[Rolling Stone] Matt Taibbi goes to Kentucky, leaves behind carcass of Tea Party

Many of them were probably on the side of those blocking black students from newly desegregated schools and beating up the hippies.

Edit:

I think the younger people featured in the photos below are about retirement age now, i.e. about the medicare/oxygen tank/wheelchair scooter/teabagger target demographics.

 

Me thinks someone had a nerve touched! But Carl is probably closer to the truth.

 

Moving civil rights forward by leaps and bounds including the voting act of 1964 makes them worthless?

I say good job to that generation for their courageous work in progressing equal rights.

 

This is certainly true.

 

Talking about my generation!!!!

Anybody remember the Who song?

Also many of us were not dumb enough to fall for the wmd and other bs to support Bush's War.

 

I was in HS from 1976-1980. Some of the freakiest drug-addled Pink Floyd listening promiscuous hippie types from my youth are now close shaven Fox loving born again Wingnuts.

 

people do grow up.

 

Most folks grow up... unfortunately, too many prefer to remain ignorant of the world around them.

 

That's alright. My generation has hipsters that will eventually do the same thing.

 

on that we agree.

 

I feel like you missed the point of my post entirely. Not to mention that I find your comment a touch racist and personally offensive, myself a minority and a product of a Hispanic mother and white father.

Maybe I am misinterpreting you, but are you saying that no race/culture can do it as well as whites (or white Americans)? That the more "chocolate syrup" we pour in the "milk" the worse it will taste? Jesus, if that was your intent, it sounds more than "a touch" racist.

I'm not saying that a large influx of immigrants will magically improve our society overnight. What I'm saying is, our ignorant attitudes about other races will diminish the more we can engage with and understand other cultures on a day-to-day basis.

Did the immigration wave that occurred between 1836 and 1914, when over 30 million Europeans came to America, have a negative effect on our country? Granted there were enormous growing pains, but that wave of immigrants became the bedrock of our American society, not to mention it led to the actual bedrock of our vast physical infrastructure. I would wager that some of those people are part of your ancestral lineage as they are mine.

The key to my earlier post is this, and this is the mantra that I have to repeat every day to keep the ignorance from getting to me: We (my generation) are more tolerant than the previous generation, just as they are more tolerant than their predecessors. One day very soon, we will be in charge, we will hold the purse strings, and we will be the dominant focus of the culture. America will continue to shift away from "black and white," and the various shades of gray left in its wake will be a beautiful sight.

 

Great post

 

How old are you glynch? If you don't mind me asking.

 

I take the train daily and the other day I overhead a couple of elderly well to do white caucasian females discussing politics. It started with the upcoming governor's race. There was much disdain for the Dem candidate and praise for the Republican. They then mused about how much they enjoyed the train and what a great idea it was for the state. I restrained myself from educating them that the Republican candidate hated the train and part of her platform was to shut it down.

Then of course the discussion turned to Obama. Both women agreed that there was something they just didn't like about him. Then one laughed and said her husband really hated that "negro".

I wish I was making this up but this is the reality we live in. Support a candidate with no understanding of their platform or ideology and hate others for reasons you just can't quite put your finger on.

 

that's ****ed up

 

A loose definition of the Tea Party might be millions of pissed-off white people sent chasing after Mexicans on Medicaid by the handful of banks and investment firms who advertise on Fox and CNBC.

But it isn't young intellectuals like Koch who will usher Paul into the U.S. Senate in the general election; it's those huge crowds of pissed-off old people who dig Sarah Palin and Fox News and call themselves Tea Partiers. And those people really don't pay attention to specifics too much. Like dogs, they listen to tone of voice and emotional attitude.

They want desperately to believe in the one-size-fits-all, no-government theology of Rand Paul because it's so easy to understand. At times, their desire to withdraw from the brutally complex global economic system that is an irrevocable fact of our modern life and get back to a simpler world that no longer exists is so intense, it breaks your heart.



My favorite excerpts awesome read by the way. You can just feel the sense of helplessness the author feels trying to understand the nonexistent rationale of these people.

 

Yes, you did.

My point is that every problem in American society exist in all societies, regardless of their demographics. Racism, greed, corruption, narrow mindedness, superstition, etc. exist among all races and cultures, and will not go away or improve simply because Whites become a minority.

And, something else, not that it's important, but there are plenty of White Hispanics, particularly first generation Cuban Americans, as an example, so Whites might become a minority "technically" but the US is probably always going to be majority Caucasian.

 

While I concede that you're right about corruption and greed and the like being prevalent in all cultures, again I think you're missing my sole point. Yes, as a capitalist nation, we will always be susceptible to the spoils of wealth and power. However, we don't have to be handicapped by the prejudices and biases of skin color and cultural differences that currently plague us as a nation. My point, and my hope, is that by the time our nation is a "minority-majority" the racial lines that contain us will be eventually broken down. I believe that by the time we are a "minority-majority," that term itself will have become irrelevant.

Speaking from a place of knowledge, first generation Cuban-Americans, while accepted as citizens without the "hoop-jumping" of other Hispanic nationalities, had incredible hurdles to overcome in achieving the same status here as they did in their birth nation. Giving them a pass, just because they're anglo/eauropean in ancestry, belittles the struggles they endured to reclaim their vocational and financial status once they moved to America; just as belittling as marginalizing the plight of an early twentieth century Irishman because he was Anglo as well.

Again, my point is solely that the mixing of cultures is something that is to be lauded; something that only increases our level of understand within our borders and beyond our shores. My point is that we as Americans have the ability to evolve socially, and that ability is accelerated by interacting with a foreign culture and a multitude of racial backgrounds.

Skin color remains a gigantic factor in American social interaction and acceptance. That can not be denied. However, the influx of other cultures can only help to further open our eyes as a society, and show us the beauty of understanding the world at large, as well as America itself.

 

This was my response to one of my Facebook peeps who's a certified Tea Party nutjob:

OK, gotta sorta digress. I go to the South Plains Fair tonight in Lubbock to see Blue Oyster Cult---who rocked the HOOUUUUSSSSEEE as I expected. I'm coming out of the auditorium, and I see that the Tea Party/Republican Party has a booth. Never seen a ...political booth before at the Fair, and I've gone to it every year for the past 8 years, but, whatever, they paid for the booth, fine.

OK, here's the thing. They have a life-sized cutout of Sarah Palin, and they're charging $5 for you to get a picture nexxt to the Sarah Palin cutout. Ummm.........huh?????

OK, that's forgivable, I guess. So they have a garbage can that says, "Stimulus Basket- Please Throw Your Money In Here So It Can Go To Waste." Now, that's pretty funny- I did get a kick out of that, although I disagree with it.

So, they have a sign, shaped like an Interstate sign, that says,

"Trust God...Not Congress."

Now, I don't get it. Aren't these people running for Congress? Does that mean that if I vote for them, I can't trust them once they're in Congress? Why would I vote for someone in the first place whom I'm told not to trust??????

So, I bought the sign...Then, I proceeded to tape 2 pieces of posterboard over the "Not" and the disclaimer at the bottom (also the warning that you can't display the sign on a highway), and composed the following:

Trust God

And Congress..

And I Can Also Kinda Trust, among Many Others:

Mom, Carlton Lassiter, Dr. Zeitouni, Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly, Monsignor Driscoll, Andre Johnson, Tom Udall, and Chick-Fil-A.

Seriously, I kinda, sorta understand the message of limited government, but all these messages about government is evil, and don't trust Congress? Am I supposed to believe that, all of a sudden, Congress will be trustworthy once they're in office? That they won't have to make compromises? Geez, they really need to refine their message at some point.

 

BTW, I actually did include O'Reilly, just so I could give "them" the slightest bit of credence, but then I watched the Daily Show rerun on the 'Net tonight and saw how much of an a** he was, and he was promptly removed.