To you, Mr. William F.B. O’Reilly, I give the mighty middle finger, and a heart-felt Fuck you!!!
In his recent column in amNewYork (the cool free daily with no spaces in the name), this “Republican Political Consultant”
led with the following (god, I can almost hear the humming of the Star Spangled Banner, America the Beatified, and When Johnny Comes Marching Home; in the background as I read to myself):
This week marks the 154th anniversary of the capture of John Brown at Harper's Ferry. Brown and a small group of followers, including his two sons, had hoped to spark a slave revolt with weapons captured at the Virginia federal garrison. But things didn't go as planned: Col. Robert E. Lee led a contingent of Marines into Harper's Ferry and quelled the nascent uprising. Ten of Brown's men were killed -- half his strength -- and the ardent abolitionist was hanged six weeks later in Charles Town, Va., on treason and murder charges.
Brown resorted to violence because he saw no other way to defeat slavery. Congress was divided, and slavery was spilling into the so-called Free States, threatening the balance of power. About three years after his death, the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.
The background humming of the Patriots continues, as he discusses the Suffragettes in Seneca Falls in 1848, and their great thirst for rights; and their persecution for their beliefs. When Johnny Comes Marching Home and Slim Pickens eating apple pie appeared to me in a vision as William F.B. then pivoted to the Stonewall Riots in 1969, and how gays in NYC were tired of being harassed, and made their stand against the powerful NYPD.
He proudly states
New York City's Stonewall Riots in 1969 were more spontaneous. Gays in Greenwich Village were tired of being harassed by police breaking up then-illegal gay nightclubs, and their revolt soon grew into a national movement. Forty-two years later, New York legalized same-sex marriage.
My god, how proud he sounds. Proud of the legalization of gay marriage, proud of slave revolts, proud of everything that his party hates on a daily basis. Think about it: he is extolling the virtues of a slave revolt that Robert E. Lee put down, and yet he works everyday with secessionaists and neo-confederates and hate-filled racists.
Hot dogs and baseball were a clear vision in my mind, and Chevys danced across my cerebrum, I was so puffed up now with GOP pride: pride in country, pride in civil rights, pride in the rising up of the oppressed, and what the hell: GOP Gay Pride too. Wow, so refreshing.
Sadly, his real point came next:
It's easy to dismiss the tea party movement as a collection of reactionary crackpots, but no one can say they lack the same passion as Brown, the suffragettes and the Stonewall rioters. It's easy, too, to scoff at the comparison, but to do so demonstrates a misunderstanding of what the tea party is about -- powerlessness.
All movements begin with it. Tea partyers believe the country is sliding into economic calamity and that they're powerless to stop it. The government shutdown and debt-ceiling threats are born of desperation.
He goes on to say that Tea Partyers are right: they are right about America sinking into an economic abyss. He truly cares about our high national debt now, and he mentions that Social Security and Medicare are $60 trillion dollar liabilities for us.
He is merely eating the Koch-buttered side of his white bread, or he is truly deluded, because he closes with this:
Tea partyers may not be politically sophisticated, and may come across as angry and dogmatic, but their concerns have merit, and they aren't going away. Nor should they. Their tactics need improvement, but there's nothing lacking in their reasoning or zeal.
Words cannot do justice to refute this, nor to describe how disgusting it is that civil rights movements, Martin Luther King and his legacy and message, are co-opted by these disingenuous pieces of shit. There is free speech, but they don’t get to rationally make these arguments and have them treated as reasonable and non-offensive. I am highly offended by their use of these memes.
On a lighter note, I can try but I cannot truly begin to describe the disingenuous nature of someone educated and knowledgeable who thinks the Tea Party has nothing lacking in their reasoning.
Once again I will ask this question of the Tea Party: Where in the pluperfect hell where you before the Democrat; you know, the black guy who followed your guy who tore through Clinton’s surplus and destroyed our economy and wealth. Where the fuck where you from 2000-2007???
Hmm?