The Anti-Teabagger Movement

I hate teabaggers and I'm not referring to the sexual act. I hate everything they stand for (and I'm not talking about what they pretend to stand for.) To me the teabaggers are just a bunch of neo-fascist "larpers" who think they are somehow defenders of the Constitution, they are not. They like to pretend they are "tea partiers", but they are not. I refuse to call them that out of respect for the original Boston Tea Party of 1773. Very few people know what that was about.

The East India Company was putting local tea companies out of business, they were the Walmart of that day. The British dropped the tax on imported tea to help the East India Company make more profits. A few patriots and small business owners had none of that and dumped the tea into the water. They were protesting a tax cut and not a tax increase. The original Tea Party was more comparative to the 1999 WTO riots in Seattle against free trade than any right-wing anti-tax revolt. The Tea Party if anything was a liberal idea, but the right has stolen the Tea Party and bastardized it the same way racists on the Mexican border stole the name "Minutemen."

Teabaggers don't like being called teabaggers because of the sexual reference, but they started it. When the teabaggers had their first "protest" on April 15th 2009, they used their own teabag references. They hung them from their hats, threatened to "teabag the White House", and someone bought a million teabags to fill a truck (I remember Jon Stewart's joke that they were protesting government waste by wasting money buying teabags.) Their finger prints were all over the teabags and liberals soon found a name to give to them. But teabaggers hated that name and bitch every time we use it. I just hope we continue to bravely call them teabaggers until the day their stupid fascist movement evaporates.

One of the major lies teabaggers like to say is that their movement is grassroots. Bullcrap. The movement has always had an astroturf quality to it. Major players like the Koch family and Dick Armey have been behind it the entire time pulling the strings. The dude who sort of started the whole thing was Rick Santelli, who was on the floor of a Chicago Board of Trade surrounded by business elites ranting about Obama helping poor and middle class people people. Of course the media is complicit with the teabaggers as well. Santelli worked for CNBC and the entire Fox News cabal has basically whored for the teabagger movement. Glenn Beck is the most guilty. Of course not all the teabaggers are taking orders from elites, at least directly, but they support policies that will continue to empower the rich and the large corporations.

Why do I use the term "Fascist?" I use it because the teabaggers remind me of the beginning of the fascist/Nazi movement. They used selected violence against the IRS, census workers, union members, etc. Let's not forget the chaotic town halls that they were ordered to disrupt last August of Democratic politicians. The next step would be something like the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 when the Nazis tried to take control of Germany. The Nazis were ultra racist and bigoted and we see that with the teabaggers. They support the fascist Arizona "Papers Please" law. They use similar language against "government handouts" racists in the Republican Party have used for years. And of course, they have doubled down on Islamophobia with the opposition to the Cordoba House and the anti-Keith Ellison statement made last week by one of the head teabaggers. Like I mentioned, the teabaggers are very pro-corporate, Mussolini said that fascism is also known as corporatism. So the teabaggers should be known as fascist corporatists. There are many other examples of how they are fascist, but I won't get into that. What separates the American fascists from the German/Italian ones is the economy. Yes the American economy sucks, but the German economy that allowed Hitler to rise to power was 10 times worse. But if the economy keeps getting worse, Americans will continue to look to the right to find some strong leaders like Sarah Palin to label some scapegoats for our problems. The teabaggers are also not libertarian because of their fascistic qualities. Even Ron and Rand Paul are fake libertarians and should be exposed for it.

Yes I know, the teabaggers sound scary. The teabagger endorsed Republicans candidates will win a few seats, but not enough for a takeover. But they will smell blood in the water and come back for more. Here are a few points to stop them.

1. Don't take teabaggers seriously. Once Democrats start taking them seriously, they will win. We need to continue to call them "teabaggers" no matter how much they protest. We need to mock them and have fun doing it.

2. Liberals need a counter revolution of our own, an anti-teabagger movement if you will. There is already the Coffee Party Movement, but it's still small and hasn't made as much noise as the teabaggers. If we exploit the Coffee Party, we can finally get some attention to address liberal issues, ie real issues. We need to first start a movement to reverse the Citizens United decision that gives more power to "corporate personhood" when it comes to campaign donations. We've already seen more commercials by shady corporate astroturf organizations. We can stop this with a Constitutional amendment, but that will take time. We need to do more to address global warming and renewable energy, probably the greatest threat we face as a planet. We need to find ways to give unions more electoral power, Democrats didn't even pass the EFCA like they promised. I think it's time to reverse the Taft-Hartley Act. We need to push Democrats to stop passing half measures. The stimulus bill wasn't big enough, it should have been at least 3 trillion dollars mostly going to jobs involving infrastructure. The healthcare reform should have included a public option which would lead to single-payer healthcare and bankrupt the ethically challenged healthcare companies that caused this mess. Democrats should have also nationalized all the "too big to fail" banks and other financial institutions that caused this mess. Instead Democrats continued to go with the Bush bailouts that have just kicked the problem down the road. There are many other issues liberals and Democrats need to embrace like pot legalization, gay marriage, and fair trade. Liberals need to jump start this and start a counter revolution of our own to combat the teabaggers who will just support nothing good or support ideas that will harm us more.

3. Stay optimistic. We need to remember that in the end, we will win. Teabaggers might win the battle, but lose the war. One thing liberals need to remember is that we are the good guys and the conservatives and teabaggers are the bad guys. Every good idea ever has been a liberal idea that has led to progress. Liberals are on the side of the Constitution and the founding fathers and America is a liberal nation. Most Americans are liberal even if they don't say they are. Democrats will lose seats in 2010 because we weren't liberal enough and our base didn't show up to the polls. Remember that, liberalism will win every time if given the right chance to. The teabaggers might think they have us beat, but they will just wake a giant!