Lately we have been hearing a lot of squawking and screeching emanating from the conservative right wing about a revolution.
This is rather perplexing given that we recently had an election in which the elected President won rather substantially without the need for voter caging, voter suppression, election fraud, recounts, recount shut downs, lawsuits and the Supreme Court. Nor was it necessary to bring in the likes of a Swift Boat attack machine and a corrupted Secretary of State (R-OH) to deliver a win in a razor thin, close election.
And despite all of the problems we face in these dire and stressful times the President’s approval ratings remain in the 60’s. Today it is at 67%. Today an ABC/Washington Post poll also reveals 65% trust President Obama to handle relations with Muslim nations.
So, what is the problem? Why is a revolution necessary now?
Where, may I ask, were these American revolutionary ideologues when former U.S. House Speaker, The Hammer, Tom Delay (R-TX) threw open the doors of Congress and ushered in the special interest fat cats and lobbyists who would pervasively influence the laws that now govern us?
In case the wannabe revolutionaries did not know it, the likes of
Wall St. bankers and cheerleaders for deregulation were among Hammer Delay’s invitees.
The report, "Sold Out: How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America," shows that, from 1998-2008, Wall Street investment firms, commercial banks, hedge funds, real estate companies and insurance conglomerates made $1.725 billion in political contributions and spent another $3.4 billion on lobbyists, a financial juggernaut aimed at undercutting federal regulation.
Nearly 3,000 officially registered federal lobbyists worked for the industry in 2007 alone. The report documents a dozen distinct deregulatory moves that, together, led to the financial meltdown. These include prohibitions on regulating financial derivatives; the repeal of regulatory barriers between commercial banks and investment banks; a voluntary regulation scheme for big investment banks; and federal refusal to act to stop predatory subprime lending.
Where were these proponents of "Stand up NOW and SAVE America" when George W. Bush and Dick Cheney quietly and systematically dismantled the inherent rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution whose tenets were deemed "quaint" at the time? And, according to recent news reports, Bush had panicked after 9/11. The antidote for Bush’s panic attack?
Torture. Where was the right’s outrage when Bush and Cheney started torturing political prisoners? Weren’t these folks worried that if Cheney had a bad day, they could be tortured too?
One could suppose the right wing ideologues are trying to come to terms with life outside of their shattered bubble. Unfortunately its coping mechanisms for dealing with the transition from an alternative fake reality to the real world are at best, unproductive and worse, downright scary and dangerous.
In an editorial in the The New York Times Charles Blow expressed his concern for conservative hate talk.
In his article
Pitchforks and Pistols
Blow asserts conservative chatter and hate talk is far from harmless.
Lately I’ve been consuming as much conservative media as possible (interspersed with shots of Pepto-Bismol) to get a better sense of the mind and mood of the right. My read: They’re apocalyptic. They feel isolated, angry, betrayed and besieged. And some of their "leaders" seem to be trying to mold them into militias.
Mr. Blow said he was initially amused by the twisted logic, garbled and veiled hate speech. After spending substantial time listening to conservative media, however, Mr. Blow changed his tune. He realized all is not harmless talk.
But, it’s not all just harmless talk. For some, their disaffection has hardened into something more dark and dangerous. They’re talking about a revolution.
Mr. Blow’s article certainly gave me pause because I too had the tendency to dismiss the ravings of the right wing as just that. I would laugh at the ranting and hyperventilation from conservative ideologues and thought of them as pathetic and out of touch sore losers who throw tantrums like children when things don’t go their way.
The events of this past week should certainly make us rethink some of our impressions of right wing hate talk. Who listens to these people? Who takes them seriously?
Last week was a very ugly one in America. As we know an immigrant who lived in the U.S. for over twenty years shot and killed at least thirteen people in the American Civic Association in Binghamton, NY with an assault rifle.
The Association is well known for providing support and outreach services for refugees and immigrants. It has been existence since the 1930’s. The killer, Jiverly Wong, had very recently taken English classes there.
Wong had a lot of idle time on his hand because he had lost his job and was unable to find another. Wong, completely isolated and socially alienated, believed the world in which he lived ridiculed him. He spent a lot of time shooting his guns. Alone.
He was also a gun enthusiast who often spent weekends shooting targets and trying out different guns at a local sporting goods store. He had been licensed to carry handguns in New York since 1996, the police said.
On Saturday, three police officers were ambushed and murdered in Pittsburgh by a crazed gunman wielding an assault rifle.
Two of the murdered officers were married men. Both had two daughters. The third officer and his fiancé had plans to marry.
The Pittsburgh killer had an obsession with guns.
Other friends said Mr. Poplawski had several guns, including an AK-47 assault-type rifle, a .357 Magnum revolver, a .380-caliber handgun and a .45-caliber handgun. They also said they believed he had not been getting along with his mother.
The killer also feared the Obama Administration would impose a ban on guns.
Of course President Obama has no intention of suspending the Second Amendment. Now what or who would have put this irrational thought into a very disturbed man’s head? Very disturbed news anchors?
According to another who is fomenting a revolution Chuck Norris said an uprising is in order to block impending totalitarianism.
Huh? I don’t get it.
So, totalitarianism is impending now that Dick Cheney and his secret executive assassination rings is out of power?
Chuck dude, are you out of work or something?
Norris also said he’d become President of Texas, where the uprising will begin.
That’s OK Chuckie Boy. We don’t need you starting any revolutions down here. Stay in California, dude, where Hollywood has plenty of sets, costumes, weapons and fabricated towns for you to play a macho cowboy or soldier with formidable firepower wherever you need that power and fire to come from. You can knock off anyone your little ol’ heart desires.
When I appeared on Glenn Beck's radio show, he told me that someone had asked him, "Do you really believe that there is going to be trouble in the future?" And he answered, "If this country starts to spiral out of control and Mexico melts down or whatever, if it really starts to spiral out of control, before America allows a country to become a totalitarian country (which it would have under I think the Republicans as well in this situation; they were taking us to the same place, just slower), Americans won't stand for it. There will be parts of the country that will rise up." Then Glenn asked me and his listening audience, "And where's that going to come from?" He answered his own question, "Texas, it's going to come from Texas. Do you agree with that Chuck?" I replied, "Oh yeah!" Definitely.
And then there is Fox "News" good ol’ fake crybaby Glenn Beck. It seems that Beck, like Dick Cheney suffers from delusional paranoia. He wants us to surround something or someone. Or maybe he wants to surround someone or something. Martians maybe?
Actually Beck’s 9 step agenda has an interesting and complicated twist.
- If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.
OK Glenn – so why don’t you all bring your pitchforks and pistols outside the homes of Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Alberto Gonzales, Harriet Meyers, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, and Scooter Libby? Afterwards you can move on to Fairfax County, CT and Manhattan where many of the Wall St. bankers and AIG executives live. Next you could go to Detroit where the Big 3 CEOs hang out. After Detroit move on over to Switzerland, home of USB, the bank that helps very wealthy Americans and Europeans find places to hide their income and evade taxes. When you finish in Switzerland head on back to the U.S. and swing by Houston. Park outside the homes of ExxonMobil execs who work 24/7/365 to block alternative energy. Next find out where Richard L. Scott lives. He’s the dude who will pump millions of his own bucks into a health care reform smear campaign. Standup dude Scott hired the same firm that is responsible for the reprehensible Swift Boat attack ads during the 2004 Presidential Election.
All of the above are the ones who have been trying to steal your democracy and who have been robbing you blind all along.
Another right wing conservative who is promoting a revolution is a politician. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) calls for an "orderly revolution" whatever that is.
At this point the American people - it's like Thomas Jefferson said, a revolution every now and then is a good thing. We are at the point, Sean, of revolution. And by that, what I mean, an orderly revolution -- where the people of this country wake up get up and make a decision that this is not going to happen on their watch. It won't be our children and grandchildren that are in debt. It is we who are in debt, we who will be bankrupting this country, inside of ten years, if we don't get a grip. And we can't let the Democrats achieve their ends any longer.
Ms. Bachmann is also hallucinating over the recently expanded AmericaCorps program calling it mandatory "Re-education Camps."
Wow. This is beyond crazy. AmericaCorps is like the Peace Corps, here in the U.S. It's mission is to provide outreach and support to impoverished people. I guess Teach for America is also a mandatory re-education program, according to whacko thought.
CNN’s Lou Dobbs makes a substantial living by bashing immigrants. Indeed, he is on record as proclaiming himself a supporter of a right wing vigilante group known as the Minuteman Project. This project is comprised of volunteers who, heavily armed, assist patrol agents with monitoring the southern U.S. border.
In a discussion of a Wall Street Journal editorial on immigration during his December 9, 2005, show, Dobbs announced, "I support the Minuteman Project and the fine Americans who make it up in all they've accomplished, fully, relentlessly, and proudly." As you may know, the Minuteman Project has been touted by conservative outlets, despite controversy over its anti-immigrant rhetoric and vigilante-style tactics.
Dobbs owns some culpability where hate crimes are concerned.
The recent attention paid to a notorious Long Island hate crime in which a group of young whites went in search of Latinos to harm has raised serious questions about the relationship between immigrant-bashing rhetoric and the surge of anti-Latino bias crimes nationally.
And the mainstream purveyors of this rhetoric -- particularly pundits like Bill O'Reilly and Lou Dobbs -- are denying their culpability in the only means available to them: By distorting the reality of hate crimes themselves.
Rush, Chuck, Glenn, Lou, Sean, Bill O. and Michelle, there are drugs for the disease that plagues all of you and Dick Cheney. Please see a psychiatrist ASAP and stop – STOP – projecting your own irrational and pathological fears and insecurities by shamefully ringing the alarm bells and fanning the delusions of the tormented souls who suffer from untreated mental illness. They could very well be taking you folks seriously.
You, Sirs and Madam, are whipping them into a dangerous and frightening frenzy. Those who are paranoid, psychotic, seriously depressed and socially alienated and who also happen to have a fondness for assault weapons are especially vulnerable to hate talk and fear.
Come on folks, get a grip on reality. Get help. Now. It’s not like any of you can’t afford top notch care.
Check out an example of untreated, unhinged delusional paranoia, folks. It's pretty ugly.