8.30.2010

Sharpton Marches, Teabaggers Sit; Honor Restored, Dream Reclaimed

Word Of The Day: "Doughy"





From Our Better Late Than Never Department:

The Washington Post, possibly suffering a massive brain seizure due to the heat, referred to the Beckapalooza at the Lincoln Memorial as a “grassroots” event. Oh, absolutely; I’ve lost track of how many up-by-the-bootstraps, grassroots mobilizations had rallies with custom-built stages, state-of-the-art sound, high-end multi-camera video production and five or six Jumbotrons.

And, oh, did they use those Jumbotrons — to crank out a steady diet of smarmy, syrupy video trailers full of classically empty nationalistic propaganda language about the Greatest Country In The World and the Greatest People On Earth. The stage production may have been pure Albert Speer, but the video pieces were pure Reifenstahl. For a bunch of people who cherished freedom and hated being made to do something, they sure did enjoy being told what to do. Not even the most craven, tweedy Liberals enjoyed being bossed around more than this bunch.

The Posse and I could only stand in awe at the high number of pasty, doughy, Twinkie-fed folks who turned out to help Restore Honor. It’s almost a good thing Glenn Beck didn’t schedule a march, because he’d have been sued by the families of the nearly 100,000 heart attack and heatstroke victims among the roughly 200,000 who Restored Honor on Saturday. It was at this rally that the folding camp chair would become symbolic and synonymous with your slackly-rallying Teabagger.

I thought it was interesting that Beck made such a bit deal about his people not bringing signs. Did they honestly think they could cover up the rank hate and racism that oozes out of them? They may not have had signs, but we saw some nasty t-shirts at that rally. Besides, we’ve already seen plenty of them for the past year and a half, so it’s not like the rest of us don’t know who they are, and where they’re from, and what they stand for, and what they’re about.

I honestly don’t know which was worse: the possibility of being threatened and roughed up by Teabaggers, or being grabbed and manhandled by Al Sharpton’s henchmen. Both of these happened Saturday — to a young man holding a “Re-Elect Obama” sign assaulted by members of Glenn Beck’s bunch at the Lincoln Memorial, and to yours truly and to fellow Posse members jerked around by the arms by parade marshals while covering the Sharpton march; what those New York guys didn’t realize is that they were in Washington, DC, which has the highest number of lawyers per square inch of anywhere in the USA, and consequently full of people who will sue your ass. God help anyone doesn’t toe the line at the Sharpton press scrum.

And speaking of our Dear Lord, there was a whole lot of God being pushed on both sides of this circus. God was asked to bless America at least twice (by both sides). God was asked to bless the crowd (on both sides). God was thanked for Martin Luther King and Barack Obama. God was invoked in remarks on religious diversity that strangely didn’t include atheists.

The opposition event wasn’t so much about whether or not they kept Beck off the Lincoln Memorials grounds as it was about Reclaiming The Dream. Organizers included the National Action Network, the SEIU, and the usual suspects, so they weren’t any more “grassroots” than the Beck event, although NAN couldn’t afford Jumbotrons. Still, while they didn’t have Jumbotrons, they did have Al Sharpton.

8.23.2010

More Lame Teabagger Hackery

They love me! They really, really love me!

After spending the better part of the past two or three months cranking ‘em out every other week — including more goddamn’ oil spill cartoons than I care to think about — I decided to take a break and finish getting ready for my two-week trip to South Africa, which I just returned from this past weekend.

So, the other night, while doing my normal rounds of rightist blog surfing for cheap laffs, what should I stumble over but this entry at Michael Wolfe’s blog at americana83.com, declaring the Teabaggers’ opposition is hypocritical and swearing all up and down that the Tea Party “Movement” isn’t racist, despite the recent Philadelphia rally which was made of FAIL, the recent video-hacking antics of Little Andy Breitbart and the racist email blasting of New York Gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino.

Along with citing my video of the July 4, 2009 Teabagger rally on Capitol Hill, Mr. Wolfe also took considerable liberties with my work in the form of an attempted parody of my late 2008 cartoon “Obama’s Big Bus”:

I briefly considered writing to complain and to post a takedown notice under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, except that 1: parody, as I recall, falls under “fair use”, and 2: I was unable to type properly as I was laughing so hard, although not in the manner that Wolfe might have intended.

So I finally decided, what the hell, man; why not keep it classy and be a good sport? And, besides, as they say, any publicity is good publicity. Thanks, Wolfe.