Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Teabagger Insanity

Check this out:



A few comments. First, it only appears very briefly, at the 1:37 or so mark, but from the comments he makes regarding Charity Hospital in New Orelans, it appears that this guy seems to be from New Orleans, or at least a long-term resident here. And he's Nicaraguan. Makes me wonder if I know him. It's very possible. And given how small New Orleans is, especially the Latino community here, it's actually a good probability that I know someone who knows this man personally.

Second, there is a deeper and likely more complex (and perhaps troubling) story here about how he got to "the land of the free and the home of the brave." Though I don't know for sure, I would imagine that this man, if he "escaped" communism in Nicaragua, as he seems to indicate, probably came to the US in the late 1970s following the Sandinista Revolution. His age would seem to indicate that he was probably in his 20s or 30s when he came over. If he had to flee, then there is a very good possibility that he (or his family) may have been involved in the Somoza Dictatorship in some capacity. That doesn't necessarily bode well for his claim to be a liberty loving freedom fighter. And when he spouts off the claim that the only good communist is a dead communist, when coupled with his violent temperament, and knowing what was done by the Somoza dictatorship (or tolerated by Somoza regime defenders) under the guise of anti-communism, it wouldn't surprise me at all if there are some shady human rights violations huddled somewhere in his own or his family's past. And that says nothing about how he (or his family) might have been ushered to the front of the immigration line to get his legal residency established here.

Equally disturbing is to see the completely irrational evolution of this guy's conviction regarding the person asking the question on the other end of the camera. It's clear to me that the guy walked off convinced that the person behind the camera was a communist (presumably, therefore, deserving death) with absolutely no provocation or indication at all about the questioner's ideology or his convictions. In fact, when this teabagger specifically asked the questioner if he was a communist, you can hear the person taking the video say "No" in the background.

Actually, the whole thing was kinda sad and embarrassing. Clearly his anger was misplaced and misdirected. His reversion to marine corps grunting and macho posturing was not only childish, but it was really pathetic.

And the absolute saddest thing about this is that if the guy were walking the streets in Arizona and were picked up by the cops there, his accent would lead to his being ethnically profiled as a potential illegal immigrant -- and if he didn't happen to have his green card or passport with him (because driver's licenses just don't cut it as proof of one's legal right to be in the country), he'd likely find himself making a trip to the Sheriff's office while his citizenship could be verified.

In the end, all I can do is sigh.

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