Teabaggers around Albany, NY, have become more and more aligned with the John Birch Society, the anti-communist conspiracy theory group that pretty much defined the ultra-right since the 1950s.
Their hard-core members attend weekly Bircher "education" meetings, JBS tables, laden with "educational" materials, are a fixture at their tea parties, and they essentially sponsor JBS speakers.
Two days after their not-so-big Tax Day rally, teabaggers turned out for a speech by "Dr." Samuel Blumenfeld Monday at a Colonie hotel. (Blumenfeld's doctorate is honorary, and from racist Bob Jones University.)
Since they charge admission ($5 in advance, $7 at the door) to cover the JBS speaker's fee, I'm never going to one of these, but did get a peek inside the room via a teabagger leader's post on one of their public message boards.
Details, below.
In a discussion about preaching to the choir, Spyder described a question he asked Blumenfeld, and the interesting answer:
I went to a JBS event last night. A Dr Sam Blumenthal gave an intelligent speech spelling out, in detail, what exactly is going wrong, and why it's happening.
At the end, I asked a question, "You've spelled out the problems quite nicely, but, you haven't given us any solutions. Me and my teams are doing what we can. We're becoming committeemen, we're running for office, we're distributing report cards on our representatives, we're becoming Sunday school teachers, we're standing on street corners and waving flags and holding signs, we're going to Washington and complaining directly to our congresscritters in their lairs, we're getting involved in our local communities and taking matters into our own hands, what, Sir, are we doing wrong or leaving out? Why do you think we aren't doing enough?"
His answer?
"Don't worry Spyder, we know who you guys are. This wasn't aimed at you. This was aimed at the 95% of the people who AREN'T in your group. You guys are already doing what needs to be done."
I'm sure Spyder swelled with pride at getting the JBS seal of approval, which is why he wanted to tell the story.
This year, for the first time ever, JBS was accepted as a sponsor of the annual CPAC conference, and the relative openness with which Albany teabaggers discuss their Bircher beliefs is a similar part of the normalization of the Bircher's still-ultra-right ideology.
For example, based on his recent writings, here's some of what Blumenfeld may have told the teabaggers yesterday about their No. 1 hot-button issue:
On March 21, 2010, a day that will live in infamy, our beloved Constitutional Republic came to an end. Its murder was committed by a small majority of socialist Democrats in the House of Representatives who have given us a new form of government: Federal Socialism. By that vote, the great legacy of freedom given us by our Founding Fathers was thrown on the trash heap. And the man most responsible for making this happen is the socialist would-be dictator in the White House, Barack Hussein Obama.
snip
Barack Hussein Obama will go down in history as having achieved what no one believed an elected American president would ever want to achieve, the destruction of our Constitutional Republic. He joins that freedom-hating pantheon of philosophers and despots like Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Mao Tse Tung, Fidel Castro, Pol Pot and other such political leaders who led millions of people into slavery, starvation, and death.
snip
The elections in November will tell us what the American people are made of. We have not yet reached the stage where violence is called for. We have been so well educated to believe that democratic elections can solve our problems, that until now we have found peaceful compromise to be the best form of political activism. Non-violent, peaceful opposition may still be able to carry the day.
And, of course, it may not, as Bircher Glenn Beck is evidently writing about in his new book.
More than 40 years ago, the Republican Party decided it would do without the support of the JBS and its far-right conspiracy-mongers.
That was then.
Many in today's Republican Party are, like the Albany teabaggers, quite comfortable with the Birchers, as long as they can help win elections by providing committed volunteers like Spyder.
But once Democrats start running ads tying Republicans to the extreme positions and rhetoric of their JBS allies, that temporary advantage in volunteers will change to a permanent staining of the Republican brand, and more losses on Election Day.