October 12, 2011
“I do not condone violence, There are no leaders in the building,
no rank and file members that condone violence, period.”
Eric Cantor, March 2010,
Responding to a spate of violent acts after passage of the health care bill.
This included broken windows at campaign offices,
threatening phone calls and faxes,
and a severed gas line at the home of a lawmaker’s brother.
On Wednesday, Congresschump Eric Cantor, the person the House GOP chose to represent them as majority leader, used a combination of half-truths and energetic lying when discussing the difference between the Occupy Wall Streeters (OCW) and Tea Partiers (TP). Here’s a portion of his latest performance, while speaking to a gaggle of reporters Wednesday about the TP’s September 2009 Washington, DC rally against “Obamacare”: “. . . you [reporters] didn’t hear — and some of the reports were inaccurate — you didn’t hear most of them [Tea Party protesters] encouraging any type of violent behavior. . .”
Cantor uses the phrase “you didn’t hear [TPers] encouraging violent behavior.” This half-truth obscures the fact that many did so another way: signs and posters. We’ve seen these regularly, at the anti-“Obamacare” rallies and virtually any other Tea Party rally. My guess is that if they sponsored a Rally for Motherhood, there’d be posters like these that appeared at a rally against “Obamacare.” Unfortunately, signs and posters encouraging violence are themes at political rallies of all kinds, whether anti-war marches or anti “Obamacare” rallies. But Cantor continually maintains that Tea Partiers do not support violence in their movement.
Certainly, they have the right to create and carry signs of their choosing. The Constitution permits free speech, at least up to the point of yelling “fire” in a theatre just for fun. Yet, one of the hallmarks of the Tea party movement is and always has been their advocacy of violence should they fail to get their way. 2nd Amendment solutions. Watering the tree of freedom with blood. Whether through signage or slogan, physical threat or verbal challenge, Tea Partiers seem ready to fight at the drop of a tricorn hat. They are not a peace movement. One does not see Gandhi’s face on Tea Partiers’ signs. Rational argument is not their strength, and consequently, they resort to the threat of force against those they view as effetes, weaklings, and parasites. And the threat is palpable.
Nonetheless, virtually no one in the media labels them “violent,” or “coercive,” or “bullying.” I will. They are. To a great degree, that’s their nature, selfish, often purposely undereducated authoritarians frightened by complexity. Frustrated with the messy process of negotiation and rationality, they seek simple solutions for complicated societal problems. They imagine persecution; thus every opponent is potentially a nail for their hammer.
The People, United, Will Always Be Repeated. Unfortunately, I recall the ’60s, the 70s. Our anti-Vietnam war protests were often laced with violence. The signs and posters were just plain scarily provocative. We felt obligated to push the envelope, so disgusted were we all with our country’s leadership. And it wasn’t simply the war. Remember the spate of assassinations, the widespread riots in Detroit (still, to this day, recovering), D.C., and Los Angeles. The Kent State killings, the Yippies, the Symbionese Liberation Army, and on and on, all were endemic at the time. We marched with extreme purpose, often to provoke mayhem. We ignited easily.
So, I’m hard pressed to criticize any group for encouraging force in service of a strongly and widely held belief that their government no longer works. Tea Partiers feel so alienated and frustrated perhaps it’s a reason to excuse the signs and posters, the verbal assaults. But, just as the right-wingers among us deride the (imagined) violent behavior of the Occupy Wall Streeters, labelling them violent anarchists, unlawful vagabonds, and potentially riotous bums, we too need to more forcefully and loudly label the Tea Party’s quick resort to threats of violence, in their signage, their subtext, and their personalities.
Why do so many of us, silently, let them get away with it?
