Don Palabraz

The teabaggers are holding their first national convention this weekend in Nashville, Tennessee with Sarah Palin scheduled as keynote speaker. Though the ‘movement’ likes to say it is not motivated by racism in any fashion, its convention got off to an embarrassing start when Congressman Tom Tancredo – mostly known as an anti-immigrant xenophobe - lamented the loss of Jim Crowism, in effect, and blamed the lack of literacy/civic tests at the polls as chief reason for President Obama’s electoral victory in 2008! Ah, ‘post-racial’ America is so fun! Now, in that same speech, Tancredo likened Obama to a ‘Socialist ideologue.” This is the second core stupidity of the teabaggers. Who can blame them though when they are instructed by historically inaccurate documentary attempts like Glenn Beck’s “Revolutionary Holocaust?”

I never underestimate the power of stupid in American politics (eight years of Bush Jr. and six years of Schwarzenegger) so while we can get our laughs at the expense of these teabaggers, we must not underestimate their ability to affect the body politic. Therefore, cultivating an understanding of the movement is a necessary task.Two articles in February’s Zmagazine by two outstanding chroniclers of right-wing views are extremely helpful in this regard.

Bill Berkowitz outlines the tea party movement’s hospitality for white supremacists:
http://www.zcommunications.org/tea-party-movement-by-bill-berkowitz

While Chip Berlet properly contextualizes right-wing populist frames (available in the print edition and not online unfortunately)

In this prison radio commentary, death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal reflects on the death of Howard Zinn. The People’s Historian, informed by his scholastic mind, was a public supporter of the effort to grant Abu-Jamal a re-trial.

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{Surprisingly This Was Not a Denny’s Restaurant!}

The Greensboro Sit-ins

Back in the day on February 1st, 1960, four young black college students challenged a white-only lunch counter policy in Greensboro, North Carolina. Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair Jr., and David Richmond carried out their devised sit-in when they entered Woolworth’s Five-and-Dime shop. After purchasing items at the store, the four North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College students then took to the seats of the segregated lunch counter and requested service. A waitress informed them that blacks weren’t served there and Clarence Harris, the manager of Woolworth’s, asked them to leave. They didn’t. The shop then closed early and the four left without being served only to return the very next day with additional students joining in. Over the course of the ensuing days and weeks the protests grew in size and scope until five months later Woolworth’s, affected economically by the action, agreed to integrate its lunch counter in July and welcome all to the table.

The example of the Greensboro sit-ins soon spread throughout the movement for civil rights as a means by which to stand up to injustice.

Last year’s Grammy award ceremony had me wondering ‘what the shit’ as Stevie Wonder was made to sing alongside the Jonas Brothers. This year the humiliation of yesteryear’s legitimate singers/musicians continued as Taylor Swift was paired with Stevie Nicks. The result was just awful as Swift never could hit a note! Her creeky voice didn’t mesh with that of Nicks and the generational gap in talent couldn’t have been felt more deeply. Sadder is the fact that Swift took home four Grammy’s including Album of the Year. Fret not fans of entropy! Every year the Grammy’s are turning into a rehash of the MTV Awards (Pink’s trapezee performance anyone?) This can only mean one thing! The new decade is continuing the cultural decay of its predecessor. The empire, my friends, is in decline!