Republican Teabaggery And Calls For Violence

I have to say that even I was a little shocked a couple weeks ago when Minnesota kook Michele Bachmann seemed to be calling for the violent overthrow of the government and for violence in a general way to achieve... whatever's bothering her and whichever deluded loons happen to hear her on Fox. I mean we hear it often enough from the marginalized sociopaths in the right-wing media-- irresponsible drug addicts, alcoholics and clowns like Limbaugh, Coulter, Beck and Hannity-- but Bachmann, alas, is a member of Congress, just re-elected in November with 187,817 votes (46%).

Apparently, in Ms. Bachmann's dangerous and distorted world view only she and those who think like her are real Americans.  She said as much in the last election cycle. 

Her latest tirades, however; should not be tolerated because of the potential for equally disturbed people to respond to her call to be armed and dangerous by acting out violently.  Further, she stated, "Thomas Jefferson told us having a revolution every now and then is a good thing and we the people are going to have to fight back if we aren't going to lose our country."

Some people will attempt to hide behind the idea that this is free speech or is just her opinions as a defense.  It may be free speech but in many states being a danger to yourself or others with two medical doctors signatures can result in an involuntary placement in a psychiatric unit for evaluation.

If you choose to ignore the obvious psychiatric symptoms then you can't ignore her statements regarding the necessity to become armed and dangerous and the necessity for revolution as examples of seditious and therefore illegal behavior.

Sedition is defined in the dictionary as speech that is deemed by legal authority as tending towards calling for insurrection against established order.  Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent or resistance to lawful authority.

In point of fact America is a nation of laws.  We just had an election last November 2008 and her party lost the election.  Since this was a lawful election the majority of Americans voted for the current administration.  That clearly means Ms. Bachmann does not know the Constitution she purports to defend or what democracy she claims to love is.

In preparation for Wednesday's GOP/Fox tea bag parties the right-wing media is agitating for violence. Perhaps Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch and neo-fascist Texas conglomerate Clear Channel should be reminded that they could lose his licenses to broadcast in this country if the extremists they use to rabble rouse for the sake of ratings revenue step over the line.

Since President Obama's inauguration, numerous conservative media figures have called for a "revolution" or have invoked violent rhetoric while discussing the Obama administration or government in general. In addition to encouraging violence, such violent rhetoric has also included suggesting Obama's policies were doing violence to the American people and depicting Obama as a rapist, spousal abuser, or mobster.

Media Matters for America has previously noted that since Obama's inauguration, conservative media figures have made ominous, even apocalyptic claims about the impact policies pursued by Obama and other progressives might have on the United States; warned of impending socialism, fascism, communism, Nazism, McCarthyism, or Marxism under the Obama administration; asserted or suggested that under Obama, U.S. sovereignty may give way to a one-world government; and warned their audiences that Obama's administration will seize their guns.

To hear this kind of incendiary rhetoric from shrill clowns pimping for a the cash is one thing-- and it should be dealt with through the courts when it goes from freedom of speech issues to incitement to violence and sedition, the difference between a blowhard like Lou Dobbs on the one hand and a dangerous criminal like Glenn Beck on the other-- but to hear it coming down as the policy of the Republican Party is even more worrisome for America. Remember, almost 20% of the country-- nearly one in five people-- view the Republican congressional rump favorably.

Firedoglake is on fire with one teabagger expose after another today. Jane brings up all the corporate moolah and lobbyist efforts financing this fake grassroots extravagenza, and Blue Texan wants to figure out what the organizers are trying to accomplish.

Teabaggers are having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that "grassroots" demonstrations aren't  orchestrated by corporate lobbyists. Understandable-- if you didn't have any experience organizing a demonstration that didn't have millions in free PR from Fox News and well-funded GOP fat cats providing a national infrastructure, you wouldn't know the difference.

This morning Paul Krugman addressed the Republican Party's strategy of undermining the legitimacy of the government by reminding us that everything that critics mock about the teabag parties "has long been standard practice within the Republican Party." Referring to irresponsible claims by Spencer Bachus that he has a list of 17 socialists in the House and by self-serving Florida freshman Bill Posey that Obama is an alien, Krugman warns us that "the G.O.P. looked as crazy 10 or 15 years ago as it does now. That didn’t stop Republicans from taking control of both Congress and the White House."

Thus, President Obama is being called a “socialist” who seeks to destroy capitalism. Why? Because he wants to raise the tax rate on the highest-income Americans back to, um, about 10 percentage points less than it was for most of the Reagan administration. Bizarre.

But the charge of socialism is being thrown around only because “liberal” doesn’t seem to carry the punch it used to. And if you go back just a few years, you find top Republican figures making equally bizarre claims about what liberals were up to. Remember when Karl Rove declared that liberals wanted to offer “therapy and understanding” to the 9/11 terrorists?

Then there are the claims made at some recent tea-party events that Mr. Obama wasn’t born in America, which follow on earlier claims that he is a secret Muslim. Crazy stuff-- but nowhere near as crazy as the claims, during the last Democratic administration, that the Clintons were murderers, claims that were supported by a campaign of innuendo on the part of big-league conservative media outlets and figures, especially Rush Limbaugh.

...[I]t turns out that the tea parties don’t represent a spontaneous outpouring of public sentiment. They’re AstroTurf (fake grass roots) events, manufactured by the usual suspects. In particular, a key role is being played by FreedomWorks, an organization run by Richard Armey, the former House majority leader, and supported by the usual group of right-wing billionaires. And the parties are, of course, being promoted heavily by Fox News.

But that’s nothing new, and AstroTurf has worked well for Republicans in the past. The most notable example was the “spontaneous” riot back in 2000-- actually orchestrated by G.O.P. strategists-- that shut down the presidential vote recount in Florida’s Miami-Dade County.

So what’s the implication of the fact that Republicans are refusing to grow up, the fact that they are still behaving the same way they did when history seemed to be on their side? I’d say that it’s good for Democrats, at least in the short run-- but it’s bad for the country.

Only 26% of Americans agree with Cheney that Obama is making the country less safe. I assume those are the tea baggers, dittoheads and the people who voted for Michele Bachmann.