“Local protests have to accumulate and spread — and become more disruptive — to create pressures on national politicians. An effective movement of the Tea Party will have to look something like the strikes and riots that have spread across Greece. . . .”Liberal opinion shapers are pointing out that since the riots in Greece have been violent, and people have died, the Tea Party is inciting violence and should be condemned by all Americans along the entire length of the political spectrum. Such recommendations coming from prominent leaders are incredibly irresponsible, it is justly noted, and will lead us down the path to social chaos. The tea party will have blood on its hands.
We can all agree that good, sensible people should condemn this kind of rhetoric and dissociate themselves from anyone who utters it. Encouraging violent protest has no place in our politics nor in our country.
Sadly, though, liberals haven't shown much evidence that they're actually upset by the call for violence, perhaps because it didn't appear in a conservative magazine, and it wasn't a tea party spokesperson who uttered those words. They were spoken by Francis Fox Piven, an editor at the leftist magazine The Nation in an editorial on December 10th of last year. The quote is accurate except that she used the word "unemployed" where I substituted "Tea Party".
Piven is a leading socialist intellectual who has been said to have been influential on President Obama's political development. Since Piven is a lefty, though, the media has been pretty quiet about her call to emulate the riots in Greece. Somehow the call for violent riots, a call that would be loudly, energetically, and correctly condemned if it had emanated from the right, is considered righteous when coming from the left.
Good thing for Ms. Piven she isn't Michelle Bachman urging her listeners to be "armed" with information on pending legislation, and "dangerous" to their political opponents. If she were, the media would have committed the journalistic equivalent of water-boarding on her by now.
