I was not feeling well when I got there; someone had shoved a golf ball in my ear during the night before, and commitments kept me in Killen all morning. So I had decided to leave the video camera at home, and I was only half-able to hear John Hargett rambling into a defense of the "blow for freedom" that is the Citizens United decision.
Instead of the camera, I carried an Army flag. A couple of people stopped me to compliment it; but as I didn't feel up to conversation, I didn't explain that to me, the Army flag refutes extremism because it bears a combination of democratic and republican weapons.
It was warm -- a wet, April in Alabama kind of warm -- and the crowd was assembled on courthouse steps just a dozen paces from the confederate monument. A woman announced the tea party would not tolerate hateful or obscene signage, and asked that we report suspicious characters to police or event staff. Two signs directly in front of her bore lame attempts at racial code, one of them referring to Obama as a "long-legged mack daddy" and the other as "Leroy Husein" (sic).
(Countrycat also risked her sanity to cover the Tea Party Express in the (federally funded) Rocket City -- watch for her report later. - promoted by mooncat)
On an Easter Sunday, the Tea Party Express rolled up to the Huntsville Space & Rocket Center and held a revival for right-wing insanity before a crowd of about three hundred. John Bircher books and "FOX News Fan" t-shirts were among the swag for sale along with the usual buttons and folderol.
I saw four African-Americans, all of them either vending or performing. With a style straight out of southern Pentecostal tent shows, the audience was exhorted to its feet with a gospel of lies and fearmongery. Victoria Jackson played her ukulele to applause.
All of this happened directly underneath the space shuttle mock-up, a monument to America's $275 billion federal spending program that built the most complex machine in human history.
Mo Brooks was there to press flesh with those suffering from terminal irony deficiency.
I recently got into it on Health Care Reform with an old friend of mine from a place where I used to work. It started with his Facebook attack on President Obama for bowing to the Saudi king. Since the photos of Dubya macking on that very same king are all over the intertoobs, I decided to comment with a link and what I thought was a good-natured joke. Balloon, chemical symbol Pb. My friend ended up firing back a few angry responses, criticized HCR as a "government takeover," and concluded with, "Anyhow[,] I know where you stand. Big Government is better."
As a result, I began thinking about the fetish that the GOP has had with the idea of small government since even before Ronald Reagan's overhyped, simplistic, demagogic claim that "[i]n this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." Ever since Saint Ronnie, the classic GOP attack on Democrats has been that we support "Big Government." My friend's conclusion that I support Big Government really brought home for me something a lot of people have been saying for some time now: under the present political conditions, that old attack is empty, hypocritical, and moribund.
Rep. Stupak thinks that citizens shouldn't have to fund abortions - even indirectly - if that goes against their religious beliefs. Fake Consultant discussed this viewpoint in his diary at LIA.
That got me thinking... how many of us actually know how our federal and state taxes are spent?
In Fake Consultant's diary, we bandied about the idea that people should be able to direct their taxes to activities they agreed with. So if you're concerned about childrens' health care, you might direct 50% of your taxes to CHIP. If you're a defense hawk, you might want 75% of your money to fund the Pentagon.
The problem with this plan is that most people have no idea how much either their state or federal government spends on anything. For instance, public opinion surveys have consistently shown that Americans believe that 15 to 20% of the federal budget goes to overseas aid. In fact, we spend 1% of the budget for programs that feed hungry children, help refugees, and support family planning programs.
What if we could see those numbers on either our regular paychecks or even annual W-2 forms?
What if you could look at those withholding numbers and see that 21 cents of every dollar withheld from your pay is used to funds defense and war spending while 2 cents of every dollar withheld funds education?
Would that change your view of government and its role in society - and in your family budget?
Charts and graphs are on the flip. They're pretty eye-opening too.
Today the Tea Party Express rolled into Birmingham, Alabama - my hometown. Probably not a big surprise to anyone. But I'm absolutely shocked at the display that occurred in Kelly Ingram Park - right in the middle of the historic Civil Rights museum. Within feet of the Birmingham Civil Rights Museum and the 16th Street Baptist Church - where four little girls were killed on September 15, 1963. . In the middle of Kelly Ingram Park where Dr. Martin Luther King and Fred Shuttlesworth organized demonstrations for real freedom. Where Bull Connor turned the firehouses and dogs on children.
Yesterday I made a snide comment about the Mobile, AL Teabaggers against healthcare protestors being stuck on stoopid. But are they really stuck on stoopid, or are they doing what we should be doing and to quote countrycat "organzing the cleanup"?
I've said it before and I'll say it again, I have to give the goppers credit where credit is due when it comes to organizing and taking a stand on principle, even if it's a misguided principle. They aren't afraid to "take it to the streets".
About 100 protesters from the Tea Party Patriots are outside Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack's office in Palm Springs waving signs and flags, and presenting her with pink slips that say "You're fired."
Look at the recent protest in Iran in the aftermath of the disputed aftermath of the Presidential election. Remember the Orange Revolution after the disputed Ukranian elections? Compare what happened after these elections to what didn't happen after the 2000 American Presidential election.
On election night, it became clear that Florida would be a contentious state. The national television networks (through information provided them by the Voter News Service, an organization formed by them and the Associated Press to help determine the outcome of the election through early result tallies and exit polling) first called Florida for Gore in the hour after polls closed in the eastern peninsula but before they closed in the heavily Republican counties of the western panhandle.
The North Alabama Peace Activist Network (NAPN)holds a Peace Rally every Saturday at 10 AM, at the intersection of Airport Road and Whitesburg Drive in Huntsville as they have been doing every since before the invasion of Iraq. Are they stuck on stoopid, or are they committed to their cause and willing to organize around that cause? I say they are the later. It is also an opportunity for other's committed to peace, economic and social justice, healthcare reform, GLGT rights, closing Gitmo and ending torture in our name to join them. They have organized the cleanup.
Does NAPN get media coverage like the Teabaggers do? No. But I'll bet if there was a large sign waving, diverse crowd of marching chanting protestors on the corner of Whitesburg Dr. and Airport Road the media would cover it, but more importantly our elected officials would notice too.
"When all the fingers on the hand work together it forms a mighty fist".~Mama Jo from the movie Soul Food.
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