Tea party scare tactics
14 July 2010 by StardustWhile driving back home from Key West, amongst the numerous anti-abortion billboards, and the “you are going to Hell if you don’t love Jesus” billboards, and the sex toys and nude-girls-at-next-stop billboards, my husband and I also saw a few anti-Obama and anti-liberal billboards. I should have had my camera ready to snap a pic of the one that said to be liberal is to be socialist. However, coincidentally in today’s news is a photo of one of the billboards we had seen while passing through Georgia [ed. note: same one as the one in the following news story]. Here it is:
Billboard linking Obama, Hitler draws complaints
DES MOINES, Iowa – A billboard created by an Iowa tea party group that compares President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin is drawing sharp criticism — even from fellow tea party activists who have condemned it as offensive and a waste of money.
Never before in our history, has a president been so radically disrespected. I have never seen so many blatantly hateful billboards against anyone in the public or private realm.
Even many tea party folks say that this billboard is offensive and slanderous, but do they really mean it?
One person who welcomed the billboard was Dean Genth, a Democratic activist from Mason City, a city of 30,000 people just south of the Minnesota border, who said he thinks the sign lays bare the views of tea party supporters.
These hateful scare tactics may just backfire, though. As Genth says:
“I welcome them to continue to spew that kind of stuff because I think it’s going to do a lot of good for the good Democrats around the state,” Genth said.
We can only hope.
14 July 2010, on 9:17 am
From the article:
I wonder if they would say the same thing about an atheist ad on their billboard.
14 July 2010, on 9:47 am
Did you really see this in Georgia? I thought it was posted in Iowa!
14 July 2010, on 10:06 am
Really? Never before in history? How about these? http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/liberal-media-didnt-care-about-protest-signs-threatening-bushs-life-so-why-do-they-care-only-for/question-581257/
14 July 2010, on 10:24 am
Ann, I see no “paid for” professional billboards amongst your photo ensemble there. We are talking paid for, full-sized advertising billboards paid for by political groups that we find along the roadways. This isn’t talking about placards, cardboard posters that individuals make. The hatred against Obama is much more serious because many people despise him merely because of his race (and in large organized groups).
4theist, yes, Georgia…same one. Seems they are placing them where the fundamentalist nutcases support this sort of bullcrap.
14 July 2010, on 10:41 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Global Atheist, God is for Suckers!. God is for Suckers! said: New Post: Tea party scare tactics: While driving back home from Key West, amongst the numerous anti-abortion bill… http://bit.ly/bT0tT7 [...]
14 July 2010, on 3:32 pm
I am a liberal and an atheist and a capitalist. I don’t belong to the Tea Party. What annoys me about this whole discussion is that it is the people defending Obama’s policies who keep bringing up race politics. The billboard pictured here says absolutely nothing that can be construes as a racial slur. It is an overstated criticism of Obama’s fiscal and economic policy. Anyone who understands the definition of socialism and capitalism can see that this administration’s policies have a socialist tendency, the likes of which we haven’t seen since FDR. Mind you, I’m not even saying this is necessarily a bad thing, but to deflect the discourse from a real debate over socialism vs capitalism to imagined bigotry is doing all of us — socialists and capitalists alike — a great disservice.
14 July 2010, on 3:55 pm
db, while there may be people who actually do judge Obama on the issues, we cannot deny that there are many people who are racist and do not like Obama because of his race. I have heard enough comments from people, relatives, a few friends, neighbors to prove that race is a huge factor in their dislike of the man. I know people who voted for Hillary in the primaries, and then now boo-hooing how awful Obama is when in fact, many of their stances on the issues are the same…and Hillary’s health care plan was much more “socialist” than even Obama’s plan, but though these folks though it was great when she was talking about all of her changes, now they are saying that Obama’s plan is terrible, the worst thing ever.
To deny that race is a factor in the dislike of Obama in general is simply denial of reality. Of how things still are in America. Better than what they were, but still a far way to go. There are many who still believe he isn’t even a citizen and a secret Muslim.
14 July 2010, on 4:54 pm
db — I could not realistically be called an Obama supporter. I have so many problems with him it’s not funny. My wife now rolls her eyes and sighs while I watch the news because I can’t keep my mouth shut — I’m constantly complaining about and even TO Obama on the screen. I voted for him, but mostly because I thought an Obama/Biden administration would be a slower national suicide than a McCain/Palin administration. I do NOT support most of Obama’s policies. However …
I live in far northern California, which is Tea Party Central. There is no doubt — absolutely no doubt whatsoever — that the biggest problem these people have with Obama is the color of his skin. There’s a black man in the White House and they can’t stand it. But they can’t bring themselves to say it directly. I had a conversation recently with a guy who was upset because Obama is not a citizen. I repeatedly asked him for his reasons for thinking that and he came up with nothing but rumors. Once I shredded that idiotic notion in the discussion, he said, “Well, he’s not American!” I asked what that meant and he said, “He’s not American! He’s MUSLIM!” I explained to him that “Muslim” is not a nationality, it’s a religion. He moved on from one idiotic anti-Obama argument to another, and not one of them made a lick of sense. This was not a stupid person. I was not arguing with Forrest Gump. I was arguing with someone whose entire argument was hobbled by the fact that HE COULD NOT SAY WHAT WAS REALLY ON HIS MIND. Finally, I said this: “You’re obviously very angry. A lot of people are. And there are all kinds of very good reasons to be angry. If you could point to just one thing in this country that makes you angrier than anything else, what would it be?” Without hesitation, he said, “Tolerance.” I told him I didn’t understand, so he explained. “I’m tired of people telling me I have to TOLERATE everyone but there’s no tolerance shown to me.” Again, I asked for further explanation. “Gay people call us straight people ‘breeders’ all the time, I’ve heard it. But if I call a gay person a faggot, I’ve committed a hate crime.” I said, “So you’re angry that you can’t call gay people faggots?” At that point, he walked away from the conversation. I did not make this conversation up, by the way — these are direct quotes from it.
All of the things the Tea Party is complaining about were going on when George W. Bush was president. Part of the problem I have with Obama is that, in so many ways, he’s just an extension of the Bush-Dick administration. But there was no Tea Party when Bush was around. The conservatives were quiet, perfectly happy. It seems the country didn’t fall apart until the beginning of 2009. Suddenly, the Tea Party appeared with an explosion of the most irrational complaints I’ve ever heard. They are irrational because they know they can’t say what’s REALLY on their minds. Of course, there are those who DO say what’s on their minds, and they often do it at Tea Party functions. No one in the organization complains. No one tells them to put their hateful, racist signs away — which, by the way, is precisely what the NAACP is complaining about in the news today. No one complains or does anything about it because those signs reflect the feelings of the entire group, it’s just that the entire group isn’t going to say these things directly for very obvious reasons. They call him a Muslim, they say he isn’t a citizen, they say he’s a socialist — and they say all of these things because they can’t say what they really mean, which is this: “There’s a FUCKING BLACK MAN IN THE WHITE HOUSE, goddammit!” THAT is why they’re so upset. I can’t fathom why some people can’t see this. It’s so obvious where I live that you’d have to be blind and deaf not to see it. And that’s the case all over the country right now. Racism is not dead, it’s just that it’s been shamed into not openly identifying itself.
14 July 2010, on 10:28 pm
Ray, excellently said. ^^
15 July 2010, on 11:34 am
Check out this video…so true!
15 July 2010, on 2:51 pm
The billbord is a stupid waste of money, however….
“Race” is a myth so far as humans are concerned. It is a societal construct, manipulated by people at various times for their purposes. We must all admit that many people liek Obama more because the media labels him as “black”. I don’t doubt that some anti – blacks use this pseudoscience to garner anti – obama sentiment. I also know that many many people you would label as “black” use the concept of race to dislike Obama as well – because Obama is considered white to most humans. Culturally, this assertion is undeniable. Often and unfairly, suggesting that the mythology of race was an asset for O’bama in the presidential election – the primary in particular – gets one a label of racism slapped on them. To say that any substantial portion of the Anti Obama crowd is anti black is pure conjecture, based on a limited view of our national culture.
The culture of darker skinned americans – whether we be black, latino, asian, the list goes on… – is a culture foriegn to Barry Obama. To deny this would be… well, it would be proof of where you came from.
What is absolutly hilarious to me is how divided peope get over people like Palin and Obama. As long as there is the illusion of some pendulum swinging back and forth to represent the effectivly divided public, people will be distraced from the fact that both the red tied and blue tied of the ruling class are just fucking us harder and harder. Every few years a side gets to be winning, so they ignore the fact that our taxes keep on getting given to huge miltary and prison industrial complex contractors instead of back to us. Our country goes in debt to the Saudi Royal family because they have bought interest in our government. Our kids are dying to fight for Saudi priorities. Some of the monetary interst we pay to the Saudis will no doubt go to opening madrasas in an ongoing affort to spread the plagaristic word of Allah and his backwards Sharia law. This system is not one that the regular americans benefit from, be we black or whatever. Some idots who identify as right fringers sometimes start a dialogue based on a misundestanding of whats really going on. Let the dialogue end with them.
The bit about Obama being our most “radically disrespected” president is pure fiction – and a little unnerving. When was Obama shot to death again? Our history is full of disrepect for presidents – how could it be any other way? Is the billboard awefully impolite? Will it make Michelle Obama cry and stain her thousand dollar blouse? Maybe he should be on a billboard advertising for cigs instead, reading, “Cigarettes – one addictive product that consumers could never hope to produce themseves in sufficiant volume to be anything but slaves to the institution once hooked” After all, that is the advertisment the man lives in his personal life… Ought we live in a society where the president is thought to be more worthy of respect than anyone else? Forgive me if I am reading into that too much, but you must admit that it was a fictitious staement about our country’s history.
I dont understand why people who supported obama based on the misleading marketing campaign of ending the wars come to defend a president who has budgeted so much money to these very same wars. In these wars, these policies, the politics of today… “race” plays a limited role that is largely – not solely but largely – kept alive by some of my fellow liberals.
15 July 2010, on 3:14 pm
Dont think for a second that I am ignorant enough to think Obama is selling out to the Saudi’s for any other reasons than greed, just like those who came before him. The whole bullshit dialogue about him being a muslim is just a distraction.