America's Tea Party Convention: never before have so many people with so little collective intelligence gathered in one place to yell obscenities and indulge in racist horseplay. A place where the values of the Enlightenment are put to the sword in support of some good ol' fashioned name calling. A movement that has - to the endless delight of satirists everywhere - taken to the verb "teabagging" as their catchcry. As in "We're going to teabag those fatcats in Washington". Yes, that certainly would teach them a lesson, just not the one that I think you'd expect.

Anyway, it would all be side-splittingly hilarious in that whole 'look at those wacky Americans' sort of vein if the TPC didn't seem to be in such distinct danger of completely derailing the political process and/or inspiring an assassination attempt on the current President (now that's a democracy we can all rally behind!). But it is still rather fascinating and kinda funny, so I thought I'd throw together a bit of a highlights reel of the Tea Party's best moments, just so you have an idea of what America is really up against.

First up is Glenn Beck, Fox News' premiere fuckwit, basically kickstarting the movement last March in a wash of faux-patriotism, faux-tears and a faux-invocation of the September 11 attacks. What a faux-bro.



However, Beck's piteous grab for viewer sympathy germinated in the minds of a few canny Fox News executives and led to this particular gathering of the woefully uninformed on the 12th of September last year.



This in turn led to the "Tea Party Movement", an inchoate assemblage that only really exists in the loosest sense of the word, bringing together - as it does - militia members, conspiracy theorists, anarchists, racists, angry illiterates and the Republican Party. As far as I can tell it has absolutely nothing to do with this song.



"High tea in the parlour makes the ladies holler". Indeed. But somewhat apt considering the scale of wealth involved by many of the movement's conservative backers. When you can charge people $US550 to watch Sarah Palin wage open warfare on the English language (with the help of some handily scrawled notes on her palm), you know you're not solely dealing with the bitter unemployed. When she talked about that 'hope-y change-y stuff' I almost put a fist through my laptop screen. Fortunately, Stephen Colbert has a take-down that could only really be described as 'masterful'.


And now this grab-bag of nutbars has whipped up a feature film documentary, the descriptively named Tea Party Movie. Surprisingly, not directed by one of the Wayans brothers. Here's the preview. It doesn't look so much like a documentary about a series of protests as it does an alternative promo for 28 Days Later. They even managed to find a black guy to give it the air of political legitimacy... He could not have been easy to find.



But we all know the best thing about these protests is the handmade signs - glorious tributes to the political force of bad spelling, hazy texta work and poor space-management - so I thought I'd leave you today with a selection of my favourites, a warm reminder that the world is filled with people who probably deserve to have their voting arm removed.

Apt comparison.



Oh, I get it, it's because he's black...



Put a ring on it.



What's he even doing working?



How can you look so chipper while holding that sign? It probably needs a 'LOL' at the end.



You have to look at it for a second... There you go.



Oh, thank you comedy Gods



And, finally:



Brilliant.