In Praise of Tea Baggers

http://blackagendareport.com/?q=content/freedom-rider-praise-tea-baggers

Tue, 09/15/2009
The Right shows far more eagerness for a fight than the hapless Left, or what remains of it. Barack Obama “smacks down” progressives like gnats, yet they continue to behave as if their mission in life is to save his presidency. Now, purported progressives vow to defend White House “health reform” proposals that bear no resemblance whatever to reform. “Only the wrongheaded and racist are taking action at this critical time.”
Freedom Rider: In Praise of Tea Baggers
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

“Progressive critics don’t get the time of day from the man they continue to protect and support.”

Who took to the streets of Washington in the thousands, marching and demanding political change? Was it Progressives for Obama, or perhaps it was members of Moveon. The correct answer is neither of the above. Nowadaysthe only Americans who can be counted on to take to the streets or shout down presidents in righteous indignation are right-wingers. Progressives are smacked down time and again, but like hostages in Stockholm or kidnapped school girls, they believe that their survival depends on loving the abuser.

South Carolina Republican Congressman Joe Wilson was not well known until he shouted, “You lie!” at president Obama during his health care speech before a joint session of Congress. Democrats should be angry about this episode, but angry because none of them had the guts to call George W. Bush a liar on national television. Bush stole a presidential election, occupied Iraq under false pretenses and killed one million people, invaded Haiti and killed thousands, broke United States law to spy on American citizens, abandoned the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, and bankrupted the treasury without ever being called to account by his so-called opposition. Not only were Democrats too timid to call him a liar, but he achieved all of his dubious distinctions with their willing assistance.

“The only Americans who can be counted on to take to the streets or shout down presidents in righteous indignation are right-wingers.”

Now Barack Obama has presented a health care “reform” proposal that is essentially the same as that produced by Republican Mitt Romney when he was governor of Massachusetts. The plan, which requires the purchase of health insurance, is nothing but a giveaway to the industry that has created so much suffering and made this country the laughing stock of every truly advanced nation on earth.

The Obama proposal does nothing to bring down the cost of prescription drugs. The Bush era regulations which prevent the government from negotiating the cost of prescription drugs are still in place. Democrats did not make even a token effort to repeal those rules and the now notorious “donut hole” strips seniors of what little money they have if they choose to remain alive and healthy.

While zombie-like right-wingers attended congressional town halls in droves, and agitated in favor of the status quo, progressives sat back and haughtily looked down on the yahoos. It didn’t occur to the besotted Obama lovers to question whether any of their idol’s proposals could in fact be called reform at all. Those who knew the score and demanded a robust public option were shut out by the White House and congressional negotiators. Members of Congress who did dare to speak up were threatened with retribution by presidential chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and his enforcers.

“It didn’t occur to the besotted Obama lovers to question whether any of their idol’s proposals could in fact be called reform at all.”

Only the wrongheaded and racist are taking action at this critical time. Their animosity towards Obama is rooted in the shock and awe brought about by the very presence of a black president. It is also mixed with the anger brought about by the defeat of the Republican Party, accurately perceived as the champion of white America. Unable or unwilling to express the true source of their anger, the self-proclaimed “tea baggers” are left to call Obama a new Hitler, or a new Stalin, or a Kenyan smuggled into Hawaii as a newborn baby.

The bizarre behavior and inexplicable attachment of vulnerable people to interests who do them harm makes it easy to dismiss their actions. Yet they are now teaching the entire country a very valuable political lesson. In simple terms, it is the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.

“Only the wrongheaded and racist are taking action at this critical time.”

The squeaky wheel gets press attention, creates confusion in the minds of otherwise discerning people, gives cover to waffling politicians, and in the case of an administration openly disdainful of popular action from the left, the wheel even gets grease from its sworn enemy. The administration will meet withanti-abortion activists in order to reassure them that abortion will not receive federal funding under any health insurance proposal. Progressive critics don’t get the time of day from the man they continue to protect and support. There is truly more value in opposing Obama than in supporting him.

It is unfortunate that no Democrats are willing to call Obama a liar. His assertion that a public option is not viable because it would mean “starting from scratch” is enough reason for Americans to rise up in anger. More than forty years ago Congress passed legislation establishing Medicare, which went into effect a mere six months later. Who are the true yokels, Wilson and company or Democrats who keep defending blatant lies?

So don’t sneer at the tea bagger, birther, deather, dead ender Republicans. They relentlessly make their demands known and in the end, they will get what they want.

Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley@BlackAgandaReport.Com.

Sports and the Uncivil Society

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-zirin/sports-and-the-uncivil-so_b_291789.html

Sports and the Uncivil Society
By Dave Zirin

This week, the grand media theme from USA Today to ESPN has been that "we have lost a sense of civility in US society." The examples have ranged from Serena Williams’s expletive-infused outburst at the US Open and Michael Jordan’s brutal basketball Hall of Fame speech to Rep. Joe Wilson bleating “You lie!” and the tea bagger “Up with Racism” parade that plagued my hometown of Washington DC.

The idea that we are all just a bunch of uncivil goons sounds like common sense especially when you toss in the worst of reality television and anything done by Kanye West. But this conventional wisdom is not only wrong-headed, it’s downright dangerous. At the risk of sounding uncivil, the much hyped moments of Serena, Kanye, and Michael Jordan have zero in common with the confederate carnival of hate brewing on the edges of the far right. The efforts of the media to conflate “black people behaving badly” alongside “tea baggers on the march” should be soundly rejected.

I was on ESPN discussing this very subject alongside Juan Williams of Fox News who was bemoaning the “lack of civility” our culture (it’s worth noting that working for Fox and voicing this complaint is like working for Oscar Mayer and preaching that meat is murder.) Juan said the incivility is connected to the presence of “reality television and people behaving badly.”

Somehow I don’t think Rep. Joe Wilson’s been at home viewing The Real World or Flava of Love. Instead he’s reading the political moment and understands that the power in the Republican Party is not invested in civility but the heat on the street. I felt the heat this past weekend and it was a blast furnace. Yes there was nowhere close to the 43 kajillion people tweeted by Michelle Malkin and friends. But even to see 50,000 people with signs like, “We come unarmed THIS time” and "The tree of liberty must be refreshed with the blood of tyrants” was chilling. I saw one placard that read, “I’m not a racist, I’m a patriot” standing right next to someone in black face and I saw groups of them mock and shout down a group of immigrant rights activists. To witness those signs alongside ugly caricatures of Obama with a bone through his nose was to see an open declaration of the attempted hate crimes to come.

Just because the Obama administration, due to political calculus or cowardice, refuses to call this out as racist and dangerous doesn’t mean we should remain silent. But for the media, it is downright irresponsible to try to weave this lunacy into the same fabric as a tennis player misbehaving on the court. Yes, Serena Williams cursed out and threatened a line judge in the US Open semi-finals. Yes, it was inexcusable. But before we reach for the smelling salts (a profane woman! In tennis no less!) let's remember that she is hardly the first athlete to lose their head in the adrenaline-addled world of professional, organized play. Long before reality television, when the Kardashian sisters were even a gleam in someone’s bloodshot eye, Ty Cobb went into the stands to beat up a disabled fan. In 1965, Hall of Fame pitcher Juan Marichal beat catcher John Roseboro with a bat right at home plate. And as long as there has been hockey, there’s been blood on the ice. Violence has always been a part of what thrills and disgusts us about sports. If anything, the Serena case reveals a gender double standard more than any “absence of civility.”

As for Michael Jordan, Rick Reilly of ESPN.com reflected almost the whole of the sports media on the subject when he wrote,

“Michael Jordan's Hall of Fame talk was the Exxon Valdez of speeches. It was, by turns, rude, vindictive and flammable... Nobody was spared, including his high school coach, his high school teammate, his college coach, two of his pro coaches, his college roommate, his pro owner, his pro general manager, the man who was presenting him that evening, even his kids!... Jordan had decided that this was the perfect night to list all the ways everybody sitting in front of him had pissed him off over the past 30 year... It was the only one-man roast in Hall of Fame history. Only very little of it was funny.”

I can’t believe I’m writing this but for the first time in my life I feel sorry for Jordan. The historic critique of His Airness is that he is more a brand than a man. I have been critical of this guy since he first laced up sweatshop hightops. Now on the Hall of Fame stage, he actually removed the veil, and showed us his true self. The sports media has recoiled in horror at discovering that Jordan is exactly who we thought he was: competitive to the point of emotional sclerosis. He’s not the first ex-jock to find himself at a loss once the cheering has stopped. But that’s a far cry from showing up armed to town meetings. It blows up the importance of Jordan and Serena and tamps down the violence being brewed on the right. By saying it’s all the same stew of incivility, we are just giving political cover to an inflamed minority that needs to be peacefully confronted and not coddled.

Dave Zirin is the author of “A People’s History of Sports in the United States” (The New Press) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com .