The Teabagger Who Made his Bed

The young man, Chris Reichert, who harassed an elderly man who suffers from Parkinson's says he is sorry for what he did. I am so glad that this fellow's actions were filmed and then spread far and wide through the Internet and the news networks. It showed these imbecilic teabaggers for what they really are. It also showed what mob actions do to people who are easily swayed by misinformation.

Mr. Reichert says that he snapped and that what he did was shameful. He says he has not slept since. This is good. I hope there are others out there who are having restless nights as well. They have been whipped into a frenzy by the propaganda of the likes of FOX Noise, Limbaugh, and the rest of the extremist rabble rousers. In Reichert's case he says he had never been to such a "political rally." He also says he will never go to another.

The organizers of the mob condemned the actions of Reichert and the others who harrassed the man. One has to wonder if the organizers are really sorry. They got the publicity that they sought. Nothing is better than seeing counter protesters being put in their place by the mob. I would guess that there were many who saw Reichert's actions as justified.

History shows that most revolutionary activities are carried out by mobs created by the fomenters of the revolts. It is pretty easy to set mobs in motion. Usually the are made up of the ignorant and the violent elements of society which are easily manipulated. We are seeing this sort of activity among the teabaggers. They are being set in motion by the extremist elements of the Republican Party and their media hacks. The white supremacists and other racist elements, the extremist anti-tax/anti-government groups have moved to the teabagger groups to garner acceptance by more of the masses. I fear that we are very close to assassinations of government officials from politicians to bureaucrats.

Now is the time for saner heads to prevail. Unfortunately there are no statesmen among the Republicans today who might take a stand and bring sanity back to their party. There have been some half heated attempts at condemning the violence, but most of the Republicans fear for their seats. They are too spineless to take a stand. Instead they simply fall further victim to the extremist rhetoric and move themselves further to the right in an attempt to maintain their power and status. They are certainly not "patriots." It is a sad time in which we live.

Oath Keepers: Read it and Weep. Better Yet, Shiver. This is Scary Suff

Just read this post on Mother Jones and see what the treasonous crazies are up do. It is an increasingly scary country in which we live, and the Republicans are in league with and attempting to enable these folks by gutting state gun control laws nationwide. It reeks of a power hungry mob that lost its control when Bush and Cheney left office. It probably also fears a mixed race president. My guess is that many of the folks are white supremacists and radical Christians who have united.

Protesters in the Sorghum Parade

In our section of the country and probably throughout the nation, fall is a time for festivals. The Native Americans celebrated fall as a time of harvest and thanksgiving for a good crop season. The Pilgrims did the same. The modern fall festivals are primarily a way to draw money into an area using some kind of gimmick. In our area, we have an apple festival, a marble festival, a copper festival, and many others, all tied to a local industry or tradition.

For our town it is the Sorghum Festival. In the mountains of Georgia early settlers found that they could grow sorghum cane and produce a thick, molasses-like syrup, good as a sweetener and good with biscuits and butter. Each year for the last 4o or so the local Jaycees have produced a festival that centers on sorghum making, where the cane is ground with a mule-powered mill, the juice cooked, and the syrup bottled. Together with traditional music, games, and arts and crafts, it draws a large crowd for two weekends in October.

The festival kicks off with a parade of floats, cars, horseback riders, tractors, and the usual small town attractions. This year there was an entry that turned many off. The so-called teabaggers entered themselves. They carried their hate filled posters and yelled nasty things about the president and the government as they walked along. Interestingly enough they got little positive response from the crowd. One lady in particular made me want to get in her face. She carried a poster with a nasty comment about public servants and a drawing of an outdoor toilet on top of another.

As a retired public servant, it simply outraged me that these people had the nerve to walk along behind firemen, and past police and EMT's, who were making the route safe for them to walk, and chant nasty lines and carry nasty signs putting down those sworn to protect them. Then there are the soldiers, public servants themselves, who have fought to protect their right to protest. I still seethe with anger when I think about it.

As I said, the people in our town are pretty polite, so they mostly remained silent or laughed at the outrageousness of the teabaggers' behavior. In the area where we stood amongst about 150 people, only two small groups or three or four cheered as they went by. It was very heartening to watch the response of the viewers. The people around me were outraged. The parade announcer ignored them as well. All in all, it was quite a negative response to a bunch of anti-government, unpatriotic Republicans in a Republican stronghold. I am proud of my town.