The Tea Tantrum Movement

The Atlantic ^ | April 10, 2009 | Andrew Sullivan

[Zakeet]

I spent the better part of an hour earlier today scanning the various sites and blogs to try and understand what specifically the Fox-Pajamas tea parties are about. Having absorbed about as much of the literature as I can, I have to say I'm still befuddled.

Option 1: It's a protest of the bank bailouts orchestrated by Bush and now Obama. But surely these tea-partiers understand what would happen if we didn't bail the banks out. Are they advocating letting major banks fail? Or are they advocating a Krugman-style government take-over? No idea.

Option 2: It's a protest against tax hikes. But there have barely been any!

[Snip]

Option 3: It's a protest against illegal immigration. Ok, so why the tea? Weren't all the original tea-partiers illegal immigrants?

Option 4: It's a protest against government debt. Yay! I will leave aside the somewhat awkward fact that Fox News and Pajamas Media barely covered the massive debt racked up by the Republicans during a period of economic growth.

[Snip]

What it looks like to me is some kind of amorphous, generalized rage on the part of those who were used to running the country and now don't feel part of the culture at all. But the only word for that is: tantrum.

These are not tea-parties. They are tea-tantrums. And the adolescent, unserious hysteria is a function not of a movement regrouping and refinding itself. It's a function of a movement's intellectual collapse and a party's fast-accelerating nervous breakdown.

[NewRomeTacitus]

I would expect better grammar from a British fag.

Apparently you and your alternate lifestyle friends ruining this thread have mistaken it for the Twitter gay leather bar you were looking for. Give Freddie Mercury my regards when you catch up to him. Toodles.

[Hiddigeigei]

Hello Toodles,
Apparently you and your alternate lifestyle friends ruining this thread have mistaken it for the Twitter gay leather bar you were looking for. Give Freddie Mercury my regards when you catch up to him. Toodles
I don't kown what your trouble is. Who's Freddie Mercury? A friend of yours?

[Hiddigeigei]

Apparently you misunderstood my comment on Andrew Sullivan’ appalling grammatical error (to try and understand), and thought it was directed at you. If so, I’ m sorry for the mistake. If not, then swish on off, Toodles.

[RaceBannon]

Which means you would sit on your ass

Either LEAD, FOLLOW or get our of the way!

Whatever it is, YOU’RE AGAINST IT!!
http://www.geocities.com/~jbenz/against.wav

[Puddleglum]

I still have my Sore Loserman t-shirts.

[RaceBannon]

me too! :)

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Chgogal]

“Couldn’t agree more...”

Yawn, whatever....

FYI, if you really wanted to have made a dent against the “Pro Choice” movement, you would have hired an advertising firm and used Jennifer Raper’s abortion surviving daughter as proof positive that abortion is murder. You would have had a great campaign. “Abortion killed this twin's sister.” You let a great PR opportunity go to waste. I am responding to this post:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2226889/posts?page=194#194

[NewRomeTacitus]

Who's Freddie Mercury? A friend of yours?

I never thought I'd live to see such a question. Check it out - this current generation really has no concept of recent history or culture beyond what they've been spoon fed in the public school system.

One doesn't fire off offensive comments here without aiming them correctly. This isn't Democrat Underground or wherever you usually post.

If you don't know who Freddie Mercury was you're way too uniformed to be here in the first place. Ever hear of Frank Sinatra? John Philip Sousa? Did you know Beethoven wasn't a St. Bernard? Arrgh!

[Hiddigeigei]

this current generation really has no concept of recent history or culture
Mikil, I was born 29 years and 10 months earlier than you, so I'm hardly part of the "current generation." I still don't know who Freddie Mercury was/is, nor do I care. I never was much into pop culture. In fact I considered it the first step of destroying the culture inwhich I was born. If you took offense at me referring to andrew sullivan as a British fag, I'm sorry if I insulted one of your heroes; but I can't make everyone happy. Fume and fuss away.

[antisocial]

It seems to be a good location to find interested people.

Don’t like it KMA.

[antisocial]

Very Interesting!
I agree.

[papertyger]

Pick a spot, you’re all A...

[Grizzled Bear]

I’m not sure why I got dragged into this. Freddy Mercury was the lead vocalist for the Rock/Pop group “Queen.”

He died of AIDS, most likely contracted due to his homosexual lifestyle. While I disapprove of the homosexual lifestyle, Mercury was a very talented singer.

Remember, God hates sin but loves sinners.

[Hiddigeigei]

Thank you for your information.

[Rastus]

He was an odd duck. The love of his life was a woman named Mary Austin, who he referred to as his common law wife and to whom he left the bulk of his estate. But, he was pretty flamboyantly gay--being carried onstage by men in Superman shirts at times. According to what I just read, some of his men said they "could never measure up to Mary" in his eyes. I can't even begin to fathom why someone would need any of that when they had the love of a good woman. But, I'm not gay.

[YankeeReb]

Be sure and read the previous quote aloud in a whining, lispy, bitch-boy British accent to get the full effect.

LOL Its funny you said that because in my mind I was reading it that way. It fits so well.

[NewRomeTacitus]

My apologies for ranting on you when the people who raised and educated you are the ones who deserve a good scolding. You deserve special lauding for taking an interest in Latin - the mother of Western languages.

Freddie Mercury was indeed an odd duck but still reigns as the greatest vocalist of the rock music genre. His voice spanned three octaves and, while never learning music properly, he plunked out most of Queen’s hits on a piano.

When I was 17 my music teacher introduced to us “We Will Rock You”, a song with unique timing he explained originated with Gregorian chants from ancient Catholic monks. That teacher, Mr. Pickle, looked nerdishly like his name but loved his calling so much that he fired up the love of music in his students who payed attention. His sort of teaching passion was illustrated in the film “Drumline”.

Check that song out on YouTube and note the purposeful drag between the lead and the rhythm. There’s a similar drag in the Led Zeppelin song “Kashmir” (but Queen did it first). And enjoy the following anthem of school bands everywhere, “We are the Champions”. Queen purposely placed those songs together segue. Few groups these days put craft above commercialism like they did.

[Hiddigeigei]

Since you disparage my education, let me tell you something about myself.

Before you were born:
I had graduated from college with a BA in Poli Sci and a minor in geology.
Soldiered in Korea.
Had two and a half years of graduate training at the East Asian Institute at Columbia U.
Worked two years as a translator through a CIA grant abstracting Chinese, Japanese and Korean scientific articles.
Save up half enough for further education in science.

When you were still in Kindergarten:
I had sailed a boat from D. C. to the Florida Keys.
Enrolled in a graduate School for a degree in Biology.
Gotten a single and multi engine pilot license.

Before you had graduated from elementary school:
I had finished a PhD in Biology.
Worked two years during research in a nuclear center in Mayaguez, P.R.
Bought a airplane.
Gotten married to a women who is still my wife.

Before you were out of junior high:
I had quite government and academia in disgust and started a consulting firm.
Been elected president of a tax-exempt research foundation.

By the time you were in college:
I had retired to a life of reading, pistol and rifle shooting, and beer drinking.

You asked me if I had ever heard about Sousa, Sinatra, Beethoven:
In high school I marched in FDR's last inaugural parade to music Sousa had written for my cadet corps.
In high school during WW II, when the girls were literally swooning over Sinatra's silly crooning, my associates held him in contempt for being a skinny little rat who had weaseled out of military service while his country was at war. At he time we all expected to be fighting in a few years.
Beethoven? I can't sing, but at thirteen, I could recite Schiller's "An die Freude" by heart; a poem Beethoven used (and slightly changed) as lyrics for his Ninth Symphony.
Would you care to tell me about you own educational achievements (which I'm sure are impressive).

[Osage Orange]

Game, Set, Match!!

LOL!!