REPORT: Emerging Culture of Paranoia

When I listen to right wing talk radio, or watch right wing TV, I'm struck by the projection of it all. They keep harping about things that their own party did, and sct like the Democratic Party is the blame. It was Bush and the republicans that lessened freedoms in our country under the auspices of "the war on terror". Obama's adiministration has been recalling these onerous practices, and the right acts like he's the one responsible. They also need to get and start using a dictionary. Their use of a myriad of terms shows their lack of understanding of the English Language.

Check out Hannity today: "I think we should focus on the CAPTAIN who gave himself up as a HOSTAGE, I mean, he's a real HERO and a true AMERICAN and I just think this is UNBELIEVABLE, how can anyone even THINK about the White House and Obama now, its' the NAVY and the MARINES and this CAPTAIN who are the REAL AMERICAN HEROES blah blah blah blah blah blah blah...."

Hannity, who calls Mark Levin "The Great One," telling me who the REAL heroes in all this are, and expecting me to take this as anything more than "Obama deserves more credit, we thought he'd fail but dammit he didn't so this is the best we can do." 

Moron.

Too bad for fox "President Pantywaist" took action on something that GWB pussied around on - action that made it possible for the navy seals to carry out the rescue mission (authorized to proceed by our esteemed commander in chief, BTW):

Before yesterday's remarkable success story on the high seas off the coast of Somalia, the right-wing yammerers were calling Obama "President Pantywaist". One of these blogs had the following classic line:

Navy SEALs are certainly no pantywaists, but unfortunately their commander-in-chief is.

Fox News, as you can see in the video above, was littered with similar yammering.

Now the best part: It turns out that "President Pantywaist" overturned George W. Bush's timid dithering on the issue last year in unleashing those Navy SEALs:

President Barack Obama issued a standing order to use force against pirates holding an American captain hostage — including giving a Navy commander the authority to act if he believed the captain’s life was in danger, two senior defense officials said Sunday night.

Navy snipers aboard the USS Bainbridge on Sunday shot and killed three of the pirates after the Bainbridge’s commander gave the order, when a pirate was spotted aboard the lifeboat pointing an AK-47 rifle at Capt. Richard Phillips, one defense official said.

You see, back last November, George W. Bush punted on the matter:

U.S. President George W. Bush has been briefed about increasing attacks by Somali pirates off east Africa, and the United States is consulting with other U.N. Security Council members on ways to combat the threat, the White House said on Wednesday.

Calling it a "a very complicated issue," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino gave no hint of what, if any, action the United States might take following the hijacking earlier this week of a Saudi supertanker with a $100 million oil cargo.

Obama signed the order giving the Navy the go-ahead to take these people out when they had the opportunity in February.

But the mighty armchair generals of the right will never acknowledge this, of course.

Thank C&L for that little factoid about who the real "President pantywaist" is.

Conservatives may own a higher percentage of the microphones, however,

it may be leading them into a trap.  All this bluster and hate, and the lies, may be an indicator of total desperation.  And while it may have appeal to the 25%ers, it may be backing conservatives into an even worsesituation.  The public's perception of conservatives right now is just above child molesters. 

We need to just keep exposing Cons with the resources we have.  In addition, we should encourage Obama and top Democrats to speak out more often on the media.  They've been doing it some but not enough in my opinion.

The saddest part is there are people that believe everything these hate mongrs from right wing say.

Will we be a better nation if we're constantly fed things to fear?

Does anyone else remember when we we're encouraged to be brave? When we understood things like the greater good and understood what Lincoln meant when he talked about the better angels of our nature?

America had better grow a pair and distance themselves from this list of certified right wing cowards.

I can't get mad at their name calling of President Obama because these rightwingnutcrazies don't know what they're talking about. First they called Obama a socialist, then a fascist and I think Newt Gingrich said he was leading our country into a dictatorship! It's just rightwing nuttyness! ROFTL! Bless their hearts the GOP has no direction and they're just looking more chaotic and crazy everyday.

OT - The GOP court jester and violence promoter, Glenn Beck, is going on a comedy tour! LMAO! 

 -- violent, doomsday, and anti-intellectual rhetoric -- mmfa

What a difference a day makes...or more to the fact...eight years.

The more things change the more they stay the same. Here's a little something that says it quite well...

Time to put a moratorium on "Obama derangement syndrome" and "Clinton derangement syndrome".  The republicans are simply picking up directly from 1998.  It's a perfectly smooth rhetorical line, interrupted only by the Years That Must Never Be Admitted To.

Republicans have "Democrat derangement syndrome".  Or maybe "Raising taxes on the rich a little bit derangement syndrome".

And how about all those poor sods who lost their heads because George wasn't willing to rescue them.

In the Bush years, Democrats not only stayed away from the paranoia so prevalent among the right wing, on many issues they SUPPORTED BUSH!  And the thanks they got for supporting Bush in a show of bipartisan unity was to have Republicans campaign against them in 2002 and 2004 on the grounds that they were soft on terrorism or actually supportive of Osama bin Laden.  Bush accepted their support and loyalty in a time of crisis, and then stabbed them in the back for partisan political purposes.

In contemporary politics, Republicans are interested only in political advantage and they want to be in charge simply to be in charge.  That's why when they're out of power they resort to conspiracy theories and refuse to act in a bipartisan fashion -- they want to WIN, no matter the cost.  Democrats try to govern responsibly, even when they're not in charge, which frequently costs them at the polls.

Fook me that's a long list!!!

Obama's only been POTUS since Jan 20th!!!

Soon these guys will be so shrill that only small dogs and dolphins will be able to hear them.

Just to show how bad it's getting Alex Jones was on a late night UK radio show where he claimed that GLENN BECK was part of the disinformation campaign to hide the truth about the FEMA camps being set up!!!

There may be a silver lining here,this is just further evidence of how marginalized the FAR RIGHT WING NUTS are becoming and that would be a good thing.

With the volume of rhetoric out there right now and the Tea Party events coming up, I think were gonna see a huge mess of crazy things said and done. And hopefully many of us get out there with video cameras so that we can share it on the blogosphere and expose their craziness to the world.

I caught some of hannity last night and he was really losing it,no matter where he turned for his"president deserves no credit rant"he wasgetting shoot down,He turned to a promo by VanSustren to help him out,and her lead in was "there is a new sherriff,in town "meaning the snipers who took out the three pirates.

He also tryed to bait former colts coach Tony Dungy into knocking his not accepting the position with its "faith based intiative"program.Dungy didn't take the bait and said his reason was due to the inconvience the travel would be,although he was appreciative of being asked to participate in the presidents program.

Hannity looked like he wanted to cry.

Anyone who watched HANNITY  last night talking to Bernard Goldberg about the hostage confrontation and the Presidents handling of the crisis would have to agree HANNITY despises Obama.

Goldberg gave the President credit for the safe return of the captain.

HANNITY said Obama had to give the order to fire on the pirates.

Golberg who is no Obama lover told HANNITY  noone can force the Commander and Chief to do anything.

Great.  So Obama inherits 2 middle east wars, a second great depression and now our FBI has to take it's eye off the ball and watch out for more militia nuts like Tim McVey.  Why is it that they just can't lose with grace?  Why, mere weeks after a duly elected democrat takes the office and gets to work cleaning up the wreckage that George W Bush left behind do they lose it and become maniacal flipped out loons?

The Conservatives have no regard for the truth and very little contact with reality.  In addition, they are hate-filled, ignorant and incapable of presenting a coherent argument ... or is that the Liberals?  I've heard each side say the same things about the other.

The modern Conservative movement bases its view of American politics on an interpretation of the Constuitution that sees it as an effort to guaranty that government would not have the power to interfere in the lives of individuals beyond a minimal few issues.  They believe that the efforts of government, particularly federal government, to help citizens through various programs, regulations and the setting of standards is a violation of the 10th Amendment and therefore a seizure of authority over areas Constitutionally forbidden to it.  They saw in Barak Obama, even before the current economic crisis, a person who favored more and bigger federal seizures of authority. 

The tone of the initial article that started this discussion was trivial in its nature, but it reflects a significant fact.  The rhetoric on the Right is becoming more heated.  It is not always easy to see the forest when you're standing in the midst of it, but so is the rhetoric on the Left.  More ominously, both sides are displaying an increasing inability to grant the other credibility.  The quality of discourse is declining into negative stereotyping in which each side, more and more, sees the other as beyond reasoning with.

Specifically, the Right is issuing a warning, they see America as turning away from the guaranty of individual rights established in the Constitution.  They see the Left as causing this in order to "change" America into a system inspired by the model of European-style Socialism.  One of the manifestations of European-style Socialism was the splinter-group of the Communist Party led by Benito Mussolini called, the "Fascists." (Another was the German National Socialist Worker's Party known as the "Nazis".)  They see in history connections and shared beliefs between the European Socialists and the American Progressive movement of the early 1900s.  They see an historical progression from the Progressives to the Liberals to Barak Obama and you.  They believe that you and he are "changing" America away from the system that established and protected Amercan's freedoms and prosperity and they're telling you that they have no intention of sitting quietly and watching you do that.  They are warning you to reverse your course or face war.

You have a choice.  You can either work on exacerbating the divide or you can work on making an effort to understand what the other side is concerned about so that you can engage in intelligent debate about the issues each side advocates, not just simplistic characterization of those issues.  You can cleverly goad the opposition and gloat in your feelings of superiority or you can work on preventing the real disaster that is heading our way

funny how when W and Dick were in office taking us to the brink, they simply went along with things.

now that someone who is popular and doing his job correctly they are going ballistic.