Good question, here’s another

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.”
-John F. Kennedy

See post below. Damon commented, “While this slogan is good, it is also defensive. The Tea Party’s opponents have accused them of being racist/angry/etc…

They are not. Is it a good idea to let them set the agenda for messages?”

Good question.

Here’s another. Has any peaceful social movement ever succeeded that did not have a not-so-peaceful scary section waiting in the wings?

Remember Martin Luther King Jr.? Apostle of non-violence, disciple of Ghandi and Thoreau, took on Jim Crow in the South and won. But I wonder, would King have had as much success if not for scary types like the Panthers, the Black Muslims, etc?

Was part of the strategy (conscious or un-) a message, “Deal with me – or you’ll have to deal with them.”

No the TEA Party isn’t violent. No it isn’t racist. No it isn’t scary. However it’s been painted as all three by the state-whore media that Views With Alarm the rising “violent extremist right wing” tide.

That last is a patent lie, oh right wingers, they do not fear you. If they feared you they would never insult you so egregiously. They insult you thus precisely because they do not fear you.

By now you’ve read of the leaked emails from JournoList, the private message board for left-wing journalists and academics. Here is Spencer Ackerman on how to go after conservatives by making bad-faith charges of racism.

“Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists… What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. In other words, find a rightwinger’s [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear. Obviously I mean this rhetorically.”

Mr. Ackerman and I agree on one thing – being a racist is a vile thing.

In fact it is so vile that I’d think it entirely pardonable that anyone who called you a racist should be invited outside to back up his mouth with his fists. If he refused, give him a choice – a public apology, and I mean a groveling one, or a whipping like Sam Houston gave that congressman on the steps of the Capitol.*

Obviously I mean this rhetorically.

I just can’t see Karl “I don’t want my 17-year-old son to have to pick tomatoes” Rove inviting anyone to step outside. He might muss his Armani suit.

Still, it is interesting to speculate how a defense of “temporary insanity” would fly. The left would be in the position of having to claim being called a racist isn’t vile enough to drive a man crazy…

I suggested the TEA Party should adopt a logo of a teapot pouring with the slogan “Not racist. Not violent. Just no longer silent.”

But perhaps there should be a wing of the movement with a somewhat more militant logo. Perhaps a guillotine. Perhaps a slogan more like, “We want our lives back. We want our country back. We want our freedom back.”**

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Note: See my review of The Singing Revolution for more on “many strategies – one goal.”

*Sam Houston went to Washington as a delegate from the Cherokee nation, in full Cherokee dress, to argue against the removal policy that lead to the Trail of Tears. A congressman called him a savage or some such racist insult. Houston challenged him to a duel. When the congressman refused, Houston beat him with a cane on the Capitol steps.

They don’t make ’em like that anymore.

**I am reminded of the Free Trade movement in Ireland in the 19th century. They used to demonstrate around the country with a cannon and a sign that said, “Free Trade – or This.”