Jack & Jill Politics

Sally Kohn of MovementVision.org was recently able to show in crisp, clear video how Tea Party members are going way past their ridiculous, racist and often misspelled signs behind closed doors in the act of saying what they really think. This time, they can’t claim that these weren’t “real” Tea Partiers who just “showed up” at a rally with crazy signs saying crazy things to make the Tea Party look bad on TV.

No, behind closed doors with one of their leaders and financial backers Dick Armey of FreedomWorks, they laugh appreciatively at the notion of Texas seceding and talk more than once about practical ways in which the states can leave the federal government. It was an all-white meeting, it seems and little did they know that they’d been infiltrated by someone perhaps less sanguine about advocating civil war, secession and treason talk.

They are who we thought they were and are becoming increasingly brazen/desperate. The Tea Party apparently believes that Barack Obama has to be stopped, by any means necessary. That a nation that could elect a black president is a nation that they just can’t live in or support. So it must be time to create a new nation with perhaps a much whiter president in charge. Forget democracy! That doesn’t really work for the Tea Party apparently.

I’m all for freedom of speech. I do, however, think we need to keep a close eye on these folks for signs that they are turning talk into action. Because action in support of secession btw is treason and is very illegal. Lookahere — there’s a pattern here we ignore at our peril — calling the President a socialist/communist/fascist who wants to enslave Americans, attacking the Civil Rights Act, making secession an actual topic in Texas election cycles all add up to fear of a black president in search of a way to take out a black president. I don’t think so.

I’m thankful to Sally (who is white, btw) for going into the lion’s den aka the Tri-State Liberty Summit on May 23, 2010 to show us what’s really going on. Now we really know what they mean when they say they are going to “take back America.” Worth a watch.

From Huffington Post:

Now, if you’re a well-to-do, older white person (as all the recent polls suggest most Tea Party activists are, compared with the rest of the population), there are only two possible reactions to the growing reality of racial diversity in America.

Option 1: You can accept that white supremacy (and the disproportionate economic, political and cultural power that has come with it) is and has always been an unjust but convenient excuse for why a few elites hold all the cards and the rest of us — including most white people — are left empty-handed. But I guess that would require actually accepting that you will never be one of those supreme elites under the current system and that the only way for you to get ahead is to join with everyone else who, like you, has ultimately been left behind. That’s a lot of self-awareness for a class of folks who have generally thrived on denial.

This leaves us with Option 2: Reject the United States of America, a nation that — though formed in the spirit of racial purity and the subjugation of others — is somehow now trying to live up to words that the Founding Fathers never actually meant but wrote down for good measure. The idea of many people joining to form one nation was fine when all those folks were white — or even white-ish — but Mexican immigrants and a black President is just too much to swallow. We “patriots” are starting over.

In case you’re reading this and thinking, “Forming a separate nation? That’s not what the Tea Party stands for!” Well, think again. And watch this video.

I think most Americans are suffering with economic insecurity and many white Americans are genuinely struggling with a sense of cultural displacement as well. That’s real. The Tea Party, and all political movements, should be helping Americans adapt to the changing world around them — not inciting them to hateful separation. After all, inclusion, unity, moving forward together — these have always been core American values. Secession, on the other hand, is treason.