My Tea Party Adventure - includes pics and my very own teabagger spelling catch (Dial-up Warning)

I attended the Lone Star Tea Party in Grand Prairie, TX last night and here is my report:

I got there 1 1/2 after the gates opened and there were only a few people there compared to later. It was 6:00pm and of course the local news choppers were hovering above the scene, giving the teabaggers their fill of news air time.



On the way from the parking lot, a Grand Prairie police officer was directing traffic and pedestrian crossings. He turned to us waiting to cross and asked us how we were and we all said we doing good. He then addressed a couple of the younger present and asked "Future voters here? Yea? Vote conservative," he says smiling.

Onward to the gates of QuikTrip Park, home of the http://www.airhogsbaseball.com/">Grand Prairie Airhogs minor league baseball team. As I approached the facility, I immediately began to recognize the crowd from having seen many pics of them online and on teevee. Here's a shot of the front gate and one of the greeters of this event, a person I immediately dubbed American Woman:



She was actually very nice as he handed me an event program. So, through the gates I went. Immediately there was a crush of capitalists hawking all manner of must-have political souvenirs, including signs, bumper stickers, buttons, and t-shirts with slogans like "Stop Socialism" and "Repeal Obamacare!". There certainly was no shortage of people here willing to make a buck off a movement. Of course the hosts of the party were not ones to miss the chance to raise a few bucks selling t-shirts:



As I walked along the concourse of QuickTrip Park, I began getting the feeling I've never felt so out of place before. I was surrounded by the manifestations of an ideology that was alien to me. These people looked normal but I knew what was in their hearts and minds. Now, to their credit (perhaps they got the memo), I saw no overt racism, though I saw some some subtle signs that it was just under the surface as I know these types of people very well in my day-to-day life. It was obvious most of them have a problem with our president. The overall feel of the crowd was that their goal is to remove the black man from the White House. They're using taxes as the excuse. At the height of the crowd numbers, I had only seen 3 black people and no Hispanics. But the speakers, including conservative radio host Mark Davis, made a concerted effort to convince themselves they were pure as the driven snow with regard to racism, lily white as the vast majorite were. They did send up a Vietnamese guy to rally the crowd, just to prove their point.

At this point I was wondering if this event was going to be a bust for the organizers as, though there were lots of people, it was still far from being a large crowd. I'll get back to this in a moment. Until the speakers bagan speechifyin', I wandered around to take some pics of the various characters in attendance. I opted not to do any interviews as there were lots of police around and one guy had already been led away for challenging this crowd. On to the pics:

This first one needs a little interpretation. It reads: "Obama has the demon spirit of persuasion. He's Muslim Not Christian".
















And here's my very own teabagger spelling catch:


Here are a couple of shots of the crowd I estimated at 7500. The GPPD says 8000.






And, do you all remember this guy? He's the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKFKGrmsBDk">YouTube Thomas Paine. You can download audio of his speech from the recording I made http://www.zshare.net/download/750491818eea8df1/">HERE.


Ok, perhaps I should rap this up. I have to admit the whole experience left me confused. This seems like a legitimate movement but there's definitely some big money behind it. It's confusing because these look like any other God-fearing conservative, right-winger, republican crowd. The Thomas Paine dude urged them to organize and to call state and national summits to find common purpose in order to "take Washington back". This is where it gets confusing to me. If these guys end up becoming a viable third party and begin running their own candidates, the vote on the right would be split, giving Democrats/Independents the upper hand. I could be wrong as not as adept at political strategerizing as many of you are. Anyways, it's their Party and if they want to draw votes away from republicans, so be it. Because they damn sure will not convert liberals and other lefties.

When Tommy Vandergriff built Arlington, Grand Prairie got hind tit.

They still look like they're tryin' to catch up.

also, this guy -



is not only lacking a good education in history, he also assumes that we all came from Europe.




But I'm sure he's not a racist or anything... </sarcasm>

to blurt out something but you think it better to remain silent, as hard as that can be. There were lots of children and it was hard for me to know what they must be being taught at home.

to get thier kids away from uncle Willie.


Just sayin.

My ancestors were already here. And "socialism" (such as it was at the time) worked out pretty well for them.

And yes, his history is terrible. I'll bet his ancestors were hte ones killing and eating each other at Jamestown - or as i like to call it - the original Aynrandistan

your ancestors. :grr: It always makes my blood boil.

to keep themselves feed, then they just stole shit.

oppression, all of which appear to be highly motivating to Teapartyers.

The fact is, the Europeans came here to make dough. Oddly enough, many people who would otherwise cheer for rampant capitalism refuse to learn that that was just what the foundation of Europe's interest in this land came from. I guess profit isn't "noble" enough for the founding myth. The truth of the matter is that even the Puritans came to America to make dough - and they did so by hijacking a ship and robbing a few graves along the way

Things that are hard to understand like Genocide and Slavery, never fit well at all within the politically correct myths.

Thanks for what I blushingly admit is a rather obvious insight.

:hi:

Pretty much everything comes down to money, whether directly or indirectly.

Civil War? A subject historians make their entire careers off of, make banks of money getting sponsored by this group or another for "research" into the minutae of how and why.

It's simple, really.

The civil war started...
...Because the southern states seceded from the union
...because of fears of what an abolitionist president would mean
...because they liked having all their slaves
...because the economies were largely agricultural, and slaves were "essential"
...because otherwise you wouldn't turn a gigantic profit.

The whole thing boils down to some wealthy landowners getting butthurt that maybe they might possibly lose their nearly cost-free lifetime labor.

Revolutionary war? Pretty much the same thing. The "founding fathers" weren't after higher ideals and noble goals. They weren't making enough money, because of the taxes and tariffs they paid to England. So they rounded up a bunch of American peasants, promised them the spoils of large british estates if they put their necks on the line to fight those british, and when it was all said and done? Those landed gentry saw their worth shoot through the roof.. .even as the country itself damn near died, economically.

Anti-Communism and the resultant wars? Communism and socialism are designed to cut into ginormous, exploitative profits. They gotta go!

Native American genocide? Well, all that land is pretty much worthless so long as it has Indians on it - worthless to you, anyway (one presumes that the Indians rather like it). Those guys are holding up your land claim, so what do you do? Call in the cavalry. Poison their water. Whatever it takes, to make sure they don't have the land and you do.

teabagging? Corporations and their Republican mouthpieces see potential regulations and loss of tax cuts in the future, so they turn to their army of ignorant, ranting windbags to create a "grass roots" movement that has paid security that escorts anyone who's not conforming to the pre-formatted talking points out of the event.

Frankly I think it'd be damn hard to find any instance of American history based wholly on idealism and ideology. even the socialists and labor movements around the turn of the century were about money - coming from the people who didn't have any, that time, but still money.

I'm fine with MY ancestors invading this continent, but not anyone nowdays.

Being squeezed out of a uterus like the cakey dregs at the end of a tub of toothpaste isn't "earning" much of anything. Is he suggesting other people were perhaps born in a newfangled way? Perhaps one involving toasters?

These are people who ironically have ZERO sense of national community, yet claim to love America. This is what Reagan really wanted when he moved our national education standard to drop civics and other liberal programs in favor of readin, writin' and cipherin'.

seem to have no concept the effect that would have on their own lives. They are truly confused, bigoted people, though they try very hard to convince themselves and each other that they are not.

He was in one of those celebrity roasts where they were roasting Frank Sinatra.

Imagine what a better country this would be if the Chairman had had Reagan wacked for mouthing off. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.

Maybe they will do the same in 2010.

Thanks for typing all that in and preparing the post.

:toast:

It's a good thing our ancestors came here to escape that! Phew! If they hadn't we'd all be Commie Socialists right now!

in his magic time machine that he must have since he somehow went back and caused all of these troubles for years before he got to actually be President....

thanks for the report. What is fascinating is how much airtime these little gatherings are getting. I remember hundreds of thousands of protestors against Bush, but not from media coverage, mostly from online forums like this.

I agree it doesn't make sense, as they are clearly Republicans and if they start another party, would only weaken their own 'cause' by handing the elections to Democrats.

I like the sign about 'ancestors'. I guess he never met anyone in America whose ancestors didn't come from Europe. And as far as them escaping liberalism, I would hardly call those European Monarchs 'liberals'.

Too bad no one asked them where they get their news. They look like a Fox crowd to me. Pretty small crowd for a 'movement'.

mentioned a few times. There is also a LOT of hatred toward Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. They think the government is taking over healthcare and the youtube Thomas Paine guy made a crack about President Obama being "your new primary care provider". They have absolutely no clue about the realities of the world. They seem to know only what is pre-packaged for their consumption.

health care 'sigh'. That's what is so amazing, if anything the bill that passed is full of Republican ideas and actually does what Conservatives have dreamed of for years, funnel public funds into private hands.

Which is why we may as well have gone for a Single Payer system since that is what these morons think happened anyhow.

Not surprised about Hannity and Beck, O'Reilly, and I'm sure, the quitter, Palin is an idol also. So, what's the difference between them and the Freepers? I don't see any, right down to the spelling mistakes and the lack of historical knowledge.

:hi: I live in the area, and I guess I didn't even know about the Tea-bagger Party being held at a sports center named after a gas station. I was surprised they got 7000 people :wow:

Austin had Newtie as a speaker and only had 200/300 people to show up. He suggested they not split the party by finding a third party. Funny thing is the Libertarian party was the original founders of the so called "tea party" movement until the GOP moved in on them. The only difference was the GOP changed the name to Tea-Baggers :spray:


I started reading the comments on the Startlegram's site. It's a mixed bag. I alerted on a couple but got tired of reading through them.


I hope you got to take a long shower after being around the stupid :hug:

How could you stand it? To be there I mean. All humor aside, I don't know how you could be there. :shrug: Maybe you could explain it so I could be more tolerant, but I don't think so. :D

I knew about the Tea Party movement before most anyone on DU did. I have been a member of the traders' forum where the seeds of the movement were planted since I became aware of the housing bubble and joined the forum to learn more about what was then being called an impending financial/economic crisis. (And believe me, that forum is full of ideological nutcases but they know their trade and that's why I go there.) When Rick Santelli made his rant that was the media boost for the movement, I was watching. I thought the Tea Party was stupid before anyone else here did. Right from the very beginning it made no sense and I figured it had as much chance of gaining ground as any snail has. So, I almost immediately dismissed it. But then it did start to grow beyond my expectations. Since then it has baffled me and though I've had plenty of opportunities to go have a close-up look before Apr 15, I simply didn't take it seriously.

Now, though it is still a very small movement, it has grown and could become a force to be reckoned with. The media is all about them. We're talking about them daily. They're all over the blogospere. They are being taken seriously now whereas before I had considered the movement would be a bust. Having seen the movement sown and then to have watched it grow to where it is today, I felt like I just had to go have a look at it personally. I did so hoping I'd see what amounts to a passing fad.
What I found instead was the very worst right-wing element of our population. I found a bunch of deluded and woefully uninformed group of people with a name but no clear direction and no platform of their own. These people are true followers. They follow people like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and they get their information from fox news. These people are nothing more than the most hateful, bigoted, and clueless of the right-wing establishment in this country. I found exactly what I expected to find. Because I know where they came from. This is not to say they won't continue to grow, perhaps they will. And I hope they do because their own stupidity will cause them to splinter the right and leave the left with the winning hand every time.

I was thoroughly disgusted being there in their midst. It wasn't their ideological points like their opposition to taxes and to the healthcare issue that disgusted me. We have our ideas, they have theirs. And they are welcome to theirs. No, it was the people. It was what I knew the teabaggers had become manifested in living color. It was what I knew to be in their hearts and minds that I found disgusting and appalling and a couple of other adjectives. I did not expect this reaction when I decided to infiltrate their little party.

How could I stand it? It wasn't easy. I simply had to see them for myself. I tolerated it because it was my mission. My disgust for the teabaggers prior to this event was validated and I will never do it again. For the record, the YouTube Thomas Paine dude was the first speaker and as soon as he was finished, I wasted no time getting out of there. It was a dirty job. Mike Rowe would be proud.

hey at least American Woman has a nice rack :shrug:

great post

to sneeze at, and multiply that by other similar gatherings around the country. Nothing gives one incentive like fear, and the resulting hatred.

Although we don't have the financial backing, I do think we need to get 'our side' up and running and organized.

http://theother95.com/

Outstanding report, and I don't know how you did it. I honestly could not do it myself -- I would have been the one being led away by the police. :7

Could be "Scuu"? Any of them are rather humorous.

:rofl:

The cluelessness and irony impairment knows no end.

they name 5 members of the Supreme Court and point to Iran on a map . . . such as.:banghead: