Oath Keepers: When the Teabaggers Just Aren’t Whacked Enough

[lightningBugout]

Searcher, where are you? I love a little tousle with the Libertarians.......

[American Dream]

Just How Racist Is the Tea Party Movement?

By Bill Berkowitz, IPS News
Posted on December 28, 2009

http://www.alternet.org/story/144832/


OAKLAND, California, 22 Dec (IPS) - It began with Apr. 15 Tax Day protests as thousands rallied in a number of cities across the country.

It continued on into the summer with raucous town hall meetings and gun-toting anti-Barack Obama demonstrators, and appeared to reach its apex with a Sep. 12 march on Washington, which drew nearly 100,000 participants.

Now, however, some in the so-called Tea Party movement are turning their attention toward becoming a force during the 2010 congressional elections.

Several reports on the Sep. 12 event noted it was a nearly all-white crowd and some demonstrators carried an assortment of "homemade" anti-Obama posters, declaring that "The Anti-Christ Is Living in the White House", and calling the president an "Oppressive Bloodsucking Arrogant Muslim Alien".

Despite the fact that it doesn't have a clear identity, and serious questions about the movement's character remain to be answered, the Tea Party movement has been one of the most intriguing political developments of the past year.

Is it a grassroots movement, or has it been organised and funded by Washington-based conservative groups? Could it be both? Is it mainly concerned with economic issues (government spending, taxes, deficits) or are the Christian Right's traditional social issues (abortion, same-sex marriage) of interest to tea partiers?

Are there several -- possibly competing -- ideological tendencies within the movement?

While tea partiers made a lot of noise this past summer, doing their best to put the kybosh on health care reform, is there a future for the movement?

A recent Rasmussen Poll suggests that there very well might be.

In theoretical three-way congressional races between a Democrat, Republican and Tea Party candidate, the Tea Party candidate outpolled the Republican. Democrats attracted 36 percent of the vote; the Tea Party candidate received 23 percent, and the Republican finished third at 18 percent, with 22 percent undecided.

(According to the Rasmussen Reports website, "survey...respondents were asked to assume that the Tea Party movement organized as a new political party. In practical terms, it is unlikely that a true third-party option would perform as well as the polling data indicates. The rules of the election process - written by Republicans and Democrats - provide substantial advantages for the two established major parties.)

Interestingly enough, in an effort to build the movement, some Tea Party organisers have taken to "studying the grassroots training methods of the late Saul Alinsky, the community organizer known for campus protests in the 1960s and who inspired the structure of Obama's presidential campaign," the San Francisco Chronicle recently reported.

Tea Party groups are also using "Tea Party: The Documentary Film" as an organising tool. In a pre-premiere press release, the filmmakers claimed that the film would deal with the "allegations of racism".

And that indeed appears to be the issue that could stymie the movement's growth.

While Tea Party events have become a safe haven for people carrying racist anti-Obama signs, people of colour have stayed away in droves. Members of white nationalist organisations openly participate in Tea Party events and view the movement as a fertile recruiting ground.

Questions about the overlap between tea partiers and anti-immigration activists might be answered when an immigration reform bill is taken up next year.

Are the openly-racist elements within the Tea Party movement an aberration scorned by most Tea Party participants as John Hawkins, who runs a website called RightWingNews, insists, or are they more firmly entrenched than tea partiers would care to admit?

"The tea parties themselves are made up of a diverse bloc of different political elements, and white nationalists have chosen to make a stand inside the tea parties," one expert, Devin Burghart, told IPS.

For the past 17 years, Burghart has researched and written on virtually all facets of contemporary white nationalism. He is currently vice president of the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, which monitors and publishes on the activities of white nationalist groups.

"The exact extent of the racist element inside the Tea Parties is difficult to quantify, because they are not a static phenomena, and it depends on who shows up," he explained. "That said, it's enough of a factor to attract the attention of a significant portion of the white nationalist movement."

"It's not a matter of how many African-American or Latino/a folks show up at these tea parties, it's about the content and character of the arguments made at them," Burghart added.

Not only have "tea partiers have turned up with overtly racist signs and slogans" at rallies from coast to coast, he said, but also many participants "cling to the belief that our first African-American president is not only un-American, he was not even born in the country".

Unfortunately, Burghart noted, "There's little evidence to indicate that tea party leaders are doing anything to address the racism in their ranks."

Burghart said that he was not surprised that "tea party activists would deny their racism". After all, "racists have been denying their racism even before pro-secessionist bigots couched their arguments in bogus claims about states' rights".

However, he added, "To anyone with any degree of sensitivity to the issue, the tea parties have clearly shown themselves to be racist, in the lineage of George Wallace - who when he campaigned up North eschewed talk of racial segregation in favour ranting against 'elites.'"

In an article at the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights' website, Leonard Zeskind, the organisation's president and author of the recently published "Blood and Politics: The History of White Nationalism from the Margins to the Mainstream", pointed out that the anti-Obama "opposition" contains "many different political elements".

These include "ultra-conservative Republicans of both the Pat Buchanan and free market variety; anti-tax Tea Party libertarians from the Ron Paul camp; Christian right activists intent on re-molding the country into their kind of Kingdom; birth certificate conspiracy theorists, anti-immigrant nativists of the armed Minuteman and the policy wonk variety; third party 'constitutionalists'; and white nationalists of both the citizens councils and the Stormfront national socialist variety."

If Tea Party activists can ferret out racists and white nationalists from their ranks – and not become a mouthpiece for Christian Right ideologues - it could become a legitimate force on the U.S. political landscape.

Meanwhile, a host of groups, operating under assorted Tea Party banners, are working to influence the 2010 mid-term elections.



[b]Bill Berkowitz[/b] is a freelance writer covering right-wing groups and movements.

[Stephen Morgan]

I love how homosexual slang (teabagger) is okay when the left does it. Why not just call them faggots?

Is tea bagging not the practice of dunking ones testicles into a woman's mouth?

[Stephen Morgan]

So somebody wants to start a second revolutionary war and you aren't on board... why? You know what the original Boston Tea Party was about, right?

It was about low import duties on tea causing hardship to the local smugglers.

[barracuda]

Is tea bagging not the practice of dunking ones testicles into a woman's mouth?

According to John Waters, it would seem to have gay cultural origins:

"Teabagging" is by my definition the act of dragging your testicles across your partner's forehead. In the UK it is dipping your testicles in your partner's mouth. I didn't invent the term or the act but DID introduce it to film in my movie "Pecker." "Teabagging" was a popular dance step that male go-go boys did to their customers for tips at The Atlantis, a now defunct bar in Baltimore. Hope this helps.

Here is the crucial scene from Pecker, in which "Larry" gets in trouble for teabagging a Karl Rove look-alike.

A definition adapted from the Urban Dictionary:

An act performed by males on other males in which the dominant male (the top) squats over the other male (the bottom) and repeatedly inserts his testicles into the other man's mouth. Variations on teabagging include: (i) the clamped teabag in which the bottom male bites down on the top's testicles while the testicles are in the bottom's mouth, (ii) hot teabagging in which the bottom male inserts one or more fingers into the top's anus while the top dips his testicles in the bottom's mouth, (iii) English teabagging in which both men wear a variety of lingerie while teabagging, (iv) the "Nestle" manuever in which the bottom male also masturbates the top male, (v) the "Nestle with a cherry on top" which combines the "Nestle" with hot teabagging and (vi) full organic teabagging in which the Nestle with a cherry on top is combined with the top male performing fellatio (oral intercourse) on the bottom male. Full organic teabagging can also involve putting some whipped cream on top in which the bottom male ejaculates onto the face of the top male.

[American Dream]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -rise.html

America's armed militia on the rise

Extremist "patriot" groups and other armed militias have undergone a dramatic resurgence in America, their numbers more than doubling in the past year amid growing Right-wing fears over expanding federal power and gun control.

By Tom Leonard in New York
Published: 4:35PM GMT 31 Dec 2009


Such groups – a mix of libertarians, gun rights advocates and survivalists – appeared to be in terminal decline before the election of Barack Obama, according to monitoring bodies.

The Southern Poverty Law Centre, which tracks extremist organisations, says it has so far counted more than 300 patriot groups this year, at least double last year's total of 150. The real total will be much higher as many groups do not go out of their way to publicise their existence.

A similar wave of anti-government groups, some of whose members dress in camouflage gear and conduct military training at weekends, sprung up during the Clinton administration.

However, SPLC researchers said there was a new race factor reflecting President Obama's ethnicity and immigration fears.

The groups themselves reject accusations of racism but agree that many members are deeply worried about gun control, are angered by the federal economic rescue packages, and are dismayed by government interference in areas such as health care. They voice frustration at what they perceive as America's international decline.

Tensions are running high and some fear major bloodshed springing from a minor event. A law enforcement official told the SPLC that "all that's lacking is a spark".

One of the new patriot groups is called Oath Keepers. Its members, like those in other groups, look for guidance from America's Founding Fathers.

Formed last spring, Oath Keepers' members – limited to current or former servicemen and police – swear to obey the US constitution rather than politicians.

Stewart Rhodes, the founder, told The Daily Telegraph that the situation was a "potential powder keg".

He said: "The one thing that would probably lead [groups] to armed resistance is if the government did try to confiscate weapons, but that was what finally led to fighting in the American Revolution".

Mike Vanderboegh, a former militia leader and founder of a vociferous gun rights group called the Three Percenters, pointed to a huge increase in sales of ammunition, many of it to new gun owners.

"This is far larger than Obama. It speaks to an existential fear of societal collapse," he said.

He said group members were looking for "practical self-defence", whether from "predatory government or street-level crime".

If the government carried out "another Waco" – the 1993 storming of a cult's Texas ranch, in which 76 occupants died – "you'd see a reaction bloody beyond belief", he added.

Heidi Beirich, a co-author of the SPLC's militia research, said the groups were characterised by "a lot of conspiracy mongering, gun nuttery and fear of a new world order that they think is controlling the US".

Conservatives have accused the SPLC and other monitoring groups of exaggerating the threat posed by such groups, although a Department of Homeland Security report in April voiced fears about rising extremism.

Mr Rhodes said his group's internet forum had 11,000 members. Its 10-point oath includes pledges not to disarm fellow Americans or force citizens into "any form of detention camps".

Mr Rhodes said: "I don't want to take it for granted that the destruction of the republic can't happen here." He said he had also attacked encroaching federal power under the Bush administration, adding: "They're refusing to acknowledge the fundamental American libertarian streak that says, 'We don't care who's in power, we don't like the expansion of executive power.'"

Jonathan White, a former police officer and academic who advises both the FBI and government on terrorism, said he was less worried by the threat from the organised patriot groups than from "lone wolf" individuals who would tend to dismiss militias as "a joke".

Richard Poplawski, a Pittsburgh man who shot dead three police officers in April, complained to friends that the government was infringing gun rights.


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[lightningBugout]

Searcher what happened? I wanted to read it........

[AhabsOtherLeg]

A definition adapted from the Urban Dictionary:

An act performed by males on other males in which the dominant male (the top) squats over the other male (the bottom) and repeatedly inserts his testicles into the other man's mouth...the bottom male bites down on the top's testicles while the testicles are in the bottom's mouth...the bottom male inserts one or more fingers into the top's anus while the top dips his testicles in the bottom's mouth...both men wear a variety of lingerie while teabagging...Full organic teabagging can also involve putting some whipped cream on top in which the bottom male ejaculates onto the face of the top male.

Aye. Ye had to make your own entertainment in them days.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

So somebody wants to start a second revolutionary war and you aren't on board... why? You know what the original Boston Tea Party was about, right?

It was about low import duties on tea causing hardship to the local smugglers.

The mythology has it's place, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JvHroG3 ... re=related

The more I hear this song, the more I wonder what it's really about. Sam Adams has his own beer now, whereas John just has his own HBO biopic. Guess who's more popular, in real terms.

[elfismiles]

Thanks for the origins. I'd assumed it was something like this, or another instance of prison slang making its way into common parlance.

Variously, it is also apparently associated in videogamer slang to when an opponent repeatedly shoots his enemy after said enemy is already dead - or so I've been told.

Is tea bagging not the practice of dunking ones testicles into a woman's mouth?

According to John Waters, it would seem to have gay cultural origins:

"Teabagging" is by my definition the act of dragging your testicles across your partner's forehead. In the UK it is dipping your testicles in your partner's mouth. I didn't invent the term or the act but DID introduce it to film in my movie "Pecker." "Teabagging" was a popular dance step that male go-go boys did to their customers for tips at The Atlantis, a now defunct bar in Baltimore. Hope this helps.

Here is the crucial scene from Pecker, in which "Larry" gets in trouble for teabagging a Karl Rove look-alike.

A definition adapted from the Urban Dictionary:

An act performed by males on other males in which the dominant male (the top) squats over the other male (the bottom) and repeatedly inserts his testicles into the other man's mouth.
...

[American Dream]

This video has a separate thread for comments also, but is very, very relevant here- not for any kind of guilt by association argument- but for delineating some of the context in which the Oath Keeper Movement exists:

White Power USA

Video Report By Al Jazeera

Racially motivated threats against Obama rose to new heights in the first months of his presidency, with the US seeing nine high-profile race killings in 2009. Meanwhile white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups claim their membership is growing and that visits to their websites are increasing. Filmmakers Rick Rowley and Jacquie Soohen went inside the white nationalist movement to investigate.


http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... e24354.htm

[lightningBugout]

[bump] for searcher...

[IanEye]

a recent post by that "moral schizophrenic", Digby:

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Extreme Partisanship

by digby

It's an exciting day --- the first presidential debates of the 2012 campaigns! And if this is any example of what we're going to see it should be a memorable one:

In Greenville, South Carolina tonight, five presidential contenders will meet for the first GOP presidential primary debate. According to the debate’s official program, it is sponsored by several extremist groups, including the Oath Keepers militia group and the radical anti-communist John Birch Society. You can see a picture of the program here.

Seriously? I guess there's a certain nostalgia factor to the JBS, but Oathers?

The Oath Keepers’ website is riddled with paranoid rhetoric about government officials “disarm[ing] the American people,” “confiscat[ing] the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies,” and “blockad[ing] American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps.” In early 2008, the Oath Keepers’ founder warned that a “dominatrix-in-chief” named “Hitlery Clinton” would impose a police state on America and shoot all resisters. After primary voters chose a different candidate, the Oath Keepers simply rewrote their paranoid fantasy to include a taller, African-American lead.

Here's more:

Oath Keepers and the Age of Treason. Glenn Beck loves them. Tea Partiers court them. Congressmen listen to them. Meet the fast-growing "patriot" group that's recruiting soldiers to resist the Obama administration.
In Pray's estimate, it might not be long (months, perhaps a year) before President Obama finds some pretext—a pandemic, a natural disaster, a terror attack—to impose martial law, ban interstate travel, and begin detaining citizens en masse. One of his fellow Oath Keepers, a former infantryman, advised me to prepare a "bug out" bag with 39 items including gas masks, ammo, and water purification tablets, so that I'd be ready to go "when the shit hits the fan."

When it does, Pray and his buddies plan to go AWOL and make their way to their "fortified bunker"—the home of one comrade's parents in rural Idaho—where they've stocked survival gear, generators, food, and weapons. If it becomes necessary, they say, they will turn those guns against their fellow soldiers.

These nuts have a booth at this thing.

I suppose it's hard these days to hold any kind of GOP event without crackpots. Crackpots are the GOP. But the John Birch Society and the Oathkeepers as sponsors? Good lord. Why don't they just invite the Klan and get it over with?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/ ... nship.html

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