CNN: There Is A "Dark Fringe" To These Tea Party Events

Turborama

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Sun Sep-13-09 10:44 AM
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CNN: There Is A "Dark Fringe" To These Tea Party Events

Edited on Sun Sep-13-09 10:47 AM by Turborama

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mlf_rUVGRNw

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Posted on DU: September 13, 2009
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The thing all these loons are missing is that if there were plans to lock them all up in "death camps" these protests would have provided a perfect opportunity to round them all up. Also, has anyone seen news coverage of this guy walking around with an AK47 and where it was?

CNN All Platform Journalist Jim Spellman traveled with the Tea Party Express as it made its way across the country these past two weeks. It was a colorful trip, full of passionate opinions - to say the least. Here are some of the highlights for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Every - an everyday Tea Partier is an American citizen that is frustrated with the direction the country's going -

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are truly concerned about the - the heartbeat of our country.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're taking our liberties away. It's tyranny. It's a Gestapo-type (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's too much involvement in the government. We can take care of ourselves.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I didn't - I didn't vote for him, but I didn't necessarily have anything against what he was saying. He gets an office and it's like all of the things that I was kind of afraid of really happened.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They can have my country when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I think their agenda is to slowly but surely take away everything that we worked for and everything the Constitution stands for. Are we (INAUDIBLE). Kill (ph) the bill! (INAUDIBLE) Free the bill! Free the bill! (INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Officers that he picked are all either communists or socialists.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I really don't really want to be a - a guinea pig for the experiment they have with the population control.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's going after our kids and try to indoctrinate them into a national defense army, and we're not going to let him do it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're kind of the ultimate check and balance, I suppose.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't want a revolution. I don't want a civil war. I would hate for that to happen. But it is a possibility. It's there as an option - as a last resort should our government turn on its own people.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

LEMON: That's just a sampling of what our Jim Spellman heard as he rode along with the Tea Party Express, and he joins me now from Washington. You see him there. Was that most extreme of what you've heard or was it pretty typical?

JIM SPELLMAN, CNN ALL PLATFORM JOURNALIST: Well, the gentleman there with the AK-47, that was definitely an extreme. We saw people wearing handguns from time to time. But really, running through this whole sort of subculture that's developed around these tea parties, it - it's a - a bit of a - a dark undercurrent you have the - the bulk of the people that are there for low taxes, less government control, but there really is a - is an element that's got these kind of outlandish conspiracy theories about death camps and - and about the, you know, this takeover, people comparing President Obama to Hitler. That really is a sizable thread (ph). It's not just a couple of people on the edges.

But one of the big questions, you know, will be can this movement go forward while maintaining this kind of element on the edges. You know, we don't know, but, Don, it's a - it's a - it's a - there's some heaviness out there with this.

LEMON: Yes. And you know, as you were talking I'm looking at it. I saw the guns, I saw the, you know, socialist with the face, the red lips and what have you. Here's what I want to ask you. At the - at the tea parties or these rallies that you have been going to, did you ever see any people there who were explaining what's in - what's actually in the bill to the people at the rallies?

SPELLMAN: You know, a little bit, more with sort of talking points. But what you hear from the stage is a lot different than what you hear in the crowd. On the stage they are talking about small government and health care and such, cap and trade (ph), things like that, but in the crowd what you are really hear is - is really a different message, when you get out and talk to the people. You know, it's a much sort of darker thing where they really, really feel that - that the country is going in the wrong way, in a really serious...

LEMON: Explain to me, what do you mean by a much more darker thing? Talk to me about that.

SPELLMAN: Well, I mean, one of the things that we heard over and over again is that - is that it's sort of the - the death panels thing, taken to several degrees past that where the president is going to set up these - these death camps where they're going to do forced sterilization, and - and that the government is taking over the internet to stifle, you know, speech and that there's going to be forced vaccinations.

These are not things that after 30-some Tea Parties, this is not one or two people. This is people that we heard over and over and over and over again - You know, really, there's just so much sort of disinformation or misinformation out there that it really creates a - a significant part. You didn't see as much of it here today in Washington, but in these towns across America that we went, it - it really is out there, Don, and it's - it's - it's - you know, it gave me pause more than once, going across the country with the Tea Party Express.

LEMON: CNN All Platform Journalist Jim Spellman. He was on the - the bus or on the Tea Party Express from Sacramento all the way to D.C. Thank you so much for your reporting, sir.