Rage -- and talking about rage -- is all the rage these days.
Hot on the heels of an outbreak of threats against members of Congress, this week brought word that an Oklahoma Tea Party is planning to form an armed militia to help defend the state against the perceived encroachment of the federal government. This in a state where, 15 years ago next week, Timothy McVeigh's rage turned deadly.
Earlier this month, we learned that the FBI was investigating an anti-government extremist group that was sending letters to America's governors demanding they resign or be "removed." This followed the arrests of the Hutaree group, the radical Christian militia organization in Michigan that was plotting to kill police officers.
And with Tea Party members gathering for Tax Day protests across the country, we're getting a fresh wave of the ongoing debate about whether these groups are fueled by rage, racism, or class divisions. There is also talk about how much responsibility certain media outlets (such as Fox News and, uh, Fox News) and certain political figures (such as Sarah Palin, who urged her supporters to "reload," and Michele Bachmann, who said she wants her constituents "armed and dangerous") bear for inciting extremism with violent rhetoric.
The rising tide of anger is part of a disturbing trend. According to "Rage on the Right," a report released last month by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of so-called "Patriot" groups has skyrocketed in the last few years. In 2008, for example, there were 149 active Patriot groups -- in 2009, there were 512. The number of like-minded militia groups, meanwhile, went from 42 in 2008 to 127 in 2009. And "nativist extremist groups," which advocate vigilante action against undocumented workers, went from 173 in 2008 to 309 in 2009.
The report points to a significant difference between today's extremist groups and those from the 90s: a philosophical bond between these groups and parts of the Republican Party and the right wing media. "Unlike the 1990s," says the report, "the Patriot movement's central ideas are being promoted by people with large audiences, such as Fox News' Glenn Beck and U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann." This cross-pollination is all the more unsettling given that, in the 90s, the militia movement culminated with McVeigh blowing up the Murrah Federal Building.
While it's important that we take the threats and the rage seriously, it is just as important that we dig deeper by providing some historical context and understanding the underlying impact of economic distress. Despite the Dow 11,000 and a few scattered positive indicators, Americans are hurting. The real unemployment rate is still at 17 percent -- meaning over 26 million people are unemployed or underemployed. And the first three months of 2010 saw a record number of homes lost to foreclosure -- with over a million homes expected to be repossessed by the end of the year.
And in times of economic upheaval, when huge numbers of people are losing their jobs, losing their homes, and feeling powerless to do anything about it, it has always been the case that people look for scapegoats. We've seen this over and over again throughout America history.
In the 1880s, the post-Civil War Gilded Age came to an end with a severe economic crisis that culminated in the depression of 1893. But the search for scapegoats began early. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 suspended immigration from China, after Chinese immigrants had just helped build the transcontinental railroad. Attacks on them by white mobs happened all over the country.
As one newspaperman put it:
Why permit an army of leprous, prosperity-sucking, progress-blasting Asiatics befoul our thoroughfares, degrade the city, repel immigration, drive out our people, break up our homes, take employment from our countrymen, corrupt the morals of our youth, establish opium joints, buy or steal the babe of poverty or slave, and taint with their brothels the lives of our young men?
An ancestor of Glenn Beck's?
Back then, as now, the agitation resulted in the formation of a loose political party. Called the People's Party or the Populists, the group's defining characteristics were outlined by historian Richard Hofstadter in "Populism: Nostalgic Agrarianism."
Central to the Populists was the idea of a Golden Age. "The utopia of the Populists was in the past, not the future," wrote Hofstadter. "The Populists looked backward with longing to the lost agrarian Eden." Sound familiar? The myth of an America that existed before we had all our problems has fueled many campaigns, and has been used not just by fringe candidates but also by mainstream ones like Ronald Reagan who, in 1980, waxed nostalgic about his youth, "when this country didn't even know it had a racial problem."
Hofstadter also pointed to the Populists' rigid us vs. them view of he world. It was the masses against the elites:
As opposed to the idea that society consists of a number of different and frequently clashing interests -- the social pluralism expressed, for instance, by Madison in the Federalist -- the Populists adhered...to a kind of social dualism: for all practical purposes only one simple division need be considered.
In other words, as Palin would put it, real Americans and everybody else.
Conspiracy theories were also rampant. According to Hofstadter, the Populists saw post-war American history as a "sustained conspiracy of the international money power." This obsession with issues of currency also played into a virulent anti-Semitism. Though this particular brand of bigotry was rarely acted upon at the time, "populist anti-Semitism does have its importance -- chiefly as a symptom of a certain ominous credulity in the Populist mind."
History shows that such ominous credulity becomes much more ominous in times of economic hardship. And it becomes even more ominous when politicians pander to it, rather than address the underlying causes. For example, while the shameful internment of Japanese citizens during World War II is well known, many Americans are unaware that during the Great Depression, the United States actually deported large numbers of American citizens of Mexican ancestry. The program was implemented by President Hoover's Secretary of Labor, William Doak.
As for anti-Semitism in the 30s, it wasn't just part of the angry rhetoric, it was acted upon. In 1935, for example, many shops owned by Jews in Harlem were destroyed by a mob of African Americans for whom the shopkeepers were simply the most available scapegoats. And, of course, the flames were fanned by the wildly popular, xenophobic and openly anti-Semitic Father Coughlin, whose radio show was, at one time, listened to by one in three Americans.
In 1969, Pete Hamill published "The Revolt of the White Lower Middle Class" in New York magazine. It reads like it could have been published yesterday. "In any conversation with working-class whites, you are struck by how the information explosion has hit them," he wrote. "Television has made an enormous impact on them, and because of the nature of that medium -- its preference for the politics of theatre, its seeming inability to ever explain what is happening behind the photographed image -- much of their understanding of what happens is superficial." And this was well before today's powerful information explosion.
"The working-class white man sees injustice and politicking everywhere in this town now," Hamill wrote, "with himself in the role of victim." He noted "an increasing lack of personal control over what happens to them." The result was a "growing talk of revolt." Hamill concluded: "if the stereotyped black man is becoming the working-class white man's enemy, the eventual enemy might be the democratic process itself."
A few years later, Reagan ran for president using as his bogeyman the "Chicago welfare queen." Today, 92 percent of Tea Partiers believe that the president is moving the country toward socialism -- an opinion shared by almost half the nation.
Combine the anxiety created by downward economic mobility with relentless media attacks and you get scapegoating run amok. Last month, a Harris poll showed that, among Republicans, 57 percent believe Obama is a Muslim, 38 percent believe he "is doing many of the things that Hitler did," and 24 percent believe that the president "may be the Anti-Christ."
Even if the poll's methodology was flawed, and the numbers are a fraction of these, this is insane. But, according to psychologist Michael Bader, paranoia is a natural response to the suffering brought on by economic hard times.
"Paranoid people are trying their best to make sense of and mitigate feelings of helplessness and worthlessness," Bader writes. "People can't tolerate feeling helpless and self-hating for very long. It's too painful, too demoralizing, and too frightening. They have to find an antidote. They have to make sense of it all in a way that restores their sense of meaning... their self-esteem, and their belief in the possibility of redemption."
To do so, they often create a narrative, "a set of beliefs about the way the world is and is supposed to be -- that helps make sense of chaos." Often this involves projecting blame onto others and the creation of an enemy to go after.
So, as we head into the mid-term elections, and get more and more disturbing reports of extremist behavior and more and more of the rhetoric of rage, let's keep in mind that the explanations that people give to pollsters and reporters are often themselves part of the reality they create to deal with their growing economic anxiety.
Yes, it's shameful that many politicians and media figures are going to fan the flames and deliberately try to turn this anxiety into scapegoating. But our leaders shouldn't lose sight of the need to address the root causes of the anger. Making sure that financial reform legislation actually ends up protecting Main Street instead of Wall Street would be a good start. So would another jobs bill. And the administration needs to put its foreclosure prevention program in high gear, before more underwater Americans lose their homes.
"The pretax incomes of the wealthy have soared since the late 1970s," wrote the New York Times' David Leonhardt, "while their tax rates have fallen more than rates for the middle class and poor." This is just one of the many statistics fueling the growing sense of unfairness.
So, at the same time that we need Beck, Palin, Bachmann, et al. to stop pouring gasoline on the crackling fires of discontent burning across America, our leaders need to do a lot more than they are to address the underlying causes of this discontent.
Follow Arianna Huffington on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ariannahuff
Rep. Luis Gutierrez: Obama Must Act To Ease Arizona's Deportation Panic
But there is no moral high ground in portraying an entire group of people who you don't know as racists. Many of them may have voted for our first African American president for all you know.
And there's absolutely no moral high ground in misrepresenting their justified outrage at the current unsustainable spending spree that's going on. When the financial futures of all of our children are ruined, you will be doubly culpable, as you not only ignored the spending but attempted to slander those who spoke out against it.
There is not moral high ground being claimed Toots...the tea baggies never had any...these same people could have been howling in the streets when the irresponsible BS that led to our current mess was created (same arguments) but NO they are Holier-than -God Repugs calling the shots so what did you hear? N*words, anti-Gay slurs, faked videos showing Batty Bachmann's millions? No we heard crickets and for that they deserve moral scorn for venality and hypocrisy
Rage is one thing,but dishonesty is another. In the name of fristration for whatever reason, tea baggers (who in reality are overwhelmingly Republicans by another name), are trying to re-fight the 2008 election. They are angry not only because they lost big but that a black man is President. We must change the thought atmosphere of this nation, indeed the world, for the better or we perish. We must always try to reach for something higher and better--in America and in all corners of the world! What history shows is how very little we have learned from it. Therefore it keeps repeating itself especially in the area of human relations. Enemies of humanity abound determined to ensure that we never make any real progress in the way we relate to and treat one another. They even believe that nasty behavior will be rewarded in fame, riches, electoral gains and good press. The brief triumph of November of 2008, spearheaded by young people, showed the world a better and more hopeful face of America; but the old guards are forcefully pushing back seeking to return us to our worst selves. I believe that Light will return in the end--because Light and love are more powerful than darkness and hate!!! Oh Christian America, which values of Christ are you prepared to uphold? Love or hate, peace or social strife.? We always have a choice. That is the true work of eternity!
www.onehumanityvision.com
The T-baggers are better educated than the norm,
They are more affluent,
On average, they are more mature, ave. age 45
They have no significant arrest records
They are 51% Dems. and Independent,
Many of them voted for Obama when he was black, He has not changed color. They have not , over-nite, all of a sudden become racists. What they are, is disappointed. Disappointed in that the
change they voted for was not the kind of change they expected. .. And as for transparency in govt.
,Pea soup is more transparent.
Fourty percent Independents (disgruntled Republicans and Libertarians), only 5% Dems. And they have an average of 12th+ grade educations; wow, isn't that something? Sixty-three percent are Fox dittoheads and get their news exclusively from Fox.
They didn't seem to have any problems when Bush was expanding government, waging an unjust and expensive war, and running up the deficit. Oh that's right, they were "asleep" - the "sleeping giant" - up to 18% of the population. An ultraconservative minority of disaffected Republicans and Bush voters who started protesting within a few weeks of Obama's presidency. Sore losers. Some of them bigots, some of them just ignorant and paranoid.
It's pretty obvious what most of them are all about. Read the rest of the study - the pdf file.
Yes, many American's are in a desperate financial situation. So what are our leaders doing about it? Are they focusing like a laser on creating jobs? No. They've created a $787 billion slush fund so far used to stimulate Congress into passing their version of health care reform and to keep alive unsustainable union contracts.
Many American's are filled with justifiable anger at the politicians who lie to our faces that they are controlling spending and cutting taxes, and fear for their children's financial future because of this.
You have a lot of gall, coupled with complete ignorance of the facts, to compare this situation to Nazi Germany.
(read ...Csars !) into crucial gvt. positions
If I want to be wealthy, then certainly I'll be powerful, too. I want to sustain and build my wealth. I work the network, use my inheritance, become famous or start a company - or defraud others. I then become increasingly detached from the people in my company/organization who actually work. My income is astronomical, while I chip away at my employees' benefits, pay and time, all the while encouraging their loyalty. I discard them at random. Simultaneously, I invest my money only where it is a sure bet. Insider trading wears many hats. I look upon the masses with disdain - how stupid are they that they can't make big money like I do? Meanwhile, I and my co-conspirators feel more and more justified creating elaborate ways to ensure more and more money for ourselves via creative accounting, flat-out fraud or basically stealing. The American Scream.
For example, I've heard people say, "I built that house." Yet they didn't pick up a hammer once! They paid a contractor, an architect and a crew and they managed the building of the house.
Did you watch Undercover Boss? It's on On Demand. Watch it. Most of the people who run large organizations have not only never done the actual work their workforce has to do, but they've never even observed it firsthand!
Rod Blagojevich was on The Apprentice. This guy was the governor of the large state of Illinois until very recently. Not only does he NOT know how to use a computer or text on a cellphone, he doesn't even know how to figure it out intuitively (texting is something a monkey can do.) How did he rise up? On the hard work of others, obviously.
I had a boss who was a VP at a bank. He couldn't figure out how to use Spellcheck in Word or how to fax a document.
These types of examples are indicative of today's attitudes, which is that someone else does all the dirty work. But there is no respect for the people who do it, either. And the pay is never good.
where to turn. They feel guilty if they have a family, their family unit is suffering emotionally,
and there is no relief in sight for them. They feel lost and alone and don't know where to turn.
They feel let down by the Government, because they have yet to personally feel any of the
relief Washington, Bank and Corporations are feeling. They know it isn't logical to blame
one man, the President, but that is where everyone else's anger is directed so they start
doing it as well because someone is to blame for all of this.
Then they attend a speech or a peaceful protest only to get caught up in the mob mentality
of it and before they know it they are doing and saying things they never thought they would do.
These people have to distinguish themselves by separating themselves from the others
who have more than frustration and anger to express. If they don't they will loose more of them
selves into this movement that is nothing more than a group of angry, hateful, anti government,
radicals who are also racists. A group growing in numbers, who are here to stay and it is a
group that is simmering and are on the verge of an awful explosion.”
When a President and his Administration feel they are to big to fail they make horrible mistakes. The previous Administrations inability to this day, to take responsibility for their lack of oversight of Government, Departments and Programs and the under regulation of Wall Street and Banks that brought the system and this Country to a near unrecoverable crisis is pathetic.
Do you believe all people who turn to their Government for assistance
intentionally put themselves in that position?
Yes many have lost a lot. But they don't just "feel" let down by Washington. They have in fact been let down by Washington, as their leaders spend us into ruin and redistribute taxpayer dollars to ensure their own positions and reelections.
And they DO know what to do about it - they are taking action to speak out against it and planning for November.
You can't deny that some who claim to be Tea Party members are radical, racist, hateful,
with no real agenda other than to incite fear and anger. They slip into crowds of real Tea Party members to make their numbers appear bigger by including themselves in to the Party.
I personally believe there are Tea Party members with many believes, but just like Dems and Reps there are the extremists.
Quit your complaining of the past and start thinking out of the box and come up with solutions. Like i said RESPONSIBILITY is a hard thing.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/13/oklahoma-tea-party-plans_n_535412.html
Here, go and find out where the known hate groups are in your neck of the woods:
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/hate-map
I again totally disagree with Ariana's claim that the White Racists have any legitimate reasons to oppose any of the policies of President Obama that are based in anything other then the fact that he's Black.
And furthermore White Supremacists on the left are giving the White Racists on the right a pass only because the they agree with the White Racists that the Black Race and Culture and all the people in it are inferior.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all that White Supremacists on the left have done in supporting a Black President. I know that with 99.9% of all Whites believing that the Black Race and Culture has no worth and or value and therefore ought not exist its difficult dealing with all that the Black President has to do on one hand but trying to ignore, downplay and continue to marginalize his Race and Culture on the other.
But still, they can't fully accept a Black President is they number one won't even admit he's Black or two tell the truth about the opposition to him being Racist and or the White Supremacy that's obvious to anyone who's being honest.
TKCAL
Keep the serfs distracted while we militarize the police forces across the country strip away the peoples rights, since they are obviously too stupid to realize this is happening, they must not deserve to have any of their rights - so we will build our POLICE STATE stronger and take it all away from them, the lowly serfs that can't even see how BOTH parties have the same interest Power & Control
What about the growing Military presence around the world, over 700 bases in more than 135 countries - WARS of Aggression & Occupation throughout the Middle East - Except for the one place where the people actually need to be Liberated, the people of GAZA who are suffering the horrors of being in a Concentration Camp. But since the US government funds Israel and is paying for the execution of the people of GAZA - then of course War Monger-In-Chief Barack H. Obomber will not say anything, he'll just call the Murder & Slaughter in Afghanistan a JUST WAR.
And it's all because the left wing people and the right wing people are ALL so full of themselves to see the REAL Evils, the TRUE Enemies of freedom are the very people these serfs bow down to
Nonsense Endwar and this is exactly what so many of us on the left are talking about. No question about it you described George Bush to a tee. The unfounded Wars the blind support of Israel the trampling of Civil Rights the Tax Cuts for the super rich, you hit the nail on the head. But President Obama's campaign was supported by some of everybody and President Obama himself and his family come from the other side of White Racist elites.
There is no way in the world that elite White Racists would purposely place someone in power who's very presence would erase the myth of White Supremacy that has placed them in power.
The argument doesn't hold water. Too many formally marginalized groups were given hope from President Obama's election and too many White Racists are upset for him to be a "tool" or a "plant" of the people hoping to see him fail.
Try again.
TKCAL
as citizens, we've had to endure and adjust, bringing out the
worst in us as human beings. All ready brewing in termoil
and discontent you add idiots like Palin and Beck daring us,
when we have nothing to lose or desperate, only makes matters
worse and dangerous.