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Teabonics: More Reasons to Fear the Teabaggers

In the past, I’ve posted several sets of photos of signs taken at Tea Party protests to show the hateful, racist, and violent rhetoric. Today, I want to return to the subject of Tea Party signs, but from a slightly different perspective. Now, before looking at the signs, it is important to remember that these protesters think our country is on a downhill slide to socialism, communism, fascism, totalitarianism, and who knows what else. In any event, I think that it’s fair to conclude that they are worried about the future of America. Well, as these signs should attest, we should all be worried about America, but not for the reasons these folks are. The idiocy of the teabaggers has led to a whole new dialect: Teabonics! And yes, Sarah Palin was the first person to actually speak this new dialect. You betcha.

You need to look at the following signs very carefully.

I’m going to keep this simple. If you can’t spell “America” you probably shouldn’t be at the protest in the first place.

Frankly, I don’t know many people who want to drink Socilism, either.

The person wearing this shirt apparently doesn’t want any of that Socilism either.

This lady isn’t worried about Socilism; instead her concern is with “Scholiast Policies”. Do those policies have something to do with scholastics? I “hope” so…

Others apparently worry more about President Obama being a “socialest” and approve of Sen. McCain’s former status as a “mavrik”. And remember: That Confederate flag has nothing to do with racism, either.

Well, at least this person was able to spell “socialism” correctly, even if contractions are a bit of a challenge. Apparently, difficulty with contractions and apostrophes is actually endemic to and a hallmark of teabaggers:

I don’t know Rep. Nancy Pelosi; Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) says that she is a “nice lady”. In any event, I suspect that before you get elected to be the first woman Speaker of the House, you probably learn that “your” does not mean “you are”.

So either he added an apostrophe to “your” or he forget the “e” in “you’re”. In either event, he’s an idiot.

I’m am outraged that you managed to get through school without learning the difference between “your” and “you’re”.

Actually, I suspect that you’ll be fired if you don’t learn to differentiate “your” and “you’re”.

Next up in the Mr./Ms. Teabag America pageant, is Mr./Ms. “Patriotic Resisance”. We’re not sure where that’s located, but it sounds like a nice place for a summer vacation.

So  how does this “Wealth Redistribtion” thing work, anyway? Also, should I be more worried about Red Communism than say, Blue Communism, or maybe Purple Polka Dot Communism?

Oh, I see. Redistribtion of wealth involves deviding. Got it. By the way, with regard to his work ethic, I think standing on the street complaining is a terrific example of work ethic, don’t you?

No, “Feedom Doesn’t Come Free” … but a good public education does. This kid might try it instead of standing around protesting. His teachers must be so proud.

Given that the housing crisis was a large contributing factor to the current economic situation, you’d think that this guy wouldn’t be worried about a “mortage”. But his “childs” future should be great without any pesky apostrophes.

“Your are illegal”? Is that supposed to be “You are illegal” or perhaps “Your our illegal”?

I didn’t know that the US was a ship upon which “boarders” needed to be controlled. Ah, but these folks have American flags and mutton chops, so they must know better.

I’m confused. Are “stimulas” a kind of meat or are they something that you cook with? Maybe he meant spatulas?

Clearly Fox News is doing a great job keeping the teabaggers “infromed”. Way to go Fox! Of course if you actually watch Fox News, then this shouldn’t be a surprise:

I’ve worried about “Palin’s Imapct” since she came on the scene.

What exactly is a “theif”? It could be a military term with which I’m unfamiliar.

How embarrassing must it be to spend money to have a t-shirt printed and not use your spell check first? The word “loses” is supposed to appear three times; he spelled it correctly once. Maybe we should add the following line: Remedial: When you have to go back to school to learn to spell!

I think that I’m against amensty too, just on principle. It sounds too much like something you might catch from hanging around teabaggers for too long.

Do you think that amnety is related to amensty? (And is anybody else offended that a parent would have their very young child attend one of these protests and sit behind that sign? I’m sure that little girl will grow up to be a well-educated, tolerant woman.)

Now I’m confused. Is the word amnety, amensty, or amesty? (And note the bonus error in the use of the wrong indefinite article…)

I presume that she has more than one of these “daugters” about whom she is worried. I make the presumption of plural possessive because I know that teabaggers understand, quite well, the proper use of apostrophes.

Two mistakes for the price of one! (How quickly did you spot ‘em?) I’m not sure about dumping “Polititions”. That sounds like it might be environmentally unfriendly. Shouldn’t we recycle or at least put them in a properly maintained landfill?

(I know this one is hard to read. It says “Stop Waisting My Hard Earned Tax Money”.) I didn’t know that the government had been putting her tax money around people’s waists.

I also hope that President Obama has a “Crisis of Competnce”; if so, it might suggest that he prefers competence, instead.

I’ve never seen people “wroking” hard, have you?

I wish the person who made this sign spent more time “useing” spell check and less time making stupid signs.

The culture of dependency may be a problem, but if dependency on your spell check program helps avoid misspellings like “dependancy”, then perhaps it’s OK.

I love this one. Does this person want us to put the peel back on Congress or take the peel off again? I’m not sure. Cute pig.

This sign is sort of a double. First we get the reference to the racist idiot’s “Forefathes”. That must be a term with religious significance with which I’m not familiar. But just in case that wasn’t enough, the guy goes full bore racist with the Kenya reference and the statement “that explains a lot about you”. Nope, no racism in the tea party movement. Move along, move along.

Yep, one “hugh” mistake to let this guy graduate from high school.

For the record, according to The Free Dictionary, “lier” means “[o]ne who lies down; one who rests or remains, as in concealment.” Did the person who made this sign mean to suggest that President Obama is resting or hiding on the job?

We all know that “lobbyest" payoffs” were the primary reason for passage of the healthcare reform legislation.

Funny. I always thought that dissent — you know, things like criticism and commentary — was the highest form of patriotism, not climbing down from places in silly costumes. (And query whether this guy thought that people who criticized President Bush were patriots or traitors…)

I’ve written before about the calls for President Obama’s impeachment without any reason. Now this lady has gone even further and called for us to “Impeah Obama”!

Ooh, scary! “Illegal alliens”! Cute sailor outfit, though.

Either nobody honked at his sign or nobody driving by was able to spell, either. And does this guy think he’s one of the men in black?

They’re right. There is no “Hussien Obama”, just a “Hussein Obama”. But using that oh so scary middle name really helps to convince me that there isn’t any racism afoot.

I had to read this one carefully before I figured out what a “borror” was.

Forget that ACORN is not involved in the census; forget that ACORN has essentially ceased operations; forget that the whole pimp and whore videotape scandal was essentially a hoax; and forget that banning a group like ACORN would violate both the First Amendment (freedom of association) and the provision against bills of attainder in Article I Section 9 of the Constitution. None of that matters if you can’t even spell ACORN!

We better watch out for this “sociazed health care” because it would restrict a woman’s right to choose! (Oh, did you catch the bonus missing apostrophe?)

I’m not even going to try to make sense of the spelling or grammar on this one.

So what exactly is the “sactity of marriage”? Does that have something to do with the man getting to tell the woman what to do, her being barefoot and pregnant, and the two of them having a bunch of kids that can’t spell? The little N with the arrow is a nice try.

What happened in “Gemany” and I didn’t know that 1930 owned this “Gemany”.

Well, really, now. How many of us “were” slaves? I mean, unless you’ve recently immigrated from one of those rare places where slavery is still practiced, it seems really unlikely that you’d be a slave.

Random apostrophes must keep falling from the sky.

Double stupid apostrophe fail (but he got pimpin’ right, for that extra-special racist touch).

Another one that I had to think about for a minute. “Clunkker care”?

He got a Cambodian temple in his refund? Somehow, I don’t think of Camodian wats as being named Chang, though; that seems more Chinese to me.

Try pronouncing “enoungh”. Come on, I dare you!

More fun with (missing) apostrophes and a spotting of the rare “thinkg”.

Illiterate “plummers” of the world unite! At least those plungers don’t look as dangerous as the guns some teabaggers feel the need to carry to these protests.

Much like contractions, the rule regarding whether to use “a” or “an” seems to bedevil teabaggers. (Note the scooter which was almost certainly paid for by Medicare….)

Another theme running through some of the teabag signs is the anti-immigrant (remember, no racism here…) sentiment expressed by the “English is our official language” movement.

Of course, this “English is the official language” movement might have more success if: (a) it weren’t quite so racist, and (b) those espousing it didn’t offer us gems like “Lanaguage”.

After learning that “Lanaguage” isn’t spelled correctly, the folks of Crestwood might want stop and tell us what “excetions” are.

Then the folks of Crestwood can ask this idiot what exactly an “offical” language would look like.

A bit more racism to go with the poor grammar: “Are-country”?

And, as we’re all well aware, the teabaggers have a real affinity for the Constitution, even if they can’t spell it, let alone tell us what it really says:

And finally…

You know what I think is “Rediculous”? The number of teabaggers who can’t spell correctly and who can’t manage to put a simple apostrophe in the right place.

(Note: Many of these photographs were taken from a Flickr stream; others were found elsewhere on the Internet.)

Indiana’s Holocaust Observance and My Closing Remarks

Today I had the privilege — in my capacity as President of the Indianapolis Jewish Community Relations Council — to offer the closing remarks at the State of Indiana’s annual Holocaust Observance program (this year’s title was “A Holocaust Day of Remembrance: Honoring the Past, Remembering for the Future”). The program is presented by the Indianapolis Jewish Community Relations Council, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Indiana Holiday Commission, and Indiana Civil Rights Commission.

The speakers at the program included Clayton A. Graham, Chair, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Indiana Holiday Commission, and Indiana Civil Rights Commission; Tony A. Kirkland, Executive Director, Indiana Civil Rights Commission; Cantor Janice Roger, Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation; and Phil Lande, son of a Holocaust survivor. The featured speakers were Richard Mourdock, Indiana State Treasurer (who, though I may disagree with him on many things, impressed me with very powerful remarks for which I express my sincere gratitude), and Norbert Krapf, Indiana Poet Laureate. Mr. Krapf spoke of growing up in a German-Catholic community in southern Indiana and his efforts to learn about his heritage and how those efforts, in turn, led to his learning about the Holocaust. He read several very moving selections from his book Blue-Eyed Grass: Poems of Germany. You can read more of Mr. Krapf’s story in A Poet Discovers a World of Complexities in His Background archived from The New York Times.

Of course, given that this blog is about Me Me Me Me Me, I decided to reprint my prepared remarks:

In Indiana, the law requires that Holocaust education be a part of the curriculum. However, teaching about the Holocaust is not the same as understanding the Holocaust. Unfortunately, this distinction was made all too apparent earlier this school year in a central Indiana middle school.

The class was an 8th grade English writing class. Some teachers in other 8th grade English classes were teaching The Diary of Anne Frank; unfortunately, they later explained, they didn’t know much about the Holocaust themselves, especially how to teach it to 8th graders. In the particular writing class, the teacher was focusing on creative writing and wanted to avoid some of the same exercises that she’d used for years. So, with the help of some materials and suggestions that she’d found elsewhere, she tried to get her students to think about bad things. She wanted them to write creatively, and especially to try to find some of the good that might be found in those bad things. While this may have been a laudable goal, in some cases — like the Holocaust — there simply isn’t an easily found silver lining. And thus the assignment went awry.

One of the possible assignments for the students was to sell something. Before I describe how this assignment relates to the Holocaust, let me first relay the first of the two examples of something that could be sold provided by the teacher:

For Sale: America. This 200+ year old country could be just what the medicine man ordered! Nestled between 2 major oceans and bordered on the north and south by 2 friendly countries, the United States of America has already been subdivided into 48 convenient parcels plus a vast tract of land near the Arctic Circle and a few heavenly islands in the Pacific. Though it no longer contains huge herds of buffalo to hunt and crystal clear streams and lakes to fish in, native peoples will still enjoy the vast tracks of farmland and those with Visa cards will be able to buy food and manufactured items to help them forget the pristine beauty which was lost. They could also watch nature documentaries on the Discovery Channel.

Though some may agree with the political viewpoint of that example, one must query its appropriateness as an example for an 8th grade English class. But what about the Holocaust? Here is the second example:

For Sale: Auschwitz. Looking for a place that would make the perfect summer camp? Think about this concentration camp. Poland would like to take the bad reputation of Auschwitz and turn it around! Think of the possibilities! The barracks could be renovated to house thousands of people. We have ovens big enough to bake bread for thousands. The razor wire will prevent students from making a break for it. There is plenty of room for exercise, where role call used to be taken. Railroads can go right through camp, meaning supplies will be at your fingertips at all times.

Yes, you heard me correctly: We have ovens big enough to bake bread for thousands. That is what I mean when I say that there is a difference between teaching about the Holocaust and understanding the Holocaust.

And that wasn’t the only example in the assignment packet. Students could also write a letter of recommendation for a job. One example provided was to have Adolf Hitler write a letter of recommendation for Dr. Joseph Mengele for a job as a plastic surgeon. For those who don’t recall, he was the “doctor” who performed experiments on twins at Auschwitz, including Terre Haute resident Eva Kor and her twin sister. Or students could create a trading card about a historical figure. The example provided was Adolf Hitler. Some of the data on the example Hitler trading card:

Hobbies: Planning New Ways to Rule the World

Pet Peeve: Jews.

You see, so long as we live in a world where people can make jokes about ovens used to destroy the bodies of millions of people murdered for no reason other than their religion, so long as we live in a world where people don’t take seriously evil experiments done upon unwilling human victims, so long as we live in a world where people can look at the evil of the Holocaust and chalk it up to one man’s “pet peeve”, then we remain at risk for the same things happening again and again.

Our world continues to face genocide. From Rwanda to Bosnia to Darfur. We give lip service to learning the lessons of the Holocaust, but it seems clear that we’re not really digesting those lessons. All too often we allow hate to fester and guide our actions.

The issue in the school has been largely resolved and those involved have used the incident as a learning opportunity, so I don’t want to spend time rehashing issues of blame or to even note which school was involved. I’m satisfied that the teacher understands the inappropriateness of the assignment.

We need to continue teaching about the Holocaust, both in terms of the facts of what happened and in terms of the lessons to be learned. And we need to be sure that we give Indiana’s teachers the tools and lessons that they need so that they can tackle this subject with the seriousness and understanding that it requires. For to teach the Holocaust as something other than one of the worst evils the world has ever seen is to teach our children that genocide isn’t a danger and that hate is an acceptable guidepost to life.

The program had a small audience. The Jewish community was well-represented. But those of us in the Jewish community need to do an even better job of attending at and participating in events such as this one (or the Holocaust Observance program being conducted by the City of Carmel on Friday) to demonstrate to the broader community that we really do care about the Holocaust and that we’re appreciative of the efforts of our state and local municipalities to commemorate the Holocaust. More importantly, we need to be sure that more Gentiles are in attendance so that we can be sure that memories of the Holocaust do not become the sole province of Jews.

Warning: Chaos Approaches

Just a quick note to warn readers that this blog is likely to experience a few hiccups over the next few weeks. Google (who runs Blogger) has decided to stop supporting FTP based blogging (the method used for this blog) in May. So, I’m going to need to convert the blog to Blogger’s “customized domain” format. The only real change that this should require is the end of the URL http://www.wallack.us/blog.html which will be replaced by http://blog.wallack.us (which I’ve been using for most references to this blog for several months anyway). Of course, who knows whether things will run as smoothly as they’re supposed to…

In addition, when I make the switch, I’m probably going to play around with variations on the current layout and design. I’ve wanted to try a few things for a while, but they’ve been too complicated or time consuming and so I keep putting them off for another day. The change to the customized domain format should give me the chance to try some different things. So be forewarned that the blog may look different from day to day as I experiment. Sorry. I’ll try to keep the construction dust to a minimum.

Finally, I don’t know whether the sidebar material (LibraryThing, the flags for visitors, etc.) will be usable on the new system. A while back, LibraryThing totally changed their widgets and I’ll have to see if I can work with those or if I’ll have to play with the old code. On the plus side, there are a whole host of new and cool widgets available under the new system. Anyway, that’s the kind of havoc and chaos that I’m expecting.

When I make the change, I’ll post a notice here. Let me know if the page looks strange or if you have any difficulty reading the posts or navigating the site.

Rachel Maddow: “Let Them Eat Fake”

Everybody should watch Rachel Maddow. Really.

Is it bad form for a married, straight guy to have a crush on a lesbian simply because she’s willing to give voice to thoughts that too often go totally ignored? Hmm.

Is Fox News Helping to Plan a New American Civil War?

Has a phony patriot yielded American priorities regarding international laws? Foreign ownership of leading stations demeans and yields American sovereignty and just might be aimed at provoking a second American Civil War. It is well known that Fox News is owned by Rupert Murdoch who became an American citizen in 1985. However, what is less well known is that Murdoch became an American citizen because of legislation that prohibited foreigners from owning American television stations. Thus, to paraphrase Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minnesota), one of Fox News’ favorite politicians, we have to wonder whether Murdoch may, in fact, have anti-American views. His true loyalties may still be to Australia. Even less well known is that a major shareholder in Murdoch’s company, News Corp., is Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.

Now query why a TV news station owned by an Australian-American and a member of the Saudi royal family would play host to people like Glenn Beck who appears to advocate for violent uprising against the government or Bill O’Reilly who seems to suggest that people kill abortion doctors or Sean Hannity who couldn’t find the truth if it is was hanging out of his own ass. Might it be that the real goal of Murdoch and bin Talal is to use Fox News to bring American to the brink, and even over the edge, into a second civil war? Might that be why Fox News has so aggressively adopted the Tea Parties and the teabaggers with their violent and eliminationist rhetoric. Just think of it: With the US engaged in a new civil war, an Australia-Saudi alliance would be posed to become a major world power. The petroleum-kangaroo alliance would be powerful indeed, mate.

Don’t think that this plot is too fanciful. Recall that back in 1997, Elliot Carver, owner of London-based Carver Media Group tried to incite a war between Britain and China in order to increase television ratings for his news networks and force his way into the Chinese cable TV market. Violence was averted only due to high level cooperation between British and Chinese military and intelligence officials. Could Murdoch and bin Talal have something similar in mind?

And query further whether the recent demise of several print newspapers might be part of this plot to bring more and more of the news delivery system within the Fox entertainment realm.

Or might their plan be yet more nefarious? For one thing, think about this: Have you ever seen Osama bin Laden and Rupert Murdoch at the same time? I’m not quite sure what to make of that, but when that fact is added to the “coincidence” of bin Talal’s ownership of a share of News Corp. it does make one sit up and take notice. The fact that Glenn Beck hasn’t drawn up all of these relationships on his blackboard only gives credence to the possibility; after all, Beck sniffs out conspiracies better than anyone, so if he missed one this big it must be because he’s in league with those planning the scheme. And given Beck’s ties to gold speculators, the likelihood that chaos in America is the true goal seems almost obvious. Remember, “social justice” is code for “koala bear”.

So far, I have no hard evidence that Murdoch and bin Talal are a part of al-Qaeda, that the Australia-Saudi alliance has actually begun to engage in plots separate from those of the Illuminati, or that they are using Fox News to try to cause a civil war. I’ve heard from a Ranger that is apparently working on this case, but so far the evidence is still a bit flimsy; then again, most of the news aired on Fox is a bit flimsy, too, so I’m not sure what that really means. Anyway, I believe that the Ranger is still digging for evidence and, if he digs up even a bone of truth to the story, I’ll relay it here.

But in the meantime, we need to be very careful of the things that we hear on Fox News and take everything said on the network with a giant grain of proverbial pepper.

Update: Happy April Fools Day!