Several bloggers are pointing to MSNBC’s David Shuster’s quip that “[I]f you are planning simultaneous tea bagging all around the country, you’re going to need a Dick Armey.”
This is amusing on a number of levels.
First, it’s a very good line.
Second, the Left is applauding Left-leaning MSNBC for going after Right-leaning FOX for its touting of these tea parties. Yet, it’s not as if MSNBC and other outlets haven’t hyped protests from the Left that were orchestrated by well-heeled interest groups.
Third, and most intriguing to me, is how quickly the use of anti-gay slurs[*] has caught on with not only the Left but with such conservative luminaries as Andrew Sullivan in describing the Tea Party protesters. Seriously, what’s up with the juvenile “teabagging” sniggering?
Now, goodness knows, OTB hasn’t been a big fan of the movement (see “Tea Parties Protest Stimulus,” “Tea Parties, Going Galt, Iraq, and Delicious Irony,” and “Protesting Banks“). Then again, I think organized protests outlived their usefulness forty years ago and are mostly absurd spectacles (see “Protests Don’t Work” and “Protests Cause Closures” — but also “On Dissent“) . But I’m not understanding the level of outrage aimed at these protesters by online intellectuals.
Large protests are always organized by elites with money. This includes not only the civil rights and anti-Vietnam marches of the 1960s and the Million Man March of the 1990s but the original Boston Tea Party. There’s a collective action problem that has to be overcome by professional organizers.
The fact that many who are outraged by the bailouts and stimulus packages supported George W. Bush’s massive spending no more obviates their right to protest than does the fact that many supporters of said bailouts and stimuli opposed Bush’s programs. All spending is not created equal and differences in degree can become differences in kind. Plus, protests are often rather irrational.
*UPDATE: Several commenters have challenged my terming “teabagging” an “anti-gay slur.” Franklin correctly surmisses my meaning. While the practice wouldn’t be considered a slur to those who engage in it — and, for that matter, heterosexuals could engage in it — its usage by opponents of the Tea Party protests is to ridicule with insinuations of homosexuality. Ditto, too, the recent sniggering over 2M4M with allusions to gay hookups.
