You think that's hyperbole? You think I may be reading too much into his speech at the Republican Senate-House fundraising dinner? Well follow me beneath the fold to analyze his speech.
Before you write me off and tell me to relax or ignore one of the few Hollywood elite's to find favor with the republican party, please hear me out.
First of all, hate speech would be the understatement of the year to descibe the atrocious, banal and opaque arguments that Mr. Voight made. Let's review some of his more outrageous quotes:
I’ll tell you why this really scares the hell out of me. Because everything Obama has recommended has turned out to be disasterous. His so-called stimulus package and his budgets will leave our grandchildren with great burdens and great debts. The government is now owning car companies and banks and we’re losing job after job. Our unemployment rate is an astronomic 9.4. And of course they send out Joe Biden, one of the great double-talkers of our time, to tell us the unemployment rate is getting better. The government wants to run health care and tell people what doctors they can see. How much they can make. What cars to drive. And they’re killing off the entrepreneurs who are the backbone of our economy.
I am one of the unemployed. I know what it's like. I know that unemployment numbers are reducing month-to-month because industry has purged as many people as they possibly can. In other words, "How many more people can they fire and still run their business'?" But every single rational person in this nation understands HOW we got here and WHO got us here. So this crap doesn't really bother me all that much. In fact this quote makes me actually laugh out loud:
It’s no wonder that the Russian newspaper Pravda, the former house organ for the former Soviet Communist regime, has said the American descent into Marxism is happening with breath-taking speed.
I love it. Republicans have gone so far down the rabbit hole, have lost ANY sense of reality that with wild applause, a standing ovation from Laura Ingraham, they actually rely on the integrity and honesty of........wait for it...Pravda...fucking PRAVDA!!! The poster-child for state run media; the veritable go-to source for all things false. Did you ever think that the REPUBLICAN PARTY would be not only reading, but digesting, agreeing with and QUOTING fucking PRAVDA???!!! Hysterical...
However, Mr. Voight goes on to speak about Israel and his deep concern and respect for the embattled nation...
I think Obama has no idea that Israel was built on the blood and sweat of the Jewish people.
(snip)... He could not possibly understand this or he would know that the Jewish people are tried time and time again to give the Palestinians land and bring a peaceful solution. But every attempt, every attempt, was returned with violence. As far as I'm concerned, their only agenda is to wipe Israel off the Earth. And he reprimands the Israeli people, Obama. Like he’s a professor and they’re the school children....(Snip)..So how worried [about Iran] are we supposed to be now? Was I hearing things when he said that Iran might have the right to nuclear power? Are we supposed to be sitting and waiting, watching for the possibility of a new Holocaust? Who’s going to take the responsibility to keep Ameri — Israel safe?
Fear-mongering bullshit to be sure. But here is where I get infuriated; Voighht wraps up his speech with this...
And let’s give thanks to all the great people like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, William Bennett, Glenn Beck, Hugh Hewitt, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Dennis Miller, Dick Morris, Ann Coulter, John Kasich, Michael Steele, Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, Thomas Sowell, Victor Davis Hanson, Shelby Steele, Charles Krauthammer, Michelle Malkin, Fred Barnes and so many others. Let’s give thanks to them for not giving up and staying the course to bring an end to this false prophet Obama.
Yes in a way it's simply marvelous that it's not just the left trying to make the far-right wing lunatic fringe the voice of the Republican party, but their own speakers at their fund-raising dinner, but let me repeat that last sentence:
Let’s give thanks to them for not giving up and staying the course to bring an end to this false prophet Obama.
We now know that organizations like Operation Rescue are more than willing to speak publicly in such a way that if the crazies hear it and they act on their leaders words, then party leaders can simply disavow the rhetoric as misunderstood yet secretly relish the demise of who they have deemed to be a cancer on this nation. we know that the republicans have long-stated that Obama is not American, is a Muslim, is a Socialist, is a threat, is dangerous. How much more do we need to hear? The man has been in office for less than six months and these unhinged fools are already saying that a Free America is gone. THEY ARE HOPING FOR ASSASSINATION. Not all of them BUT MANY..
As far as I am concerned, Voight called for the assassination of Barack Obama and he should be investigated and prosecuted and convicted. Remember, when Bush was a war-time president, calls for IMPEACHMENT were un-American. What do they say to outright calls for "an end" to a president? And not just any president; a "FALSE PROPHET".
I guess it's free speech when you are a far-right lunatic, but treasonous when you are a Democrat. These are threats. These are insinuations (and lies). These are stoking the fire of the crazies and I refuse to stand by and let them get away with it. It MATTERS. It is TREASON. It is a CRIME.
There I said it...
UPDATE 9:00pm - To respond to those who are calling my post hyperbolic, overwrought, overstated etc. I direct their criticism to Wikipedia's initial definition of "false prophet that Jon Voight uses at least twice in his speech;
"False prophet" In religion, the term false prophet is a label given to a person who is viewed as illegitimately claiming charismatic authority within a religious group. The individual may be seen as one who falsely claims the gift of prophecy, or who uses that gift for demagogy or evil ends. The label 'prophet' can be extremely subjective: Without exception, someone who is considered a 'true' prophet by some people, is simultaneously considered a 'false' prophet by some others; in other cases, one who is simply inclined to rational argument might be called a 'false prophet' or even an 'antichrist'.
Yes...antichrist..
The hyperbole is not mine. The dog whistle politics is not mine. The overwrought nature is not mine. Voight got a standing ovation by calling obama the antichrist. Thos ewho seek to dismiss my worry that this kind of speech is extremely dangerous are arrogant.