What Jazz Shaw Learned at the Tea Party - Lois & Clark Fanfic Message Boards

Jazz Shaw is the assistant editor for Politics in "The Moderate Voice" and he wrote an interesting piece about the Tea Party movement. We've discussed that around here before, so I thought some people might be interested, or even surprised.

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Both the media and many high profile politicos still seem to be flailing around trying to find some way to label, quantify and pigeonhole the myriad tea party groups which are springing up all around the country. Even Karl Rove, during a stop to promote his new book, expressed concerns over whether or not they might spur some sort of third party movement which could hurt the Republican party. After some time out in the trenches I regret to inform them all that the task of defining this movement may well be impossible.

Early on, I was also taken in by a lot of the media hype and found many of my preconceived notions being challenged.

Read the whole thing if you want to know what Tea Party groups really are like.

PJ

Thank you for the link to the article. I just don't understand why anyone would be surprised.
Tea Partiers simply are concerned deeply about
the direction the country has been shoved in the
last year and want to do something about it. In
November the results of the elction will prove
their numbers and sincerity. I suppose some people
have read only the smears from the mainstream media about the movement though.

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Tea Partiers simply are concerned deeply about the direction the country has been shoved in the last year and want to do something about it.

Really? I would suggest that some of the signs many of the attendees hold up would point to other motivations than a simple concern over that.

You can hardly blame some for questioning their motives. It's not just from reading mainstream media. It's from reading the - sometimes deeply offensive and hate-filled - signs the Tea-Partiers are holding up all on their own. It's difficult to distort the sentiment or smear the message when it comes direct from the source and not through the filter of a third party.

If they don't want to be questioned and if their message really is as simple - or simplistic - as you claim for them, Patti, then they should hold up signs reflecting that message. Not the ones they have been holding, which give another message entirely.

LabRat

I don't think it’s fair to label an entire movement based upon the actions of a few individuals. Are some of the signs inflammatory? Certainly. Are the majority of them so? Definitely not. It’s impossible to control what everyone at a rally that big does. Blaming the entire movement for that would be the same as blaming the entire peace movement in the 60’s because a few people decided to set off explosives and kill people.

Speaking of the anti-war movement, here are a few photos from the March 20, 2010 rally in Los Angeles, complete with Obama/Hitler posters. (Gee, I thought only racist, fear-mongering, right-wing whites did that. Go figure.)

Note: originally I had posted the photos here. But they are extremely offensive; many are anti-semetic filth. Here is the link: http://www.ringospictures.com/index.php?page=20100320

If anyone thinks the LA rally was not representative, just click on the links on the right hand side, and you can see pictures of other anti-war rallys across the US in recent months.

Oh, and here is a very interesting video which takes a trip down memory lane.

LabRat, my friend... yes, there have been some offensive signs. Out of thousands of rallies across the country for over a year, with hundreds of thousands of people attending, there have been a few. (Nobody ever seems to hold that against the Palestinians, btw) The two Tea Parties I attended did not feature any ugly signs, to the best of my recollection, and I made a point of moving around the crowd checking out the signs. But I'm pretty sure that you've never actually been to a Tea Party, what with you being in Scotland and all -- correct me if I'm wrong. So what you're forced to rely on is second-hand reports, and the media (in general) is far from objective on this topic. They have a narrative, and they look for the images that reinforce that narrative. Reuters and the BBC are particularly bad, from what I've heard. Not the way Perry White would have done it, but it's been documented many times.

So, in a crowd of thousands, the cameras are going to look for and publicize the ugliest signs they can find. The whole point of the linked article is that the media portrayal is far from complete or accurate.

Here's a link to some poll analyses suggesting that Tea Partiers are supported by about 28% of Americans, and 13% of those supporters are Democrats. Also, demographically, the Tea Party crowd is very very representative of the population as a whole.

I'm just saying.

PJ