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You are here: Home / Politics / Media / Out of the past

Out of the past

by DougJ|  August 15, 200912:40 pm| 147 Comments

This post is in: Media, Assholes

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Everyone should always read Rick Perlstein but especially today:

Before the “black helicopters” of the 1990s, there were right-wingers claiming access to secret documents from the 1920s proving that the entire concept of a “civil rights movement” had been hatched in the Soviet Union; when the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act was introduced, one frequently read in the South that it would “enslave” whites. And back before there were Bolsheviks to blame, paranoids didn’t lack for subversives — anti-Catholic conspiracy theorists even had their own powerful political party in the 1840s and ’50s.

[…..]

Liberals are right to be vigilant about manufactured outrage, and particularly about how the mainstream media can too easily become that outrage’s entry into the political debate. For the tactic represented by those fake Nixon letters was a long-term success. Conservatives have become adept at playing the media for suckers, getting inside the heads of editors and reporters, haunting them with the thought that maybe they are out-of-touch cosmopolitans and that their duty as tribunes of the people’s voices means they should treat Obama’s creation of “death panels” as just another justiciable political claim. If 1963 were 2009, the woman who assaulted Adlai Stevenson would be getting time on cable news to explain herself. That, not the paranoia itself, makes our present moment uniquely disturbing.

I don’t know why the right-wing crazy is so strong in the United States. Maybe it’s because we haven’t gone through the cleansing fire of out-and-out fascism, maybe it’s because ethnic diversity produces paranoia in a certain segment of the population (even as it produces tolerance in much of the rest).

Perlstein’s analysis of why the media has allowed itself to become a tool of the right-wing crazy — it’s largely because they’re afraid of being labeled liberal, cosmopolitan elites. But I think careerism is at work here too. Murdoch media gigs and affirmative action for wingnuts on editorial pages incentivize craven sucking up to the lunatic fringe.

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147Comments

  1. 1.

    dmsilev

    August 15, 2009 at 12:50 pm

    Maybe it’s because we haven’t gone through the cleansing fire of out-and-out fascism

    I don’t think this is the answer. If it were, Canada would be as frothing insane as we are. Ditto Sweden.

    Your second possibility, of fear of ethnic diversity, strikes me as more plausible. Fear of the Other has a long and sordid history in this country. The identity of the Other has changed over the years (a partial list, off the top of my head: black slaves, black former slaves and descendants, Irish, Southern Europeans, Eastern Europeans, Chinese, Latinos), but it’s always been there.

    -dms

  2. 2.

    par4

    August 15, 2009 at 12:56 pm

    Doug you need a recommend button for this post. Thx

  3. 3.

    Comrade Jake

    August 15, 2009 at 12:57 pm

    I don’t know why the right-wing crazy is so strong in the United States.

    Look to our educational system for starters. Does any other leading nation take public education less seriously?

  4. 4.

    Riggsveda

    August 15, 2009 at 12:58 pm

    Unfortunately, the cleansing fire of out-and-out fascism apparently isn’t doing the Germans any good anymore:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/15/arts/15abroad.html?hp

    Sigh.

  5. 5.

    DecidedFenceSitter

    August 15, 2009 at 12:59 pm

    It has been everywhere, it is just here we always have a new other coming in – versus other nations which are far more homogeneous (for example, Japan), or we don’t see the racial tension cause U.S. news in the world sucks donkey balls (for example, France riots on or around July 13).

    My guess? We’re still young, and there’s still a large portion of the U.S. that is distrustful of gov’t, the north, and the changes that they have brought, it is culturally instilled; and while there are always a certain number of those folks in any culture, here they have a high enough concentration in a few geographic locations that the rather than petering out, the movement becomes self-sustaining.

  6. 6.

    G Newman

    August 15, 2009 at 1:01 pm

    The right-wing crazy was mainstreamed long ago, during the era of slavery, by white southerners and northerners who considered racial differences innate and essential.

    Reconstruction, which enabled freed slaves to vote and achieve a small measure of civil rights, was overturned in every southern state by white militias who drove African Americas and radical Republicans from office. The white militias were far broader than just the KKK. The end was only officially recognized by the appeasement of the 1876 election, which withdrew federal troops from the 3 remaining southern states that had been occupied.

    A century and a half of revisionism emboldened the right-wing crazies: They had achieved power and now legitmacy, and their point of view was celebrated and became dominant because of films such as “Birth of a Nation” and “Gone with the Wind.”

    This is the direct legacy that the birthers, deathers, and the racists who represent the majority of what is the now predominantly white and southern GOP. They learned that there were no consequences to using violence to achieve their ends. The people at the townhalls who shout down others, who scream they want their country back,” will not peacefully submit to having an African-American as President.

  7. 7.

    Roger Moore

    August 15, 2009 at 1:05 pm

    The 1st Amendment probably has something to do with it. Many other countries have either A) laws that let them lock people up for advocating sufficiently crazy ideas, B) powerful government run media that aren’t afraid to challenge the crazies, or C) both. The 1st Amendment is clearly against A) and has generally been interpreted as being against B), so we wind up with the airwaves full of nutty ideas.

  8. 8.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    August 15, 2009 at 1:06 pm

    Much of what we call Mainstream Media these days couldn’t conduct basic research if you dropped rabid ferrets down his pants.

    Which is easier to do: Track down sources, read through reams of paper, conduct more interviews, check those sources facts and put together a piece that is written [presented] in an engaging manner.

    OR

    Holding a “debate” over whether or not Obama is illegal alien usurper who wants to kill Grandma?

    They’re. Just. Too. Fucking. Lazy.

    Plus, more and more large outlets approach journalism as something that can be handled in sound-bites, and God forbid we devote space/time in a paper/broadcast that could be used for advertisements!

    there were right-wingers claiming access to secret documents from the 1920s proving that the entire concept of a “civil rights movement” had been hatched in the Soviet Union

    Yup. During the 60’s much of the CIA’s domestic spying was justified by the fact that them darkies agitating for rights were very well organized, ergo they must be funded/guided by the Russkies.

  9. 9.

    Splitting Image

    August 15, 2009 at 1:09 pm

    A lot of it comes straight out of the fact that you have a two-party system and a political system that is designed to stop third parties from arising.

    In a two-party system, people get used to seeing politics in a “he said/she said” dynamic.

    In a three-party (or more) system, two of the parties can throw mud at each other to their hearts’ content, but most people will hold their noses and vote for the third one.

    I seriously doubt that lunatics of the Birther variety make up a higher percentage of Americans than they do Canadians – my ex believed Obama was the Anti-Christ for example – but Canadian political parties get punished a lot quicker for indulging in that kind of nonsense. What lunacy there is doesn’t bubble up to the political surface nearly as often.

  10. 10.

    Dan L

    August 15, 2009 at 1:09 pm

    Geography + political system. Greater representation of low population/high crazy states in the senate plus the electoral college means the crazy has more power than it might in a different system.

  11. 11.

    MobiusKlein

    August 15, 2009 at 1:11 pm

    When we let folks in the same DSM as Time Cube rule the discourse, what do you expect?

    Jesse Helms, Senator.
    Oliver North, almost Senator
    David Duke…

    Not sure, but I think most of the famous crazy left wing people have been TV / Movie / Music related, rather than politics.

  12. 12.

    JMG

    August 15, 2009 at 1:12 pm

    No other society is built around the myth of “rugged individualism” the U.S., where the idea that one should be one’s brother’s keeper is rigidly denounced as antithetical to Christianity.
    We are a nation which worships ego.

  13. 13.

    jamie

    August 15, 2009 at 1:14 pm

    What’s trippy are the comments on the editorial. Not so much that they call Obama a communist, but that they use the same phrases almost word-for-word as Pearlstein records from the ’60s.

    It’s like wingnuts have some aphasia… Or the genuinely believe that since the civil war the US has teetered on the edge of the communist abyss (and before that, the papal abyss, I guess), and the only thing that holds it back are the heroic Republicans.

    It’s like their Star Trek. Letter-writing campaigns, crazy fights over wether Picard was better than Kirk, internet memes, and we’re all mystified by the thing. When you hear them scream “SOCIALISM!” just imagine they’re screaming “KHAAAAAAN!” and it all begins to make sense.

  14. 14.

    srv

    August 15, 2009 at 1:18 pm

    The lunatic fringe has always had a voice, you’ve just finally accepted that they’re lunatics. Was there ever a time an Elliot Abrams, Podehertz or a Schafly didn’t have an outlet?

    Alas, those who reach the top, regardless of party, share in the lunacy. Here’s Obama’s “best” – our special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan this week:

    Asked about how to measure success and progress in Afghanistan, Holbrooke remarked, “In the simplest sense, the Supreme Court test for another issue: We’ll know it when we see it.”

    That’s what passes for “sanity” in the US.

    John’s old boss on NPR yesterday:
    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111878818

  15. 15.

    Grumpy Code Monkey

    August 15, 2009 at 1:18 pm

    @kommrade reproductive vigor:

    Much of what we call Mainstream Media these days couldn’t conduct basic research if you dropped rabid ferrets down his pants.

    I’m not sure anyone could conduct basic research with a rabid ferret in their pants. It would be a little … distracting.

  16. 16.

    b-psycho

    August 15, 2009 at 1:19 pm

    Ditto on the diversity point. When your country was built on immigration (and the mass murder of the original inhabitants), that short-circuits the social cohesion that long-established nations that basically drew boundaries around homogeneous cultures that existed in that space already get a head start on. The story of the US is basically one of trying to retrofit a singular identity where it’s arguable one can’t exist.

    I’ve had arguments in the past elsewhere about radical decentralization as a potential answer to this tendency. To sum up: if people have a problem with shared responsibility within a nation-state because they see it as taking from Us to help Not Us, then wouldn’t a system that allowed collective action split along cultural lines* nullify that objection?

    (* – this is not to say I endorse separatism. Besides, I think the interpretation of such lines would more reasonably go well beyond ethnicity.)

  17. 17.

    SpotWeld

    August 15, 2009 at 1:21 pm

    I’m not sure if the right-wing crazy is so much stronger…
    We have a lot of geographical space, so the crazy can cluster up into highly concentrated pockets, and we have a very free press, so everyone can hear about it.

  18. 18.

    Martin

    August 15, 2009 at 1:22 pm

    It’s just speech, and speech doesn’t do any harm, right?

    Nobody cares until people start getting hurt – the proper people, that is. It won’t stop until there’s missing-white-girl worthy violence to clog up cable news, and the media is willing to tie it back to the wingnut welfare crowd.

  19. 19.

    CalD

    August 15, 2009 at 1:23 pm

    Ahhhh, brings back fond memories of my childhood, growing up in the 60’s and 70’s in a John Bircher household. I still recall the Wallace-LeMay signs in our yard — because even Nixon wasn’t crazy enough for my old man’s taste. Back then, pretty much everything was a communist plot, from the civil rights movement and desegregation to “socialized medicine” (a.k.a., Medicare) to the fluoride in our drinking water. Those were the days.

  20. 20.

    MikeJ

    August 15, 2009 at 1:24 pm

    I think much of it is because we’ve spent centuries bending over backwards to appease the crazies. Hell, half the colonies wouldn’t vote for independence from England until the New Englanders stopped saying that owning other humans was immoral.

    It’s just been downhill from there.

  21. 21.

    Leelee for Obama

    August 15, 2009 at 1:27 pm

    Thanks for posting this, Doug. I might not have seen it this early otherwise. All the previous posters, and you, have touched on parts of problem. There are so many people in this country who never learned the simple tenet about being our brother’s keeper. Many who were never taught that “the Other” isn’t necessarily “the Enemy”. Many who don’t understand that the Federalist Papers were op-eds in favor of ratifying the Constitution, rather than PART of it. Education is woefully inadequate, parents can’t teach what they never learned. Teachers who try are vilified. It’s enough to make you cry, alot.

    The crazy is strong in this nation of ours, and Perlstein nails it with the Media being complicit.

    BTW-Katie Couric went up a notch with me again, see HuffPo for video. Well done, ma’am, well done.

  22. 22.

    burnspbesq

    August 15, 2009 at 1:28 pm

    What would you give to be an undergrad at Princeton right now – to be able to take courses from Krugman, Perlstein, and Sean Wilentz, to name just a few?

  23. 23.

    Desert Rat

    August 15, 2009 at 1:29 pm

    So, how many months before Rick Pearlstein gets “Froomkin’ed?”

    I give it about 6 months to a year.

  24. 24.

    Martin

    August 15, 2009 at 1:32 pm

    I’m not sure anyone could conduct basic research with a rabid ferret in their pants. It would be a little … distracting.

    You could at least report that there was, indeed, a rabid ferret in their pants. Instead we’d get ‘A grass-roots assembly of concerned ferrets are currently debating the governments Marxist plan of forced pant living.’

  25. 25.

    Leelee for Obama

    August 15, 2009 at 1:34 pm

    @Martin: I was gonna ask someone to “tell a joke” earlier, to relieve the blarrgh! Thanks so much-I’m gonna clean my monitor now.

  26. 26.

    Leelee for Obama

    August 15, 2009 at 1:35 pm

    @Desert Rat: I do not think that long, surely? The slope is already greased, n’est pas?

  27. 27.

    Mark S.

    August 15, 2009 at 1:35 pm

    I don’t think the point is that we have crazy people: we’re hardly alone in that. It’s that the mainstream press often reports the most whacked out right wing conspiracy theory and presents it as one side of a multi-faceted issue.

    You never heard the late Walter Cronkite taking time on the evening news to “debunk” claims that a proposed mental health clinic in Alaska is actually a dumping ground for right-wing critics of the president’s program, or giving the people who made those claims time to explain themselves on the air. The media didn’t adjudicate the ever-present underbrush of American paranoia as a set of “conservative claims” to weigh, horse-race-style, against liberal claims. Back then, a more confident media unequivocally labeled the civic outrage represented by such discourse as “extremist” — out of bounds.

    The media certainly doesn’t do this on most issues. They don’t invite somebody from Reason or High Times to argue marijuana legalization, for instance.

    I think the problem is that the media was brow-beaten by conservatives saying it was too liberal. This was generally bullshit, but it amazes me how successful the campaign was.

  28. 28.

    Brachiator

    August 15, 2009 at 1:39 pm

    Conservatives have become adept at playing citizens the media for suckers.

    Fixed. It ain’t the media, per se. I agree that a persistently dumb media that insists on treating every expression as potentially valid is part of the problem, but this would not matter if noxious ideas could not easily resonate in the hearts and minds of those who need fear and racism to give meaning to their lives.

    Your second possibility, of fear of ethnic diversity, strikes me as more plausible.

    Along with a resurfacing of the racist assumption that in an ethnically diverse United States, white Christian heterosexuals must always be Top Dog.

    People like Pat Buchanan are very upfront about this. Sarah Palin is slightly more indirect, but no less clear, in her appeal to “real” Americans to support her.

    A lot of it comes straight out of the fact that you have a two-party system and a political system that is designed to stop third parties from arising.

    Possibly the opposite is true. Multi-party systems allow racists to have a small permanent core of racist political representation. See the ultra-nationalist and racist political parties in the UK and in Europe.

    In the US, the Democratic Party decided to confront and defang segregationists, a process that began informally with FDR and Truman, and continued into the 1960s. The GOP Southern strategy decided to go for the racist vote, and now it is coming back to bite them in the butt.

    The 1st Amendment probably has something to do with it. Many other countries have either A) laws that let them lock people up for advocating sufficiently crazy ideas, B) powerful government run media that aren’t afraid to challenge the crazies, or C) both.

    Uh, no. Haven’t you been paying attention to Iran, where even mild political dissent has been met with imprisonment, rape and torture? And throughout the Arab world, authoritarian governments don’t allow the story to be covered.

    Racist anti-Catholic sentiment became the official policy of the UK during the 17th through much of the 19th century, and dissent was rarely tolerated. Meanwhile, France persecuted Protestants. The same is true, with variation, where-ever authoritarian governments are in control.

    Government run media challenging crazies? Government run media is crazy.

  29. 29.

    Montysano

    August 15, 2009 at 1:39 pm

    Perlstein’s analysis of why the media has allowed itself to become a tool of the right-wing crazy—it’s largely because they’re afraid of being labeled liberal, cosmopolitan elites.

    I think that he’s thinking too hard. Crazy sells, so it’s on my teevee. In doing so, a crazy fringe element of 10%-15% starts to look formidable. Of course, as someone pointed out (Maher last night IIRC), 10% of 300 million people is a lot of crazy.

  30. 30.

    Martin

    August 15, 2009 at 1:40 pm

    Back then, pretty much everything was a communist plot, from the civil rights movement and desegregation to “socialized medicine” (a.k.a., Medicare) to the fluoride in our drinking water. Those were the days.

    Ah, grew up on grain alcohol and rain water, did you?

    Have you ever seen a commie drink a glass of water, CalD?

  31. 31.

    Montysano

    August 15, 2009 at 1:42 pm

    I’m not sure anyone could conduct basic research with a rabid ferret in their pants. It would be a little … distracting.

    If Candy Crowley had a ferret in her pants, she would note that some people say that there is no ferret in her pants.

  32. 32.

    geg6

    August 15, 2009 at 1:43 pm

    Martin: FTW. That was awesome.

  33. 33.

    Montysano

    August 15, 2009 at 1:46 pm

    You never heard the late Walter Cronkite taking time on the evening news to “debunk” claims that a proposed mental health clinic in Alaska is actually a dumping ground for right-wing critics of the president’s program

    Cronkite didn’t have time for that shit. He had 30 minutes 5 nights a week.

    Blitzer!®…… he’s got nothing but time.

  34. 34.

    Mayken

    August 15, 2009 at 1:47 pm

    I don’t think that the right-wing crazy is any stronger here in the US that other parts of the world, say Europe. As others have pointed out, they are having a nice resurgence of right-wing crazy just a generation after having 10 million people wiped out for being various forms of “other.” And frankly as the EU expands it is only getting worse. Remember, the history of Europe is just as much one of conquest and genocide as that of the US (I mean, we were largely Europeans after all!) They are by and large more tolerant than us now but that is a relatively recent phenomenon and is by no means universal. I once again point out my Dutch-Indonesian relatives, many of whom have lived nowhere else in all their lives, who are not seen as Dutch enough by a pretty sizable percentage of their fellow countrymen. Then again, you would be surprised at how many Northern Germans think the Southerners are not really German and vice versa. And a few more examples I could name.
    Not that the right-wing crazy and the media’s complicity in it doesn’t drive me around the bend, just that I try to keep some perspective.

  35. 35.

    Montysano

    August 15, 2009 at 1:48 pm

    @Martin:

    Ah, grew up on grain alcohol and rain water, did you?

    Well, purity of essence is important.

  36. 36.

    MikeJ

    August 15, 2009 at 1:50 pm

    Blitzer!®…… he’s got nothing but time.

    You still get more news in one hour of BBC than 24 hours of CNN (or MSNBC, or FOX, etc).

  37. 37.

    Dave C

    August 15, 2009 at 1:53 pm

    Okay, here is an honest question that I would like to ask some of our non-American friends (and ex-pats): I am becoming increasingly exasperated by the insanity that is national politics in the US. If we can’t get health reform done now, I honestly fear that it will be a sign that our country is, in the long run, somehow fundamentally fucked. Now, if I were to up and move to another country–say Canada or the UK–would I soon find aspects of the political and civic discourse in those countries to be equally exasparating? In other words, is everybody else just as fucked up as we are (albeit in possibly different ways)?

  38. 38.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    August 15, 2009 at 1:54 pm

    @b-psycho:

    Ditto on the diversity point. When your country was built on immigration (and the mass murder of the original inhabitants), that short-circuits the social cohesion that long-established nations that basically drew boundaries around homogeneous cultures that existed in that space already get a head start on. The story of the US is basically one of trying to retrofit a singular identity where it’s arguable one can’t exist.

    This.

    Many other good point made above, regarding the 1st Amendment, our worship of “rugged individualism”, etc. But lurking behind it all is something that is so scary that our collective mythology about the US has erased it from our onsciousness. The United States in not a unified nation in the normal sense of the word. We don’t have an ethno-sectarian and cultural core the way that for example most of the nations of Europe do (a core by the way which in all those cases took a great deal of past bloodletting to hammer out), which then serves as the solid foundation of national identity on top of which all the other political battles take place.

    Instead we have a core ideology (“Democracy – W00t! USA! USA!”) which defines our membership in the US – that is why we have (not always, but frequently) been so much more open to immigration than other nations. But that lack of a core ethnic identity provokes a backlash after periods when immigration has been running at a rate high enough to bring the population of 1st gen-2nd gen emigrants up to above a critical threshold (IIRC it is about 14 percent or so). Below that threshold we are all Emma Lazarus, above that, it’s BOB time. The US suffers from immigration bulimia nervosa

    What this means is that one of the things we are constantly arguing about and fighting over is the question: “Who, really, is an American?”. Not so much in the legalistic sense, but in the broader sense of a popular paradigm (e.g. the Germans, the Irish and the Italians were all at times considered not-American. Benjamin Frankin didn’t think the Germans were even “white people”). In most other countries this question is not really open – it was settled centuries ago. Not here.

  39. 39.

    Madison

    August 15, 2009 at 1:59 pm

    Have you read Bob Altemeyer’s The Authoritarians? It seemed to sum up everything perfectly for me (Altemeyer’s research was also used for John Dean’s book “Conservatives Without Conscience”) I highly recommend it if you haven’t read it.

  40. 40.

    hidflect

    August 15, 2009 at 2:00 pm

    All these media people have children in private education and mortgages on 2 homes. They’ll do anything to save all of that. Careerism is it. There’s no nobility in their mind in being a poor, out-of-work, principled media person.

  41. 41.

    MikeJ

    August 15, 2009 at 2:08 pm

    would I soon find aspects of the political and civic discourse in those countries to be equally exasparating? In other words, is everybody else just as fucked up as we are (albeit in possibly different ways)?

    Remember also that in the MEP elections England elected members of the BNP.

    You might want to read the daily mail before running off to the UK. Just as much stupidity and sensationalism as in the US. The British press have been bottom feeders for hundreds of years. The only redeeming feature is that the papers are more upfront about their political slant.

  42. 42.

    linda

    August 15, 2009 at 2:10 pm

    and, now that you’ve read perlstein, go and read about the prosperity hucksters preachers in the nyt:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/us/16gospel.html?hp

    FORT WORTH — Onstage before thousands of believers weighed down by debt and economic insecurity, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland and their all-star lineup of “prosperity gospel” preachers delighted the crowd with anecdotes about the luxurious lives they had attained by following the Word of God.

    Private airplanes and boats. A motorcycle sent by an anonymous supporter. Vacations in Hawaii and cruises in Alaska. Designer handbags. A ring of emeralds and diamonds.

    “God knows where the money is, and he knows how to get the money to you,” preached Mrs. Copeland, dressed in a crisp pants ensemble like those worn by C.E.O.’s.

  43. 43.

    amok92

    August 15, 2009 at 2:10 pm

    OT – looks like Hussein’s death panels euthanized Red State,.

  44. 44.

    shelley matheis

    August 15, 2009 at 2:11 pm

    Hey, MikeJ, I see you posted something about Stephen Fry over in another thread. Have you seen his series, ‘Kingdom’, where he plays a small-town lawyer? It’s very good, and available at Netflix. (Tho why they started the DVD with season two is anyone’s guess.)

  45. 45.

    WereBear

    August 15, 2009 at 2:12 pm

    I don’t know why the right-wing crazy is so strong in the United States.

    It might be as simple as the fact that we have, literally, “room for the crazy.”

    At the very beginning, with the colonies, and right through the Manifest Destiny period, there was always space for a nutter to pull up stakes and move to. While our mythology celebrates the sturdy pioneer who headed Out West, there was a) a Federal Government to clear the pesky natives out of the way, and b) the simple fact that if you wanted to be either an artisan or a professional, you would hang out in cities where you had a market for your services.

    The person who built his own sod house in the middle of nowhere was expressing a sincere desire to forgo checks and balances on their beliefs and behavior.

    Without the reality check of other people saying the nineteenth century equivalent of “WTF, Dude!” we wind up with what we might call Hermit Clusters; they will get along if forced to, but their natural human instincts towards socialization are always at war with their inability to respect the differing beliefs and behavior of others.

    I see this as a big reason why conspiracy theories attract these same kinds of people; the Conspiracy forms the glue that keeps them together despite the centrifugal force of their basic intolerance of society.

    I don’t have a scientific cross study; just my own observations of these people. They don’t have friends unless these friends are fellow Conspirators. And even then, they don’t get together for purely social purposes; it’s not like one weekend it’s the barbeque, the next weekend is bridge, and the next weekend is mimeoing John Birch literature.

    Their whole social cluster is the Conspiracy. It’s hard to tell which came first.

  46. 46.

    Brick Oven Bill

    August 15, 2009 at 2:13 pm

    DougJ’s black friends.

  47. 47.

    srv

    August 15, 2009 at 2:13 pm

    @Dave C:

    In other words, is everybody else just as fucked up as we are (albeit in possibly different ways)?

    Sure, you can move to other countries where their policies are decided in DC or Wall Street. The more submissive, the better. I sometimes wonder what Costa Rica and Baja are going to be like as more people (not just Galters) move in.

    Australia is pretty wingy now, and the UK is headed more to the right now (but safe with their health care and spy cams).

    Moore, ThatLeftTurnInABQ: People keep forgetting that the 1st Ammendment isn’t an individual right. Scalia’s interpretation would have become mainstream had McCain gotten a couple of SCOTUS choices.

  48. 48.

    Mayken

    August 15, 2009 at 2:15 pm

    @linda: Yep, yet another Christian pyramid scheme. At least their a little more up front than the televangelists of old.

  49. 49.

    Mayken

    August 15, 2009 at 2:15 pm

    @Mayken: Argh! “they’re” – really, I are an English major!

  50. 50.

    Xenos

    August 15, 2009 at 2:17 pm

    @Dave C: I have lived in Canada and England, and there is plenty of racism to go around. It takes different forms, such as a deep resentment of Native Americans or hatred of the Irish, respectively. Maybe I just happened to be in Montreal when the Mohawk shot some police officers, and in England right after Mountbatten was blown up, so what I saw was exceptional. But I doubt it.

    Even when I was in Africa for a few months I was amazed that former slaves there are treated by some with as much contempt as some people treat former slaves in the US. When it is another country, though, is can seem a bit quaint, like “these people have their own history they are working out, and this is them dealing with it.” I find I have much less tolerance for American racism because I know it so deeply in my family history and I just hate it so intensely. It is just so personal, on so many levels.

  51. 51.

    DougJ

    August 15, 2009 at 2:18 pm

    DougJ’s black friends.

    When have I ever mentioned having black friends?

  52. 52.

    The Main Gauche of Mild Reason

    August 15, 2009 at 2:18 pm

    Apropos of this, I give you Hofstadter’s excellent “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” (1964)
    http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/conspiracy_theory/the_paranoid_mentality/the_paranoid_style.html

    Too good to quote just one part, so read all of it–the gist is that we’ve lived with this craziness since the founding of the country. But I don’t really buy Perlstein’s argument that the media has that much to do with this recent outburst–I think the level of crazy has always been the same, it was just more spread by word of mouth before.

  53. 53.

    srv

    August 15, 2009 at 2:24 pm

    @Brick Oven Bill:

    DougJ’s black friends.

    You’re right. Better to be white, racist and ignorant like the commenters there than just white and ignorant.

  54. 54.

    srv

    August 15, 2009 at 2:24 pm

    @Brick Oven Bill:

    DougJ’s black friends.

    You’re right. Better to be white, racist and ignorant like the commenters there than just white and ignorant.

  55. 55.

    MikeJ

    August 15, 2009 at 2:24 pm

    Have you seen his series, ‘Kingdom’, where he plays a small-town lawyer?

    The local PBS station showed an ep or two, and may in fact still be running it. I have a hard time watching stuff on tv unless it’s available on demand. There are many things I’ll schedule, but watching tv isn’t one of them. I’ll have to check out the dvds.

  56. 56.

    bellatrys

    August 15, 2009 at 2:25 pm

    @The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:

    Well, we had a lot of magazines and small newspapers, too…

    (Doffs hat to CalD as one higher in the ranks of ex-wingnuttiness than herself)

  57. 57.

    smiley

    August 15, 2009 at 2:26 pm

    OT but does anyone know when the president’s town hall is today?

  58. 58.

    bellatrys

    August 15, 2009 at 2:28 pm

    @DougJ:

    Doug, that’s just BOB engaging in the compulsive wingnut behavior of trying to find proof of “liberal hypocrisy” even if it creates a total non-sequitur. It’s like my relatives popping out with “LOL, Priuses cause MOAR pollution than regular cars!” (a meme of Limbutt’s mainstreamed by bloggers like the Anchoress last year or so) apropos of nothing in the middle of a family BBQ.

    It’s a combination of a) projection, b) not having any hobbies or real causes to devote themselves to. And yes it’s sad, and pathetic, and as annoying as stepping into a fire-ant hill.

  59. 59.

    Notorious P.A.T.

    August 15, 2009 at 2:29 pm

    The Enlightenment passed by. That’s my explanation.

  60. 60.

    Corner Stone

    August 15, 2009 at 2:29 pm

    It’s definitely not just the US. Teh crazy is everywhere. It’s just that we only see glimpses of it because our slice of media is so us-central.
    Theo van Gogh anyone? The muslim problem the UK is having (by that I mean the fear they have over immigrants), the “burka” problem France has, the Moors flooding into Spain, the outstanding wingyness of the Aussies.
    It’s all over but we have somehow been sheltered to a large degree. There’s nothing unique about the human nature on display here. People hate what they fear, and they fear what they don’t know. Some certain other people know how to stoke that hate to gain money, political power, fame, etc.
    Nothing new.

  61. 61.

    smiley

    August 15, 2009 at 2:29 pm

    @smiley: Never mind. It’s 6:00 PM EDT.

  62. 62.

    Roger Moore

    August 15, 2009 at 2:29 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Government run media challenging crazies? Government run media is crazy.

    No. Government run media is about as crazy as the government that’s running it. Where the government is reasonably sane, the government run media are generally sane. The BBC is a good example.

    Please note that I’m not advocating government run media (or laws allowing the government to lock up crazies) as a solution to nuts on the news. It’s a solution that can easily turn out to be worse than the problem. That’s especially true because experience shows that keeping the crazies out of the media doesn’t do much to keep their ideas out of circulation. Anti-Nazi laws in Germany and Austria, and laws against the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt may have kept them out of the media, but they haven’t kept either one from attracting followers.

  63. 63.

    Brick Oven Bill

    August 15, 2009 at 2:30 pm

    If you don’t have black friends, that would make you intolerant DougJ, which I do not believe you to be. Thus my assumption, which could be wrong. Me and Barack are somewhat tolerant, in contrast.

    I, for instance, have two black friends, with whom I share meals, but they live in another country. I have no black friends in the US, and I guess this is my fault. Although I have Mexican friends with whom I have eaten many meals and played music with. But it is not like I have tried to avoid befriending American blacks.

    In Barack’s case, he would befriend white people, but only if the white person was a structural feminist or a Marxist professor. As I am neither a structural feminist, nor a Marxist professor, but am white, I guess that Barack would not have been willing to be my friend. This makes Barack somewhat tolerant, but also at least somewhat intolerant.

  64. 64.

    cleek

    August 15, 2009 at 2:34 pm

    In other words, is everybody else just as fucked up as we are (albeit in possibly different ways)?

    yes. nobody is any more enlightened than anybody else. and politicians are the same everywhere, because they’re just people.

    and, our politics has always been crazy. partisan propaganda was just as ridiculously inflammatory during the Revolution as they are today. Thomas Paine, Samuel Adams, Ben Franklin: all propagandists of the first order.

    and things are no more dirty now than they were then. Jefferson’s 1800 campaign said John Adams was a “hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.” in return, Adams’ camp said Jefferson was “a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.”

    in the Jackson v J.Q. Adams race:

    — blockquote —
    The slurs flew back and forth, with John Quincy Adams being labeled a pimp, and Andrew Jackson’s wife getting called a slut.

    As the election progressed, editorials in the American newspapers read more like bathroom graffiti than political commentary. One paper reported that “General Jackson’s mother was a common prostitute, brought to this country by the British soldiers! She afterward married a mulatto man, with whom she had several children, of which number General Jackson is one!”

    What got Americans so fired up? For one thing, many voters felt John Quincy Adams should never have been president in the first place. During the election of 1824, Jackson had won the popular vote but not the electoral vote, so the election was decided by the House of Representatives. Henry Clay, one of the other candidates running for president, threw his support behind Adams. To return the favor, Adams promptly made him secretary of state. Jackson’s supporters labeled it “The Corrupt Bargain” and spent the next four years calling Adams a usurper.
    — /blockquote —

  65. 65.

    Notorious P.A.T.

    August 15, 2009 at 2:35 pm

    I don’t buy the “other” hypothesis because there was plenty of that in Europe. Heck, our Jews came over here because they were tired of being othered there. Look at how the English treated the Irish.

  66. 66.

    Notorious P.A.T.

    August 15, 2009 at 2:36 pm

    “In Barack’s case, he would befriend white people, but only if the white person was a structural feminist or a Marxist professor.”

    You are stupid. No offense.

  67. 67.

    Notorious P.A.T.

    August 15, 2009 at 2:40 pm

    “I think that he’s thinking too hard. Crazy sells, so it’s on my teevee. ”

    I see what you mean. But only about 27% of the population is crazy. One would think that if the media were looking for the best market, they would see it was non-crazies and program accordingly.

    People may quote me if they want.

  68. 68.

    scarshapedstar

    August 15, 2009 at 2:41 pm

    Maybe it’s because we haven’t gone through the cleansing fire of out-and-out fascism

    Dunno about that. Ever seen a video of an old Segregationist rally? Ever seen a picture of a lynching?

    No, the difference is that we didn’t do like the Germans and publicly outlaw any positive mention of racism/segregation and make every kid watch a documentary about Emmett Till. Instead, we just let them stew about how they’re not allowed to oppress “those people” quite as much. And now that one of “those people” is in the White House, gaskets are blowing left and right.

    If you have an out-and-out fascist movement and then everyone just shuts up about it and pretends it’s over, guess what? It isn’t.

  69. 69.

    Notorious P.A.T.

    August 15, 2009 at 2:42 pm

    “Have you read Bob Altemeyer’s The Authoritarians? It seemed to sum up everything perfectly for me (Altemeyer’s research was also used for John Dean’s book “Conservatives Without Conscience”) I highly recommend it if you haven’t read it.”

    Excellent book.

    http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

  70. 70.

    Brick Oven Bill

    August 15, 2009 at 2:44 pm

    Here is one to shove in your stupid pie-hole Notorious P.A.T.:

    “To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists.”

    Thus, Barack would not have been willing to be my friend, and this hurts my feelings.

  71. 71.

    Brachiator

    August 15, 2009 at 2:48 pm

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ:

    What this means is that one of the things we are constantly arguing about and fighting over is the question: “Who, really, is an American?”

    And the answer has pretty much always been whoever comes here and says, “Me. I’m an American.”

    This, curiously, continues to be our strength, even as conservatives insist on a primacy of ethnic or religious (i.e., Christian) supremacy, and the dumbest progressives insist on consigning people to “communities” where their identity is to be established and certified (black community, gay, lesbian, transgender community, deaf or disabled community, etc).

    And interestingly enough, immigrants who come here insist that the existing power make room for them. It is extremely rare for any newcomers to assert any right to take over the government or society, conspiracy nuts notwithstanding.

    Benjamin Frankin didn’t think the Germans were even “white people”).

    This is not as controversial as you might suggest since Franklin didn’t think that being “white” was necessarily that big a deal, and he unconsciously anticipated a more scientific view of human populations that did not simplistically reduce them to useless categories like “white” or “black.”

    In most other countries this question is not really open – it was settled centuries ago.,/blockquote>

    Of course, these other countries have their own origin mythologies. British people are not ethnically homogenous, and the royal family is largely foreign and German. A few years ago, Japanese scientists downplayed discoveries that indicate that their country was settled by a people who also settled into parts of Korea, and even Icelanders have had to acknowledge that there is a fair degree of ethnic diversity in the country since in the past, males sought (or took) women from other nations to be their wives.

    CalD — Back then, pretty much everything was a communist plot, from the civil rights movement and desegregation to “socialized medicine” (a.k.a., Medicare) to the fluoride in our drinking water. Those were the days.

    With respect to the civil rights movement, there was a Catch-22 at work here, as well. Because society insisted on legal and informal racial segregation, often the only white people who would “associate” with non-whites were Communists and other radicals. The NRO quickly backpedaled on this, but too late, since they revealed themselves and their racial fear.

    By the way, early in the presidential campaign, the New Republic tried to resurrect this nonsense in a notorious early column in which a writer suggested that Obama’s mother may have been a Communist because in the 1960s a respectable white woman would not have associated with a black Kenyan.

    srv – People keep forgetting that the 1st Ammendment isn’t an individual right.

    WTF?

  72. 72.

    Notorious P.A.T.

    August 15, 2009 at 2:52 pm

    The president will be holding a town hall at 6: 25. None of you better be going there with a loaded gun.

  73. 73.

    GregB

    August 15, 2009 at 2:55 pm

    Here in NH, one GOP-er candidate for the Senate is appearing at an event with E.D. “Terrorist Fist Jab” Hill.

    No loon left behind.

    -G

  74. 74.

    Notorious P.A.T.

    August 15, 2009 at 2:55 pm

    “Here is one to shove in your stupid pie-hole Notorious P.A.T.:

    “To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists.”

    Thus, Barack would not have been willing to be my friend, and this hurts my feelings.”

    Did you read that book? I did. It is a coming of age story. Which means he relates a lot of mistakes he made growing up.

    It would be like saying “Brick Oven Bill pees in his pants, and I can prove it: here’s a picture of his mom buying a box of pampers.”

  75. 75.

    mistermix

    August 15, 2009 at 2:58 pm

    I, for instance, have two black friends, with whom I share meals, but they live in another country. I have no black friends in the US, and I guess this is my fault. Although I have Mexican friends with whom I have eaten many meals and played music with. But it is not like I have tried to avoid befriending American blacks.

    Another Brick Oven Bill Hall of Fame quote. Soon we’ll need to build a quaint brick building in a sleepy upstate town to hold them all.

  76. 76.

    Laura W

    August 15, 2009 at 2:58 pm

    @Brick Oven Bill:

    and this hurts my feelings.

    Ah, Bill…you’re breaking my heart.

  77. 77.

    Laura W

    August 15, 2009 at 3:00 pm

    @Laura W: That totally should’ve worked, but at least I tried the hyperlink thingey and that (sorta worked?)

    Here, Bill…to cheer you:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBikQ5yRL3s

  78. 78.

    Mark S.

    August 15, 2009 at 3:02 pm

    @cleek:

    Jefferson’s 1800 campaign said John Adams was a “hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.”

    Why won’t Adams just put these rumors to rest by showing the country his genitalia?

  79. 79.

    Notorious P.A.T.

    August 15, 2009 at 3:04 pm

    “Another Brick Oven Bill Hall of Fame quote. ”

    Too true. How do you share meals with someone who is in another country?

  80. 80.

    Brick Oven Bill

    August 15, 2009 at 3:09 pm

    Thank you for cheering me up LauraW. I think that if Barack would only take the time to get to know me, he might be my friend. I have an inner beauty. I’m smart enough, I’m good enough, and dog-gone it, other people like me.

  81. 81.

    Brachiator

    August 15, 2009 at 3:11 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    No. Government run media is about as crazy as the government that’s running it. Where the government is reasonably sane, the government run media are generally sane. The BBC is a good example.

    I listen to the BBC and respect it with huge reservations. The Beeb has big problems with political correctness, with other ideological issues, and of course, with charges of financial impropriety among some of its executives and presenters. And the irony is, of course, that these problems are not honestly examined by the BBC itself.

    And because the BBC depends on the government, it has not been very good about covering the expenses scandal involving members of parliament. Here, some of the scandal sheets have been better, and better at representing the outrage of the public.

    And more important, citizens can never passively depend on the government staying reasonably sane.

    I cannot conceive of a government-run media doing anything but mischief during the Bush/Cheney regime.

    That’s especially true because experience shows that keeping the crazies out of the media doesn’t do much to keep their ideas out of circulation.

    I’m not particularly in favor of keeping the crazies out of the media. What I prefer is courage and a vigorous First Amendment to challenge and to counter them.

  82. 82.

    shelley matheis

    August 15, 2009 at 3:14 pm

    How do you share meals with someone

    And that seems kind of an odd way of putting it. Sorta as if you were just sitting at the same table at a McDonalds.

  83. 83.

    Laura W

    August 15, 2009 at 3:19 pm

    @Brick Oven Bill: Now see, Bill, you just cheered me right up referencing Al Franken, because we all know for sure that he likes you a lot, huh?

  84. 84.

    Xenos

    August 15, 2009 at 3:23 pm

    Maybe we are all of us just assholes, but some of us try not to let it get out of hand. In honor of Joe Strummer’s birthday next Friday:

    <a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTnijX0TH-w”All over people changing their votes
    Along with their overcoats
    If Adolf Hitler flew in today
    They’d send a limousine anyway

  85. 85.

    Mayken

    August 15, 2009 at 3:32 pm

    @shelley matheis: In his defense (and I cannot believe I am doing that!) when I was in college and discussing race relations in class and outside of it, that was one of the thresholds for friendship with a person of another race – have you shared a meals with that person. At the time I thought it was profound but I later came to realize it really isn’t that high a bar. I have shared meals with many of my former co-workers but would not call them friends really. I think “shared meals in their or your home” or something would be a higher bar.
    That being said, shorter BOB “I’m not a racist. Some of my friends are black.” Really?
    The “I have [insert race here] friends” is a bogus argument against one’s racism or lack thereof. Having friends of another race hardly immunizes one from being racist and not having them doesn’t make one any more a racist.
    And, once again, the things one did in college are not binding on one’s later adult life. I’m a very different person than I was in college. I’m sure President Obama is as well.

  86. 86.

    steve s

    August 15, 2009 at 3:55 pm

    August 15th, 2009 at 1:34 pm Reply to this comment
    Leelee for Obama
    @Martin: I was gonna ask someone to “tell a joke” earlier, to relieve the blarrgh!

    Where do you find a turtle with no legs?

  87. 87.

    Mayken

    August 15, 2009 at 3:59 pm

    @steve s: {with trepidation} I don’t know, Steve, where do you find a turtle with no legs?

  88. 88.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    August 15, 2009 at 4:00 pm

    @Mark S.: The Snark is strong in this one.

  89. 89.

    Brick Oven Bill

    August 15, 2009 at 4:08 pm

    Matken, As far as I can tell, someone who is not a ‘racist’ is a ‘human bio-diversity denialist’. Racism is founded in evolutionary science. Human bio-diversity denialism is founded in a religious belief system, flying in the face of all metrics. Obama is clearly a racist as he differentiates between people, then and now, based on the place of their ancestor’s evolution.

    Based upon the comments about his grandmother, his choice of Spiritual Advisor of 20-years, his decision to limit his exposure to white males to the likes of Geithner, Gibbs, Biden, and Orszag, and his utter collapse before the iron gaze of Joe the Plumber, the President may be even more than a racist, the President may very well be a Caucophobe.

  90. 90.

    Prospero

    August 15, 2009 at 4:13 pm

    Unfortunately, the cleansing fire of out-and-out fascism apparently isn’t doing the Germans any good anymore:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08…..ad.html?hp

    Sigh.

    Wow… and the killer is from Russia… Damn my country sucks.

  91. 91.

    Roger Moore

    August 15, 2009 at 4:13 pm

    @Brachiator:

    I’m not particularly in favor of keeping the crazies out of the media. What I prefer is courage and a vigorous First Amendment to challenge and to counter them.

    I’m not either; I’m sorry if that wasn’t clear from what I was saying. I can see why people want to shut the crazies up. They think that letting crazies share their beliefs on TV helps to spread the crazy disease and makes society worse. I don’t think that’s true. I think that wingnut is a preexisting condition, and access to the media just helps the rest of the world to diagnose it.

    To use an analogy, those crazies are like a kooky old uncle. Some families try to keep him locked up so he won’t scare the neighbors (and remind the family of his existence), and some don’t. But hiding him in the attic doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist, and letting him out doesn’t mean that he’ll spread the crazy to the rest of the neighborhood.

  92. 92.

    DougJ

    August 15, 2009 at 4:13 pm

    In honor of Joe Strummer’s birthday next Friday:

    I’ll have to do a post about this.

  93. 93.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    August 15, 2009 at 4:28 pm

    Tipper Gore celebrates her b-day on the 19th. In her honor, I plan to play music that would give her palpitations all day.

  94. 94.

    bago

    August 15, 2009 at 4:28 pm

    So, anybody else see District 9?

  95. 95.

    Dave C

    August 15, 2009 at 4:32 pm

    @Brick Oven Bill:

    I regret to inform you that you know even less about human diversity and evolutionary biology than you do about Barack Obama.

  96. 96.

    Brachiator

    August 15, 2009 at 4:33 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    I’m not either; I’m sorry if that wasn’t clear from what I was saying.

    OK. I hear you.

    I can see why people want to shut the crazies up. They think that letting crazies share their beliefs on TV helps to spread the crazy disease and makes society worse. I don’t think that’s true. I think that wingnut is a preexisting condition, and access to the media just helps the rest of the world to diagnose it.

    Hah! Great point! Wingnuts are often already have some kind of ideological chip on their shoulders, and then reach out into the larger world to seek validation and encouragement.

    And the InterTubes often helps reinforce crazies by making it easier for them to find like-minded wingnuts.

    To use an analogy, those crazies are like a kooky old uncle. Some families try to keep him locked up so he won’t scare the neighbors (and remind the family of his existence), and some don’t. But hiding him in the attic doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist, and letting him out doesn’t mean that he’ll spread the crazy to the rest of the neighborhood.

    And sometimes, the answer lies not in locking the uncle up, but in seeking a more reasonable, more permanent solution to the challenge he represents.

  97. 97.

    Dave C

    August 15, 2009 at 4:37 pm

    @bago:

    Yep. Loved it. What did you think?

  98. 98.

    Splitting Image

    August 15, 2009 at 4:40 pm

    A lot of it comes straight out of the fact that you have a two-party system and a political system that is designed to stop third parties from arising.

    Possibly the opposite is true. Multi-party systems allow racists to have a small permanent core of racist political representation. See the ultra-nationalist and racist political parties in the UK and in Europe.

    True. But my experience in Canada is that 28% of the country just isn’t enough to form a government. The Conservatives (aka the Reform party aka the Canadian Alliance) tried it for years but just couldn’t rally enough support outside their base to put together a functioning government. They ultimately had to wipe away most of their platform and even then, the closer they got to a majority in Parliament, the more the rest of the country closed ranks against them.

    I actually don’t have a problem with racists having a small bloc of votes in a Parliament. As long as a different party can run the government without their support, their presence is a non-issue. They only become a problem if the governing party can’t run the country without their support, which is the case in Europe where many countries have constant coalitions. At which point you end up with the exact same problem the U.S. has in the Senate. The government depends on the votes of the less-crazy members of the crazy party to get anything done.

  99. 99.

    ominira

    August 15, 2009 at 4:47 pm

    @Brachiator:

    And sometimes, the answer lies not in locking the uncle up, but in seeking a more reasonable, more permanent solution to the challenge he represents.

    Such as?

    (I shuddered on the first quick read of the section quoted above until I re-read and saw “reasonable”).

  100. 100.

    jcricket

    August 15, 2009 at 4:47 pm

    Instead we have a core ideology (“Democracy – W00t! USA! USA!”) which defines our membership in the

    I was watching Lewis Black’s Broadway comedy special last night and he has a riff on this. About how America is the only country who spends a majority of it’s time going, “We’re #1! We’re#1! Best Country on EARTH!!!” – and the people who spread that meme are often the ones who’ve never left the US.

    Which of course leads into the riff about how there are other countries just “giving shit away”, like Canada, which “gives away health insurance” (loud applause).

    I think the strain of “we’re automatically the best” combined with a loooong anti-intellectual streak is what let’s the craziness truly flourish. Although as argued in Nixonland, modern-day Republicans figured out, about 40-50 years ago, that they could do all kinds of crazy, destroy the media, ruin the country, and still be treated totally seriously (if not more seriously than before). We’re feeling the fruits of that right now.

  101. 101.

    Mayken

    August 15, 2009 at 4:52 pm

    @Brick Oven Bill: It’s Mayken, btw.
    We’re talking about racism from a socio-political viewpoint here. Racism (well, really xenophobia) may have biological factors but so do violent acts like rape and murder but expect people not to do those things in a civilized society.
    Anyway, it doesn’t change my fundamental point. Whether one has friends of another race is a bogus argument for or against a particular person being a racist in and of itself. Not having friends of other races may be a sign of racism, but is not inherently racist. One cannot say, “he has no [insert race here] friends therefor he is racist.” That would be just as much bs as people who stand up and say “I have [insert race here] friends therefor I am not a racist.”
    As far as your demonizing Obama searching out particular friends in college, get bent, because a lot of people of mixed race have had this very same experience. That isn’t racism, it’s called seeking an identity. I am of Asian and European decent but was raised in a mostly white social circle. So in college, I deliberately sought out Asian and other non-white people as friends and companions. By and large, my friends today are white. That is because I live in a mostly white neighborhood, attend a mostly white religious group and work in a mostly white office. If I lived in LA still, it would be a different story, I assure you.
    As far as making rather benign confessions about his grandmother: my mother’s family are all a bunch of racists. I cannot begin to tell you the names they called my growing up, to my face and behind my back. Acknowledging them as such does NOT make me racist. Nor does Obama admitting that even his grandmother, who clearly loved him very much, had harbored some prejudice herself make Obama a racist. And how exactly does being friends with the likes of Joe Biden make him racist? What exactly about Amtrak Joe makes associating with him racist? I know, you’re really stretching for the “socialist” label. But interacting with people of a particular political spectrum doesn’t make one racist, either.
    His association for 20 years with a pastor who clearly has more radical views than he does is unsettling, but again, association don’t make one the same as that person. However, I am far less afraid of Rev White than for instance Rev Robertson, hands down.
    Hurruph, I have spent way too much time on this answer. Really shouldn’t feed the trolls, I know. But am bored otherwise. *sigh*

  102. 102.

    Mayken

    August 15, 2009 at 4:53 pm

    Oops, put in the dreaded “$ociali$t” word and now my comment is in moderation. *big sigh* oh, well.

  103. 103.

    Leelee for Obama

    August 15, 2009 at 4:53 pm

    @steve s: Well, where do you find a turtle with no legs? C’mon, make me chuckle-it’s the weekend!

  104. 104.

    Brett

    August 15, 2009 at 4:54 pm

    You usually see the batshit craziness occur whenever there is massive ongoing societal change, like heavy immigration or the rise of some otherwise long suppressed minority to power (witness the anti-Catholicism in the 1920s, and the reaction to Al Smith’s campaign in 1928).

    That said, the Cold War was basically high-octane fuel to the wingnuts. Just read the book Suburban Warriors, which talks about the rise of modern conservatism in Orange County in the 1950s and 1960s – the paranoid component, the sense that the “good order” was being undermined, was enormous. And since we’re human beings, and we have a tendency to see order and purpose where there is none, that translated to a lot of conspiratorial bullshit. *

    *It didn’t help that there was a strong streak of isolationism even in the late 1940s to 1950s, and so organizations like the UN were seen as foreign and insidious, out to undermine American values.

  105. 105.

    Brachiator

    August 15, 2009 at 4:55 pm

    @bago:

    So, anybody else see District 9?

    On my way later today.

    Anyone see, or take their kids to see, “Ponyo,” the latest from master animator Hayao Miyazaki?

    OT, but hot news: Senator Jim Webb, working with the Obama Administration, has secured the release of American John Yettaw, who was sentenced to seven years of hard labor for swimming uninvited to Suu Kyi’s lakeside house in Yangon.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090815/ap_on_re_as/as_myanmar_us_senator

    As far as I can tell, because I know this is important to Brick Oven Bill, Yettaw appears to be a white man, as is Senator Webb.

    Once again, Obama’s approach to foreign relations produces results. And as sure as the sun rises in the East, conservative pundits will decry his willingness to talk with dictators, ignoring this observation made on Webb’s trip:

    The regime has shown no sign it will release Suu Kyi before next year’s general elections, which critics say will perpetuate the military’s decades-old rule, but Webb’s visit appeared to show the junta is sensitive to international censure.

    the President may very well be a Caucophobe.

    Next up from the land of wingnut racial hysteria will be the new conspiracy theory that Death Panels will give priority to getting rid of white folks. BOB’s rants are a useful gauge to the increasing intensity of a segment of wingnut mania. It is typical that racists not only deny their own mental illness, but ascribe their irrationality to the motives of others.

  106. 106.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    August 15, 2009 at 5:04 pm

    And sometimes, the answer lies not in locking the uncle up, but in seeking a more reasonable, more permanent solution to the challenge he represents.

    ZOMG! DEATH PANELZZ!

    Next up from the land of wingnut racial hysteria will be the new conspiracy theory that Death Panels will give priority to getting rid of white folks.

    What do you mean, next? Oh, you mean discussing it in public.

    I hope so. I recall various shrieks of Obama Hates White Peepul! from less tightly wrapped fReichtards during the election. That was always good for a laugh. And of course there’s the Michelle Obama whitey tape, which is kept in the same secret location as Obama’s REAL birth certificate.

  107. 107.

    Brett

    August 15, 2009 at 5:07 pm

    Of course, these other countries have their own origin mythologies. British people are not ethnically homogenous, and the royal family is largely foreign and German. A few years ago, Japanese scientists downplayed discoveries that indicate that their country was settled by a people who also settled into parts of Korea, and even Icelanders have had to acknowledge that there is a fair degree of ethnic diversity in the country since in the past, males sought (or took) women from other nations to be their wives.

    That’s definitely one thing to keep in mind – all nations are, to some extent, “imagined communities”. They exist because of a sense of belief of unity, and usually a common history (which may or may not be true). In fact, in the case of the US, Canada, and Mexico, it was usually the contrast with another state that provided the initial framework for what eventually grew into a nation. In Mexico’s case, it was originally the Spaniards (the “el grito” of Hidalgo in 1810 supposedly said “Long live the Lady of Guadalupe! Death to the gachupines! [a derogatory term for the foreign Spaniards]”), then became the US. In the US’s view, it was against Britain and “Europe” in general. In Canada’s view, it was often against the US.

    I suppose the difference with America is that we didn’t explicitly build our national mythology on the idea that “we Americans” were some type of extended tribe with theoretical blood ties. We had cultural and historical ties, but nobody was going to claim that Americans were some type of ancient people bound by blood.

  108. 108.

    Leelee for Obama

    August 15, 2009 at 5:13 pm

    @kommrade reproductive vigor: Komrade-I clicked on your name instead of the arrow and spent untold minutes in sheer snorting giggles. Jesus, you are a funny man! The E. Cantor title almost killed me! Many thanks I will go back later and read more-Tiger’s playing gold, dontchaknow?

    In addition-the magic map with the location of the real gold reserves is in the same place. Area 51, I’m guessing.

  109. 109.

    Leelee for Obama

    August 15, 2009 at 5:15 pm

    @Leelee for Obama: I miss edit! Tiger’s playing GOLF!

  110. 110.

    Mayken

    August 15, 2009 at 5:17 pm

    @Leelee for Obama: I think both work!

  111. 111.

    Crusty Dem

    August 15, 2009 at 5:20 pm

    I believe it was Thomas Jefferson who said, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood tears of patriots and tyrants a million douchebags.”

  112. 112.

    Leelee for Obama

    August 15, 2009 at 5:22 pm

    @Mayken: Yeah, that’s true enough!

  113. 113.

    Leelee for Obama

    August 15, 2009 at 5:23 pm

    @Crusty Dem: I’m imagining strike-outs, amirite?

  114. 114.

    Demo Woman

    August 15, 2009 at 5:29 pm

    Earlier today I streamed five minutes of the anti-health care reform rally that was being held in Atlanta.

    Our infant mortality rate is high because we count babies of low birth weight
    Our death rate is higher because we have more car accidents and we are over weight
    That we lowest death rate in all cancers

    One speaker mentioned that it was important to get rid of the fraud in medi care before we do anything else. Fraud is important and I for one would be willing to put doctor’s that order unnecessary tests in jail.

  115. 115.

    Brachiator

    August 15, 2009 at 5:32 pm

    @ominira:

    RE: And sometimes, the answer lies not in locking the uncle up, but in seeking a more reasonable, more permanent solution to the challenge he represents.

    Such as? (I shuddered on the first quick read of the section quoted above until I re-read and saw “reasonable”).

    and

    kommrade reproductive vigor — ZOMG! DEATH PANELZZ!

    Actually, I was headed into a different direction entirely, but the lack of an editing function defeated me.

    I was thinking not just of the metaphor of the crazy uncle locked away in the attic, but of the reality, and of the marvelous example of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and how she reacted to the example of her sister, Rose, who had been locked away in an institution, and who was probably a victim of medical maltreatment (the totally unnecessary lobotomy that was performed on her).

    One result was the Special Olympics, which oddly enough was in part a reaction to a stupid myth about the mentally disabled:

    The prevailing thought had been that mentally retarded children should be excluded from physical activity for fear that they might injure themselves. As a result, many were overweight or obese.

    Sarah Palin should be kissing the ass of a statue dedicated to Eunice Shriver, since Shriver’s efforts helped lead to the change in society which tries to recognize the essential dignity of people with disabilities, instead of locking them away.

    And as an aside, I love this little odd factoid related to people with Downs syndrome.

    People with Down syndrome rarely get most kinds of cancer and U.S. researchers have nailed down one reason why — they have extra copies of a gene that helps keep tumors from feeding themselves.

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30849455/

    Wouldn’t it be something if people with Down’s syndrome turned out to be the saviors of mankind?

  116. 116.

    Crusty Dem

    August 15, 2009 at 5:32 pm

    @Leelee for Obama:
    Indeed. I assume those are dead to us until Balloon Juice v11.3?

  117. 117.

    Demo Woman

    August 15, 2009 at 5:33 pm

    @Crusty Dem: I’m not sure that he used the word douchebag, but didn’t he call them ignorant?

  118. 118.

    Crusty Dem

    August 15, 2009 at 5:33 pm

    @Crusty Dem: Arriving June 2042 (I kid, I kid).

  119. 119.

    Leelee for Obama

    August 15, 2009 at 5:37 pm

    @Demo Woman: Yeah, all that is what’s wrong, right? I couldn’t bring myself to watch it-you’re braver than I am. Not that fraud is good, and all that, and some jury awards are nuts, and blargh. CNN gave them face-time, so it’s obviously VERY important. And do babies of low-birth-weight not count somehow? What would we do, not include them? I am at a loss, truly. Teh stupid…..it is large.

  120. 120.

    shelley matheis

    August 15, 2009 at 5:39 pm

    iron gaze of Joe the Plumber, t

    Hahahahahahaha!

    Oh, man, that made my day.

    Let’s see, what is (not)Joe (not) a Plumber doing these days? A book that didn’t exactly fly. A stand up comedian now?

  121. 121.

    Leelee for Obama

    August 15, 2009 at 5:42 pm

    @Brachiator: It would be one of those things that make me an agnostic, and not an atheist. It would also make me point and laugh at the ones that called them useless eaters.

    Kudos on the Eunice Shriver tribute-she was the Bomb, no joke! Palin should indeed have paid homage to the woman she likely thinks was a Commie.

  122. 122.

    shelley matheis

    August 15, 2009 at 5:43 pm

    People with Down syndrome rarely get most kinds of cancer and

    Another small but sad factor might be is that most folks with Down’s don’t live beyond their forties.

  123. 123.

    Rick Perlstein

    August 15, 2009 at 5:44 pm

    burnspbesq, I don’t work at Princeton! Do you know something I don’t?

  124. 124.

    MikeJ

    August 15, 2009 at 5:51 pm

    Wouldn’t it be something if people with Down’s syndrome turned out to be the saviors of mankind?

    LIBERALS WANT TO FARM PEOPLE WITH DOWN’S SYNDROME LIKE CATTLE TO DRINK THEIR SWEET, SWEET BLOOD!!!!!!

    Oh wait. It’s diabetics with the sweet, sweet blood.

  125. 125.

    Demo Woman

    August 15, 2009 at 5:53 pm

    @Leelee for Obama: I don’t have cable but since in live in the area, I did stream it for five minutes through the AJC site. I’m serious, that was just five minutes. I can’t imagine what else they said.

  126. 126.

    wasabi gasp

    August 15, 2009 at 5:58 pm

    We’re collectively stupid, lazy and spoiled manifesting into a highly efficient wall bumping machine congratulated by sledge hammer salesmen who have no incentive to point towards a door. It’s not you, it’s the wall.

  127. 127.

    Mayken

    August 15, 2009 at 6:00 pm

    @Demo Woman: No, no, no, it is not the *doctor’s* who commit the fraud. It is the *poor* people. Please, doctors are all rich and would never do anything wrong! /snark

  128. 128.

    Brachiator

    August 15, 2009 at 6:01 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    Many other countries have … laws that let them lock people up for advocating sufficiently crazy ideas….

    Returning to this theme, here is how Hama deals with ideas crazier than their own: they crush them.

    RAFAH, Gaza Strip – Hamas crushed an al-Qaida-inspired group in an hours-long standoff that came to a fiery end when a large explosion killed the radical Muslim group’s leader inside his Gaza home on Saturday. The fighting was sparked by a rebellious sermon by the group’s leader….

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090815/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_palestinians_gaza_shootout;

    The radical groups have sought to expand the Palestinians’ battle beyond Israel to include the Western World as well. And in Gaza they have tried to enforce a strict version of Islamic law to which Hamas has not agreed. They have also attacked Internet cafes and wedding parties over behavior they consider improper. The crackdown highlights Hamas’ desire to limit its struggle to the Palestinian cause and to distance itself from militants espousing al-Qaida’s ideology, though the United States, Israel and others consider Hamas a terrorist organization.

    People shouting down others at Town hall meetings don’t realize how precious freedom of expression really is.

    Leelee for Obama —Kudos on the Shriver tribute-she was the Bomb, no joke! Palin should indeed have paid homage to the woman she likely thinks was a Commie.

    Eunice’s son, Robert, said it best:

    In an interview with CBS News in 2004, Mrs. Shriver’s son Robert said: “My mom never ran for office, and she changed the world. Period. End of story.”

  129. 129.

    Leelee for Obama

    August 15, 2009 at 6:01 pm

    @Demo Woman: Cynthia Tucker must have the day off-how that get on??? LOL

    The city too busy to hate, but not too busy to be ridiculous. Small improvement at best.

  130. 130.

    Leelee for Obama

    August 15, 2009 at 6:05 pm

    What a perfect quote from Robert Shriver! Just right and just so!

  131. 131.

    Demo Woman

    August 15, 2009 at 6:08 pm

    @Leelee for Obama: Tucker is now a Washington DC correspondent. She is no longer the editor.

  132. 132.

    Leelee for Obama

    August 15, 2009 at 6:12 pm

    @Demo Woman: That’s too bad! Maybe with budget cuts, she could multi-task!

  133. 133.

    b-psycho

    August 15, 2009 at 6:14 pm

    @Brick Oven Bill: Why would such a racist have advisers that were of another race?

  134. 134.

    Martian Buddy

    August 15, 2009 at 6:28 pm

    Aside from the unusual size and influence of our right wing, the U.S. is an outlier in another area: creationism. The only democracy with a lower percentage of adults who accept evolutionary theory is Turkey. Bearing that in mind, I’d suggest that the right’s power in this country is due in part to our unusual level of religious fervor compared to other western democracies. It’s certainly a big problem (though by no means the only problem) with the modern Republican party, where being pro-choice is now enough to have the wingnuts clamoring for the heretical RINO to be primaried.

  135. 135.

    Anne Laurie

    August 15, 2009 at 6:29 pm

    I don’t know why the right-wing crazy is so strong in the United States. Maybe it’s because we haven’t gone through the cleansing fire of out-and-out fascism, maybe it’s because ethnic diversity produces paranoia in a certain segment of the population (even as it produces tolerance in much of the rest).

    To repeat what others have said, there’s a certain percentage of any group that’s certain all of their troubles (from bad hair days and rainy weekends to their own infertility or the death of their children) are caused by ‘Them’. Depending on the sophistication of the group, ‘They’ may be defined as anything from Witches to the International Communist Conspiracy to ACORN to the Trilateral Commission’s Reptile-Human Hybrid Masters. (Sarah Palin’s church, for instance, strongly believes that killing more witches would stem the Democrats’ grip on Congress. Not kidding.) The mark of a functional modern society is that the sane majority prevent the Other-obsessed minorities from carrying out their fantasies of a “purified” culture.

    Unfortunately, Rupert Murdoch’s media is the rabid ferret down the pants of our political discourse…

  136. 136.

    Brick Oven Bill

    August 15, 2009 at 6:29 pm

    Because we live in a democracy b-pyscho. Blacks make up 13% of the population and a smaller percentage of the electorate. But he makes sure the white guys are weenies. This is either for imagery or for self-esteem purposes.

    Geithner yells and swears at women. Good for Sheila Bair of the FDIC.

  137. 137.

    bago

    August 15, 2009 at 6:35 pm

    Watching the emotional change in Wikus was a treat.

  138. 138.

    Corner Stone

    August 15, 2009 at 7:18 pm

    @jcricket:

    About how America is the only country who spends a majority of it’s time going, “We’re #1! We’re#1! Best Country on EARTH”

    This is a given. But really, who the hell else would think they could actually chant this? Did someone else produce a world reserve currency while I wasn’t looking?

  139. 139.

    Indylib

    August 15, 2009 at 7:29 pm

    @Anne Laurie:

    “Unfortunately, Rupert Murdoch’s media is the rabid ferret down the pants of our political discourse…”

    Excellent analogy, best LOL of the day. Thanks

  140. 140.

    someguy

    August 15, 2009 at 8:59 pm

    I think the term Perlstein was looking for to describe conservatives, but couldn’t seem to find due to his chatty nature and good manners, was “vermin.”

    The right is crazy because to normal humans, the behavior of rats, cockroaches and hyenas always looks a little nutty.

  141. 141.

    JGabriel

    August 15, 2009 at 9:08 pm

    @Brick Oven Bill:

    [Obama] makes sure the white guys [in his administration] are weenies. This is either for imagery or for self-esteem purposes.

    So let’s get this straight, BOB. You’re argument is that Obama is racist because he doesn’t hire enough he-man conservatives?

    And you expect this argument to be taken seriously?

    (Whistles in appreciation of the commitment to crazy.)

    .

  142. 142.

    Mayken

    August 15, 2009 at 9:47 pm

    @Brick Oven Bill: Yes, because we all know Rahm and Gates (just to name a couple) are noted girly-men. And I am sorry, but loosing half your family, still stepping up to take your senate seat and still managing to be there for your sons every night is the antithesis of being a weenie.
    Also, your link doesn’t say what you think it says. Ooh, ah administration official lost his temper and said bad words. ‘Cause that NEVER happens in DC.

  143. 143.

    Wile E. Quixote

    August 15, 2009 at 11:54 pm

    @Brick Oven Bill

    Because we live in a democracy b-pyscho. Blacks make up 13% of the population and a smaller percentage of the electorate. But he makes sure the white guys are weenies. This is either for imagery or for self-esteem purposes.

    You mean like that crying, whining punk-ass bitch Glenn Beck? You know, the one who cries on national television and was too much of a weenie to serve his country. It’s no wonder that you’re such an expert on weenies, your idol is one and so are the people who show up at his gatherings.

  144. 144.

    bob h

    August 16, 2009 at 7:55 am

    “I don’t know why the right-wing crazy is so strong in the United States.”

    It is a kind of political puberty that so many of us cannot mature out of.

  145. 145.

    Leo

    August 16, 2009 at 10:14 am

    “If you don’t have black friends, that would make you intolerant . . . .”

    Horseshit.

  146. 146.

    John S.

    August 16, 2009 at 10:20 am

    To paraphrase a line from Top Secret!:

    Brick Oven Bill is a moron who believes only what he reads in the New York Post.

  147. 147.

    PanAmerican

    August 16, 2009 at 12:37 pm

    The Harrison vs. Van Buren race in 1840. The Whigs framed Van Buren as an east coast elitist and worked nativism against his otherness. He was the first President of non Brit-Irish descent and a native Dutch speaker. Typical projection to stir up the reactionaries against Irish and German immigrants. It didn’t matter that he was of middle class background and the first President born a US citizen.

    Two things that have always played well among the reactionary element is a focus on enforcing prohibition on the other and pulling politicians (and celebs) from similar class backgrounds back down.

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