Tea Party civil war over ‘racist’ letter
A branch of America’s Tea Party movement has been expelled after one its members wrote a fictional letter from “Colored People” to Abraham Lincoln.
By Alex Spillius in Washington
telegraph.co.uk
The Tea Party Federation, an umbrella group, kicked out the Tea Party Express group after deciding the letter written on a blog by spokesman Mark Williams was “clearly offensive”.
Claiming his intent was merely satirical, Mr Williams had been writing in response to a resolution adopted by civil rights group, the National Association for the Advancement for Coloured People, condemning tea party leaders for tolerating racism.
The faux letter began: “Dear Mr. Lincoln, We Coloreds have taken a vote and decided that we don’t cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards.
“That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!”
Mr Williams hit back against the Tea Party Federation, stressing that in the loose-knit alliance of anti-big government groups there was “no tea party leadership”.
“Every tea partier is a tea party leader. But something happens when the stronger egos and personalities in a movement begin to feel a sense of ownership,” he said.
The row underlined the strains facing the right-wing movement as it moves more into the mainstream after 18 months of increasingly popular grassroots protest against President Barack Obama‘s liberal agenda.
Last week the North Idaho Tea Party removed a billboard after complaints from other local and national groups. It had likened Mr Obama to Hitler and Lenin. All three men were pictured over the words: “Radical Leaders Prey on the Fearful & Naïve”.
Mr Williams, a radio talk show host in California, had earlier attracted criticism for saying that a proposed Islamic centre and mosque near the site of the former World Trade Centre in New York would “consist of a Mosque for the worship of the terrorists’ monkey-god”.
The Republican establishment has mixed feelings about the tea party. The movement’s energy is likely to stir up a strong protest vote against the Democratic Party in November’s midterm elections. But there is fear that more extremist and eccentric elements could alienate independent voters and result in defeat in key battles for senate seats.
Objecting first to Mr Obama’s $800 billion stimulus bill and $1 trillion health care reform, the tea party movement took its name from the 1773 protest in Boston against taxes imposed by George III.
Mohammed Abbasi 
I want to take this opportunity to thank the Tea Party for electing Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown since he voted for the Financial Reform Bill and help the President of the United States with another legislative victory, thank you Tea Party. Have you heard of “Unintended Consequences” or “Blowback”? Was he working for the Tea Party, himself or our Country, hmmm only you can answer this one?
The problem is this. Tea Party candidates will win a number of these congressional races because local districts are often safely partisan in nature. They can make their wild, unfounded claims, crazy accusations, etc., and win. That means not only are we likely to see an increase in Republican seats in both houses, we’re likely to see more antics, more insanity, more stupidity. At the same time they’re going to do everything they can to derail Obama’s policies which will likely mean high unemployment, a moribund economy, and more compromises on policy positions that make no one happy.
That could literally mean that if the Republicans put up a legitimate candidate in 2012, they could win. Such a result is bad enough, but the likely response for the Democrats is to move further to the “middle” to placate voters. As we’ve seen over the last decade, the “middle” in American politics is basically on the verge of being an 80s Republican. Increasingly that means we’ll have a political landscape of a conservative party and ratfuck insane parties. The former, given it’s track record, slowly moving to the right, the latter, given it’s track record, loudly screaming “socialism, communism, fascism!!!”
If we continue on this course, privatization will be socialism.