I just got this email from PJ Media:
July 4th weekend is quickly approaching. What does that mean for you?
Citizen Reporters:
For April 15, over 700 reporters signed up and ultimately uploaded 7,000 photos and over 100 videos! We want your help for July 4th weekend Tea Party coverage. Currently our Citizen Reporter count is approaching 800 – but we need more.
Sign up here.Tea Party Organizers:
We want to help you make a difference by covering your event. Register it here.This initial list of Tea Party events will be rapidly expanding during this week!
You gotta love that thinking- the Tax Day tea parties were a huge flop even with weeks of promotion at Fox News, so schedule a new set of patriotic tea parties on… July 4th, when everyone is celebrating Independence Day, and just count all them as part of the tea party numbers. Why, I bet there will be a hundred thousand or more tea party attendants in DC alone at the Lincoln Memorial! I bet they even stay for the fireworks they are so committed to the tea party cause!
So here is my plan for a tea party of our own. This year, from after Thanksgiving until 2 January, I want everyone who wants to signify that they support any liberal or dirty hippy position to do the following things to show your support for the cause:
1.) Put up a large evergreen in your living room and dress it up with lots of ornaments.
2.) Drink egg nog.
3.) Place candles in your window.
4.) Take the day off on the 24th or 25th of December, and spend it with your family.
5.) Sing little ditties and songs (we can even call them “carols”).
6.) Buy gifts for your friends and loved ones.
I have a lot more ideas about how we can really show our solidarity. I’m tentatively thinking about adopting the reindeer as our mascot, and maybe making mistletoe our official plant life, but I’m open to ideas.
What do you think?
*** Update ***
It has been suggested that not only should we choose mistletoe, but we should make up some silly rule about hanging it and then kissing people underneath it. This sounds promising.
Jennifer
The only flaw in your plan is that it is at cross-purposes with our War on Christmas.
Back to the drawing board!
John Cole
@Jennifer: What is this “Christmas” thing you speak of, and how will it interfere with our liberal tea party (to be held from Thanksgiving until 2 January)?
Written Off
We have to represent the youth vote! I say October 30th we all dress up as ghosts-especially the children to protest anti-choicers.
Buffalopundit
Maybe we could get a fat guy with a white beard and red suit to speak at all of the teabag rallies? Kids could climb up on his lap and tell him their secret wishes.
It’s not creepy. Furrealz.
PaminBB
Feats of Strength! Airing of the Grievances!
Actually, the latter might cut a little too close to the Tea Bagger’s territory.
JK
What about somehow utilizing arugula and Dijon and Grey Poupon mustards?
Death By Mosquito Truck
John, how about we exchange personalized greeting cards and gifts, even with those who do not choose to attend our tea party, thereby further expanding its scope?
geg6
Jennifer: Here’s the real beauty of it. We all put little statues of the baby Jeebus and his family and friends in a prominent place for all to see. This completely throws the teabagger types off, they join in with our symbolism, and we coopt them without their ever realizing it! Genius!
The Grand Panjandrum
Every time I think about these tea parties I am reminded of this failblog video.
NutellaonToast
All those in favor, take a breath of air sometime in the next 10 minutes.
chadwig
Yer a God-damned Genius.
JenJen
As long as it doesn’t involve Glenn Beck in my living room, I’m in!
John S.
Liberal Tea Parties will occur on all days ending in ‘y’ and tacit acknowledgement of participation will be constituted by intake of oxygen, to signify our solidarity in protecting the Earth.
asiangrrlMN
Just like Stephen Colbert’s October 31st covenant pact, or whatever.
John, you are in rare form today. I have to ask, though, do I have to do ALL of the above, or can I just do one or two of them? I’m not really into 1-3 or 5, but I can definitely do 4 & 6.
Hm. I’m actually tempted to be a Teabagger reporter and create my own videos….
fastandsloppy
Since we are so beholden to ethnic interest groups maybe we can make a seperate event for the Jews. They can make it at a different date if they want, even spread it out over eight days. Whatever.
And the African Americas need one too. Maybe they can call it Kwan.. something.
I almost forgot the Mexicans! Jeez, it’s getting crowded in December, maybe they can do theirs in late Spring. Maybe around May 4th or 6th; somewhere in there.
gex
I don’t know about you, but I and all the liberals I know have been participating in a similar symbolic statement. We wear pants in public to symbolize our commitment to liberal causes, and I see that many, many other people do too.
Bill E Pilgrim
They can just scream any wingnutty thing at crowds on July 4 and get a reaction, it reminds me of that part in Borat (actually the only part I saw) where he sings some hideously genocidal anti-Semitic song and the yahoos sing along, which did show racism and showed all sorts of things, but it also showed that anything that includes “so my country can be free!” would get big cheers.
Death By Mosquito Truck
I think we should name the first day of our multi-day tea party Black Friday as a way to suggest Big Gummint is going to cause the ecomony to crash just like last time.
Bill E Pilgrim
@gex:
Damn. Now I realize why I’m getting disapproving looks. People think I’m not liberal.
geg6
There really is no more fun activity than making fun of teabaggers. It was a genius idea but just not quite in the way intended.
fastandsloppy
Also, since the media is liberal (i.e. evil), anytime anyone watches T.V., goes to a movie, listens to a song or reads a book they are tactitly bowing to Super-Secret-Muslim-Atheist-Commie-Nazi-Fag Obama.
asiangrrlMN
@Death By Mosquito Truck: And, that the head of our Big Gumminit is black.
I say, if you exist, you are a member of the Liberal Tea Party!
AnotherBruce
If you don’t mind, I’m going to stick with my usual celebration and worship of UFOs, bigfoot, multiple pagan deities and naked ritual bonfire dancing during this time period.
MarkusB
Ho, ho, ho!
Don’t forget to wear lots of red and green, everybody!
Zuzu's Petals
Best yet, thousands and thousands of reporters will be uploading their pictures and videos documenting the event. And forcing all their friends and family to view them.
Death By Mosquito Truck
@Zuzu’s Petals: Bring back it’s a wonderful comment.
mey
No, no, not a “Tea Party”. We need a “Latte Party”. Get your DFH-lih-bah-rul beverages right.
geg6
Not to mention, we must all make sure to collectively sing an ode to the Commie, red-nosed reindeer. Who with his comrade, that Claus dude, shows his Marxist sympathies by redistributing wealth.
Comrade Dread
No on the reindeers as our mascot.
This Comrade thinks we should pick a symbol more befitting: A wise leader, dressed in red, who presides benevolently over a factory of workers dressed in identical garments raising their mighty hammers to contribute and share equally in the noble enterprise and each singing happily with joy.
Shelly
I think I’ll string a whole lot of colored lights in my trees and on the roof of my house. I’ll do this sometime in late November, and I’ll walk or bike around my neighborhood to see if others have taken the hint and lighted up their places.
ibid
I think people should organize parties on December 31, and at midnight everyone will simultaneously shout, kiss, and drink champagne to demonstrate their solidarity in the ongoing socialist revolution. There could even be a large public gathering in Times Square, with a large illuminated sphere falling to symbolize our oppression of the forces of goodness and light. ABC would probably even cover it live, as we all know they are the media operation of the Obama administration.
The Grand Panjandrum
John you really do need to set up your website so we can use avatars. Then the True Believers could add red and green to them to show solidarity with the Really True Believers.
jshubbub
I say we make our “tea” party that of the Long Island variety and hold it on the evening of 31 December.
gbear
Hark! The DFHs sing!
gbear
Hark! The DFHs sing!
gbear
I seem to have hit the wrong key….;)
Deborah
I refuse to drink eggnog; otherwise I’m in. I suggest the evergreen as our plant symbol, since it shows it’s eco-pride even in midwinter when pansies, literal and figurative, lie down and give up. (Do we have a plant to symbolize IOKWRDI? I nominate the pansy.)
And I have been following #17’s suggestion with my own twist: capris signify that human activity is contributing to climate change.
harlana pepper
As long as it’s a “chai tea latte with soy milk” party, I’m down with it
harlana pepper
Reindeer antlers for Lily! Hee!
asiangrrlMN
“Away in the environmentally-sound manger, no green crib for a person with a title which is not acceptable to us DFH types…”
Yeah, these “carols” will get awfully unwieldy.
schrodinger's cat
and Tunch is Santy Pawz
Pasquinade
Fireworks and CCWers? Not a good idea.
asiangrrlMN
@harlana pepper: John better not try to put elf ears on Tunch. No good can come from that.
schrodinger’s cat, damn. Yours is funnier.
harlana pepper
Heard a lady call in to WJ this morning complaining how her congressman did not read her letter because it contained tea bags and that all the “tea bag letters” got thrown out unread because they contained a “foreign substance”.
Hee!
harlana pepper
@asiangrrlMN: Santa’s Hefty Helper
(ducks!)
jibeaux
I was thinking maybe a round green symbol for the front door, it could be made of something organic and hippy dippy like plant greenery to symbolize Mother Earth. The roundness of course symbolizes the circle of life, death, rebirth and renewal on our mother earth home. Put a red ribbon on it for Communism, and wa-la, flaky liberal celebration accomplished! I think the whole thing could be seamlessly integrated into Festivus.
eastriver
Let them have their tea and their parties.
We libs drink coffee, and we drink it stong, hot, and black. (Yeah, you heard me.)
And we don’t need to meet on street corners. We can meet in coffee houses and other such establishments. Where we can also order pastries and cookies.
Take that, you pansy-assed tea sippers!
Jim Pharo
It’s critical to our success that everyone try to citizen-photo-journalist this by uploading as many photos as possible (esp of childen!) to the internet.
That would be really good, too.
jibeaux
@harlana pepper:
Sure, “lady”, it contained “tea”. :)
Assuming people are sending tea and complaining about congresscritters not reading their letters, a, you might remember the anthrax and b, if making your point requires sending Lipton’s, it may not be the most awesomest point ever.
b-psycho
@eastriver: Besides, y’know who drinks tea? The Brits! Why do conservatives insist on bowing before the Queen to this day?
Bubblegum Tate
The hell they were! They were a rousing success, showing just how much this country hates Obama and his Marxist Nazi fascist commie Muslim atheist agenda. Also.
Zifnab
I say we celebrate “National Nude Hiking Day” by sacrificing the career of a celebrated Republican Governor on the alter of marital infidelity.
ironranger
I hope walmart acrylic knit sweaters with santas, reindeer or ho, ho, ho motifs are not required dress.
Ramalamadingdong
To sustain our movement why don’t we choose individuals to stand in the malls and ring a small bell to attract true believers? We can collect donations in a small red kettle.
mikebdot
I think liberals need to gather at these tea parties and actually bring a table, chairs, the whole nine yards, and have a proper tea party. White gloves, etc. Don’t say a fucking word to anyone else. Just show up, drink tea, have a good time, then leave.
wguk
Don’t forget to hijack renditions of “O Tanenbaum” with the much more stirring words of “The Internationale”.
The people’s flag is deepest red…
gex
@mikebdot: Pinkies up, of course.
Brick Oven Bill
Your Tea Party sounds boring John.
It does not yet have me giving an address on American energy independence. I do, however, have some openings in the schedule this fall and only charge 1.5% of Al Gore’s speaking fee, and am much better. I have also learned that song ‘Shutting Detroit Down’, which I can play at no additional charge.
JGabriel
John Cole:
I’m all for it. Mistletoe is the perfect symbol for our movement – green to symbolize our environmental policies, and red berries to symbolize the blood of conservatives that we plan to shed.
Even better, how’s this for an idea? We can all, get this, kiss each other when we stand under the mistletoe as a symbol of our commitment to sexual licentiousness! Anyone who refuses will be revealed as a right-wing crypto-fascist, and can be duly arrested for treason!
.
Rich
The main problem with your idea is item 2. There’s a lot of things I’m willing to do for liberalism, but drinking egg nog is not one of them.
Anne Laurie
Our Hispanic cousins’ celebrations will peak on January 6th, which is the day the rest of us ceremonially recycle our DFH Trees. (You knew the DFHs were taking over when urban sanitation departments started recycling holiday trees into park mulch!)
On the other hand, while I’m usually in favor of more kissing, the mistletoe plant is a parasite that causes hallucinations when ingested. I’m not sure that “kissing under the Limbaugh” is really going to be a popular concept.
asiangrrlMN
@mikebdot: Damn. I am SO there with this one. Proper hat and all.
By the way, I want my tea back, please. As a Taiwanese American, I am HEARTILY against the appropriation of my national beverage!
LongHairedWeirdo
It has been suggested that not only should we choose mistletoe, but we should make up some silly rule about hanging it and then kissing people underneath it. This sounds promising.
I think that’s just a pun on the true tradition, which has an amphibian on a rocket that’s traditionally used to carry weaponry – the missile toad.
KCinDC
Pat Boone joins the birthers. Plus more birther news from David Weigel, senior birther correspondent at the Washington Independent (who also has a follow-worthy Twitter feed).
Brick Oven Bill
John could also unveil Obama’s Birth Certificate to someone other than the Annenberg Group KC, that would make for a good Tea Party.
Richard S
I thought they had switched to burning candles – so they could drip hot wax on their tea bags.
Trevor B
In response to the Bozeman montana tea party a man is marching for the fiscal irresponisibility of the Tea parties
bago
It’s the Bilderberg Group. You suck at conspiracy lore.
Colette
@Rich:
In the spirit of
soci alismSolidarnoscuniversal Muslim brotherhood, I’ll drink yours. Then we can all join hands and sing The Whiffenpoof Song, just to show that there are no hard feelings after 8 years of Yalies promoting democrashy worldwide.YellowJournalism
And every time two gays kiss, a Republican has a heart attack.
Tsulagi
Lots of drinking and fading tan line displays? Sanford would probably crash that party. Bipartisanship.
roseyv
Sorry — I was in error. Nothing to see here.
r€nato
I propose that all DFHs everywhere around the world show their solidarity each and every day of the year by smoking a leafy, green substance which causes a mild, pleasant hallucinogenic effect.
r€nato
@YellowJournalism:
fastened yer tuxedo.
namekarB
Look, everyone is making this way too complicated. The Progressive Tea Party (PTP) should be on going.
I suggest we split into two teams. Every Sunday, one team should get out their bibles and attend church to pray for the advancement of the progressive agenda. The other team should display patriotism by watching as many sporting games each Sunday as possible.
Tokyokie
I have organized a liberal anti-tea party for the evening of July 14 in downtown St. Louis. I expect a crowd of more than 40,000.
Ruemara
@YellowJournalism:
I was at Pride in SF yesterday. If I’d’ve known this, I would tongued everything that looked like a girl simply to improve cosmic balance.
Zuzu's Petals
@Death By Mosquito Truck:
Okay!
Every man, woman, and child would be forced to watch our documentary starring that Marxist Jimmy Stewart and the welfare “angel” Clarence.
YellowJournalism
I have made a decision: From now on, I will officially celebrate my birthday on March 17. Anyone who wishes to celebrate the occasion of my birth may wear the colour green, get absolutely shit-faced drunk on beer and other fine alcoholic beverages, pinch the asses of anyone who doesn’t wear green, and try to get people to kiss them by claiming Irish heritage. Maybe if word gets around, cities will support my celebration by adding green dye to water fountains and rivers!
Batocchio
Some blogs are doing a food drive for the 4th, actually. Not to discourage Christmas in July.
crack
Don’t forget the 10.31 project.
JohnR
“Mistletoe is the perfect symbol for our movement – green to symbolize our environmental policies, and red berries to symbolize the blood of conservatives that we plan to shed.”
And, of course, that mistletoe is a parasitic plant that has to be held up by the sturdy oak that it is sucking the life force from. No, no – don’t thank me!
Anyway, I think it’s a great idea, and contra Jenny, I think it fits in fine with the War On Christmas(R). As the one is crushed, the other will naturally take its place, co-opting the existing holyday with a newer and better version. Much like the old druidical holyday was replaced by that uspstart Roman/Hebraic colyday. Kind of ironical, thinking about it that way, what with the mistletoe reference and all.
JBL in Maine
This is a great idea. I’m going to suggest to my church that we have a special service on the evening of, say, my birthday, which is December 24th. We can hang boughs of those evergreens you mentioned, light some candles, sing songs together, and share bread and wine.
Maybe we’ll also collect money from everyone who comes and send it to a group helping the needy in, say, Palestine. There’s a little town there … what’s the name … oh yeah. Bethlehem.
Tax Analyst
Jesus, that’s a helluva idea.
karen marie
It should be Dec 24 through Jan 6.
You wouldn’t want to miss Epiphany!
JBL in Maine
Good idea: we can stage a production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night!