by Teh Nutroots | Here is a stellar display of the sort of "reasoning" we've seen from the right during the last few months of the election and also a piece of inflammatory rhetoric clearly designed to get the dumber Republicans up in arms. The Republicans who are spreading this crap regularly "forget" that their base includes certain fringe types who are literally armed, scared of black people, and not too given to rational reflection when they're upset.
Today's inflammatory anti-Obama rhetoric is set out in an AP piece here. A Georgia congressman, Paul Broun, admitted that it might sound "a bit" crazy and "off-base," but here's what he's worried about: Obama proposed a civilian force to do national service and take some of the burden off the military. (AP)
Similarly, Hitler and the Soviet Union created such civilian forces. Ergo, Obama plans to become a Marxist or a Fascist or a Marxist/Fascist dictator! It's like arguing, er....Haile Selassie and Obama both have African ancestry, so Obama plans to become Emperor of Ethiopia and to be worshipped as God!
He said it at the Rotary Club then repeated it yesterday to AP:
A Republican congressman from Georgia is calling President-elect Obama a Marxist and warning that he might be planning to form a Gestapo-like security force so he can rule as a dictator.
Gaaaah. Take it away, Jay Bookman (via)!
That’s a U.S. congressman, yes. From Georgia.
Broun might as well have claimed that he had been abducted by aliens and appointed queen of their planet Bogusia. It’s a claim with just as much basis in fact as what he actually said, and it probably wouldn’t have done more damage to what remained of Broun’s credibility.
I don’t doubt for a moment that Broun feels threatened by the prospect of Obama in the White House. But he can’t admit the real reasons for that feeling, probably even to himself, so he resorts to fantasy as a way to express it.(ajc.com)
Meanwhile, the context for Broun's "fears"? Anyone? Anyone! Er, Steve M.!
A later version of the AP story quotes an Obama spokesman as saying that
Obama was referring in the speech to a proposal for a civilian reserve corps that could handle postwar reconstruction efforts such as rebuilding infrastructure -- an idea endorsed by the Bush administration.
As Steve M. says, it sounds pretty inoffensive AT WORST. But "if you're addicted to Antichrists, like Congressman Broun and the right blogosphere, you need to see horns and a tail at all times."
Crooks and Liars elaborates....
Meanwhile, there's also the Texas state education-board member who fears that Obama is secretly plotting with Muslim terrorists to destroy America....
In a similar vein, we're also hearing that Obama is the antichrist from the religious-right wingnuts....
And provides the chilling perspective....
This really is a double case of deja vu. Not only did we hear this crap circulating around the right during the campaign this year, we heard almost exactly the same thing 16 years ago when Bill Clinton won the White House -- the supposed "looming dictatorship" and the nefarious conspiracies with dark forces.
Along with a look at potential consequences that precisely identifies my biggest concern.
[The same crap 16 years ago] only produced eight years of "New World Order" conspiracy theories and their accompanying militias and right-wing domestic terrorists. You'll forgive us if we're not very eager to see what this go-round produces. (C&L)
I think we're already seeing it.
See, here's the thing. Jay Bookman says, and rightly so,
Sane people all over the country are snickering at Broun, as they should be.
But it ain't the sane people I am worried about. Because Bookman also says of this same clown:
He is the point at which the lunatic fringe and Republican officeholders intersect.
And those people do worry me.
Bear in mind that they weren't exactly lying low and keeping their craziness to themselves prior to 9-11.
Remember the Oklahoma City bombing? Nearly 170 Americans died and over 800 were injured. It didn't lead to the same screams for international vengeance and calls to war as 9-11 because in that case the enemy was us.
We already know that the Secret Service directly traces an escalation in threats against Obama to Sarah Palin's dog-whistles. What do this Congressman and the entire right wing Nuttosphere think is going to happen with these much more direct summons to the idiot fringe of right-wing America? And what do right-wing bloggers who are jumping on the bandwagon going to have to say for themselves if, or rather when, these calls bear fruit?
Remember the bluster and excuse-making and denials of any responsibility from the right when right-wing crazies actually took direct action in the name of their hatred of liberals and actually killed some of their fellow Americans?
Remember Jim Adkisson back in June of this year? The out of work truck-driver in Tennessee who---inspired by the inflammatory rhetoric of certain right-wing media mouthpieces--- invaded a Unitarian Church in Knoxville and shot churchgoers?
An out-of-work truck driver accused of opening fire and killing two people at a Unitarian Universalist church apparently targeted the congregation out of hatred for its support of liberal social policies, including its acceptance of gays, police said Monday.
A four-page letter found in Jim D. Adkisson's SUV indicated that he targeted the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church because "he hated the liberal movement" and was upset with "liberals in general, as well as gays," according to Knoxville Police Chief Sterling Owen IV. (WaPo 6-29)
You've got to wonder what the right wingers think they're doing now, yanking the chains of the crazies with guns and poking at their fears with sharp sticks. Jesus.
I'd laugh--in fact, I am laughing--but it's mainly because, as my parents' Readers' Digest used to tell me, "Laughter is the Best Medicine." I need something to counteract the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
It's just one HELL of an irony that the faked-up fear of jackboots and brown shirts is coming from the right, given that the jackboots and brown shirts we've seen in this country in recent decades have always also come from the right.
So why would Broun says this? DownWithTyranny has a suggestion:
[L]et me paint it out. Paul Broun is a neo-Nazi scumbag who was elected to congress by a bunch of toothless rednecks high on racism, hatred, paranoia, fake religion, and homemade meth. Yesterday Rep. Broun-- in a display of classic Republican jujitsu projectionism-- warned his already demented contituents that President-elect Obama has the "potential" to become Hitler.
Whatever Broun's motives, he needs---if he has a shred of common decency---to retract it. And this sort of thing needs to stop NOW.
No wonder Michelle Obama is frightened---she has not only a husband but two small daughters whose father he is. The recently publicized insane plot to kill Obama included the preliminary ritual murder (including beheading) of 102 African-American teenagers at a high school. These crazies don't draw lines.
The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin's attacks.
Michelle Obama, the future First Lady, was so upset that she turned to her friend and campaign adviser Valerie Jarrett and said: "Why would they try to make people hate us?" (The Telegraph)
And compared to some of the bilge coming from the right, Palin's attacks were mere dog whistles to the real pit bulls of the far right.
Most of the people who are stirring up all these fears know perfectly damn well that they're twisting the facts out of all recognition. At best, it's reckless. At worst, malicious and intentional.
There ain't a thing we on the left can do about it except to remind right wingers with a brain, if any, of Oklahoma City and the serious worries about domestic terrorism that pre-dated the Millennium and 9-11. And beg for some degree of common sense and restraint.
_____________________
*UPDATE.
by Damozel |
“I regret putting it that way,” Broun told WGAC radio in Augusta. “I apologize to anyone who has taken offense at that.”
Broun acknowledged that he called Obama a Marxist at a Rotary Club meeting in Augusta last week. In an Associated Press interview Monday night, he went further, charging that an Obama campaign proposal for a civilian national security reserve corps would be like the security forces of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.
“The point I tried to make is that he is extremely liberal, he has promoted a lot of socialistic ideas, and it just makes me concerned,” Broun said Tuesday.(ajc.com)
Yes, because---as Nutroots remarked---it was the white supremacist liberals who blew up the Oklahoma City court house back in the 1990's, formed armed militias, marched around in jackboots, and declared war on the government. Yes, that was us, all right.
There ought to be some sort of basic qualifying test in history or politics for candidates for political office. Via Joe Windish:
David Neiwert points to the Texas state education-board member who fears that Obama is secretly plotting with Muslim terrorists to destroy America, “Those are my personal opinions and I don’t think the language is questionable.” (TMV)
Mark that. He's an education board member. Sigh.
More at Memeorandum.
Conservative UK Paper: Secret Service Blames Palin for Death Threats Against Obama
ATF Foils Plot to Kill Obama & Murder 102 Teens at an African-American High School
RECENT BN-POLITICS POSTINGS
Pentagon Board Says DoD's Budget is "Not Sustainable"
Lieberman Watch Part 3: Obama Wants Lieberman to Remain in Caucus
Tales of the Nutterdammerung: Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light!
Historicity: Obama Visits Bush at White House
Obama to Keep Three Top Bush Appointees?
China Announces Huge Economic Stimulus Plan
Conservative P.J. O'Rourke: "We Blew It." A Retort from a Liberal O'Rourke Fan
Comments