Janeane Garofalo: "teabaggers" are "White Power Movement" (Beck, Bachmann, Rush)

Apparently Janeane Garofalo lost out the extras role in Chained Heat: the Musical because on last night's Bill Maher show on ~~BHO~~ HBO she - for about the umpteenth time - smeared the "Tea Parties" and affiliated movements. While I'm not the greatest fan of those "parties" - and especially their leaders - Garofalo is mischaracterizing them and is actually helping them recruit new members. Moreover, she's not lifting the discourse in the U.S. but is simply playing the standard "liberal" race card. She's like an unfunny comic who's telling dumb, antiquated jokes. Per this, here's some of what she said:

It's obvious to anybody who has eyes in this country that tea-baggers, the 9-12ers, these separatist groups that pretend that it's about policy – they are clearly white-identity movements. They're clearly white power movements. What they don't like about the President is that he's black – or half black (applause) – and they, what also is shocking is that people keep pretending that that's not really the case with these people.

I'm not talking about people that do have problems with his policies, that's fine. But these people, who are also being led by the Glenn Becks, the Michelle Bachmans, the Rush Limbows [presumably Limbaugh], whomever, they are no different than any other white identify movement that's part of our history. This has been going on since the founding of this country that white power movements have tried to establish themselves and hold onto power.

It's very weird that whenever this comes up in conversation, so few people are willing to say that yes it is racism, straight up racism. And the Republican Party has been willing to carry water for racists in this country since about the 1950s. (Applause)

Electorally, these white power people don't have their own party – maybe they will one day – so they are electorally-dependent on the Republicans. But also troubling, Fox News is happy to feed into this; AM radio is happy to feed into this. They will continue to do this til somebody does something.

What you're saying [Thomas Friedman] is absolutely true, there's this tacit nudging towards violence. Then also, how about showing up armed? What if black people showed up armed at a McCain rally? What would be the response of that?

Obviously, Bill Maher doesn't have the intellectual capacity where he could invite people on his show who can point out how he and his guests are wrong, but it might be interesting if someone could ask Janeane what she thinks of establishment-approved racial power groups such as the NCLR.

Garofalo's last plea for attention was just over a month ago. See that link for a list of her previous pleas for attention.

Posted in Janeane at October 3, 2009 12:44 PM