According to a Yahoo! News Blog entry, Tea Partiers are taking umbrage to a comic book and have won an apology from Marvel. Brett Michael Dykes describes the content of the comic book in question:
Issue 602 of the comic features Captain America investigating a right-wing anti-government militia group called "the Watchdogs". Hoping to infiltrate the group, Captain America and his African-American sidekick The Falcon observe an anti-tax protest from a rooftop. The protestors depicted are all white and carry signs adorned with slogans almost identical to those seen today in Tea Party rallies like "tea bag libs before they tea bag you" and "stop the socialists."Unfortunately, the Tea Partiers were asking for it.The Falcon mentions that the gathering appears to be "some kind of anti-tax protest" and notes that "this whole 'hate the government' vibe isn't limited to the Watchdogs." He then tells Captain America that he doesn't think their plan will work because "I don't exactly see a black man from Harlem fitting in with a bunch of angry white folks." Captain America then explains that his plan entails sending The Falcon in among the group posing as an IRS agent under the thinking that a black government official will most certainly spark their anger.
Tom Tancredo recently spoke at the Tea Party convention in Nashville. And he claimed that Obama was elected because voters did not have to pass a literacy test to vote. Literacy tests were, you'll recall, one tool racists used in the South to violate African Americans' right to vote.
Obviously, we can't assume that Tea Partiers are racist because they invited Tancredo to speak at their little convention.
But I'm not crying into my beer about this kerfuffle either.
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I am very much in favor of the Tea Party becoming a legitimate 3rd party alternative to the Republicans. Similarly, I want the Greens to become a legitimate alternative to the Democrats. If the two major parties had to form coalitions around more narrowly based smaller parties in order to get a majority, I think our democracy would be healthier. As is, we have a 1/3 Dem, 1/3 Rep, 1/3 Independent breakout for voters. But those Independents are not all moderates so we can't assume that a swing to the middle is always the right answer. I think narrower issue oriented parties would force real debate and real progress on some of the stickier issues. And both major parties would be courting these issue oriented voters.
ReplyDeleteYadda yadda.
I agree with everything you said!
ReplyDeleteI worry about the independence of the Tea Party movement, however. Though I don't have time right now to thoroughly document my sources, there is some evidence that elements of the Tea Party movement are working with the Republican Party. I haven't watched this video, but I think Bill Moyers can be trusted:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO_7T2Vcnuk
And I would like to add that I am very frustrated with the Democrats right now. But I don't have time to go into it.
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