By now, most of you have seen this video. A teabagger now known to be Chris Reichert of Victorian Village, a neighborhood in Columbus, OH, taunted and threw money at a man suffering from Parkinson's Disease. (Conservatives must get off on attacking Parkinson's sufferers. Remember this?) According to Wikipedia, Victorian Village:
is considered a gay village. Many of the homes are owned by same-sex couples, contributing to the diversity of the neighborhood. Gay gentrification was instrumental in the redevelopment of Victorian Village after the area declined in the 1960s and 1970s.
A Freudian might say that Mr. Reichert, his masculinity either challenged or stimulated from living in close proximity to gay people, got all excited from being part of a mob and symbolically sodomized the man: You can figure out for yourself what throwing the dollars all over the guy stands in for. The cameras gave Mr. Reichert an opportunity for others to see his manhood in action, at least as much manhood as one can show when mocking an older man with a degenerative disease.
To me, the teabagger mob action of last week was a form collective sexual ecstasy that met the needs of people who feel powerless in most aspects of their lives. There was an orgiastic spree of screaming and shouting, obscene talk, faces uncontrollably warped by anger and fear, and horn blowing and invocations of God, all culminating in a frantic orgasm of unspeakably filthy phone messages and bricks hurled through symbolic glass windows.
In the end, it all comes down to a sick obsession with President Obama. It's like the men fear and are fascinated by black male sexuality, while the women -- who comprise 55% of teabaggers -- fear it and are attracted to it. The fascination and attraction engenders self-loathing -- of which they have no shortage anyway -- which amps up the emotional chaos. They articulate these feelings through a fetishistic veneration of the Constitution that brooks no interpretation other than their own and a fear of Big Government (draw what symbolic conclusion you will) that did not exist when Obama's white predecessor assaulted the Constitution and increased the reach of government into personal lives.
So this is what it's all about: The same old baseless fear of white men that a black man is out to get their women. They don't see that the President is a happily married family man with children. In fact, they don't see him as a human being at all. He's a malign force after them personally, an inhuman thing to be gelded for the safety of us all.
Am I oversimplifying? Is teabaggery just about race and sex? Well, in post-Freudian America, what isn't about race and sex? OK, there are other things at work, such as paranoia, tribalism, nativism, jingoism, anti-intellectualism, and a blasphemous practice of Christianity that prays for God to intervene in secular political matters. But mostly, teabaggery (or teabuggery, in the case of Mr. Reichert) is about fear and loathing of The Other. And The Other is anyone not like them, as represented by the figure of an African-American president who somehow manages to keep his cool and rise above their most obscene deprecations. Which must drive them even crazier. I knew I liked the guy...
Parsley's Pics writes that the rage is not about health care? How good it be? It's completely disproportionate to a law that guarantees insurance to 32,000,000 of our fellow Americans, eliminates rescission, allows people with pre-existing conditions to purchase insurance, and rebates $250 to senior citizens as part of closing the Part D doughnut hole...
Barely ten, I bolted from Rose Chintz china...
"I feel paying taxes is one of the most patriotic things I get to do as a citizen of the United States"...
We'll just keep on keepin' on...
Old Man River, he just keeps rollin' along...
Those teabaggers just love the Constitution...except for free speech. State your preference for leader of the free world and you'll get run off the road. Sarah Palin thinks (to the extent that she thinks) this is just peachy and wants to see more of it...
True Story Dept: Oklahoma encourages hate crimes based on race or religion...
Here's Dirpy, a cool app that transfers YouTube audio to iTunes. Enjoy!
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12 comments:
The racial/sexual scenario in the teabagger mind-set doesn't surprise me at all; I've recognized the racial response to Obama from the very beginning. But thy'll never see it. As Malcom X once said: "No bigot ever called himself that."
Dirpy looks cool; I've bookmarked it. Thanks!
Teabaggers are just the opposite of what decent humanity is/was. They have lost their minds and their dignity, completely. There is simply no excuse for such deviant behavior, by anyone, ever.
Interesting analysis. It does explain why they seem to have such an irrational reaction (to health care) to something that benefits most of them. It also goes right along with the raging against homosexuality and adultery by republican politicians who are continually getting caught in the very behavior they condemn.
This is america, all right, and has been since at least the 18th century.
Love, C.
Roy: They will not admit to the racist aspects ever. The N word? John Lewis is a liar. Posters of a snarling Barack Obama slitting the throat of Uncle Sam (cravenly from behind, no less)? That has nothing to do with racism. Exhortations to lynching and gelding? Didn't happen, and you can't prove it. And if you can, it's from a lefty liberal source (like KLEW of the Quad Cities, WA). Emotional appeals for states rights? We hate Big Government. All of this added together? There's no racism in teabagging. To prove it, I have a black pastor. (Actually cited as proof in an on-line debate.)
Ima: Deviant behavior is the precise phrase.
Jerry: Thanks for stopping by! The obsession of the right with sex suggests an entire field of study. When you get right down to it, there's a sexual elitism at work: They want to legislate the sex lives of others while being free to do whatever they want.
C: It's not just America, it's post-Freudian America!
Great posts, K--tho I haven't been commenting I've been reading your recent teabagger posts with a lot of interest & agreement. FWIW, I gave a shout out to this writing today on RFB. Great to see someone tackling this offensive & dangerous rhetoric & action head on.
I take this very personally. My mother has had Parkinsons for 10 years and is quite disabled because of it. Thanks to God she has insurance and good access to health care.
Those tea baggers are goin' straight to hell!
John: Thanks for the props and the support.
Tara: The father of the family across the street from us when I was growing up died from Parkinson's. He was a genuinely lovely man suffering from a genuinely vicious disease. The meanness behind the mockery of it is unfathomable. Anyone who does this has found something in himself that is not human.
This is my third try at trying to post my comment today. So, instead of re-writing everything again, I'm just going to provide a couple of links.
The Columbus Dispatch ran a piece where Reichert apologizes. I think he is sincere and that he is genuinely ashamed and remorseful.
Before throwing darts at me, please read it.
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/03/24/dollar-bill-throw.html?sid=101
For all those folks who say this isn't about racism, I posted a piece in January listing all the racial slurs against Obama during his first year. Emails and photos don't lie.
http://parsleyspics.blogspot.com/2010/01/racial-slurs-during-obamas-first-year.html
If this thing gets through, thank you Mr. K for the link and for the excellent article.
tnlb: Thanks for the links. I've read his apology and concur that he is sincere. I'll stand by my analysis though.
Reichert isn't the first otherwise decent person to do something indecent as part of a mob. Which is a good reason to stay away from mobs, especially when you know in advance that that's what you're joining, meaning that the nature of these "rallies" was well-known.
But at least he's apologized, which is more than any other teabagger has done.
Only in Ohio. Sheesh. Thanks, K. Excellent post.
Willow: I wish we could say "only in Ohio." Or Tennessee or wherever. But of course this craziness is most everywhere. This is what is so freightening.
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