shows that we are no longer a democracy but a tyranny of the
heavily armed.
January 26, 2011|By Barbara Ehrenreich Why
are Americans such wusses? Threaten the Greeks with job losses and
benefit cuts and they tie up Athens, but take away Americans' jobs,
401(k)s, even their homes, and they pretty much roll over. Tell British
students that their tuition is about to go up and they take to the
streets; American students just amp up their doses of Prozac.
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51 comments:
We are too busy hiding from the Terrorists to protest.
You really are confused and clueless.
we used to protest, I guess now we are all too tied up on our computers calling people names...
Jerry what do you think, am I confused? Is our country confused? The righties think we should protest but they are wrong on the reasons....
I don't know how this translates domestically, Sue. I will say, though, that we never, EVER, seem to get our foreign policy right. Presidents from both parties have been propping up this Mubarak thug, seemingly unconditionally, for frigging 30 years now. It's like, what, we thought that this would never come back to haunt us?......And, no, it doesn't help that Mr. Biden is going around saying that Mubarak ISN'T a dictator (Obama, to his credit, DOES seem to get it).
Okay let me try again...
The protesters are in the streets because of 30 yrs of a repressive regime, they want free speech, an end to government corruption, free and fair elections, among other things. They are for the most part trying to protest in a non -violent way but are coming up against a brutal government response. So my reason for this post is not to talk about Egypt, I'll leave that to the expert writers, I want to show how the wingnuts cry for a revolution in our country, to stand up against our government and for what reason?? What are they doing calling for protests in the streets, don't retreat but reload, be armed, be ready for the violent left!
President Obama is not a brutal dictator, he is not stifling your free speech, he is not holding unfair elections, he is on the side of the unemployed, the uninsured... so what wingnuts, what do you want??
Rubbish. The people trying to force the Egyptian rebellion into a template relevant to the situation in the US don't know what they're talking about. Egyptians are fighting to get more or less what we Americans already have.
At best, one could say this: Imagine the US ruled for thirty years by a dull, un-charismatic version of Palin as absolute dictator. That's Egypt under Mubarak. I think Americans would be rioting for change too.
Have enough respect for the Egyptian people to understand their situation and their actions on their own terms, without trying to draw fatuous and irrelevant parallels to the US situation which has nothing to do with it.
Thats what I am trying to say Infidel, apparently not very well..
Yes we have what the Egyptian people want, but the extremists in this country do not see that. I am not comparing just pointing out the wingnuttery...
The extremists want rioting and protests NOW when they can't even explain WHY!
I said I was not going into detail about the Egypt protests, I will leave that to you...
The right wingers who go around claiming that we are losing our freedoms due to a tyrannical government are a bunch of ill-informed hypocrites. Whenever I ask them where were they when the Bush administration instituted the Patriot Act, engaged in torturing prisoners, and had anti-Bush protesters removed from his town hall events, all I heard were flimsy excuses or the sounds of crickets chirping.
In answer to your question regarding what wingnuts want, it's to be in power. Unfortunately, they don't seem to care how they do it. If most of the average right winger stopped to think for a moment, they'd realize that frauds like Beck and Palin are only interested in making money via higher ratings, speaking fees, and book sales.
If only one right winger looks at the events in Egypt and realizes they need to shut up when they call President Obama a dictator and refer to the current government as tyrannical, that'll be progress.
Malcolm you got the point of my post, thank you.
I was not comparing nor was I trivializing the protests in Egypt. I was simply pointing out the groups of extremists who are calling for a revolution because they are not happy with the way our government is run. So shall we say to those who are not happy here to go see what it's like living in a repressive situation with a dictatorship?? Give me a fuckin break, how much clearer can I get? Are you all seeing and hearing what I hear coming from Beck, Bachmann, Limbaugh, Angle, Palin etc???
The spirit of protest we held so dear in the 1950s and 1960s is not entirely dead by any means. Witness the protests against the WTO in Seattle during the Clinton administration. Every Earth Day. Across our fair nation from shore to shore there have been protests and vigils against the war in Iraq. Crosses carefully erected on our sandy shores for each dead American soldier. There were protests against that invasion in London in Sep-tember of 2002. There is less urgency without the draft that took us away one by one to the violence of Viet Nam. Maybe protest was more necessary back in the day. Black people were denied the vote. Their homes and churches blown up and burned in the south. The only establishment figures that even got it were MLK Jr. and RFK. Both men were assassinated. Times were illing and indeed without much hope. In a sense we really won an important victory as anti-war hippies and civil rights crusaders. Even Nixon bowed to our will. What kind of pussy is going to protest because he or she lost their job? Leave that to the pampered Europeans. That's not the U.S. We understand and possess the means for change. Besides, most people really don't have the luxury of devoting their lives to protest now that the prosperity of the baby boomer/slacker generation has given way to trade schools and massive student loan debt. Infidel and Malcolm say it better. But right-wing protest is a joke. Nobody ever demanded to live under fascism. Palin is an idiot. Her followers are a little bit over-the-hill and already enjoying the social safety nets they so relaxedly rail against. Life isn't all that bad in the U.S.A. We can get rid of politicians we don't believe in without any second amendment remedies. The real trick is how the hell do you get stupid people to wise up and quit fighting for their own destruction?
I had kinda the same discussion/confusion with my son today, only I have been worrying that the Tea Baggers might 'use' these riots and overthrows as a rallying cry...then my infinitely smarter than I son said, "Mom, the Tea Baggers are old people. The 'protesters' in Tunisia and Egypt are young people. The old people aren't going to overthrow the Government, and the young people like this President!"
Off Topic here: I had been watching Al Jazeera English online all day..their coverage is more 'man on the Street' and more personal. The only thing that kinda creeped me out was they use a lot of "Think Tank" people. Every time I hear "Think Tank" I think of the Cato Institute...which is not really a place of thinking..well sane thinking, anyway. ;)
Why does every single issue have to be an excuse for one side to go upside the head of the other. One idiot (Palin) says something foolish; a metaphor about reloading and suddenly the entire tea party is evil and violent (this, while a Democratic candidate, Joe Manchin, actually uses a gun in HIS commercial). I love ya', Sue, but, in this country, you don't need to be violently repressed in order to protest. You can do it for a hang-nail. It's a free country......And, yes, you are free to protest against and criticize these protesters.
If I understand the post correctly, Sue is not talking about Egypt.
The Right talks the rhetoric of revolution all the time.
Looking at Egypt and other places is a reminder of what that really means - and it's not whatever warped Pollyanna with guns vision the American Right has of it.
That's the point.
I do want to add however, a 'protest' is a completely different thing to an uprising, revolution, or general revolt.
The first is a statement, the latter is something else again.
I wouldn't describe Europeans as "pampered" either. They have a different social compact with their government, is all, and the plus side of that is that they feel their government belongs to them. They don't hoard massive piles of firearms in some weird misapprehension that their own democratically elected government is going to do something nefarious to them, for example.
I'm gonna apologize for my scatter-brained post. It does not read clearly and I had a problem putting down my thoughts, but please don't shoot me for it! :0)
Will, I love you too....Oh sorry, where was I, I didn't single out Palin and her gun metaphors. I'm saying the RW EXTREMISTS as a whole have used the word revolution to take a stand against the Obama administration. I'm not even gonna say government because it is Obama they want to take down. My question is WHY. What is it our government is doing that warrants a revolution? Yes we have mostly non-violent teabagger protests and rallies, but for some leaders that is not good enough, they want the country armed and dangerous, they want an uprising...
Protests and demonstrations are entirely different from rebellions and uprisings. What is happening in Egypt today can in no way be compared to the protests of the 50s and 60s.
The anti-government rhetoric on the right and their calls for active rebellion are based on - pardon the expression - ignorance. If they think we have it so bad in this country, they should live for awhile in countries which are truly repressive - such as Egypt or Iran.
The right simply has no clue what they are talking about and they don't have the vision to understand that the results of what they are advocating could be far worse than the benefits of living in a democracy where we do have, for example, the right to free speech. If we didn't, Beck & Co. would have been in jail a long time ago.
The nature of the Tea Party protests had economics as its central issue; mainly well to do people who saw themselves as being taxed too much to support government spending they didn't like. The Usual Suspects on the right used the revolutionary metaphors to rally their base....think about it; there's a word for inciting an armed revolt against one's own government.
It's called treason. And the call to arms was thoughtless and foolish, not a real call for armed revolt.
In Egypt and Tunisia, it's a about living conditions and basic human rights.....these were/are dictatorships in a true sense, and really repressed peoples just had enough, and said no more.
It was about more than taxes, jobs and economics.
//tyranny of the heavily armed.//
good expression.
... and frankly I am getting tired of the heavily armed and their bullets and bombast, boasting, bullshit, bravado,....
... I wish they would let me B at peace.
That's it Hugh! The extremists here are calling for a revolution but NOT because of a repressive government turning it's back on the people when it comes to unemployment, uninsured, poverty wages and living conditions, unfair elections, basic human rights....
We are protesting, it's just that now the people in power are Democrats, whom you agree with, so you characterize them as for the wrong reasons. These are the old 60s tactics used against you.
President Obama is not a brutal dictator, he is not stifling your free speech, he is not holding unfair elections, he is on the side of the unemployed, the uninsured... so what do you want??
He isn't a brutal dictator. He isn't holding unfair elections. His administration does employ tactics that inhibit free speech (one example: what do you think a call for civility really is?), but he hasn't taken any official action against free speech.
Being on the side of the unemployed means policies that extend our economic problems. Being on the side of the uninsured raises costs for the 85% who are insured.
My biggest problem is that Obama thinks he should be able to choose winners and losers. Pharmaceutical companies over health insurance companies. Clean energy over oil and coal companies. High-speed rail over the automobile. ABC/CBS/NBC over Fox. GE over other conglomerates. GM and Chrysler over Ford.
Something you should ask yourself: If you're okay with the president choosing winners and losers, will you still be okay when a Republican is in the white house?
Sue ~ Please see this link: it will clear up your misunderstanding.
(I hope the whole link prints...)
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/lachlan-markay/2011/01/21/sorry-liberals-glenn-beck-did-not-tell-viewers-shoot-people-head
The Heathen should crawl back in his cave. His comment is so full of nonsense that it doesn't even deserve a response.
Hardy-har-har-har. Linda gets her "facts" from Newsbusters. OMG! No wonder she's so full of. . . .
Here's a direct quote:
"I will stand against you and so will millions of others. We believe in something. You in the media and most in Washington don't. The radicals that you and Washington have co-opted and brought in wearing sheep's clothing -- change the pose. You will get the ends.
You've been using them? They believe in communism. They believe and have called for a revolution. You're going to have to shoot them in the head. But warning, they may shoot you."
This little boy makes me vomit.
Leslie I was just about to post the same thing, I'll add to yours...
Tea parties believe in small government. We believe in returning to the principles of our Founding Fathers. We respect them. We revere them. Shoot me in the head before I stop talking about the Founders. Shoot me in the head if you try to change our government.
I will stand against you and so will millions of others. We believe in something. You in the media and most in Washington don't. The radicals that you and Washington have co-opted and brought in wearing sheep's clothing — change the pose. You will get the ends.
You've been using them? They believe in communism. They believe and have called for a revolution. You're going to have to shoot them in the head. But warning, they may shoot you.
They are dangerous because they believe. Karl Marx is their George Washington. You will never change their mind. And if they feel you have lied to them — they're revolutionaries. Nancy Pelosi, those are the people you should be worried about.
Makes me vomit too, how anyone can interpret this differently than us is beyond the pale. The righties are calling for an uprising, a revolution, NOT the left. Get real Linda. You will NEVER change my opinion of the insane Beckster.
"Something you should ask yourself: If you're okay with the president choosing winners and losers, will you still be okay when a Republican is in the white house?"
We endured what you describe for 8 long Dubya Years.
Now that a Democrat is in the
WH, you guys find it intolerable.
It's all a silly game. When your guys are in power, no matter what they do is patriotic. When I guys are in power, now matter what they do is taking away you freedoms.
And vice versa.
Do you see a pattern here?
LOL!
Crap typing:
"When OUR guys are in power..."
I guess you don't see the irony in your own statement.
I just saw the right-wing described as gullible, among a few other choice adjectives. Hee, hee, hee - gullible. So true, so true.
I don't mean to be impolitic here, but folks like Beck and Palin are essentially dullards - the latter having a dubious future, at best. I mean, sure, she'll still get her gigs on Fox and possibly another reality show, but that's it. Even the Republicans wouldn't nominate somebody this mediocre.
No, but the Tea Partiers will. We see proof of it right here at Sue's.
but folks like Beck and Palin are essentially dullards -
Far from it,
They KNOW exactly what they are doing,
Ginning up the more ignorant base of the republican party,
They get paid to do it.
Beck made over 30 million last year, Palin around 15 million.
They know what they are doing and laugh all the way to the bank.
BTW Glenn Beck is speaking at the Koch Brothers retreat of super rich so they can keep ginning up the "base" to do the dirty work for Koch Inc ET AL.
See here (pdf warning)
Is America On the Road to Serfdom
Glenn Beck
Page 8;
It is more coordinated then we see.
Koch Brothers fund most of the right wing astro turf movements, Rupert Murdoch gives then a very well funded International forum with which to push their right wing spin and propaganda, and the US Chamber of Commerce collects money form International corps to fund more of the same.
BTW the heads of the Chamber of commerce are also at the Koch planning session.
Judicial elections: Several states this year will hold important judicial elections. Is there an opportunity for advocates of free enterprise to have their voices heard.
David Chavern, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Kevin watson, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
page 11
Here is an article from Oct about this planning session by Koch to further his attempt at controlling the US political process for his and his rich friends benefits.
Don't fool your self will( or try to fool us).
Both of the right wing operators KNOW exactly what they are doing, and are far from dullards.
Well Sue, your post has done it again! It has opened my eyes up to what's going on in Egypt. This is better reporting than CNN! Thanks everyone!
Will, take heed, anon and Leslie are exactly right. It's not so much about Beck and Palin, it's the movement behind them.
thanks jittery, also read from my bloglist for a better understanding of what's happening in Egypt.
There was a huge (thousands)
demonstration at the meeting of the uber rich in CA. Probably won't see it in the MSM but Crooks and Liars and AlterNet have something about it.
I just read that post about the Koch Brothers super secret meeting... here's the link http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41348611/ns/politics-more_politics/
tnlib said~ "Here's a direct quote:
"I will stand against you and so will millions of others. We believe in something. You in the media and most in Washington don't. The radicals that you and Washington have co-opted and brought in wearing sheep's clothing -- change the pose. You will get the ends.
You've been using them? They believe in communism. They believe and have called for a revolution. You're going to have to shoot them in the head. But warning, they may shoot you."
You know, tnlib, for someone who claims to be a writer and a researcher, you don't read very well. If you would REALLY do a little research to find out what Beck was doing in the above quote, you would have discovered that he was comparing the radical liberals to everyday liberals. It was a side by side comparison of how radical liberals (who have taken over the Democrat party) otherwise known as PROGRESSIVES, may relate to those who are liberal but not so radical as to be considered progressive. Don't get your undies in a wad...Beck was not trying to get the Tea Party to take pot shots at anyone.
Shoddy...shoddy comments and a shoddy lack of research on your part...as usual.
It doesn't matter a hoot in hell who Beck was talking about - liberal, Democrat, far-left, right-wing, Republican, radical, conservative. This is what he said.
"You're going to have to shoot them in the head."
that's as bad as Linda blaming progressives for the decline in freedoms around the world...
"Further proof that progressives are working worldwide to advance government control over the right of the individual. It is a dangerous time around the globe for those who value liberty and freedom. Those of us who appreciate our God-given rights must step up our efforts to elect those who fully support Constitutional guarantees of those freedoms here, and who will also put forth maximum efforts to encourage and support democratic growth globally.
It seems odd to have to state one's support for our freedoms, but as we all are discovering, there are MANY, MANY who do not share the same love for our Constitution or for our freedoms...and the really frightening thing is that these people are not foreigners....they are some of our own citizens."
You may be right about Beck, Anonymous. It might indeed be an act with him. Palin, though, I highly doubt it. You simply cannot fake that level of stupidity. I see her more as a Peter Sellers "Being There" type of individual whose essentially won the lottery and, yes, benefitted greatly from a highly ill-informed citizenry.
Halloran quit, Horrigan resigned and Anita Dunn never said any such thing. Didn't bother checking the rest of this bullshit.
btw, it was Beck who falsely accused Dunn of this Mao quote. The reason lies go viral amongst the Tea Buggers is because none of them ever take time to check their facts, if they even know how. Gullible, dumb and irresponsible..
EVERY SINGLE piece of info lisa absorbs in her spongey, icky, hole-filled brain comes from Youtube and Fox Nooze. She seems to think adding those Youtube links here will sway us and make us GASP, and say OMG!! lisa is right!!!
LMAO!
Palin, though, I highly doubt it. You simply cannot fake that level of stupidity.
Bull;
Bush a Yale graduate pulled it off quite nicely.
If you do not believe me check out his first run for congress he lost to a good ole boy Texan, where Bush Jr learned to down play his education for the masses to win.
Palin makes Bush sound like Jean Paul Sartre. But, really, it isn't so much Palin's idiocy that scares me. It's infinitely more so the fact that she can galvanize ANY support.......As for Mr. Bush's Ivy League education, not every single Ivy Leaguer is a genius. I knew this chick with a Master's from Columbia. Not exactly impressive was she.
btw, it was Beck who falsely accused Dunn of this Mao quote
Leslie you can find her it saying anywhere. I thought you were some kind of researcher and you can't find a simple You Tube Video?
not every single Ivy Leaguer is a genius.
But none of them could even get a C average let alone graduate being as dumb as Bush Jr pretended to be to get right wing to accept him as just like them, and vote for him.
Palin is just playing the same game more to the extreme, but she knows the game.
Remember she has a degree in journalism, and was smart enough to out smart both Frank Murkowski and Tony Knowles, who both were experienced politicians.
She is much smarter then she pretends to be for her base or the MSM benefit.
She is playing the same game Gretchen Carlson plays on Fox and Friends, much dumber then her education and life experience would suggest she really is.
PS: even Palin has never suggested anything this stupid;
Georgia Republican’s bill would do away with driver’s licenses
tnlib said ~ "It doesn't matter a hoot in hell who Beck was talking about - liberal, Democrat, far-left, right-wing, Republican, radical, conservative. This is what he said.
"You're going to have to shoot them in the head."
So, tnlib, it would not matter to you then if others take one of YOUR statements completely out of context and twist it to mean something directly opposite of your intended meaning?
I find that attitude unethical and dishonest on so many levels.
I find that attitude unethical and dishonest on so many levels."
waht do you expect Linda when they kiss the feet of a man no matter how he lies:
for example when he said this":
In 2008, then-Senator Obama supported a health care reform proposal that did not include an individual mandate because he was at that time strongly opposed to the idea, stating that, ‘If a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house,’”
They hate the fact that they can't keep twisting facts and get away with it.
that is hideously stupid lisa and I'm leaving it up as proof of your stupidity
PS: even Palin has never suggested anything this stupid;
How do you keep track? Here's something pretty stupid she said in her book, Going Broke.
-- On Carter and Reagan: "I had followed the Iran hostage crisis and remember wondering why President Jimmy Carter didn't act more decisively. From my high schooler's perspective, I thought the question was, Why did he allow America to be humiliated and pushed around? The new president being sworn in radiated confidence and optimism. The enemies of freedom took notice. In years to come people would ask, What did he have that Carter didn't? To me the answer was obvious. He had a steel spine.
Tell me that's not the dumbest thing you have ever heard?
FJ, when that woman opens her mouth the whole world is watching with their mouths hanging open. She is shockingly stupid, she twists and turns her words to try and make herself sound like she knows what she's talking about, it's nauseatingly stupid. She makes ME nauseous...
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