My mom once told me, “Don’t hit unless you expect that person to hit you back.” This very basic childhood lesson has managed to elude tea party members, who are demanding that President Obama apologize for the remarks of Teamster President, Jimmy Hoffa. Hoffa called on union supporters unhappy with congressional Republicans to “take these son of a bitches out.”
The quote in it’s full context shows that Hoffa was referring to his desire to see tea party Republicans ousted from office, not physically terminated – but those details have been discounted and the quote’s been taken out of context to further the conservative agenda.
Because they’re directly aligned with the Republican Party, tea partiers are (yet again) issuing out their demands of the President.
[pagebreak]
Tea Party express chairwoman Amy Kremer said in a statement: “Lying attacks on the tea party movement have disturbingly increased in recent days. It is high time that elected leaders like President Obama were held accountable when their key supporters engage in harmful and divisive rhetoric.
We at Tea Party Express demand an immediate apology from Teamster President Jimmy Hoffa. We further urge President Obama to strongly rebuke Hoffa for his dangerous comments.”
Apparently, Ms. Kremer is disconnected from reality and oblivious to what her own party represents in America. But while we’re in the mood; We at We The People Express STILL demand an immediate apology from the tea party. We further urge them to do so.
President Obama recently satisfied the tea party demand to review his birth certificate, a demand made on no other President in the history of the United States post election. After all, we know that Presidential candidates must be legal citizens to be elected to the highest office in the land – that’s standard.
How did tea-baggers not know this – or the bigger question, why wasn’t that enough? Did Obama’s “foreign sounding” name or the color of his skin make him less American in their eyes? There’s so much hilarity in the tea party demanding an apology from the President – for anything. The tea party refuses to account for their actions, and that’s a problem.
[pagebreak]
In a past blog, “Guns, Politicians and Rap Stars” I stated that Republicans had yet to denounce or take accountability for the racist imagery, hateful rhetoric and divisive politics used on behalf of fellow party members at rallies and in mass media. This hasn’t happened.
Where is the Republican leadership on this important issue…do they think we’ve forgot about the tea party’s “lying tactics”, their “accountability”, their “engagement in harmful and divisive rhetoric” and their “dangerous comments” – as so eloquently detailed by Ms. Kremer?
How about her people get to the business of long overdue apologies to our President and to the American people! The tea party doesn’t feel the need to explain much, and their plight to “reclaim their America” is a shady one. “Their America”? With the failing economy, classism, sexism, institutionalized racism, the growing gap between rich and poor, climate change, war, domestic violence, a failing education system, the digital divide, the lack of civil rights for homosexuals and a few other issues, we haven’t the time nor the desire to indulge in imperialist nostalgia. We choose evolution, and we’re working non-stop to further our agenda.
[pagebreak]
Our forward-thinking, dynamic, culturally diverse society seeks to make our world a better place than we found it. We’re the majority, and we’re a democracy. While many of us have been victimized in one way or another, all things must change.
If the tea party, other institutions and organizations continue to attack those they perceive as weak, they must remember what happens when the abused take their power back and defend themselves. Remember when Dorothy smacked up the cowardly lion in The Wizard of Oz?
Strides have been made throughout history only when victims – of every color, class and gender – mustered up the courage to shout ENOUGH, you “son of a bitches”!! Enough.
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
– Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
