Watch: The Teabag Circus is in Town
Great piece by New Left Media on the final health care protests of the nutty teabaggers, who are extremely capable at repeating the same dumb talking points spoon-fed to them by Glenn Beck and FOX News.
A must watch, AFTER THE JUMP...
(via joe.my.god)
The one teabagger at top must think he's in Disneyworld,not D.C.
Posted by: Zach | Mar 19, 2010 6:29:41 PM
They make great videos, plus the interviewer is hot.
Posted by: John | Mar 19, 2010 6:49:48 PM
Well, it makes sense he's wearing the sorcerer's hat from Fantasia.
The tea baggers already live in Disney World. The magical land where Tinkerbelle waves a wand to cures the sick, treasure chests overflowing with gold are located under every rock, and all the nations of the world come together to pay tribute to America. Because we are just that great.
Posted by: John | Mar 19, 2010 6:53:08 PM
I appreciate the teabaggers' "take back the government" attitude (with the way the Dems just don't listen to us) but I agree with Bill O'Reilly when he said about ten percent of them are loons.
Posted by: JT | Mar 19, 2010 7:06:49 PM
I've seen so much ridiculous hatred everywhere lately. These tea party people are just using their fake cries for freedom as an excuse to hate anybody different than them such as muslims, gays, and black people. There's http://www.dirtyphonebook.com where people are posting friends phone numbers and calling out people and exposing personal secrets. And this guy I work with calls me a piece of garbage all of the time just for being gay.
When will I feel better about life? No more hate!
Posted by: Gerald Leurent | Mar 19, 2010 7:07:13 PM
It's astounding that so many people will travel to Washington and give up a day of their lives to passionately demonstrate against a bill that THEY themselves acknowledge they know NOTHING about.
If only we could get half as much enthusiasm and a quarter as much anger from the gay community about the legal and social discrimination that they face or the hate crimes and assaults (verbal and physical) that they endure daily.
Posted by: TampaZeke | Mar 19, 2010 7:07:49 PM
This is america, baby. Land of the stupid. Between this illiterate, stupid shit and the former NATO commander saying that gays in the service cause genocide...I'm about done defending this country as it is currently. All we can do is look to the luminaries of the past for insight into the future.
And it's true...if these people win, we all lose.
Posted by: TANK | Mar 19, 2010 9:04:02 PM
"I appreciate the teabaggers' "take back the government" attitude (with the way the Dems just don't listen to us) but I agree with Bill O'Reilly when he said about ten percent of them are loons. "
Where were the teabaggers when Bush, Cheney & Co. were running roughshod over the Constitution and American society? Or racking up trillions of dollars in debt for an unnecessary war, one in which they also callously spent thousands of lives?
No, it's alright to incur monstrous debt to fight wars or to further benefit the super-wealthy. But the second some uppity-foreign-socialist-Muslim takes office, that's the time to strike back!
There will always be a movement to take back the government, because the government can never truly listen, because the government is composed of millions of people, each with their own particular and overlapping agendas. Don't mistake this congregation of crackpot racists for anything other than a reaction to a particular President and a particular Congress.
Posted by: Zach | Mar 19, 2010 9:21:22 PM
As bad as things can seem, imagine how much worse if McCain and Palin were in charge.
Posted by: patrick nyc | Mar 19, 2010 9:31:05 PM
AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL
Posted by: daftpunkydavid | Mar 19, 2010 9:31:07 PM
Hahahaha, my boyfriend is in the video, not as a teabagger, but as a Congressional intern. He is the short, dark-headed guy that you can kind of see behind the chubby girl in the "I surived Roe v. Wade" t-shirt, around 2:15 or so.
Posted by: htfaul | Mar 20, 2010 1:12:00 AM
I am reminded of the street theater anti-GM demonstrations of the late 90s...batty indeed, but still a group of disaffected produced by Our changing society. To hear a man say "I want to hear the values of how I grew up" is Confucian. While I played this expecting to laugh and mock, instead I find myself feeling for the people here, as confused and betrayed as anyone. We are all in this together. Circus indeed.
Posted by: JH | Mar 20, 2010 10:15:21 AM
very scary!
Posted by: Warren | Mar 20, 2010 10:16:41 AM
@tampazeke If only we could get half as much enthusiasm and a quarter as much anger from the gay community
If the gay community at large was a bunch of retired folks with two homes and nothing else better to do other than play golf and protest, we might be out there making our voices heard day and night. The reality is we have to pay the bills and can't just pick up and head over to Washington whenever we feel like it.
Posted by: Keith | Mar 20, 2010 12:44:28 PM
These are very thoughtful and insightful comments posted here today.
I confess that I find the interviewer to be a very HOT man, but his "hotness" comes from the cool, detached way he ask questions of the various people in this video.
The questions are simple and straightforward; neither are they misleading or deceptive. The interviewer is respectful of the people with whom he speaks. He is neither ironic nor condescending to them.
By letting these people talk freely, they reveal more about themselves than they realize. What is revealed is very sad. It reveals a people who are quite comfortable with letting others do their thinking for them. They are a demagogue's dream.
This video is a brilliant piece of video-journalism.
Posted by: jamal49 | Mar 20, 2010 1:24:36 PM
I thought it was funny when the woman said we have the best health care in world. Well, apparently she has never been to another country to determine that. I was told that a person have a baby in England was given the royal treatment, versus here.
I don't know...the point that gets me is the healthcare bill has no impact on people that are already insured...it just makes the insurance accountable for their purpose, paying for healthcare and if they don't spend at least 80 percent on healthcare, they have to refund the money to the folks paying the premiums.
notice the people at these rallys don't fall into the 40,000 people who don't have insurance or are under insured. assholes!!
Posted by: Paul | Mar 20, 2010 3:21:42 PM
"give it to private companies and let them make a profit"! Hahahaha! Are there really people in this country who prefer corporate rights over individual rights?
The lunacy is off the charts.
Posted by: Rodney | Mar 20, 2010 4:04:02 PM
Yeah, rodney...off the charts...except it's not. She's just echoing the free market deification her preferred media has spoonfed her. It's a very common american meme. The worship of the invisible hand to solve all of society's woes...without the slightest understanding of economics...of how it works (externalities from unregulated market enterprise, for example...both good and bad...but most bad!).
Posted by: TANK | Mar 20, 2010 4:07:56 PM
I just wanna send the grandkids of these wackpots to work in my factory, where their little hands can manipulate the machinery faster than the big clumsy hands of adults and robots. Faster=more widgits. So you send 'em to my plant instead of school (socialism!) for hard, honest american day's work of twenty hours at what kids in indonesia are making because the goddamn minimum wage is communism!...make sure you pack 'em a lunch...and don't forget to give 'em diapers, because I'm not running a goddamn charity here with bathroom breaks!
Posted by: TANK | Mar 20, 2010 4:14:29 PM
Not to make those so inclined even more horny, but the dark haired interviewer is named Chase Whiteside. He's a Senior at Wright State University.
And he's gay.
Find his Facebook profile at chase.whiteside
Posted by: A Fan | Mar 20, 2010 4:52:34 PM
The tea baggers don't know what they are talking about. Emotional outbursts are not a substitute for good public policy. And earnestness is not a substitute for competence.
The United Kingdom has a genuine "socialized" system where health care services are tightly controlled by Parliament. It is the best system in many respects. But we didn't even consider the British model. The most liberal Democratic health care plan only brings us closer to - but does not go as far as - the Canadian system. The bar was deliberately set very low.
And despite all the right-wing misinformation, Canada's health care is more accurately described as a "public-private partnership" and bears little resemblance to socialism. Most services are provided by private entities. The federal government subsidizes the provinces. And each of the provinces are allowed to regulate providers as they see fit. In conservative Alberta, the provincial government gives the insurance companies fairly free reign to do whatever they want. While more left-leaning regions have tighter controls.
Obama is a socialist?
Not a chance...
He's barely slouching towards a mixed-market.
Posted by: John | Mar 20, 2010 5:15:44 PM
Makes it even crazier that they are just blindly echoing the refrains of a corporate driven news network.
Posted by: Rodney | Mar 20, 2010 5:17:13 PM
This is what "political discourse" has come to in our country. People filled with fear and understanding nothing, and having too little respect for knowledge, education, and fact, to even try to understand.
It certainly seems like most of these people have never read the Constitution, never read their own health insurance policy, could not read a balance sheet or a P&L statement, could not find Kenya on a globe, and perhaps could not find the USA on a globe. Pathetic.
Posted by: Hunter | Mar 20, 2010 8:46:04 PM
What do they think medicare is? What do they think Social Security is? Do these people know the difference between SSI or SSA or SSDI or SSP? Do these people have a clue?
I am a social worker and have been for many years. I go to the people's home who cannot come to our office who need medical assistance. I had an elderly lady recently tell me that she is against the health care bill because she listen to talk radio and doesn't believe that the government should be involved in health care. Yet I was there because she needed medical (California's health insurance) to offset her medicare cost. She was 67 yet she didn't want others to have health care.
This is the reality for people who work in Social services.
Posted by: Dawson | Mar 21, 2010 12:46:20 AM
I was born in Toronto and am now living in Vancouver. A couple years ago, just before my 27th birthday, I suffered a massive stroke from a rare type of brain aneurism. I had emergency brain surgery to stop the bleed, was in critical care for almost a month, and have been in rehab since, and working with a large medical team of various physicians, therapists, and counsellors. Since my brain injury, I have paid a total of $100 for my two ambulance rides between two hospitals. The cost of a craniotomy alone is over half a million dollars and the total for my care since would be well over one million dollars. That debt would have bankrupted me, destroyed my life and my family and I also would not have been able to afford the rehab that I receive that has allowed me to recover so well. I have full government health care coverage that is paid for by our taxes and also employer-based insurance for extended benefits (most of these costs are absorbed by my employer and I only pay a small percentage on each pay). Had I happened to be born a bit further south and in the USA, even with private insurance, I would not have been covered because the aneurism I had (AVM) is considered a pre-existing condition and I should have just somehow "known" that at 26 years old I'd have a bleed in my brain. This infuriates me and I am so sad for our neighbours in the United States who are always one illness or injury away from bankruptcy, devastation, or even death. I am so thankful to be Canadian. The American media is a vacuum and people are so extremely misinformed and so severely and willfully divided. Please seek out the truth about our health care system by researching on your own - from sources outside of the USA. We take care of each other and our government does not "control" us.
My story is not uncommon at all and Canadians across the political, socioeconomic, and cultural spectrum do not even question that we are collectively responsible to care for one another and that access to health care is a human right and not a privilege. When someone is ill or injured and in need of medical attention they are never turned away, asked for payment, and you do not leave a hospital with a bill.
I hope that your country is able to someday find your own way to care for one another - ALL of your people.
(I can also be married to my husband, just as my brothers are to their wives - but that's another post.)
Posted by: DANIEL | Mar 21, 2010 6:30:25 AM