The view (and racket) outside my window: St. Petersburg teabaggers attend party of NO class

A couple of hours ago, a chorus of beeping horns and argumentative shouting emanating from the street below penetrated my apartment building's 80+ -year-old concrete-and-steel walls and made it difficult to concentrate on the letter I was trying to write.

Hmm...strange.

There were no emergency vehicle sirens (as there are right now).

Probably someone standing in the middle of Central, holding up traffic and ranting about the latest alien sighting or something, I thought.

Fifteen minutes passed; the noise only intensified. Boy, this guy's stubborn.

Eventually, my curiosity got the better of me and I went to the window, opened the blinds, and looked across the street. This is what I saw:

And as if the din of car horns and shouts--both supportive and oppositional--wasn't loud enough, the modest-sized St. Petersburg chapter of The Michelle Bachmann Invitational Teabagging FreedomChantFest put on their best off-key tavern voices and howled God Bless America, threatening the integrity of nearby glass curtain walls, traumatizing poor Marley the Cat, and leading this writer to wish that God would indeed bless at least this part of America and call forth one of those wonderfully sudden cloudbursts for which Florida is famous.

No such luck.

[More photos and commentary after the jump]

The sky couldn't have been bluer, and the teabaggers seemed happily oblivious to the anti-pro-freedom people of the Socialist Fascist Republic of Democrat Healthcare, responding to the odd appreciative beep with a wave of the flag or a flutter of the sign.

They're clearly ignorant about matters sociopolitical, but at least the St. Pete Teabaggers can spell. (Assuming these folks actually live in St. Pete, of course.)

Unsurprisingly, the teabaggers didn't offer any solutions--or even an idea for a solution or a brainstormed theory that might, given enough debate, turn into an idea for a solution--for the healthcare crisis and runaway costs that currently account for nearly two-thirds of the nation's bankruptcy filings. They sure were fond of one monosyllabic word, though:

воспрещаться Kein NOOOOOOOOOOOO! We are the party of it!

And then there were these senior citizens, and theirs were the signs I found to be most confusing of all: they're simultaneously insisting--nay, demanding--that government not take over their healthcare, even as government, insofar as I'm aware, continues to run (and fund) Medicare, the very, very popular health insurance program for American senior citizens that was signed into law by President Johnson in 1965; the social insurance program these gentlefolk apparently want preserved as hands off.

Okay, then.

I suppose I could've done the right thing, saved them from any further embarrassment, and, er, corrected them--after all, I can do Liberal Fortissimo Con Brio pretty impressively when the spirit moves me, and hell, they were just across the street, six floors down. But I started having visions of the old country, with Pythonesque peasant-wives screeching from upstairs windows as the cart clattered along the cobblestones, its driver repeatedly droning, Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!

Not wanting to assume a position in that disturbing (and perhaps comic) mise en scène, I closed my window and opened my laptop instead.

Also at litbrit.

Comments

[Crissa]

"Why are you here?"
"Where do you get your healthcare?"
"What bill, nay, subsection, would change that?"
"Why are you here again?"

[Eric Wilde]

The only productive approach to such ignorant folk is to point and laugh. It would have to be done in a place visible to them, though.

This is productive because it finally gives them a real reason to feel persecuted.

[Lisa Simeone]

I still say these people couldn't define socialism or fascism if their lives depended on it. And I'm sure they think Marx was related to Groucho.

[Stephen]

See, this is why I'm convinced that the root of all this is racism: none of them can actually articulate one thing that Obama's doing which fits the description of a government takeover, socialism, curtailing civil rights, etc.

Some tool interviewed Rush and asked him to say what he would ask Obama if he could. And Rush was all, "Why? Why are you doing these things that are hurting this country?"

And I'm sitting there thinking, what things? What is Obama actually doing? The answer, of course, is absolutely nothing. He's doing nothing socialistic, nothing that comes close to fascism or curtailing civil liberties - excepting, of course, continuing certain Bush-era policies.

And it's not like it's hard for people to know this. It's not wonky, policy-heavy stuff that regular Americans in flyover country just can't understand. So I'm left with trying to figure out why people would be so willing to believe utter nonsense about Obama and so intent on lying to themselves about reality.

I'm totally convinced it's because he's black. I know it's also because he's a Democrat, but if we look back to Clinton, the big pushback against him for years was centered just in DC. It took a while for the GOP leadership to export it across the country. With Obama, even though these freaks are far from the majority, they are nationwide.

So look at those pictures. Every single person in them is a racist shithead.

[Sir Charles]

I have to agree that racism is a big part of this.

[litbrit]

Stephen: yes. I have to agree with you. Because, come on--every high school in this state teaches social studies and requires you to pass a course in government in order to receive your diploma. It's nothing too deep--just the basics of the various world systems, from far right to far left, and everything in-between. My ten-year-old knows the difference between socialism and fascism. My thirteen-year-old can discuss the political spectrum at length and give you names, dates, and back-stories.

These are not poor, ignorant people, walking shoeless through a foreign land the language and customs of which they have yet to learn. They are the "I got mine; fuck you" retirees as well as reasonably well-heeled professionals who can afford to take the afternoon off and stand on the corner of a city intersection, waving their lie-stamped placards over their heads as vigorously and proudly as they wave the flag.

There is no excuse for their willful stupidity and the only explanation for the blatant lack of connection to reality is that it's a cover for racism. A racism so potent and profound, it obliterates any shred of dignity, any scrap of pride they might otherwise take in their own intelligence and understanding of the country they claim to love and its political system and laws.

In short, they would rather be thought of as pathetically--even comically--stupid, than willingly accept that a black man is not only their leader, but actually their superior in ways too numerous to count.

[minstrel hussain boy]

i am so very fucking ready for some time off the grid. the stupid insanity of people is really starting to work on me.

the selfishness and greed of these folks is very alien to my nature. having been brought up by savages, being half savage myself, i just don't get how they can be demanding that the sick and injured be forced to suffer for lack of funds.

i have a cell phone which won't work in our mountains. i have satellite phone which will, but i ain't taking it.

it's going to be me, my son (the guide for the trip), my cousin and our flintlocks. that, and some beautiful elk...

being savages and all, one of the first things we will do upon returning is to make the rounds of the elders of the tribe. we will give them the choices cuts of our kills, we will give them hides, and just about anything else they might ask for.

i won't miss stupid motherfuckers in the street one tiny little bit...

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

I'm sorry to be the odd man out, but I think racism is a major factor, but not the main one. But this is why I am bouncimg around in my head the idea of a project that will try and bring political and skeptical bloggers together.

Because this type of totally loopy irrationality that is new to most of you is pretty standard if you look at other areas of complete lack of criticl thinking. In fact, the anti-vaxxers and the birthers seem to be coming together under the 'leadership' of Jane Burgermeister. People who fall for absurdities like creationism, or reiki, or Deepak Chopra, or the hunt for Noah's Ark all, when you stop to listen, sound and argue pretty much the same.

Self-destructive? Heedless of their own real interests, echoing uncritically the latest word from someone they see as an authority, totally incapable of testing his words or their own ideas against reality. All true.
(And yes, litbrit, they may have taken 'social studies' but you know very well how many people 'stuy for a test' and immediately 'flush away' anything they've learned after the test is over. Schools don't teach creative thinking or give the average student any reason to believe half of what they hear relates to 'the real world.')

But these types have always been around. I remember running into a 'better dead than Red' demonstration in the early sixties, a pretty decent group of people arguing that 'communism was so badawfuldestructiveEEEVIL' that, because it was already infiltrating our government, a preventitive nuclear war that would, optomistically, kill 90% of the country was better than letting America 'go commie.'

Talk about 'willful stupidity and ... blatant lack of connection to reality.' But these people were not 'driven by racism.' (Many of them may have been and probably were racists as well, but both types of irrationality came from the same cause, the same type of errors in thinking.

Nor are the anti-vaxxers -- not just the ones who are worried or question the science, who are wrong but sane; I'm talking about the 'it's all a plot to kill off a large part of the population' types like Burgermeister -- necessarily 'covering for their own racism.'

The question is not where these people come from, because we've had their variants all my life. It's where they get their crazy ideas, and what proportion are 'wakeable.'

More on this later and over the next few days, but reality -- i.e. cat box and Kittenz' shot pulls me away.

(I seem to be less pessimistic than earlier, but taking a nap with Kittenz on one shoulder and Tiki (Miss Tik or Mystique) our elegant Princess on the other will do that for you.)

[Eric Wilde]

I gotta agree with you Prup. Part of the confusion also comes because there really is a healthy dose of racism in play here as well.

[Crissa]

Even if racism isn't a visible factor, it certainly does explain their actions.

It's not like segregationists listed racism as their reasoning for segregation.

[litbrit]

Thank you, Crissa. Exactly.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

Sorry to continue to be disagreeing, but, no Crissa, not exactly. In the first place, I don't know how old you are, or when litbrit moved here, but segregationists certianly listed racism as their reason for segregation. They might not have used the word, which only became prominent once the Civil Rights Revolution was under way. But their entire arguments were based on the inherent intellectual, moral, and developmental differences between the two races, coupled with the danger to innocent white women from the temptation of sexually ravenous, uncontrollable black men, all with gigantic penises. All of which they claimed was 'proven' by biblical references, 'science' and common observation.

(And I'm not talking about the guys with hoods who called themselves Kleagles and Kludds, I'm talking about the guys with string ties and white suits who called themselves -- and were -- "Senator," "Representative" and "Governor."

(Read up on people like John Rankin -- even more an anti-Semite than a racist, though both -- and also a prime example of 'progressive (for Whites Only)' as an early and strong New Dealer. And Theodore Bilbo, Eugene (not Herman) Talmadge, Robert Reynolds, all holders of high office. A few examples -- do not read if you are queasy -- all from Wikipdia, there are better ones but I'm rushed:

Rankin: Rankin replied angrily. "It was not surprising to hear the gentlemen from New York [Rep. -- and later Senator Jacob Javits] defend the Communist enclave." Rankin bellowed that he wanted it known that the American people are not in sympathy "with that Nigger Communist and that bunch of Reds who went up there." [18] On a point of order, Rep. Vito Marcantonio protested to House Speaker Sam Rayburn that "the gentlemen from Mississippi used the word 'nigger.' I ask that the word be taken down and stricken from the RECORD inasmuch as there are two members in this house of Negro race." Rayburn claimed that Rankin had not said "nigger" but "Negro" but Rankin yelled over him saying "I said Niggra! Just as I have said since I have been able to talk and shall continue to say."

Bilbo: (on an anti-lynching bill) If you succeed in the passage of this bill, you will open the floodgates of hell in the South. Raping, mobbing, lynching, race riots, and crime will be increased a thousandfold; and upon your garments and the garments of those who are responsible for the passage of the measure will be the blood of the raped and outraged daughters of Dixie, as well as the blood of the perpetrators of these crimes that the red-blooded Anglo-Saxon White Southern men will not tolerate.

and (on Richard Wright's BLACK BOY):"Its purpose is to plant the seeds of devilment and troublebreeding in the days to come in the mind and heart of every American Negro...It is the dirtiest, filthiest, lousiest, most obscene piece of writing that I have ever seen in print. I would hate to have a son or daughter of mine permitted to read it; it is so filthy and so dirty. But it comes from a Negro, and you cannot expect any better from a person of his type."

I don't have readily available quotes from the other two. But these were not just typical, they were relatively mild.

But this is a minor quibble. I'll save my major problem with what you wrote for my next comment.

[litbrit]

I'll save my major problem with what you wrote for my next comment.

Prup, I really wish you wouldn't. Just this once, okay? We can just agree to disagree. The main point of this post isn't about that--whether or not these people are racist--anyway. Perhaps a few of the SP teabaggers protesting outside yesterday genuinely *weren't* racists. But in the glaring absence of any other reason explaining their behavior (and the behavior of their colleagues across the country) toward President Obama as compared to their behavior toward other, white politicians or presidents, I am left to conclude that most of them, however, are.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

Sory litbrit, saw your request after I'd written this, and think it is worth saying. My point is that there isn't a 'glaring absence of any other reason' at all, and knowing the real reasons might make it possible to actually deal with a fraction of them.

--

But both of you are coming dangerously close to one of the prime weapons in the wingnut arsenal, "They really know the truth, but for selfish or personal or conspiratorial reasons refuse to admit the obvious." And -- sorry for the harshness but I think it is neccesary -- that sounds no better in a British-Florida accent than in a Moldovan-Israeli one. That sounds no better from you two than it does from a preacher or imam explaining how atheists don't really exist, and that anyone who reads their sacred text is so convinced by the obvious truth in it that if they reject it, it is because they are unwilling to give up their 'attachment to sin.' Or from a Young Earth Cretionist explaining that 'evilution' is a Satanic plot by atheist scientists to destroy people's faith in Christianity or Islam. Or from a quack's patient explaining how medicine is all a ploy by 'big pharma' to make money and his doctor's wonderful (and wonderfully expensive) machine can cure diseases even at a distance that 'medicine' claims are incurable.

Now I am not denying there is plenty of hypocrisy in some of the leaders and supporters of the movement -- particularly the recent converts to the 'new crazy' -- but even then, I think many of them are as sincere as they are wrong, Michelle Bachman being a prime example.

And I'll even agree that an inherent racism in many of the followers makes it more likely for them to 'fall for' a cospiracy theory involving a black president -- but many of them fell for equally absurd theories about a white president named Clinton.

The fact is, saying, or implying, that they 'really know better' implies a few things:

That they are as intelligent as you (they aren't)

That they are as knowledgeable as you (and they are usually extremely ignorant -- with the space knowledge fills in your brain being filled by superstitions, myths, and horrors).

That they spend as much time as you do reading about, thinking about, and researching politics -- when, other than listening to radio talkers, they don't spend as much time in a year as you do on the average day.

And that they have a skill at critical thinking -- in this case merely testing the statements they hear against obvious reality. But they have been, in many cases, trained since birth (which means for sixty years or more for some of them) NOT to use critical thinking, because if they learn how to, they might use it on pronouncements of their fathers, their teachers, (for women) their husbands, and most of all their pastors. And if they do, they might doubt, and doubt sends you to hell -- which is a real fear for them.

These people are afraid simply that. they have grown up living in fear, and thus when they are given something else to be afraid of, they don't analyze it, they panic.

(And one aggravating factor is that people who believe in conspiracies, political, medical, alien, or Satanic -- and much fudnamentalism is a complicated Satanic conspiracy theory -- are taught to believe that if anyone tries to give them accurate information, this means that person is 'in on it.')

These people are ignorant, frequently not too bright, scared as hell, and most of all, have never been given the information, tools, or reasons to discount or challenge what they hear from the Limbaughs, Becks, Mercolas, Burgmeisters, Hulda Clarks, Savages, or Taitz'.

Many of them are simply 'lost souls' who will die in their fearful ignorance. But disputing them is still worth it, because some of the people with them, or some of the readers of the comments they make, are sympathetic to them -- but only because of simple ignorance, or because nobody's 'connected the dots' for them the right way. They simply have never seen the contradiction inherent in "Keep the government away from my medicare,' but once it's pointed out, they can have "D'oh!" moments.

[big bad wolf]

on the lighter, though related, side here is a wonderful jon stewart segment via oliver wills. i, heretically, don't think stewart is the greatest thing since sliced bread and i am troubled that people say they get there news from him, but i do think he is often quite amusing. here he is LOL-funny. (it's from me, so i've probably given you a dead link, but it is worth getting to)

http://www.oliverwillis.com/2009/11/06/113-project-jon-stewart-is-glenn-beck/

[oddjob]

I think you probably slice this particular knot (Prup vs. others) by acknowledging the irrational behavior and describing it as tribalistic. Frankly, it doesn't strike me as all that different from other experiences we've had in American history with outbreaks of hysteria over an "other", regardless of the times.

There's always been a set of Americans who view the country through nationalists' eyes. In the 50's they freaked about "commies", but in the early 1800's they freaked about "Papists" (read "Irish"). They speak of the constitution and freedom, but what they mean is tribal membership in their tribe.

People, American citizens or otherwise, who don't behave in certain accepted ways are clearly not members of the tribe, and when people who behave so become influential it threatens the nationalists, so then they squeal in protest.

(It's no accident there's only been one Roman Catholic president.)

[oddjob]

The inchoate protest is often, probably usually, at least partially racist (when it isn't heavily so), but while the McCarthyism witchunt over "commies" was at least partially anti-Semitic, I don't think it was just an expression of loathing for Jews.

At its heart it was an expression of loathing for a certain type of political behavior, a behavior more associated with Northern intellectual urbanites, many but by no means all of whom were Jewish.

That loathing still exists now.

[oddjob]

Same Nuts. Same Squirrels.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

I'm sorry to keep harping on this, but I think it is important. One problem I see a lot of you have with a group of people 'thinking' like this is that it is new to you. (Okay, you knew nuts like this existed, but they were always behind the 'Chinese Wall' both sides erected between the 'respectable extreme' and the 'howling loonies.' What's new is the wall has come down on the right side.)

This type of thinking is so new to you that you try and find 'reasons behind it' not quite able to believe people can seriously believe this sort of utter tripe -- especially if it is 'against their interest.' It's racism, or anti-intellectualism, or anti-Semitism. And certainly these are a factor for some of the potestors -- though more on a sub-conscious level, they are more open to these theories because of the bigotry, but they don't see these theories as themselves bigoted.

My point, to personalize it, is that I started my blogreading with skeptical blogs -- and anti-creationist and anti-fundamentalist blogs. (And the kind that actually takes on and decomposes the absurdities they battle, not just insult them like PZ does. And I was reading them in 2005, when the idea of a black President wasn't even on the horizon.)

This type of reasoning is nothing new to me, or to anyone who reads the comments by defenders of quack medicine, anti-vaxxers, creationists, biblical literalists. There are the same types of logical fallacies, the same types of echoing what an 'authority' said (Deepak Chopra, Kent Hovind, Dr. Mercola, Alec Jones or a favorite evangelist replacing Beck, Limbaugh, Bachman, and Janet Folger), the same tone of utter sincerity and desperation to ignore facts that might cast doubt on their particular 'truth.'

The difference is that, today, the crazinesses are blending together -- the WND is, after all, the home of storiews of Christianist persecution and medical quackery and other psuedo-science as much as it is to Birther theories -- and because they are 'useful' politically, actual real-live politicians are at least pretending to give them credence, and commentators on 'news networks' are repeating them and interviewing respectfully the political crazies -- and this 'ratifies' the other crazies in their beliefs.

I was going to hunt up a good comment section from something like "Orac"s RESPECTFUL INSOLENCE, but it might be better to actually see the current day blend, and nowheres has been better than the comments to this post and the followup -- which carefully takes apart a long comment from the original thread.

Please read them. Warning:for some reason comments are printed most recent first, so you have to start at the bottom. Pay particular attention to the comments by maxomos, Justin, Simon McDermott, and most of all, angeleyeslady. I wanted to give a sample, but can't seem to copy them, so read the ones at Sept. 7th, 10:10 & 11:50.

Crazy, sure, but once you actually see the craziness, I don't think you'll see it as an 'excuse for racism.' My whole point is that if we are going to deal with the influx of craziness, we should be paying more attention to people who have spent their time attacking simuilar types of craziness -- and on politics, reading Dave Neiwert at ORCINUS never hurts.

More importantly, and ending this for now, there are people who hear these types of arguments, the way out ones of Taitz and Bergermeistr, the less crazy lunacy of Beck, and the calculated sneers of Limbaugh, and are susceptible to them They are used to following authoritative voices and eloquent oratory, or people who claim to 'know the hidden truth' -- again, many of them come from fundie backgrounds, and most of all, they've never seen them debunked. An 'angeleyeslady' is unreachable, sure, but by combatting her, you make someone tempted to listen to her think again. Maybe it'll only work with a small percent, but that small a percent can be crucial.