Saturday, July 4, 2009

Are July 4 Tea Parties a Sign of Mental Illness?

I'm starting to wonder if modern conservatism is morphing into a new form of brain disease. Here's why:

I've noticed in recent days a lot of red, white and blue signs at intersections in my community near Birmingham, Alabama. I couldn't make out all of the lettering on the signs, but it looked like they referenced a "tea party" on July 4.

My first thought? "Didn't we have enough of this nonsense a few months back?" My second thought? "Is this being planned for someone's backyard?"

The answer to both questions apparently is no. In fact, our local event is set for an outdoor amphitheatre that can seat 15,000 to 20,000 people (if my memory is correct). This "tea party" nuttiness is growing, and I really am starting to wonder if people who promote these events are showing early signs of mental illness.

My first clue that this might be a big event came on Thursday afternoon when I drove by the Verizon Wireless Music Center in fashionable Pelham, Alabama.

Mrs. Schnauzer and I have many fond memories of the music center, which is just down the road from where we live. In fact, we still think of it by it's original name--the Oak Mountain Amphitheatre.

We've had the good fortune to see a number of splendid concerts there. In the wonderful, care-free days before Mrs. Schnauzer entered my life (along with mortgages, lawsuits, exploding washing-machine hoses, etc.), I saw the late, great Dan Fogelberg at the music center. (God, am I going to pay for that sentence.)

Together, Mrs. Schnauzer and I have seen Steve Winwood, Chicago, the Doobie Brothers, Don Henley, and John Fogerty there.

Because we associate the music center with good times and great music, I tend to check the marquee every time I drive by there.

When I drove by on Thursday afternoon, I noticed upcoming shows included a Def Leppard/Poison double bill and Nickelback. But at the top of the marquee was this: "July 4: Tea Party."

To borrow a phrase from Keith Olbermann, that was a "WTF moment" for me. "So all of those signs I've been seeing are referring to a 'tea party' at the amphitheatre?" I said to myself. "These people think there are enough nut jobs out there to draw that kind of crowd?"

Then came this scary thought: Maybe they are right.

I became more alarmed when The Birmingham News reported that July 4 tea parties are scheduled for at least 10 locations in Alabama. And get this: The American Family Association (AFA) says tea parties are scheduled for 1,460 cities around the country on July 4.

So this is a nationwide "nut fest." What on earth is going on?

I'm not a psychiatrist, so I'm certainly not qualified to diagnose any form of mental illness. And I hate to throw that term around, partly because I probably have a number of friends and family members who might attend one of these events.

We're not talking about the kind of mental illness that makes someone dysfunctional or overtly dangerous. But is the "tea party" movement grounded in reality? I don't think it is. Should we be concerned about it? The answer, I think, is yes.

My guess is that quite a few people today will go to the Verizon Wireless Music Center, and other sites, simply to partake of the food, fireworks, music, and such. But if you read about these events, you see signs of possible psychological disturbances--hysteria, paranoia, delusion, and more. At the very least, it seems some people connected to these events are separated from reality.

For example, folks behind the Birmingham event claim they are not anti-Democrat or anti-Obama. But one of their speakers is a fellow named Kevin Jackson, who has penned a screed called The Big Black Lie: How I Learned the Truth about the Democrat Party.

The Birmingham organizers apparently have not checked the Web site of the AFA, the umbrella outfit for the tea parties. Here's part of what it says:

With the national debt already out of control, President Obama has added 78,000 new government jobs to the federal payroll since he took office. Obama’s increase in the number of government employees will add hundreds of millions of dollars to our debt. If history is any measure, these jobs will never be eliminated. They will simply add to the mountains of debt we are leaving our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Obama and Congress continue to spend money the government doesn’t have. The deficit for the current year will be $1.8 trillion, 50% of the total budget. In order to pay interest on the debt, the government will have to cut spending, raise taxes, print more paper money or borrow from another country like China, which already holds billions of U.S. debt. With no end of spending in sight, some estimates project that our national debt could reach $8 trillion by the year 2014.

Obama and liberals in Congress are taking us down the road to socialism, seizing control of key banks, insurance companies, the automobile industry, etc. They are currently working on a government funded national health care program which is expected to cost roughly $2 trillion while rationing services.

That all sounds pretty "anti-Obama" to me.

Here's the curious part: Most, if not all, of the problems the AFA mentions either were started or greatly exacerbated by the George W. Bush administration.

Did the AFA sponsor "tea parties" while Bush was in office? I don't remember any.

Is the AFA trying to arouse public passions against Obama--for problems that he inherited from Bush? Sure sounds like it.

If Old Man Winter punches you in the nose, but you blame Jack Frost for the fact that your nose is now broken, is there something wrong with your thought processes?

Is that a sign of a mental disorder--or at least the beginnings of one?

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

America's mental illness has been measured to be higher than 50%. This number is due to the anti-depressants which our society is predominantly addicted to and on, since pharmaceutical companies earn profits which pay shareholders the margins needed for "wealth" (retirement security).

There is no other country on earth which has the number of mentally ill, other than the Middle East where munitions are tested without any protective measure whatsoever.

Ask Cynthia McKinney who is in an Israeli jail because she refuses to sign a statement about crayons being a weapon of war, she is very clear on the video stream about the new weapons tested on the human population of Gaza.

A necessity for profit sharing, globally?

The air stream does not hold onto any boundary on earth.

PLEASE, American CONSUMERS awaken and realize our country is about selling brands and themes. The theme park agenda now is tea parties, HERE at home, and in Russia it has been color revolutions.

There is NO healthy product which has been created in the US, to sell, other than what we are experiencing in what you have noted, LS, as "mental illness."

Think about it - what is the greatest sale on earth in these times?

In two words, criminal insanity.

Ask the Blackwater operation, for just one example of our GDP.

It has worked since the beginning of historical eons, in the strategy of those who sculpt the planet in their design of super imperialism for the future of the offspring which are brain-dead from the obvious, wars without end.

It is not about OBAMA, the trick is how to sell to all the people all the time, brands, themes, poisons, chemicals, wars, etc.

The "sales men/women" are those who have no imagination other than repeating lunatic gatherings of old, tired formulas, for the following by the loonies who have had their brains' harvested, clearly.

Biloxi

finebammer said...

mental illness?

grounded in reality??

mental disorder???

and this from an individual(s) who blame everybody from god to don rickles for their "unlawful termination" from uab.

must be great not to have to leave the house for fireworks.

just close your eyes!

Iain Dangerfeld said...

Iain Dangerfeld to Mr. Schnauzer

Try as I may to be the savior to the USA by straightening out the evil that both religions and political parties are doing to the simple minds of its citizens. It ain't freaking working!

I call myself the Evil Straightener and from time to time I blog under that name.

When sPam sent me to your blog, Mr. Schnauzer, I thought I might be disappointed to find just a bunch of left-winged fanaticism. I was very wrong and will follow your musings until you disappoint.

Tea-f***ing-party, my @$$! I view these displays of false-patriotism and bigotry more as acts inciting violence against people who are willing to stand up for the rights of all people and not just the right-winged, Christian, white yo-yos who don't know the meanings of conservation, prudence, image and equality!

These are the same lame-asses who preach that the USA was founded on Christian values and with Christian beliefs (which you may notice are changing with the times because they are running out of money-making ideas) is the only way to live! (Note: Unless you need or want something and can't have it unless you break the rules; in which case you either hide your methods of acquisition or pray away the sin and then it’s okay.)

Tea party people don't realize that the iconic and historical event, "Boston Tea Party," was an act of violence and vandalism and has been mimicked in recent years by some notorious individuals. The Boston Tea Party was an act of protest against a government act. Do these tea-p people realize that a few years ago, one of our citizens was put to death for an act of protest against something done by our government? Timothy McVeigh was a Christian Republican and a member of the NRA. His final protest, in Boston Tea Party style, was bombing the Murrah Federal Building as a statement to the world that he was against the Government's acts at Ruby Ridge and Waco.

Are the tea-p people trying to make a statement in support of that kind of idiocy? Do they really know what they want other than a Christian-when-convenient, white-power, gas-guzzling, bitching society?

My mother, rest her soul, was a Jew. My dad, same for his, was a reformed Lutheran nut! They fought all of the time about Jesus and hell until their death. I learned from them that there are no living Gods that have any power to do anything to change the world. The changes that we know of come from people’s acts. Some give credit to a God, some don't. When you get enough non-thinking idiots together, who believe that Jesus, Elvis and The Bear are all coming back from the dead to save them and haul them off to Neverland or heavenland then they can make changes that hurt the rest of us. They can hurt the United States. They can hurt the world!

I know that my friends at the ACLU are in strong attendance at these tea things and will report what they see.

I'll bet my last piece of head fuzz that there will be Christian only prayer by 99.9% white people!

Help me watch these poot-for-brains, please. Help me straighten their evil! -Iain

finebammer said...

dude.

David said...

finebammer must have a severe learning disability and the IQ of a dud cherry bomb!

KFP said...

Wow. Mentally ill? I see you have an interest in this area of the inner workings of the human mind as the first "favorite" movie you list on your profile is "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." So, essentially if you see groups of people that hold different beliefs than yourself, you are so intolerant that you have to label them as being mentally ill? You sir, are a bigot. My family attended the event at the amphitheatre this evening. It was not for free food, drinks or fireworks. It was not because we are ignorant, uneducated or disgruntled. Quite the contrary actually. Between myself and my husband we hold 5 degrees, (Bachelor's, Master's, MD) which one would have to argue that we are probably not mentally ill to have been able to attain. We both served with honors in two different branches of the U.S. military. And we are both under
40. We have served our country and through hard work and perseverance, we have managed to create a nice, modest and honest life for ourselves. We have never asked for a bail out, we have never asked for public assistance and we have NEVER called someone mentally ill for holding different views than ours. These tea parties are made up of many people from various backgrounds- Different ethnicity, religions, socio-economic status, etc. The one unifying factor is that we want less government intrusion into our lives and we do not want the government to take from us all that we have worked to attain. I also see that you have no children. We have two. We hope that we will be able to provide financial stability and security to our children for their future. With the current administration continuing to reach into our already diminished bank accounts for more unruly spending, our hope of being able to raise our family and provide a respectable and decent life for our children is quickly eroding. How dare you label those like myself as mentally ill. You, that would probably never put on a uniform to defend your own family lest other people's families from enemies foreign and domestic, look down your collective nose at the hundreds of veterans who were in attendance at this event tonight because you do not agree with our point of view? No wonder UAB fired you. Journalists (which you claim to be) are supposed to be objective and willing to hear the facts before printing or writing false information. To do otherwise would make you guilty of defamation or libel. From your biased, hateful and inaccurate post, I see that you probably did not learn that lesson in your journalism school. Anyway, if these pesky little tea parties are so absurd and the people in attendance so ignorant, what are you so afraid of? We are the people who have fought in wars and served in uniform to make sure that you will always have the right to freely speak your mind in any manner you choose. We are not the one's you should fear. As Helen Thomas showed this week (as White House Press Secretary Gibbs silenced any questions she had about the Obama administration) the Press is now losing any freedom of the press or speech that they have ever had. This is who you should fear. Those who want to have complete control over what you say, what you write and who you associate with are a hell of a lot scarier than people concerned about their civil liberties that are attending Tea Parties.

Anonymous said...

Great LS, 'bloggers' who are passionate!

finebamer. This is an interesting twist for a headbanger.

To Iain: "God's gracious gift." Hmmmm, mother was Jew and father Lutheran-nut-reformed ...

Yes, one can only muse on your life filled with the holy spirit of egos waging war into the oblivion of words from pink unicorns, oops I mean religions.

No offense IAN ("Iain"), BUT, the offspring of those in America who believed we were a Christian nation (think NATIVE AMERICANS believing this when the warriors protecting their tribes were burned alive so many times in cabins wherein the women and children hid underneath and were driven mad by eating the burning flesh/fat of their men folk), forgot about the true history of how we began.

United States, America, a Christian Nation?

In a word, not.

We were founded on the same principle of war that colonies are, when occupied (Iraq comes to mind as the most recent "USA Christian Nation" agenda).

We were also fortunate to have forefathers who knew what the evildoers were about, and penned the US Constitution as a REPUBLIC to protect our rights, but as we can note, this GODDAMN PIECE OF PAPER, is not worthy of a Christian Nation since the PATRIOT ACT, enslaves us as the rulers of Israel choose it to be.

Christian? LOL, this was a weapon of true destruction and those who drank the KOOK AID, are still at it in the puppet marches to whatever tune sold: GREEN anyone?

Biloxi

Anonymous said...

Howard Zinn: A People's History of American Empire

howardzinn.org

best LS, et al.
Biloxi

Anonymous said...

"... Indeed, from the very inception, Zionism viewed Palestine as a land without a people for a people without a land. This arrogant denial of my people’s very existence didn’t originate in ignorance of reality. It was rather an expression of virulent and violent racism, very much like those white European barbarians who exterminated six million native American Indians and called the genocide “Manifest Destiny.”

EDUCATION AMERICANS, this is what we do in the name of our most delusional 'democracy.'

LS, please take the time to study this site, thank you.

Biloxi

http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2006/11/01/p11893

legalschnauzer said...

KFP:
Thanks for an interesting comment. My post is not about downgrading someone because they disagree with me. And I never said folks who go to these events are ignorant or uneducated. I even said I probably have several friends, maybe family members, who would go. But there seems to be some kind of disassociative thinking going on, at least with some organizers of these events. The tea parties clearly are designed to be anti-Obama and anti-Democratic Party. The AFA Web site says that. But where were these people for the past eight years when the G.W. Bush administration was getting us into this mess? Our country is in trouble, and you don't have to have served in the military or have children to be concerned about that. I'm all for peaceful protest. But I have a hard time understanding why these tea parties only started since Jan. 21. When Bill Clinton was elected in 92, I saw "Impeach Clinton" bumper stickers before he had even taken office. Tea parties started cropping up before Obama's chair in the Oval Office had gotten warm. There seems to be a negative knee-jerk reaction from some segments of our country whenever a president of a certain party is elected. And I find that alarming when the record shows that a Democratic president, Clinton, has been our best economic steward of the past 30 years or so. He actually created budget surpluses. The deficits that "tea" folks seem to be concerned about came under GOP administrations. So why the attack on Obama? The thinking behind these tea parties just doesn't seem to be based in reality.

finebammer said...

dissent: it's a DEMOCRAT thang, you don't have the mental capacity to understand!

impeach clinton stickers BEFORE he took office.

things that make you go hmmmmmmmm......

Anonymous said...

KFP: My father was military and in fact, he went from being a full bird colonel in the USAF (after having been shot down during his first trip over Germany, WWII, 22 years and a POW for the remainder of the WAR TO END ALL WARS), to being decorated for having more Huey Helicopter pilot hours (Prez. Johnson), than any other pilot.

CIA.

Living through WWII, Korea and Vietnam, 1942-1965.

AIR AMERICA, 1966-1977.

Now, this should give me reason to believe in our military since he was one of the first to be indoctrinated into the military-industrial complex.

And, I also have multiple "sheepskins" BUT, this is nothing in the US since our education system is dog shit.

European and Asian educations are far superior SOOOOOO should you have one of your many educational resources to-wit you are multi-lingual, then toot your horn.

In my 60+ years, traveling, living all over the planet - watching our country pretend to be rich and all it has been is a midwife to the paedophilia cultists who run OLD EUROPE, and but of course, ISRAEL.

You want to blow off steam? Take your fancy degrees and military background (WELFARE), and go after AIPAC for doing what it has done to America, as well as every Zionist operation in control of the MILITARY, for one most important example AND THE SCHOOLS, too.

Do not forget your fancy education and the military are owned by the same owners of Old Europe and Israel.

Now, go fight the true evil and stop picking on a supremely intelligent journalist who can run circles around your dumb ass rhetoric.

Biloxi

Anonymous said...

"... And I find that alarming when the record shows that a Democratic president, Clinton, has been our best economic steward of the past 30 years or so. He actually created budget surpluses" ...

LS, I must correct you here. This is absolutely not accurate and this is why so many are as upset with Obama (aka Soetero), as with Bush, Clinton, et al.

William Jefferson Clinton ("Established in 1933 and repealed in 1999") was the President who, purposely did this repealing of the Glass-Steagall Act and also was the puppet for Israel, and Old Europe, to begin the destruction of Russia - this is why you see Obama going to Russia at this time and NOT OUR SECRETARY OF DEFENSE (the protocol, Hillary Clinton).

Clinton is the bone of contention between the US and Russia at this time since it was Clinton who gave the green lights to bomb Serbia and Kosovo. He was also the president who untied the regulation (Reagan, Bush I,) to bring this whole "New World Order" "Globalism" (NAFTA, etc.) into our lives to destroy our sovereignty.

Preparing the US for the "North American Union," ("NAU").

Bill and Hillary were both very highly clever attorneys and it is said they are "shirttail cousins" to David Rockefeller - our true "defacto president."

Imagine Rockefeller pushing the new and improved plan of allowing the banks to commingle commercial paper, hedge funds, residential paper, etc., etc., etc.

The obvious? Ponzi-schemes galore which Madoff has been the fall-guy for, when it is RUBIN (OBAMA'S GUY) who has been at this all along. All of Obama's people are the same people that were with Clinton and this is because America is ruled by Zionists.

There is much, much more to this story - another time.

Rockefeller and the public schools' administration of 'hyper-active drugs' not medical professionals prescribing this chemical toxin, one prime example of corruption and then, there is the purchasing of religion and replacing the Old Testament in the Bible teachings, another Rockefeller project, 1967.

Best, Biloxi