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TechnoratiParanoia for Breakfast
A few years ago I fell
in with this circle of people – a high proportion of which are certifiably
insane – who correspond by email with each other over politics.
I would call it a seriously mixed blessing, except that I’d never
go far enough as to use the ‘b’ word to describe the experience.
I can honestly say that when I was originally baited into participating in the group I came with an open mind, and I still have not met a single person on the list. About half the correspondents are regressives, most of them from right out of central casting on the set of the movie “America Neanderthal". They rarely cease to astonish me. The level of thuggishness, hypocrisy, ignorance, proud ignorance and ad hominem insult from those quarters is staggering.
More on that some other
day perhaps, but there’s one additional aspect of that behavior set
that floors me. It’s the capacity to simply make things up out
of whole cloth, and then just have it become ‘truth’. Period.
Here’s an example. As usual, the dittoheads on the right (and how could any self-respecting person not see that term as a monstrous insult from Master Rush?) regularly trot out, in 5.1 Surround Sound chorus, the latest tropes assigned them by their marionette string-pullers. For quite some time now, those have included the silly one about how President Obama (who’s not really president, of course, since he was secretly born in Kenya) runs around the world apologizing for America.
Let’s leave aside for now the inferred premise that America has never done anything wrong (for example – just choosing a period at random here – over the previous eight years), and therefore why on earth would we have anything for which to apologize? I stay reasonably up to speed with the news. I watched the president travel the world. I remember some refreshingly quasi-honest rhetoric from him every once in a while, stuff that was hardly news to anyone outside the American Insular-o-Sphere. But no apologies.
So I asked. “Could
you folks who continually say that the president is apologizing for
America all over the world, could you please just quote me a couple
of examples? It’s not that I doubt your veracity or anything
[who could imagine regressives being dishonest?], it’s just that this
claim of yours is not fitting so well with my understanding of the facts.”
Oh man, you should have
seen what gyrations that little toe-dipping into empirical reality produced.
One person said I should “do my own research”, even after I explained
to her that I had indeed looked, to no avail, even though I always thought
that one making an assertion bore the burden of proof, and even though
one would assume it would be easy to present myriad examples, given
the plethora of apologies supposedly tossed off by the president, like
so many sets of Air Force One souvenir cufflinks.
Mostly there followed an obstinate silence, or personal attacks on anyone, like me, who would dare ask for examples. But my very favorite response was the proof finally generated by one of the regressives in the group. That President Obama apologized continually to the world for America was proven by the fact that – wait for it, now: “He traveled to Europe”.
You probably think I’m kidding you, but this was dead serious, and nothing I could say was capable of pointing out the absurdity of the assertion, not even mentioning that Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush (and every other modern president) “went to Europe”.
To be sure, making fun of dittoheads is like shooting elderly fish in a barrel filled to the brim with Quaalude-laced molasses and left in the fridge for a couple of days. But something profoundly unprofound is going on here, and I keep encountering it everywhere I go in Regressive World. These folks start and end any discussion with their paranoid ideas, and cannot be dislodged from them by mere evidence or logic, if they can be dislodged at all. I’m not sure a bunker buster bomb would do the trick, or even a moderately-sized nuclear device, planted close in.
If a conservative government ran the country into the ditch in every conceivable way, they would still tell you how great it was. (Oops, that already happened. Never mind)
If Republicans were shown to be pedophiles and closet queens, they would still support the party for its strong stand on sexual morality (Oops, that already happened. Never mind.)
How utterly frightened of some existential threat does one have to be in order to cling to sheer nonsense like the notion that going to Europe is apologizing for America? Indeed, how frightened must one be to actually seek out having such inanities delivered directly to your door, by flipping on Fox Lies?
This is much deeper than an election or even a partisan tendency across an era. We are talking here about a population somehow so traumatized that the very rationality which is utterly foundational to the Enlightenment project of democracy has been squashed down to invisibility, never again to inconveniently impede full-bore delusion. Perhaps ‘twas ever thus – I mean, one can hardly account for endless millennia of religious belief otherwise – but right-wing freaked-out reality-defying delirium has gone so mainstream these last three decades, it’s seems most times like we’ve entered some parallel and not so lovely alternative universe. Nowadays, it’s paranoia for breakfast, paranoia for lunch, and paranoia for dinner. Want a little snack before bedtime? Guess what’s on the menu.
Consider the right-wing
media machine. Clearly, these folks have gotten very good at dishing
it up for the hoi polloi cruising along in their pick-ups. But
I wonder if some of them don’t actually have a heaping helping themselves
every day of what they’re serving to the bots. Two recent articles
from the toxically regressive National Review make the point nearly
as immaculately as does the “Go to Europe, Insult America” bumpersticker.
Editor Rich Lowry starts the fun with a piece called “The Bush Blame Game”. I was especially interested in this because of my observation that the Obama administration hardly ever blames the Bush administration for current problems. Just for a point of reference here, for ten years I watched Tony Blair during Prime Minister’s Question Time, and I was struck by how often – and how long into his own government’s tenure – he kept referring back to the eighteen miserable years of Thatcherism. I’ve noticed that Obama pretty much never does the same, even with Udickuitous Cheney running around practically begging for a good whack, or six, upside the haid. And I think it’s a strategic mistake of large proportion for Obama to adopt his perennial nice guy posture on this question. For one thing, it perpetuates massive untruths, but for another, it allows a nearly extinguished cancer the opportunity to rally for a comeback. As if we need that. It’s like letting the planet’s last remaining sample of Smallpox out of the deep freezer every once in a while – just so it can stretch its legs a bit.
Anyhow, I was curious
to see if maybe I was being unfair and had missed something. Was
Obama really out there slinging it, and I just missed it somehow?
I knew for sure that I could count on Mr. Lowry to set the record straight.
If you read his piece, however, you’ll find lots of not-so-funny attempts
at humorously skewering the president, but nary a single example of
the administration doing what it is accused of doing in the article’s
thesis. You’ll find verbiage like, “At this rate, when Obama
writes his post-presidential memoir, it will be titled: An Audacious
Presidency, or How I Saved America from That Bastard Bush” (hah-hah,
eh? – it gets worse), but the only quotation of a president dissing
his predecessor comes from... John Adams! Unless, of course, you
count Obama, describing the economy he inherited as “somebody else’s
mess”, as some outrageous – and outrageously dishonest – slam
on the Bush administration. That’s what constitutes “Obama's
perpetual campaign ... to scorn and berate” Bush, according to Lowry?
That’s the best he’s got? That meets his test for describing
Obama as “graceless, whiny, and tin-eared”? Wow.
Lowry goes on in his
article to disagree with Obama’s positions on a variety of issues,
and sing the praises of Bush – for example, because the latter gave
us the Iraq surge – never mind that is was of course simply a partial
bail-out from the disaster he himself had created. That’s fine,
even if Lowry’s politics are about as thoughtful and welcome as...
well, a third Bush term. He’s certainly entitled to his policy
preferences. However, when you write an article assailing a president
for the incessant and grossly unfair blaming of another president, you’re
kinda expected to give an example. Maybe even two. Heck,
I’ll go even further. If you do this whilst tossing around highly
inflammatory language – such as claiming with respect to Obama’s
public rendering of Bush that, “no calumny is too much to heap on
him, and no defense is ever offered” – then you really ought to
produce four or five doozies to illustrate your incendiary claim, shouldn’t
you? Lowry – along with the research staff he presumably presides
over as editor of a major publication – provides a whopping zero.
Not a single one. Instead, he tells us that Obama “impugns his
immediate predecessor with classless regularity”. Hmm.
Very strange. Apparently Obama’s highly regular epithets are
so classless they can’t even be printed in a family magazine.
That’s the only reason I can think of for Lowry to leave them out.
Maybe, for example, Obama didn’t just refer to the “mess” he inherited,
but called it a “darned mess” instead. Disgusting. I
wouldn’t publish such filth if I was Lowry either.
Jay Nordlinger gives his readers roughly the same treatment (or perhaps the same rough treatment) in his “O’s (Latest) Insult”, also published in The National Review. Nordlinger is furious that Obama recently said to some of his supporters, “Democrats are an opinionated bunch. You know, the other side, they just kinda sometimes do what they’re told. Democrats, y’all thinkin’ for yourselves.”
Wow! Can you believe
it?!?! Have you ever seen something quite so egregious in your
life? Next thing you know, Obama will be calling conservatives
something really sickening, like maybe “dittoheads” perhaps!!
As with the Lowry piece, I kept cruising along, waiting to see the great crimes of the president laid out in all their horrid glory. Instead, we lucky readers are treated to a lengthy recounting of some unfinished business from the author’s college days (never a good sign) and some random quote attributed to the Washington Post – which, last I heard, was still a newspaper, not Michelle Obama’s husband. That’s it. All of which nevertheless prompts our friendly correspondent to end his piece thusly: “I have 30 more things to say, of course [translation: “Six paragraphs in and two days past deadline and I’m completely out of filler for this crappy piece already”], but here’s one more: Do you recall President Bush insulting Democrats, as Obama has insulted us, explicitly? Sometimes our post-partisan president can be a rather nasty piece of work.”
Golly, I don’t know!
I’d have to think about that. Maybe Bush wasn’t so explicit
about verbally trashing Democrats (except, of course by cutely calling
it the “Democrat Party” rather than the Democratic Party), but I’m
still a bit riled up about him stealing the election from “Sore Loserman”
Al Gore, doing it again against John “Flip-Flop” Kerry, and scheduling
the Iraq war vote in late October 2002, in order to turn it into a smear
against that other party in the election just two weeks later.
Call me crazy, but I think those are bigger insults to Democrats –
and to democracy – than is Obama noting that those Republics “just
kinda sometimes” have strong party discipline. Which, of course,
also happens to be just kinda completely... true.
Ah truth. Pesky, annoying, truth. That’s it! That’s what’s missing from these unfortunate right-wing rendezvous with reality. A little truth. You know, like where traveling to Europe just means you saw Buckingham Palace and ate some snails floating in garlic, not that you apologized for America. Like where being guilty of continually blaming your predecessor for the sixteen crises crippling the country might require that you are actually continually blaming your predecessor. (Or, heck, even that you are doing it once. And never mind that your predecessor was himself as fat a target for righteous blame as ever existed.) Like where being guilty of thoroughly insulting the other party actually requires a thorough insult, and one that also doesn’t happen to be an accurate statement of fact. That kind of truth.
I mean, seriously. Even if we forget the astonishing Freedom Fries arrogance of these cognitive cripples, is this as clear a case of paranoia as one could possibly conjure up, or what?
The great irony, of course,
is that they’ve got themselves all whipped up about Barack Obama,
of all people. If there was ever a guy in the White House who
was more innocuous, less offensive, and more happy-faced than Pleasant
Obama, I can’t imagine it. If regressives today are this freaked
out by the Kumbaya Kid, what would they do if they had a pugnacious
liberal like Harry Truman or Lyndon Johnson to deal with?
I, for one, would sure like to find out. And not only for the spectacle it would surely be.
Let’s face it, nobody
wears psychopathologies on their sleeves more proudly than the regressive
right. And nobody’s politics are more completely driven by their
sense of wounded social status than these very same clowns.
They’ve been freaked out for decades, a epoch of epic paranoia occasionally interspersed with the ecstasy of witnessing a Reagan or a Bush beat up on one group of brown people or another in their name.
But now they’re so far gone they’ve taken to simply making up perceived insults out of whole cloth, and clinging to them with a ferocity usually reserved for parachutes at about 300 feet.
Unreal. (Literally.) Next thing you know they’ll be saying that the president is a secret Muslim trying to convert the country to Islam!
Oh, wait. Never mind..
55 Comments so far
Show AllNanoo
The piece was a disappointment but the comments were well worth reading.
This is an excellent psychological peek into the minds of the enemy. They have become delusional to the extreme. This in turn has led to delusional governance that has led us down the path of destruction. Whether it is these multiple imperialistic forays overseas or exporting of jobs to China and India, or massive efforts at deregulation, the result has been the same. A weaker nation on the brink of collapse must now come to grips with these irrational fools. Your article does much to expose this madness. Kid Kumbaya and all rational Americans need to expose these children for what they are: scared, petulant little children who should be nowhere near the levers of power in this country.
very often i've thought about WHY people get delusionally paranoid...constantly living their lives with thoughts and concerns about "losing" whatever privileges or status they have:
CEO's afraid to be supplanted..
leaders afraid to be made irrelevant
a person that has become rich afraid to "lose" investments or "opportunity to advance some more"
owners of many many possessions and properties afraid to lose "to competition"
sometimes I think that the underlying reason for this is their own AWARENESS that , in many cases, great wealth and power - at least relative to those that these people "control" (such as a Costcutting CEO in some institution) -
come at the cost of ruin to others...and so they behave like thieves always concerned and paranoid at "losing" something which has come partly, if not only, through unjust means and practices. it is like having the knowledge , and constantly living with the awareness that what one has done to "get where on is" with great power or wealth compared to so many others - especially those who are directly responsible for allowing that person to have so much wealth - are the ones who have lost so much for such rich and powerful people to "get something"..
(and this goes for country to country too - such as the paranoid foreign policy of the USA) .
so - these people and institutions and the country like the USA - guard their "achievements" jealously - because they fear that the same could be done to them - precisely because THAT is what they had done to others.
the USA is "paranoid" about "foreign threats" because IT has been Threatening countries left and right.
it is Paranoid about foreign enemies - because IT has created enemies and made ITSELF an enemy of others
it is Paranoid about immigrants, legal or "illegal" because it has illegaly and criminally abused other nations and invaded and occupied them , indirectly or directly.
it is paranoid about "people hating us for our freedoms" because it has SUPPRESSED or rigged other cultures FROM having their independence and self-determination which is THEIR freedom..whatever americans think of that.
it is paranoid about "competition" because it has PREVENTED others from competing FAIRLY
--
its counterpart in individuals are rich people, or powerful people who have gotten where they are according to the old, universal statement -
"behind great wealth is a great crime".
The pinnacle of rightwing ethics is not veracity, its consistency. Indeed, one's ability to stand on a position despite all the tidal batterings of truth is seen as quite admirable to them. We're trying to set sail and are muttering about the drag. They see an anchor, unmoved by the transient popularities of the day. At base, they're motivated by the desire for bedrock religious principles: things that don't change. God said it, I believe it, that settles it.
Thus, when a liberal with a strong desire to 'get it right' shifts his thinking based on the latest information, the liberal sees something admirable in reacting to the truth, but the conservative only sees someone who is 'shifty'.
So, the only way you can change your mind, as a conservative, is to literally BETRAY conservatism. You reluctantly vote Democratic, one election, ever ready to leave the shifting sands of liberalism for the unquestioning bedrock of conservative thought, once things get right again. You don't know why you did that, you half expect it made things worse. Limbaugh says forget it, don't mention it again, welcome back brother. And, inside, Limbaugh thanks God you did what you did, without ever acknowledging why he's relieved. Because that would betray HIS conservatism.
You must admit, conservatives find the attendant lack of confusion empowering. They sleep better, work more efficiently, are more directed. The lack of internal questioning is a huge personal advantage, yet it forms a kind of 'directional' predation. You give up the attempt to gain a true direction, for a direction that 'never' changes. Let the liberals around you shift their direction, ebb and flow. You'll make the shift later, once they've established the right way to go, without ever losing speed. Such behavior usually ends up with a great personal reward, though conservatives are rarely recognized by the community for their sense of direction, I often think they are happier. They dial in the 2.4 kids, attend the soccer games and tailgate parties, put their soul on autopilot, and let the tragically inclined liberals around them define tomorrows direction. What's not to like?
"the Obama administration hardly ever blames the Bush administration for current problems"
Demoks and Repuks are in cahoots. The elite establishment is on its knees and it needs cooperation from both political wings to keep it from going belly-up. If the USan people were conscious instead of comatose, they could tip the beast over in a second.
"what would they do if they had a pugnacious liberal like Harry Truman or Lyndon Johnson to deal with?"
DMG doesn't know? Rightwingers bow to anyone with a backbone. Clue for lefties. Never mind.
David Michael Green,
Your article is SUPERB.... both superbly written and with brilliant logic.
It seems to me that "Right Wingers" usually have these characteristics:
1) They are quite cowardly/fearful.
2) They are either bullies themselves or hold bullies in high regard.
3) Their mental ability to think logically is below average.
♫ Paranoia strikes deep in the heartland
But I think it’s all overdone
Exaggerating this exaggerating that
They don’t have no fun
I don’t believe what I read in the papers
They’re just out to capture my dime
I ain’t worrying
And I ain’t scurrying
I’m having a good time ♫
______________________________
-- Paul Simon, "Have a Good Time"
· Yr Obd't Servant
9-11 was an INSIDE JOB.
Psychiatrists do not humor psychos by staying in e-mail contact and continually attempting to reason with them. Psychiatrists know these people are sick and dangerous. The fact that 25 to 30% of the US population suffers from this mental criminal insanity doesn't make it okay. Yes, they are clever enough to accuse others of doing what they do but that isn't the issue.
The issue is that the corporate party has two wings that distract us (repub/democrat) from any progress by engaging in professional wrestling. This article is distracting as all get out. It plays into the same game. Green should be defending people like Nader, McKinney and Kucinich instead of going on about this repub/democrat food fight. Please, please, let's honor our decent and loving president. Give me a break. He is a puppet on the same set of strings that Bush was on along with both houses of congress.
I accuse you, Mr. DAVID M. Green of writing an indirect puff piece for the democrats in general and Obama in particular. It's disngenuous.
By the way, when are you going to write about the zionist kabal in New York City that gets us to fund zionist Israel by bribing congress (ROI-return on investment of 1000% or more)? We are being suckered and robbed by corrupt individuals who's main allegiance is to a foreign fascist country. How about it, Mr. Green? I hope that doesn't hit too close to home or your pocketbook to show some courage and integrity. Somebody like you needs to take these bastards on. They, as opposed to the "crazies", are not crazy. They are far more dangerous than any right wing psychos.
If u ask me it's the Regressives that owe us all an apology for the last 8 yrs. Starting with Limpballs and Peckerhead Beck I just wish they'd all STFU!!
Never mind Obama. This is not about him.
If Hillary won the presidency the reaction by the regressives would have been the same.
The same reaction as it was over 40 years agon when they screamed at little black girls escorted by the National Guard when schools were first desegregated.
The same reaction as it was during the Reagan years when they created a hysteria about "communists" in Central America and how if the US didn't support their dictators these "communists" would be barging through Texas on their way to DC.
The same reaction as it was during the Clinton years when they kept making up scandal after scandal most of which turned out to be a figment of their imagination.
These regressives have been here all along and their anger gets nothing but worse and worse.
All this energy has got to go somewhere someday and I'm afraid these regressives will take matters into their own hands to set things straight, or whatever.
So don't worry about Obama, worry about yourselves, folks. Worry about the US and if it can prevent its disintagration once the regressives get to work in earnest.
Shouldn't it be "paranola"?
"...how President Obama... runs around the world apologizing for America."
May, 04: "Bush Apologizes for Iraqi Prisoner Abuse"
Dec, 05: "Bush Apologizes for Phone Taps After 9/11"
March, 07: "Bush Apologizes for Walter Reed Woes"
June, 06: "Bush Apologizes to Legally Blind Reporter."
May, 08: "Bush Apologizes for Quran Shooting"
Oct, 09: "Bush Apologizes for Deceit During Presidency"
June, 06: "Bush Apologizes for Mocking Homeless Man"
Sept, 07: "Bush Apologizes for APEC Summit Chaos"
Oct, 01: "Bush Apologizes for Muslim Removal"
April, 06: "Bush Apologizes to Hu for Protester"
April, 01: "Bush Apologizes to China Over Spy Plane Incident"
Apparently, the R-nuts cannot face the fact that it was their Dear Leader who, in fact, proved to be King Of All Lying, Thieving Pussies... the result: project onto Obama...
My reading suggestion is 'The Confessions of an Economic Hit Man' by Perkins to see how things really get done in this world...and then lets talk paranoia, if you aren't, you should be...
Well said.
This from the above article:
"Let’s face it, nobody wears psychopathologies on their sleeves more proudly than the regressive right."
Well, if Mr. Green has faced it, why continue to discuss it? Psychiatrists do not humor psychos by staying in e-mail contact and continually attempting to reason with them. Psychiatrists know these people are sick and dangerous. The fact that 25 to 30% of the US population suffers from this mental criminal insanity doesn't make it okay. Yes, they are clever enough to accuse others of doing what they do but that isn't the issue.
The issue is that the corporate party has two wings that distract us from any progress by engaging in professional wrestling. This article is distracting as all get out.
I accuse Mr. Green of writing an indirect puff piece for the democrats in general and Obama in particular. It's disingenuous.
Bring America Back !!!!
***David Green has a full twenty five cents worth of adjectives here to describe the radical Neocon right wingers who have controlled the US for over eight years now !!!
***Green has to be placated to hear Montreal Canadians burned "W" in effigy outside a hall where He was making a
speech.
**He just has to be softened with the new evidence that the MI Complex embedded journalist and paid FOX TV consultants were part of an Army Psyops program against US citizens== keeping major media lies in the forefront of all headlines.
**What Green does not deal with is the fact, Team Obama has bought the same of party line as Bushco==in escalation the War instead of Ending as Promised.
Too many (not all) of the folks posting here today seem to have been snacking on the same breakfast paranoia that upset Green's stomach. In various ways they articulate the idiocy of the masses of Americans, and the ability of the right-wing fanatics to prey on that idiocy in pursuing their own political agenda. (Kind of What's The Matter with Kansas on steroids) Well, perhaps they will feel better when they sit down tonight with their well-read and Ivy League-educated friends for their dinner. (see my post above, 9:36am) Perhaps they will enjoy a usual plated of sauteed Progressive Denial as they raise their classes to the President who gets a peace prize even as he prosecutes horrendous wars. Perhaps, in their oh-so-superior wisdom, they will find cheer in news that the same President has made tough-sounding noises against the health insurance industry and the titans of Wall Street, even as his health care "reform" plan and his Goldman Sachs-plated financial aides have delivered the reality or prospect of great profit to that industry and those titans. Then, they can trundle off to bed, with the happy thought that they can have with their next morning's coffee yet another dose of Fox News or Rush Limbaugh paranoia to start them on their oh-so-superior days. La dolce vita.
I'm not paranoid but sometimes I get upset that progressives keep putting quantity over quality by getting so desperate about winning at the expense of putting a mediocre pol at best at the front. Putting Obama over Nader should teach progressives clinging to the Democrat Party this serious a lesson given Obama moving to the right of Dubya in some cases. I don't know about you but I still keep my fingers crossed on DMG because he used to apologize for Obama despite reality.
Bring America Back !!!!.........!!...Well Jerry====I don't think we are in
Kansas , anymore. And, Yes, David Green, there really is a Santa Claus,
somewhere in the Virginia suburbs.
....then, Methinks he asks, where are we ? in sad reply comes the stark:
********we are firmly entrenched in 1984, Meladdies and Meladies, and
War is exciting and Peace is boring !! What, dead troops , you say ????
Truthknoller: Never mind where we are! Where are the Ruby Slippers to get out of this place?
in all seriousness, does anyone have some good suggestions?
I really wanna get outta here, but Canada's too cold
I only speek English, unfortunately
cdo74: I have a serious "suggestion," but I may be accused of being a butt-sitting suggester, in that I'm even older than Ralph Nader (76) and don't have the greatest physical mobility to put on the Ruby Slippers and start the trek back to Kansas. But I think I know that getting "outa here" is not a matter of moving to Canada or Costa Rica, because these two favorite "ex-patriate" destinations, along with any others in the world, have the problems of the world, which are a product of neo-liberal corporate colonialism. No, the getting out has to start by clicking our heels together and saying "there is no place like a populist revolt." There is the example of Gandhi or Cesar Chavez or Fidel Castro or maybe ML King or Harvey Milk, going literally to the people in the miserable conditions in which they live and giving them encouragement to believe that with the idea of humanity that is already in their hearts there is the infinite possibility of "the people" regaining control of their government. Keep an eye on the populist revolts in Latin America particularly (right now) the resistance movement to the Honduran coup; follow these and other revolts of the global South in Narconews, Global Research, IPS, Venezuelanalysis, etc. It's happening in other peoples' backyards and it can happen again in the good old USA.
The regressives have decided that winning is more important than honor or respectability. The economic system gives them no honor, and television rewards only bad behavior. Why should THEY care about these discredited social qualities? There's no economic or social reward in being thoughtful. It just impedes your ability to win. (OTHER people, however, should play by the rules - that's why they want to enforce fundamentalism on everyone else.)
Emulating the tactics of the right-wing media machine, they've learned that having the last word means they have won. (Since they aren't winning economically, this is a cheap and easy way to save their pride.) Their only goal is to feel they have 'crushed' their opponents. Once they feel they've accomplished that, they go back behind their walls.
Hypocrites, neurotics, paranoids, yes. Green's analysis is right on.
While reading this article I could not help but remember the Scene in Monty Python And the Holy Grail where the townspeople stuck a carrot on the nose of a woman, called her a witch and insisted on burning her.
This followed by the Good KNight imploring to townspeople to really THINK so as to ensure she a witch.
The presumptuous contempt of the left is infuriating to me, so this article was annoying start to finish. What to criticize? How about this .... "the very rationality which is utterly foundational to the Enlightenment project of democracy has been squashed down to invisibility". No doubt Green actually believes this idiocy. How convenient, everyone who doesn't agree with this imbecile is 'irrational'. The right is 'irrational', the left, as represented by Green, is rational. Simple. Why does this type of drivel get written? Get published?
Attaboy Notty, keep the pressure on um bucko!!!
Them there pinkos and commies never did make no sense!!
Won't never change em by hollerin at em but keep hollerin anyhoo!!
And don't give them there puddin heads no ear space, hear??
Jist keep lissenin to Faux Nooz !! like that there smartass Green feller auta do!! Which reminds me I gotta pet rattlesnake I'd liketa drop down his shirt!!!
PS!! The Grand Wizard sends his greetings!!!
Oh sure, never mind the "presumptuous contempt" constantly coming from the right. Which is Green's main point, btw. The idiocy, paranoia and willful divisiveness of the right-wing media machine, which he takes pains to elucidate, is obviously lost on you. Little wonder you take him to be an imbecile and find points of view such as his "infuriating." You would be one of clowns of the far right he's describing here. It's important to defend your own delusions.
Not to sound like a broken record (for those under 30 yrs of age, a "record" was a... oh never mind), but 2 things to always remember when discussing politics in America. 1) 23% of Americans are "authoritarian personalities", incapable of logical thinking, unable to distinguish between a fact and an opinion. John Dean's book "Conservatives Without Conscience" recaps the 65 years of intensive sociological inquiry into the bizarre minds of these people. Talking to them is like screaming at a clam. You will only wear yourself out. [#2 is that 95% of the news media is controlled by 5 groups of millionaires, 4 right-wing families and the world's largest weapons manufacturer. But that's not the subject here]
"23% of Americans are "authoritarian personalities", incapable of logical thinking, unable to distinguish between a fact and an opinion."
And, they are Glen Beck's audience, Glen Beck who continuously states his opinions as though they are facts. I cannot watch or listen to him, because I fly off into uncontrollable rages.
In any society a significant percentage of the population is mentally lacking in some way, and in the US that percentage must be unusually high. And in virtually any society, there exists a significant percentage of unprincipled, wealth-seeking, above-average individuals, call them "righties," who decide to take advantage of the subnormals, i.e. manipulate them for personal gain. There will also exist a significant percentage of above-average principled and even altruistic individuals, call them "lefties," who will try to inform the subnormals that they are being taken advantage of. However, because of the approach of the righties they accumulate property and power over time, much more than the lefties do, and gain the ability to control the media and even the government. So the righties inevitably win the war for the minds of the subnormals. This appears to be quite difficult to prevent in any society that could be called both "capitalistic" and "open."
This also has to do with the lust for power. Those 'righties' apparently cannot find power over themselves, and so seek it over others. The 'lefties' can also be seen as people who ARE able to find power over themselves, and seek a space in which to simply live and be free to control their own lives. Unfortunately, the righties do not allow this, and it is true, as mentioned above, that 95% of all media are owned by five entities, one of which is the Australian fascist who owns Fox Network. The recipe, as you so rightly [whoops, correctly] point out, is one of disaster. It underlies most civil conflict in the world, except for those where two righties groups vie for the right to control everybody else. [Is our species WORTH saving?]
There is paranoia on all sides. Even within the Progressive realm there are major rifts. On this site and on most other progressive sites, I see the Obama leaning progressives and the Nader/Mckinney leaning progressives each accusing the other of being rightwing trolls and getting into too much name-calling. Just last week and into this week, there was a big war between someone who thought of fixing the Democratic Party versus going third party all the way. I voted for Cynthia Mckinney but I believe that rather than shouting down the Obama and Mccain voters, why not engage them on the issues and make them forget about which side they are on? It's no coinicidence that despite a strong Democratic majority, the progressives continue to be divided and lose. I know someone who is too angry will come right up and say "oh, you're lying, you're a paid Obama troll" or some other blabber. What's supposed to separate the progressives from the conservatives is tolerance and kindness and a lot of supposed progressives on both sides seriously lack that. Look at the conservatives. They don't care that their puppet lost. They focus on reviving their causes and planning their strategies such as inventing more victim games of their own. Meanwhile, we progressives are shooting each other off just the way the Native American tribes did to each other until it was too late to realize that they need to unite. I often find a lot of Obama supporters and Nader/Mckinney supporters sounding just as mean and intolerant as the rightwing conservatives. The only way we're going to overcome the rightwing intolerant bullies is to be tolerant, persevere, and put them to shame by making them feel just how lame they really are acting the way they do. I look forward to a mean and nasty reply. Thank you.
I'm not here to give you a mean and nasty reply but let's get one thing straight. Obama is moving to the right of Dubya in many ways and that's what has even some former Obama voters outraged and my heart goes out to them for waking up. Voting for Obama out of fear I do not accept. Obama made it clear what he plans to do and has gotten worse with it since taking office. We Nader and Mckinney voters cared a hell of a lot for top quality progressives to lead while the rest put quantity before quality. Jerry D Rose nailed it better in his two posts today. When more people open their hearts and minds and takes progressive values seriously and deeply, pompous frauds such as Clinton and Barry will have no chance to stifle progressive values and play kissyface with the sellout "values".
Re Kyle Jamerson October 24th, 2009 11:18 am, who solicits mean and nasty replies:
The best I can do is to urge you to study more First Nation history. You write in part, "...progressives are shooting each other off just the way the Native American tribes did to each other until it was too late to realize that they need to unite."
Custer at the Greasy Grass found out too late that some tribes had already united. Ooops.
Other than that, your point is well taken.
I already know about Custer but that's an exception. I'm talking about the bigger picture. The natives were not united until it was too late. They would have prevented further decimation had they been united sooner than later. The progressives may get lucky to win an election or two on the occasion but the conservatives are still winning the ideological war on the ground even if their ideology is bankrupted by now. Defeating the conservatives should be have been a piece of cake but thanks to progressives being divided and shooting each other off on Obama vs Nader/Mckinney, they're having fun at us. How do you think I feel everytime a Republican friend of mine shows me another instance of the war going on between the Obama fans and the Nader/Mckinney fans? I'm embarrassed to digest the fun they are having laughing at us. Last week's war between SR and SB was so hilarious to him that he found Rush Limbaugh boring for the first time and told me that he looks forward to enjoying more such wars. This is what I am afraid of.
We progressives should unite with Canada maybe, then we'd have a really good chance of defeating the conservative blabberers who are always having fun laughing at us. That would be the best third party ever, probably.
Recommended reading for David Michael Green (or anyone else interested in exploring this theme further), Richard Hofstadter's great and important essay first published in Harpers in November 1964, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics". You can read it at:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/1964/11/0014706
As Hofstadter shows, paranoia is not just a fascist thing, but a very American thing that goes back to before the founding of the Republic.
Poet
Here is a news flash for Professor Green. Obama should be apologizing. He should apologize to the people of Afghanistan for dropping 500 lb. and 2000 lb. bombs on its citizens. He should be apologizing to the people of Pakistan for ordering drone missiles to be fired on its citizens resulting in the innocent and unjustifiable deaths of Pakistani children and grandmothers. He should be apologizing to the people of Iraq for unjustifiably keeping armed American soldiers and mercenary forces in that country. He should apologize to the Nobel committee for stating that he does not deserve, of all things, a peace prize and that since his award is unjustified, he in good conscience cannot accept that award because he realizes that there are far more worthy people than himself who should have been given that prize.
But then he should be aware that no amount of apologizing can ever bring back those people back from the dead, and that the people of those countries who have ended up mutilated and crippled cannot be returned to their families healthy and whole. In a just world, if this poor excuse of a peace president had any scruples, he would hand himself over to a war crimes tribunal where he would be tried, along with Bush and Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, et al, for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
"He should be apologizing to the people of Pakistan for ordering drone missiles to be fired on its citizens resulting in the innocent and unjustifiable deaths of Pakistani children and grandmothers."
Obama has fomented civil war in Pakistan.
And this action, and others like it, is ultimately what will bring about a nuclear attack by elements within the Pakistani military or their ISI on the U.S. I don't believe they could deliver a missle to North America, but they could sure take out a complete aircraft carrier task force or two. And of course the U.S. controlled media will foist off all the blame onto the Pakistanis. Until the U.S. either gets a goddamned good asskicking or until the country has finally borrowed and monetized (printed money) itself into a colossal financial crash, the U.S. will continue bombing innocent people all over the earth. And probably even after that, by simply ordering "defense" workers to work without pay, and to order "defense" contractors to give their wares to the U.S. without compensation because it will be the "patriotic" thing to do.
Onece the first nuke detonates, all bets will be off. Will the U.S. retaliate with nukes over Pakistan? And if it does, will India take kindly to being massively rained upon with radioactive fallout? Will Russia and China sit idly by as the U.S. nukes Pakistan? And while they're at it, will the U.S. and/or Israel nuke Iran? These phoney and fucked up religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam are perpetrating self-fulfilling prophecies.
Our "leaders" are worse than stupid. I'd love to play chess with any of them. I suppose I'd even have to explain what just happened to them when they are foolsmated. It seems they just cannot think even one move ahead.
Erroll: In Mr. Green's defense (sort of), he did in the 5th paragraph of his essay almost get to your point that actually he has much about which to apologize; when he says that the complaint about his apologizing "assumes" there is nothing for America to complain about, during (to choose "at random,") the period of the "last 8 years." Although Obama has now been President for nearly 10 months, the "last 8 years" is still code talk for the regime of Bush/Cheney, and Green makes no reference to any of your numerous and well-stated areas in which Obama should apologize PERSONALLY for his own death-dealing actions. Green has moods of despair with Obama as one of the biggest disappointments of his life, but others in which he seems to do nothing but defend Obama against his critics. The paranoia which he eats with his breakfast seems to get his back up about defending the President as the "victim" of these slime-masters. And that's also why I think many other die-hard Obama supporters feast on these generously-offered morsels of right-wing paranoia. Again, read Alter Net.
Amazingly, Mr Green seems to have forgotten the repeating chorus of "Blame it on Clinton" that we heard for the entire first Cheney/Bush term and most way through the second.
Poppy Bush was out last week cussing out Olbermann and Maddow for being rude to his son, "sick puppies" was the quote, I believe, without seeming to acknowledge the slimefest that FUXnoise has poured out on Obama and the Dems.
And let us not forget that Poppy Bush spent his entire four years in office blaming the Democrats in congress for everything that went wrong.
And what about W's claim, immediately after he took office, that the Clintons trashed the White House. They spent $40,000 and found $15,000 worth of damage.
In this country we seem to be on a momentous path of deconstruction, or rather destruction. There are progressive, constructive sparks everywhere and we seem to be waiting for them to start catching and lighting, like they don't yet have enough kindling.
Nice observation donnalou.
There are plenty of sparks to the east and plenty of kindling to the west. The problem is, until we become organized the twain shall never meet.
What are we waiting for?
A very perceptive and thoughtful observation donnalou--thanks for sharing it.
The biggest problem with being an honest (as oppopssed to a partisan) progressive is the realization that while we have a better understanding of the proper questions to ask, we are in many ways as yet unable to provide any solid answers to the question, "What would you do instead?" that either haven't been tried before with dubious results, or can be explained in a way to convince most of the electorate in the US to support them.
This was the great tragedy of Van Jones' departure from the Obama adminstration--not that he was an African-American, but that his ideas for promoting green job development for the masses of unemployed and in the process save lots of people millions and even billions of dollars in energy costs made too much sense to be tolerated by big business and the toadies who serve them.
Obama dropped Jones the way he dropped Dr. Jeremiah Wright, with nary a blink of embarassment or regret. Baracko is too cool and detatached for anything like emotion. He and John Kerry ought to be the official mascots of the dull people club.
Poet
Paranoia for breakfast, no thanks Professor Green. I used to make a steady diet of reading that "danger on the right" stuff about the militia crazies, etc....back in the day when I entertained the illusion that the "liberal establishment" (Democratic Party!) was the repository of all things good in politics and that the "regressive" (Republican) forces were the enemies of that good. With the ascension of Obama to the le throne I've come to realize (what I should have realized with Clinton) that "progressives" actually use their indignances about the inedibility of the rightist fare as an excuse for indulging in the different cuisine that I'll call "denial for dinner." This is the menu served up by innumerable of those "Progressives for Obama" who somehow are able to disengage their hopes and aspirations for his administration from the realities of same: doing everyday what the Nobel Peace Prize committee did in giving a peace prize to a war President. So I'll leave it with Mr. Green and a majority of the writers on Alter Net who obsess over right wing craziness, not even bothering to distinguish between the demonstrable stupidities like "Obama apologizes for America" and those for which there is at least some evidence in favor of their claims: that Obama is a non-citizen or that there was no U.S. government complicity in 9/11. For these "delusions" the liberal establishment throws on them a label of "birther" or "conspiracy nut" and returns to their delicious dinner of denial that there is anything wrong with Obama that a little "pushing" by progressives (which they say he wants anyway) and just a bit more time to overcome the regressive tendencies of the Bush years won't cure. Denial 101, they don't make even breakfast paranoia any better than that.
"and those for which there is at least some evidence in favor of their claims: that Obama is a non-citizen "
You might not be having paranoia for breakfast, but you are having it for lunch and dinner.
rfloh: thank you for your lunch and dinner menu offering; but do you have any proof of its "paranoia" content? (Other, I mean, than the fact that it has been repeatedly so labelled by all the move-ons who simply say: "nothing to see here, let's move on.)?
Do you have any proof that Obama is not a citizen? No, conjecture and supposition is not proof. Just because Obama won't show you his birth cert doesn't make him not a citizen. If I won't show you my driving licence, it doesn't mean that I don't have a driving licence.
If you believe that someone could have lived so many years in the US, going to school, going to college, getting a grad degree, working in multiple jobs, paying taxes, buying a car, buying a house, getting bank accounts, getting a driving license, getting a passport, getting married, having kids, etc ad infinitum, without there being any hard evidence that he is a not a US citizen, you are paranoid.
At the very least, someone, somewhere, would have some hard evidence, and would have sold that hard evidence to make a quick buck. I repeat, conjectures, suppositions, guesses are not evidence.
You want to claim that Obama is not a citizen of the US? The burden of proof is on you.
"Denial for dinner" indeed!
Great comment, Jerry!
· Yr Obd't Servant
The people you describe are mostly those who know and feel, consciously or not, that the modern world has passed them by.
They are willing to follow anyone or any delusion that appears to sympathize with their consequent resentment.
Sad reality is that when the right wing zombies (who would never vote for Obama in a million years) holler, Obama capitulates. When the people who voted for Obama holler, Obama tells them their wishes are not politically possible.
That's it in a nutshell - how despairingly sad!!!