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The Tea Party ‘Movement’: White Nationalism on the March
Wed, 04/14/2010
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
The white nationalists of the Tea Party “movement” claim to abhor big government, but what they actually reject is a social contract with the non-white populations of the United States. Race is the subtext, the coded message of the Right’s resurgence. The white Right want “their” country back – but we won’t let them have it.
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
“Any group whose unifying characteristic is daily engorgement on Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck is, by definition, racist.”
The campaign to bring White nationalism, the founding ideology of the United States, fully out of the closet, kicks into a higher gear on the Right’s anti-holiday, April 15. Newt Gingrich and the various tribes of White Rightists unveil their “Contract From America,” a scaled-down version of the manifesto the Republicans rallied around to win control of the U.S. House of Representatives, in 1994. The 2010 “contract” is leaner, built for mass Caucasian consumption. It is written largely in code, the language of obfuscation that American racists speak in an attempt to hide their white supremacist beliefs from others – and, in many cases, from themselves. Indeed, much of American mass political speech is conducted in code, allowing white people to identify each other through terms like “middle class,” “family values,” “taxpayers,” “patriots,” “law-abiding” – terms which, although literally applicable to people of every ethnicity, are understood to mean “good white American citizens.”
Corporate media almost universally describe the Tea Partyers as “anti-government” – which is nonsense. They oppose the government providing assistance – economic, legal, educational, real or imagined – to those that are “undeserving,” which in their world consists mostly of folks that can be defined by race, language or religion (using code words, when required by polite society). Naturally, the average Tea Partyer – when sober – will deny having “a racist bone” in his body, but any group whose unifying characteristic is daily engorgement on Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck is, by definition, racist. Anyone who tries to tell you different, is far too tolerant of bigoted behavior, assumptions and speech to be anything but a closet racist, himself.
Tea Partyers live in a world of throbbing hatreds that render them damn near incoherent.They shout and hoot and holler in fevered support of political statements with which they cannot possibly agree. For example, the highly popular “Limited Government” plank of The Contract states:
“The purpose of our government is to…
Read more…
The campaign to bring White nationalism, the founding ideology of the United States, fully out of the closet, kicks into a higher gear on the Right’s anti-holiday, April 15. Newt Gingrich and the various tribes of White Rightists unveil their “Contract From America,” a scaled-down version of the manifesto the Republicans rallied around to win control of the U.S. House of Representatives, in 1994. The 2010 “contract” is leaner, built for mass Caucasian consumption. It is written largely in code, the language of obfuscation that American racists speak in an attempt to hide their white supremacist beliefs from others – and, in many cases, from themselves. Indeed, much of American mass political speech is conducted in code, allowing white people to identify each other through terms like “middle class,” “family values,” “taxpayers,” “patriots,” “law-abiding” – terms which, although literally applicable to people of every ethnicity, are understood to mean “good white American citizens.”
Corporate media almost universally describe the Tea Partyers as “anti-government” – which is nonsense. They oppose the government providing assistance – economic, legal, educational, real or imagined – to those that are “undeserving,” which in their world consists mostly of folks that can be defined by race, language or religion (using code words, when required by polite society). Naturally, the average Tea Partyer – when sober – will deny having “a racist bone” in his body, but any group whose unifying characteristic is daily engorgement on Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck is, by definition, racist. Anyone who tries to tell you different, is far too tolerant of bigoted behavior, assumptions and speech to be anything but a closet racist, himself.
Tea Partyers live in a world of throbbing hatreds that render them damn near incoherent.They shout and hoot and holler in fevered support of political statements with which they cannot possibly agree. For example, the highly popular “Limited Government” plank of The Contract states:
“The purpose of our government is to…
Read more…
Categories: Changing Society, Civil Rights, Community, Government & Politics, Social Change, Society and Culture Tags: Contract From America, Glen Ford, Tea Party racist, white nationalist
Categories: Changing Society, Civil Rights, Community, Government & Politics, Social Change, Society and Culture Tags: Amy Goodman, Democracy Now, National Socialist Movement, nationalists, Right-wing Militias, skin heads, White Power
The Morning After Beck
August 29, 2010, 3:11 pm
By MARK LEIBOVICHOn the morning after a big Saturday wedding, it is sometimes customary for newly united families to hold a low-key brunch for guests who are still in town.
Something like this took place early Sunday – actually it was more of a Tea Party than a brunch. On the morning after Beck’s massive “Restoring Honor” rally drew conservative throngs to the Lincoln Memorial and National Mall, 200 or so rally stragglers gathered on a hardtop between the U.S. Capitol and Union Station. While no one served omelettes or Bloody Marys, there was plenty of red meat here.
“You are an awakened sleeping giant,” said one of the speakers, former congressman Ernest Istook, Republican of Oklahoma. Standing before a “Tea Party Patriots” sign on the podium, Mr. Istook vowed that the energy of the weekend would last, and that “this resolve is not just one time.”
Nearly everyone in the crowd had attended Saturday’s Beck-stock, and most had come to Washington from other parts of the country. They were protesting the usual Tea Party menu – big government, taxes and President Obama. Unlike the Beck event, which de-emphasized politics and public displays thereof, organizers here did not discourage signs: There were many, the most common being “Stop Socialism,” “November 2 is Judgment Day,” and “Don’t Tread on Me.”
“Everything about this weekend was great,” said Michael Shatravka, 24, who held a poster that said, “I Want an America That My Dad Remembers.”
Asked about the sign, Mr. Shatravka said that actually a woman from Louisiana had given it to him at the rally Saturday, and that his own father – Alexander – had spent the better part of his life in the Soviet Union before emigrating here 24 years ago. Alexander, who now lives in the northern Maine town of Danforth, stood next to him, carrying a placard that said, “Marxism is the Way to Slavery – Capitalism is Freedom. Stop Socialism.”
By noon, the crowd was largely dispersed and many headed off in search of food before hitting the road.
Categories: Changing Society, Community, Government & Politics, Right Wing, Social Change, Society and Culture Tags: Glenn Beck, Mark Leibovich
Christian Nationalists Assuming Control & Authority over Meaning of the Flag
This Flag is Our Flag
By Austin Cline, About.com Guide
This Flag is Our Flag: Christian Nationalists Assuming Control & Authority over Meaning of the American Flag
One area where Christian Nationalists have attempted to exercise more subtle control over American culture is through the American flag. Efforts to ban flag burning have a lot in common with efforts to ban gay marriage as well as a host of other hot-button conservative issues. The issue is not the issue: it’s not about burning or protecting flags and it’s not about protecting the sanctity of marriage. It’s about retaining control over important cultural symbols upon which people base their identities.
Why do so many religious and political conservatives insist that same-sex marriages “threaten” and “undermine” traditional heterosexual marriages? Marriage is not just an institution, but also a symbol of a culture’s ideals about sex, sexuality, and human relationships. Such symbols are a common cultural currency which we use to help create our sense of self. Thus when the nature of marriage is challenged, so are people’s basic identities.
Flag burning fits in here because it’s a way in which people seek to radically alter others’ perceptions of the flag as not just a symbol within the culture, but as a symbol of America as a whole. Bans on flag burning and desecration are a way to avoid discussing what the flag as a symbol means and what America itself should stand for. They are saying to everyone: “This is our country. This is our flag. If you don’t adopt our meanings, you don’t belong.”
For Christian Nationalists, a ban on burning or desecrating the American flag is just the beginning: it represents a first step towards taking rights away from political minorities and establishing the power of a majority to dictate the terms of public discourse. They talk about the “right of the majority to rule,” which in this case means the power of the majority to dictate to everyone how exactly the flag will be treated, what it will mean, and what sort of relationship one is allowed to have with the flag.
Christian Nationalists hope that this will open the door to similar changes in other areas of law. If the majority has the power to censor certain forms of political speech, why not other speech and expression such as pornography? If the they are given the power to determine the meaning of the flag for everyone, why not also the power to determine the meaning and importance of the Ten Commandments for everyone?
This image is based upon a World War I poster depicting a worker rolling up his sleeves and getting to work for the flag.
To see the ‘image’, please go to the site link given below.
Categories: Changing Society, Civil Rights, Community, Family, Government & Politics, Religion, Right Wing, Social Change, Society and Culture Tags: Austin Cline, Chrisitian propaganda, Christian Nationalists, religious Right
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