Wednesday, April 15th, 2009...3:48 pm
Thoughts About Teabagging
A friend of mine told me to be careful, that we shouldn’t be so dismissive of the teabagging movement. But man, they continue to make it easy.
One guy had a sign that said “Obama is a Japanese Robot.” Sloganeering like that will bring us liberals to our knees. By the way, any one get a photo of that guy?
The song “Sweet Home Alabama” was blasted to the crowd. First off, y’all have the wrong state. Secondly, with all of the criticisms that we smartass lefties have been throwing at the more neanderthal aspects of the teabaggers, you guys really want to be blasting a song that praises George Wallace?
The Star quoted one retiree from Green Valley. He said that he wants to be able to enjoy his retirement. Of course, two of the programs that help him do so are Social Security and Medicare. Both involve an awful lot of government spending and bureaucracy and are far closer to the socialism that some of their signs decried than anything Barack Obama has proposed.
Anyone bother to tell the people in this crowd that most of their taxes will be going down and they are essentially protesting tax increases on the wealthy? If this is populism, Buckey O’Neill and Sockless Jerry Simpson are turning over in their graves.
12 Comments
April 15th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Ted, as a Skynyrd fan from way back, I must dispute your contention that Sweet Home Alabama is a song that contains praise for George Wallace. In fact, one of the live versions of the song has the band singing “Boo! Boo! Boo” after the line, “In Birmingham, they love the Gov’nor.”
One could even argue that the line that follows that one (“Now we all did what we could do”) speaks to the band’s efforts to oppose Wallace.
I hope Mr. Prezelski will remember a Skynyrd fan don’t need him around anyhow…at least if he is going to make one of my favorite bands sound like apologists for Wallace.
April 15th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
“The lyrics about the governor of Alabama were misunderstood. The general public didn’t notice the words ‘Boo! Boo! Boo!’ after that particular line, and the media picked up only on the reference to the people loving the governor.”
-Skynyrd’s Ronnie Van Zant (quote found on Wikipedia)
April 15th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
“Anyone bother to tell the people in this crowd that most of their taxes will be going down and they are essentially protesting tax increases on the wealthy?” – Tedski
If inflation is a tax (it is) then taxes are not being lowered for those people. When you greatly increase the deficit, and “lower taxes” at the same time, and you do it by borrowing and inflation (defined as expansion of the money supply), you are still robbing the public, albeit in a much more insidious and evil way than increasing taxes out in the open where everyone can see you.
NB: Inflation is a HIGHLY regressive tax.
April 15th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Teabagging. Nuff said.
April 15th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
I’ve always interpreted the song the same way, Rex. And at the end of the song: “Yea, yea Montgomery’s got the answer.” Montgomery, of course, was the site of the bus boycott.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Oh, and c’mon Ted, surely you could have come up with gratuitous music reference to Styx in your post. Was it too obvious?
April 16th, 2009 at 12:30 am
Shows how good my hearing is.
I’d always heard it as ‘in Birmingham we LOST a governor, booM, booM, booM’ and assumed it was about Albert Patterson (who I confused with his son John Malcolm Patterson.)
Which when I did some digging after reading this post I discovered I had history a bit mixed up– Albert Patterson was assassinated in Phenix City after winning the Democratic nomination for attorney general, which led to his son John Patterson being elected governor. The younger Patterson ironically, with the backing of the Ku Klux Klan defeated Wallace in the 1958 Governor’s race. It was a pivotal moment for Wallace– in 1958 he had the backing of the NAACP (which Patterson later banned in Alabama) and after that Wallace vowed he’d never again be ‘out-segged.’ The next time he ran for governor four years later, Wallace had become the segregationist icon that he remained for the next ten years, until that day in a Laurel, Maryland parking lot when the bullets were directed at him and began him on a long, slow journey that eventually led to Wallace being elected Governor in 1982 because of the black vote.
But now that I’ve read up on my Alabama history I get the lyrics differently and they make more sense now.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:43 am
Lipton Teabag
“What’s your favorite curse word?” dunk, dunk….”hmmm, yes, I see.”
April 16th, 2009 at 10:30 am
no pic of the Japanese robot sign but more fodder for the wackos…
WASHINGTON (AP) _ A robot was inspecting a suspicious package on the North Lawn of the White House after tax protesters threw what appears to be a box of tea bags over the White House fence. That prompted officials to clear Pennsylvania Avenue Wednesday.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Hey Ted
I think the right using my song at a rally is a great idea, it is honor…..your friend Bruce Springsteen
P.S. I don’t think any of the dudes in Skynyrd are Righties…..
April 16th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Way to go, teabag throwing wingnuts. I’m sure all the people who got cleared from Pennsylvania Avenue were very impressed with your “message”.
I would have loved to see how passersby in DC greeted the teabaggers.
April 17th, 2009 at 10:09 am
re: “Sweet Home Alabama,” well, they do have a verse in response to Neil Young’s “Southern Man.” They’re trying to say that not every southerner is a hooded racist. Except for those that are.
And, don’t forget that Skynard’s “Saturday Night Special” is an indictment of the southern gun culture.
Having said all of that, I never need to hear “Freebird” again.