It Gets Worse

Joe Klein: “We are heading toward a cliff and the usual brakes of civil discourse are not working.”

Yes. We should all strive for the civility demonstrated by Klein and Soviet KGB collaborator Ted Kennedy….

I was rabidly against Nixon, Reagan, and W, and was at first against Clinton though I voted for his second term. I support Obama, but I think that there is way, way, way too much hype about people who are against him.

In order to understand the madness, one can spend hours trying to unravel the waterboarded, stress-positioned, and enhancely interrogated logic of the morans…or one can simply remember that the President is black and all is clear.

Embrace the hate, Joe.

That’s the message from the Republican political establishment. How else to figure Grassley’s inane death panel reference?

Ignorance is bliss, apparently, as this so-called “health care debate” has proven. Demagogues like Beck are lining their pockets on his audience’s stupidity. It’s capitalism at it’s finest.

And now there are a bunch of ignorant clowns running around believing — to their very core — that somehow getting rid of Obama will save the country. From… from… from… something.

You can’t disprove these things to these folks, Joe. They are fanatics. Fanatics don’t listen to reason or rationality. That’s the nature of fanatics.

The more I see of this lunacy, the more I am convinced that most of these folks just cannot live with the idea of a black man being president. That’s what is really driving this insanity.

Perfect example of the ignorance Joe highlights here.
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As if on cue…

I just don’t get it. What is wrong with these people?

They appear to have lost all sense of civility, common decency and intelligence. They’re like bleeting sheep – too lazy and bitter to do their own research and inform themselves. I guess it’s just easier to hop on the glenn beck crazy train than it is to research. PT Barnum was right – except in the case of the right – they’re reproducing like rabbits.

It’s shameful.

Not surprising when you look at the poll numbers on health care.
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The people opposing health care reform and the public option are overwhelmingly older and whiter than the general population. These are the very groups most averse to change, particularly change in the form of a black president.
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My parents, who are die-hard union Democrats now in their 80s, didn’t believe that America would elect a black man. In fact, they were convinced Obama would lose. Why? Because they hang around other old people who grew up in far more racist times.
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Interesting that Obama and his health plan are still extremely popular among the under-40 set, but have dropped in the polls among seniors.

Of course all this would be more persuasive coming from someone who didn’t accuse wikipedia of being Leftist.

Poor Joe and the liberal loons. They are afraid of a few “rednecks” as Rep John Murtha likes to call us.

Well I was hoping for this back before Obama was elected, but later I suppose is better than never.

It seems the sleeping White Giant has awaken, isn’t that right Dirks???

Could you interview Bob Dole and maybe Dick Lugar about this? You are right, this is catastrophic for the country, for one major political party to be in the grasp of the Birchers WFB worked to vanquish.
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Are there any other grown-ups anywhere who are still affiliated with the GOP? I don’t think there are. (Hint: Mike Pence doesn’t count).

Have you seen the “suggestions” made by the Obama/William Ayers (he’s the unrepentant terrorist friend of Obama) Department of Education for teachers regarding Obama’s attempted indoctrination of other people’s children? Some of the “suggestions” include having children “write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president,” and discuss what “the president wants us to do.”

Other people’s children will “write letters to themselves about what they can do to help” Obama?

Other people’s children will be forced to discuss what Obama “wants us to do”?

Does Obama intend on having the Obama Youth wear uniforms similar to the Hitler Youth?

Good lord, textee, your metallic lid is strapped far too tightly to your noggin. Loosen the straps and let some blood flow upward…

It seems the sleeping White Giant has awaken,
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There it is, in all its ungrammatical glory. This is about racial and cultural resentment. Full stop. Nothing else.
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These people didn’t raise hell about the massively expensive Bush-backed Medicare Part D program, nor about Bush’s effort to get schoolchildren to regard his administration in a positive light.
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There is no ideological or factual content to these tantrums and lies. Just racial panic.

This is the rhetoric of centrism:

I’m usually not one to panic or be overly worried about the state of our country–even when we do awful things like invade Iraq and torture people, we usually never hold elites accountable in court for their misdeeds.
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But ordinary, little people getting upset the government about what they hear on radio and tee vee, and not understanding freely available information on the internet?
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Now that is terrifying!

Note that Joe’s centrist ideology compels him to distinguish between populist Republicans –who he despises– and elite Republicans –who he admires.
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We liberals shouldn’t ever allow ourselves to forget that centrists like Joe won’t hesitate to insinuate that we are traitors for insufficiently worshiping the power of the state

I have never seen [Glenn Greenwald] write a positive sentence about the US military…I have never seen him acknowledge that the work of the clandestine service…is an absolute necessity in a world where terrorists have the capability to attack us at any time, in almost any place…I have seen no evidence that he cares one whit about the national security of the United States.

Ideologically committed centrists like Joe Klein despise and fear all populist expression, be it from the left or the right, because that’s what centrism is all about –justifying the power of established elites to maintain themselves in their technocratic perches high above the rest of us.
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Unfortunately for our country, their ideology is wrong. Radical centrists like Joe Klein aren’t really better at governing or thinking than the rest of us, and –as their now hush-hush consensus on Iraq and torture proved years ago– their virtual monopoly on political power in the capitol is obviously unjustified.

Here you go, Joe. You’ve got one on the hook.
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textee’s a card carrying member of the paranoid, xenophobic wing of the GOP. He’s got a head full of nazis and commies and is convinced – convinced! I tell you – that any second, brown-shirted youth, fresh from indoctrination, are going to come to his house and take his guns and bible.
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And the media will continue to humor him. We need to give him equal time. Maybe a full segment on Anderson Cooper. Can’t appear biased, now can we?
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textee is a product of the modern media. He’s the modern equivalent of a flat earther. And as long as we entertain the plausibility of their lunatic theories, we’ll continue to grow more like him.
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You’ve let the lunatics run the asylum and now you wonder why there are so many lunatics running around.

It is scary. And the MSM is not calling out these jokers the way they should If the left was behaving this looney, the MSM would be screaming at them.

I normally hate boycotts because I do believe people have the right to express themselves in any way but I support those who are pressuring companies to quit buying ad time during Beck’s show on Fox. It is just getting to scary and someone has to make some noise about what’s going on.

I have no idea who is the leader of the Republican party. But there has been no Sista Souljah moment from the Republicans. Obama ended up rejecting Jeremiah Wright. We desperately need to hear from respectable Republicans who despise what’s going on in their party.

You are not wrong Joe, you are just slow! Even a cursory review of your own website would reveal that we’ve been telling you to pay attention to what’s going on for months now. But of course most of you prefer to just take notes and regurgitate the company line while these Republicans destroy this country. Kind of like a batterer who’d rather kill the woman he abuses than let her move on. These people have taken an oath to defend a constitution they don’t respect, a sitting governor called for secession for goodness sake, isn’t that sedition?
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Where is the media outcry? You can all gang up on Blago or Burris, where is the outrage over Republicans congratulating self-described right wing terrorists? I don’t see endless loops of video starring any of Glenn Beck’s crazy rants or Bauchman calling for folks to slit their wrists in protests. They should be publicly shamed and then shunned. But the media can’t even manage to call what they say about health care lies.
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If you are unwilling to do anything but write about Obama’s downfall, then I guess it makes sense that you won’t even point out that the GOP hasn’t gained anything in the polls despite their egregious tactics and that growing frustration is fueling the violence.
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So tell me, when is the media frenzy going to begin. I know Frank Smith called them out several weeks ago, even Chris Matthews has questioned the guns and Lord knows Olbermann calls out the crazy every night. But where is the full fledged assault from the media on these shameless acts? Are you going to wait for a tragedy to wring your hands and explore if their is any blame to be assessed? Well that didn’t really work when they Killed Dr. Tiller, I don’t think O’Reilly paid any price. When are you people going to confront the simple truth: Bipartisanship was achieved on November 4th. This is no longer about left or right, this is about sane and not!

And the media will continue to humor him. We need to give him equal time. Maybe a full segment on Anderson Cooper. Can’t appear biased, now can we?
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That’s exactly right. At the end of the day, this is a triumph of political correctness. “Oh, it’s so darling that these conservatives have such passion! Wouldn’t want to go and spoil it by interjecting anyone’s notions of “factually accurate” and “false” into the discussion!”

Republicans decided to mainstream their fringe.

Their elected officials spouted it – see Inhofe.

Their TV stations promote it – see Beck on Fox News.

They have gone so far past what is normally accepted political behaviour and discourse that we are all afraid that we know how this is going to end – and I think that is what they want.

To be fair to textee it should be noted that it is an involuntary reflex. It’s like my gag reflex every time I hear Sarah Palin speak.

Hey Joe, did you do any digging on Van Jones at all. Maybe what the old lady told you is TRUE!!

Perhaps you could also do some reporting on other Obama Czars. Perhaps you will find OTHER Communists and Socialists who are frequent visitors to the White House.

I’m just saying, perhaps reporting on things like this is not just a “wingnut” thing after all. Maybe there is some merit to it all.

And Joe, ask why your brethren give Republicans an excuse for failure. Oklahoma Senator Inhofe just accused President Obama of “destroying everything that is good about America” and that he “hopes the country can hang on another 16 months.” and David Shuster’s response is to say he is appealing to the crazies and that mainstream Republican leadership might want to push back on this kind of thing except they are afraid of Limbaugh?
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Okay never mind the fact that you say “leaders” and “afraid” in the same sentence, but to suggest they are sympathetic figures because they can stand up to their own bully is absurd. That’s why their is no public outrage because you people as usual are hiding the truth by minimizing GOP offenses, .

Talk about the wackos on the left. You are indeed at the top of the list Dee!! Please go take some of your anti-psychotic medicine, and put on your tin-foil hat for good measure.

You won’t hear anything because it is the truth, southernbell. So DEAL with it, “Sista”!!

Are you still getting your talking points from Nancy Pelosi, Dee?
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You should really get out of the house more often. She is crazy too!!

Is this worse than getting your pinky bitten off? Because that happened:
http://www.gotchamediablog.com/2009/09/town-hall-protesters-turning-cannibal.html

Gosh, I know what you mean, Joe. Bill and Hillary were drug dealers who murdered their best friend and John Kerry was a war criminal who perjured himself to get his Silver and Bronze Stars for valor under fire but this “Obama is a Socialist” stuff is way over the top. Heaven save us from the (new found) incivility and insanity of “conservatives”.
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Though I’m sure if we just split the difference on policy with these fine, lucid folks – in good “centrist” fashion – everything will be bi-partisan jam and toast.

is it surprising? After all the Republicans (backed by their corporate lobbyist masters)have a 24/7 media network – Fox News and Talk Radio spewing out -disinformation and misinformation.

They have been scaring the hell out of people with the most outlandish claims – such as death panels. The big chunk of the demographic that gets their “news” from these outlets are senior citizens. As Karen’s post about the generational gap/polling difference demonstrated, they have been very effective.

Most of the news media, and the Democratic party establishment have failed to counter this highly effective propaganda campaign.

“You can’t disprove these things to these folks, Joe. They are fanatics. Fanatics don’t listen to reason or rationality. That’s the nature of fanatics.”

So, over 50% of the country who is displeased with Pres. Obama are “fanatics?” C’mon now. Give me a friggin’ break. Are you that blindingly liberal that you won’t acknowledge that Americans have serious concerns about Obama’s populist agenda?

“The more I see of this lunacy, the more I am convinced that most of these folks just cannot live with the idea of a black man being president. That’s what is really driving this insanity.”

When did being opposed to a politician’s agenda make one a racist? I’m sick and tired of race-baiters like yourself who automatically assume that one is racist for opposing this president. Ridiculous

nomad 28,
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No, we are discussing the folks Klein highlights in his post. the ones who firmly believe that there will be “death panels,” and that Obama is a secret Muslim communist with designs on overthrowing the U.S. government, etc.
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Nowhere did I state or imply that my comments applied to any more than the people being discussed in Klein’s post. You did that, but I didn’t.
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And, yes, I think most of these loony zealots highlighted here are racists.

Textee is Exhibit A of Joe Klein’s article. Communists, fascists, socialists…all defunct political concepts of the early 20th century. What better way to camouflage racism than to cloak it with McCarthy-style rhetoric.

Rusty please get a grip, it might be fun to think your side can win by promoting this foolishness, but what you fail to figure out is that you are making enemies out of half the country, anger is not a one way street. And if wasn’t for the economic engines of blue states, you know those liberal areas of the country that you so often write off but without which there would be no subsidies for red state America who have been draining our tax dollars since we took them back onto the union.

I should have said that.

Unlike you Rusty I don’t need talking points because I have the ability to interpret data and come up with the salient information to rebut the ridiculous arguments of the idiots on the right with out any help at all. Now you on the other hand are dependent on the ignorant rants of right wing websites you visit continuously.

Beck and other extreme conservatives, and extreme liberals I might add, mar the current political debate. Beck and his cohorts are sparking fear into much of the conservative Republican population and, unfortunately, taking advantage of senior citizens who are willing to accept media outlets as providing truth. I feel it is an abhorrence that Fox News and other media outlets allow fear-mongers like Beck to continue to espouse these blatant lies and ruin the chances for true health care reform; the costs of which are spiraling out of control for the average household (that’s a fact). Like, abortion, healthcare is an easy topic to provoke a strong response from both sides of the political fence. And that response is even stronger when we bring that “evil” word communism/socialism into it. Older generations were taught to fear communism and conservative talk show hosts play on these fears. Communist healthcare that covers abortions, killing innocent babies, and puts seniors out to pasture. It’s easy to understand the fear responses we are seeing from certain ill-informed demographics.

I feel that commonsense has all but disappeared from the healthcare debate. Albeit, common sense doesn’t sell advertising as well as crazy Glenn Beck and reports of fingers being bitten off at a rally.

Just out of curiousity, could you define an “extreme liberal” position in the health care debate?

My wife sent MSN’d me an exerpt from somewhere (I don’t know where) this morning:
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‘This time Beck is taking shots at the titan of American capitalism, John Rockefeller, accusing him of having been a secret communist. Beck knows this to be true because he has discovered all sorts of “communist” and “fascist” art on NBC headquarters at Rockefeller Center, as well as on land behind the United Nations that was donated by Rockefeller.’
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My first thought when I read that:
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“Oh God, we have a man channeling McCarthy”

(Sorry for the double post, forgot something)

Welcome to the new era, looks just like an old one.

I have no problem with conservatives who stick to the basic rules of reasoning, that anyone can learn in an introductory logic and critical thinking course. However, the ones who hardly ever follow the rules and instead, rely on insult, straw men, false analogies and so on, to disguise their ignorance, I have no use for, not even to lazily return the insult.

I think you need to have a learning disability to believe Obama is a Nazi, which is exactly the same thing as a socialist. The reason they make the distinction between true and false analogies, is because of how easily analogy is misused. There has to be a lot of things in common, before you can equate two things together. Even an idiot can read a basic definition of Nazism and socialism, and see the difference between them, or learn the basic rules of the scientific method. If they can attain those heights, surely they will see that Obama isn’t either one of them.

Speaking of false analogies, I guess my criticism of the Glen Beckians is of no value, since people like Klein keep insisting that a liberal like me, is exactly like them,

nomad, don’t spew poll numbers that you don’t under stand. The polls also show that only about 12 percent of the country make up the lunatic fringe you belong too. His overall drop in approval numbers includes Democrats that are pissed about losing the public option, don’t confuse them as being on your side, although it’s the media failure to provide that information when they site these polls. — See Joe what kind of harm you cause when you bring in poll numbers without explaining what they really mean. Don’t use poll numbers you don’t under stand to drive your narratives and then get taken a back when the lunatic fringe uses that information to support their agenda.

One of the worst parts of the entire madness that has become the Republican Party is that no one will stand up to the Birthers or Deathers or Birchers or Rush or Beck.

The supposedly “sane” members are too scared to criticize the crazies. We knew it was headed this way when Republican officials had to apologize to Rush for not kissing his ring.

Palin…,

Actually, you’re wrong. Klein never mentioned “death panels” in this post. He chided a lady in a town-hall for saying that Obama employs Communists at the WH.

Have you not read that Van Jones, the green jobs “czar” has admitted in the past to being a communist?

How does that make someone a “radical?” Those are Van Jone’s own words!

What about the science “czar” John Holdren? He proposed “compulsory sterilization” and forced abortions to control population

What about Cass Sunstein, the regulatory “czar?” He proposed bans on hunting and eating meat and proposed that your dog to be allowed to have an attorney in court.

What about Carol Browner, the global warming “czar” who was part of Socialist International, a group for “global governance?”

What Ezekiel Emmanuel, Obama’s health care adviser, who has been a proponent of the “Complete Lives System,” which puts values on lives based mostly by age?

You cannot tell me that these people aren’t radical. Their ideas are not mainstream. Surely you can see that?

Gotta love the free advice and high Broderisms establishment media types spew out.

I’m a liberal, all I meant by the comment was that there are extremests on both sides of the debate, though I’ve never seen Mr. Beck’s equal I have to admit. Well, except Palin, but she’s just a moron.

nomad28:
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Please provide links to and direct quotes of the persons whose positions you purport to describe, otherwise these unsubstantiated claims have no credibility whatsoever.
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You can do that, right? You weren’t just told these things by entertainers (or anonymous emailers), and are now repeating wild hearsay like a gullible dolt, correct, nomad28?
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You can back up your assertions with uninterpreted, documented facts?

Dee,

Wow. Don’t let your ideology blind you. Poll after poll suggests that not only are Obama’s policies widely unpopular, but polling also indicates that we live in a conservative country. I’ll let the following polls speak for themselves, and then I’ll await your feverish attempt to discredit them. Ha!

From Gallup:

Despite the Democratic Party’s political strength — seen in its majority representation in Congress and in state houses across the country — more Americans consider themselves conservative than liberal. While Gallup polling has found this to be true at the national level over many years, and spanning recent Republican as well as Democratic presidential administrations, the present analysis confirms that the pattern also largely holds at the state level. Conservatives outnumber liberals by statistically significant margins in 47 of the 50 states, with the two groups statistically tied in Hawaii, Vermont, and Massachusetts.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/122333/Political-Ideology-Conservative-Label-Prevails-South.aspx

Obama’s Job Approval (from Rasmussen Reports 8/31/-9/2)

53% Disapprove 47% Approve

68% Say Passage of Health Care Reform Will Increase Decifit

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/september_2009/68_say_passage_of_health_care_reform_will_increase_deficit

Nancy Pelosi has a 25% Approval Rating nationwide

Heck, even Jon Meachem, editor for Newsweek and rabidly liberal has said that we live in a “center-right” country.

Admit it. There’s more of us than there are people of your ilk. It doesn’t matter if the liberal mainstream media says otherwise.

I too am becoming increasingly dismayed..even scared. Fox News and the right have essentially declared war on President Obama, and he’s only been in office eight months! It is going to be a long three or seven years with the rhetoric only getting more and more repulsive. Communist, facist, Hitler…just disgusting and depressing.

All of a sudden this comes to mind:

‘In the land of the blind, the one-eye man is king’

Scary thing, people seem to be going around deliberately blinding themselves.

Exibit A.

Stuart,

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/PrintFriendly?oid=290098

http://hannity.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/09/03/all-the-presidents-radicals/

Not to mention someone who based their career on giving the fetid bleatings of crazy Pete Hoekstra an air of legitimacy.
Just think if instead of writing a column where he stenographically took Hoekstra’s works and granted them anonymity, Klein had looked at what Hoekstra told him, done some basic research, and wrote a column about how a very powerful House Republican had lied to him and tried to abuse the trust between journalist and source to lie to the American people?
I guarantee if we kept getting those stories we’d have a lot less of the crazy and the lies and the conspiracy nonsense.

agribik:
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I’m also intrigued…who are the extreme liberals on that side of the debate? To which people specifically are you referring? Can you think of any in particular?

Why are we surprised…

this is the same behavior of the bible belt and those wanting to preserve their pristine fantasy of a Lilly white nation (only Christian when it fit their needs) during the civil rights era…

President Obama just brings to the surface true feelings many have always had, they were just good at hiding them. Glenn Beck and his factless fantasies just give them an excuse to hide behind. What amazes me is most of these people raising hell wouldn’t vote for Mitt Romney because he was Mormon , and helped Mike Huckster spread this fact around the base… but they will listen to Mormon Glenn Beck spread his lies…

Talk about delusional people…

Americas chickens are coming home to roost.

I would like to go back to the calmer, saner, more heady days of 10 years ago, when Republican leaders openly mused about how Clinton sold drugs out of the governor’s mansion in Arkansas, and accused them of decorating the White House Christmas Tree with syringes and condoms. Ahh if only the politics of today was as measured as when prominent Republican Dan Burton (now in his 14th term) shot a pumpkin with a pistol in his backyard to prove that Hillary Clinton had indeed murdered Vince Foster.

AH duh! Perhaps someone at a protest rally BITING the finger off another protester from the other side.
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They just might be a extreme liberal!!
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Thanks Jeff Foxworthy!

Please name these extreme liberals. Just one maybe.

Dear Dee,
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In all seriousness, I could give a flying rats A$$ what you think! So stuff that in your pot smoking liberal pipe and take a big puff! Wackjob!

[...] from a Town Hall Meeting Posted by admin, under Political Joe Klein: "Could I just say that the intensity of this getting pretty scary…and dangerous? We are heading [...]

THE RNC is using the Wing Nut Daily mailing list. That is why the he said/she said journalism is a cancer in the media. It is destroying our social fabric when the GOP has realized that the media will elevate the “opposing view” for balance no matter how absurd, counter-factual, cynical, or offensive it is.
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If the crazies can say soylent green is made up of seniors under Obama care 10,000 times, one well written “fact check” doesn’t cut it.

I guess if someone PUNCHED me in the face, when they shoved me again, I might BITE THEIR PINKY OFF also…

Just a thought… sometimes called self defense when physical assault is involved… don’t know if it is self defense or not but the punch int he face and physical assault after sort of make the bitten off pinky not so ludicrous an action…

Anyone who would bite off fingers over a healthcare rally, I’d describe as extreme, though I do not know the full details of the brawl, perhaps the finger biting was deserved. Also, the extreme liberal comment was not directed specifically at healthcare. I feel that extremism on both sides impairs consensus on many aspects in politics. I feel that extremism, in my humble and very personal opinion, is someone that blindly subscribes to a set of ideals and is not open to debate or a rational discussion pertaining to why they support a specific policy. The world is not black and white, rather a variety of grays.

Perhaps this list would suffice for answering your question, “who are the extremist left wingers”.
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http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20041026093059633
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Toggle down to the list of names of the signators. Those who believe in this crap. Then you may understand.
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Here are just a few;
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At number 2 : Ed Asner, Actor Activist
5. Keidi Obi Awadu, aka The Conscious Rasta, talk show host, LIBRadio
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28. Jodie Evans, co-founder, Code Pink
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31. Janeane Garofalo, actress, comedienne, talk show host, Air America Radio
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46. Van Jones, executive director, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, STORM, and COC. Current “Green Czar” for Obama Administration.
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51. Mimi Kennedy, actress, Dharma and Greg, progressive activist
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52. Faiz Khan, M.D., Triage Emergency Physician on 9/11, Assistant Imam
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62. Cynthia McKinney, five-term Congresswoman from Georgia
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53. David Korten, author, When Corporations Rule the World
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I think Bush lost the war because what we have became is the divided disgrace of America and the enemy got exactly what it wanted. The Amish in this country sign agreements with the Government to not do things like pay social security etc and their church is the fund that pays for disaster of any of them. Republicans are obstructionist and I find no pleasing them. What we should do is offer each American a paper to sign stating you will accept Government Health car or you will only accept Insurance company care and can never switch. I would take Government care because I know as a Cancer Survivor it works and does Quite well. I cant say the same for insurance that usually force you to sue for your care. I would never trust a bunch of crooked lawyers like the insurance industry. Notice where they come for a bailout. The old reliable Government. Theirs been to much talk radio and media all owned by the same handful of people influencing Republicans. If they went to work on all sides most would probably find as I did their party represents nothing they think they believe in and instead its all about power and greed. I fear the worst now that while enduring a depression we will suffer 4 years of obstructionism to try to ruin a presidency without valid reason. Republicans have never balanced a budget ever so they should shut up about deficits etc. They have also been the spend and spend party giving the rich the welfare. Our Country cannot sustain 4 years of harassing obstructionism that was only engaged in for political reasons. We all sat here and let Bush just destroy everything and weren’t supposed to say a word. I recommend they give Obama the same courtesy and if he fails then its his own fault. I’m confident though if any of these obstructionist were evaluated by State Police Forensic Psychiatrist the same diagnosis would emerge. Delusional, Grandiose and out of touch. I’m not going to rant about their ideas being screwed up but instead hope that everyone will pray God please help us , help us get along and love and care about each other again and please let those with hearts filled with hate and rage fall to their death of their own making. Rather then all this fighting I challenge people to find out why one of the largest Defense Contractor and Medical equipment suppliers in the world owns almost every form of media we are subjected to. Thank you for the Mind Control General Electric now why don’t you use it to turn this Country around as if God was watching over your shoulder. People you have all been duped. Whether you hate Obama or his health care etc that is not a valid reason to be fighting amongst each other and encouraging guns and violence against each other. I sent President Obama a letter last night. I am a grass roots candidate for High Office because I see years of failure on the horizon. As an American though I will push a Bill I will write to ban any guns and weapons at any political rally legal or otherwise. And its really for everyone’s own good. Imagine someone rips a holstered gun off your side and killed someone just to incite violence. Would you be willing to spend the 30-50 grand in attorneys fees not to be held responsible for that death cause I guarantee ya after 911 the Government is not going to take any terroristic threats lying down. Cant we all just get along. If you have a legitimate complaint put it in writing and send it to Washington don’t maim and kill each other over it. You are only letting the enemy of evil win if you do. I will end this by calling on the Lord. Lord please bless my fellow Americans with your Love in their hearts. Let them realize hatred has no place in the practice of Christianity and work together for a common goal which everyone is happy. I feel sorry for you people that believe in Insurance companies. You have obviously never been taken advantage of and been forced to sue to collect your policy. This is the course of Conduct I have had to endure most of my entire life and I’m getting a little bit tired of it. I’ve worked with Government I know anything can be fixed if we try and I’ll trust my health to Government before any more bogus lawyer run Insurance companies. Just consider your life in the hands of Enron, or AIG and tell me I’m wrong Oh ya did ya ever see the movie the Crooked E Enron was selling bankruptcy Insurance. Or at least that’s what they called it. The reality was it would insure that they went bankrupt. I challenge you all to hold a rally in front of a Cancer Center on a busy day. Maybe then you’ll realize how bad the problem is that probably 80 percent of the population will experience the horrors of Cancer. I sure wouldn’t trust my life to no Enron’s and I don’t think my Government would give themselves millions in bonuses while I died. People need to snap out of it and accept Insurance for what it is. Blatant Fraud and money Laundering.

CNN/ORC
53 45 8 8/28-31/09

CBS
56 35 21 8/27-31/09

Ipsos/McClatchy *
56 40 16 8/27-31/09

Pew
52 37 15 8/20-27/09

NBC
51 40 11 8/15-17/09

ABC/Washington Post
57 40 17 8/13-17/09

Pew
51 37 14 8/11-17/09

FOX/OD RV
53 40 13 8/11-12/09

Gallup
54 42 12 8/6-9/09

Marist RV
55 35 20 8/3-6/09

Obama’s Fav/unfav job numbers. Can we stop pretending he is not popular?

Joe –
I went to high school in Russellville and still visit relatives there on a regular basis. Perhaps I can give you some background on why what you experienced was not all that strange … for Russellville, Arkansas.

First understand that the entire Northwest Arkansas region is, with the exception of Fayetteville, extremely reactionary – almost as much so as Oklahoma. Next I should point out that in the 4 years I lived there, the town was completely segregated with regard to housing; the few hundred black people out of about 15,000 in town lived on a few blocks of one street. The schools there had been desegregated no more than 5 years when my family moved there (1977) and the county Russellville is in abuts one where there were actual signs, up until the mid-80s, to the effect of “black man don’t let the sun set on you in Newton County.” The other side of Newton County is Boone County, home to the national HQ for the KKK in the 1980s. We’re basically talking about a bunch of crazy hill people who have not only been segregated by race but are the victims of a shrinking gene pool (you figure that one out). Add to the mix the overwhelming popularity of the fundiest of fundamentalist churches in the area, and the general educational attainment (low, very low), then set the whole population up to where they’re hearing 24/7 that the cause of all their problems is people they don’t even live around or know – hearing it from the preachers on Sunday mornings and Wed evenings and in the fundier ones, every night of the week, hearing it from the “news” they watch on Fox, hearing it from radio ranters in between…and this is what you get. Stupid people who are being made stupider by a junk food intellectual diet. Just the fact that Obama is black is proof to some of these folks that he’s Satan incarnate.

Shockingly unhinged and uninformed people, I know. Having been there, you will understand why I fled as soon as high school was over. In some ways I have to credit the town for strengthening my resolve to go on to college; I remember thinking, “if I have to spend the rest of my life surrounded by people this stupid every day, I’ll go insane.” So there’s that effect at work there, too – the folks who at one point were reasonable have been driven mad by the constant Chinese water torture drip, drip, drip of everyday stupid.

Also understand that the entire state isn’t Crazytown like most of NW Arkansas. Little Rock leans progressive as do a number of counties in the Delta and bordering the Mississippi. But the white hill people? Nutso.

Joe – If you’re so worried, as you should be, why isn’t the media doing anything about it? You see the right wing establishment going no-holds-barred in creating these utterly ridiculous, disgraceful claims, and nothing whatsoever is coming from the left to quell them. I have very little voice in the subject, as do the rest of the commenters here, since we do not have the same pulpit to stand on.

It just seems to me that the mainstream media (sans FNC) as well as any other rational human being, is rolling over and letting these incompetent fools have a field day. Did you watch the video that ThinkProgress made with the guy who quoted the “USS Constitution”? These people are literally spewing Glenn Beck’s rhetoric, even PRAISING him, for being the only person who is looking into this. For the love of God, it’s utterly out of control.

even when we do awful things like invade Iraq and torture people, we usually right our course before long

Oh, well that’s OK then.

I submitted by accident before I was done, but I’ll just reiterate my point again that the echo chamber of Beck and Hannity and Cavuto and William Bennet and Michelle Malkin and and Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage and all these other right wing lunatics (I refuse to call them conservatives because they are not) is what is bringing this country down. These people, as the previous posted pointed out, are too stupid to figure out what’s right, so they turn to the “Most Trusted Name In News”. They are scared because of the economy, they are scared because there’s a black man in the White House, and they’re going to listen to any crack pot idea to explain it. It’s so funny to hear people compare Obama to Hitler, when it’s this exact same fear mongering and misleading that allowed Hitler to do the things he wanted to do.

The left needs to devise a plan to counter these voices, and it comes down to you, and others in your position, to prevent us from heading down this path.

But in the end, I think this is really a minority of people, and not a majority.

because fox news is a reliable source… O__o

but to be honest, i think that arguments over claims that are clearly false only serve to distract people from the real issues. i find it hard to stomach that there are people out there who do not believe that every individual has the right to live and be healthy.

about a year ago, i lost my job and was unable to see the doctor or fill prescriptions until i (luckily) found a new job. now imagine this: there are people out there for whom this is not a few months, but years and years of their lives. isn’t the role of the government to serve the people? do we have any right more unalienable than the right to be alive, employed or unemployed?

a health care system with a public option means that some of your tax dollars go to people who aren’t paying as much (or perhaps nothing at all). but i would hope that we live in a society that is not “every man for himself,” but rather that believes in helping those in need.

I’ve never believed in taking angry Republicans too seriously. Why? Because they’re ALWAYS angry.

The last time the right-wing mafia was actually happy was when Ronnie was still in the White House. Twenty years later, they’re still pining for him, long a long-lost love.

Republicans are in denial about the fact that the rest of the country moved on from Reagan about twenty years ago. To everyone except Republicans, Reagan was just a pleasant, slightly doddering old man who fell asleep at cabinet meetings.

For more on the lighter side of Republican anger, please join me at http://www.partisansnipe.com

nomad28:
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Umm…you linked to a Fox News page authored by “Web Producer” helpfully entitled “All the President’s Radicals?” (“Hey, we’re just asking! We’re not saying! You decide!“) that provides no sourcing for its claims whatsoever.
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With golden reportage like “Science and technology “czar” John Holdren has made headlines [which headlines? can they be linked to? are the headlines of sensationalist tabloid rags?]“, “…going as far as appearing to suggest [appearing to whom? is that a euphemism for 'could be interpreted by the editorial staff of this news outlet to be suggesting?'],” and “This week it was reported [by whom? Fox News' Web Producer?], the claims are highly questionable, to say the least.
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As it happens, I dug up what appears to be (not that anyone can actually know) their sources, and they seem to be coming from the Discovery Institute –a Creationist think-tank devoted to publicizing unscientific claims about universally accepted evolutionary theory– section of Fox News’ site http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/08/the_inconvenient_truth_about_p.html called “Evolution News and Views”, where selected text from a 1977 book on overpopulation is quoted out of context, given the interpretation of the blog’s author as fact, and attributed solely to John Holdren.
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At this Creationist think tank’s site, every effort seems to have been made to create the appearance of Holdren having advocated for the immediate adoption of state-enforced coercive population control methods, through selective quotes like

In a section entitled “Involuntary Fertility Control,” Holdren wrote:
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” The third approach to population limitation is involuntary fertility control. Several coercive proposals deserve discussion, mainly because some countries may ultimately have to resort to them unless current birth rates are rapidly reversed by other means. “

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An actual reading of the book, however http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=98156598 reveals that this passage is a quote from another publication, as the footnote #104 attributes: “Edward R. Chasteen: The case for compulsory birth control“, which is intended to describe the debate taking place. The population control methods described are an accurate depiction of the policies http://tinyurl.com/mvvr39 that actually were implemented in India –of course having nothing to do with Indian officials having read this obscure textbook– during India’s “Family Planning Program”, first started in the 1950s.
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Got that? The attribution “Holdren wrote” made by Creationist is a lie, because he’s quoting some other guy’s paper, as the footnote indicates.
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A reading of the source also reveals that the section of the book from which these quotes are taken is extrapolating current population trends to catastrophic levels, focusing on the areas where the most dire, horrific Malthusian-style natural population controls –starvation and disease, in other words– were already taking place at holocaust rates.
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The book discusses what emergency steps could be taken, if any, to reverse the wholesale genocide that would occur naturally in such futuristic overpopulated areas, and whether or not those policies would work –based on what had actually happened over the previous decades.
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There is much that is controversial about what is discussed in the book, to be sure, but what is far more troubling than an open discussion of population control in the 1970′s is the obvious exploitation of it by Fox News in the service of an apparent campaign to paint Barack Obama as a f*cking closet eugenicist, nomad28.
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But thank you so much for posting a link to the source of your claims on the subject, so that they can actually be verified.
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It’s unfortunate that the journalists at Fox News –and elsewhere– couldn’t be bothered to do this sort of verification work on your behalf, so that you didn’t walk around making such demonstrably false claims, nomad28, and so that you weren’t under such terrible, idiotic mis-impressions like “Barack Obama appoints people who want to use the government to force people to have abortions, which is somehow related to health insurance reform.“.
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I’d be pretty freaked out, too, if I thought that the President was OK with genocide. It’s not that I trust the guy –he’s a politician– but that’s a revolting conspiracy theory, like “Bush deliberately allowed 9/11! to happen, so he could go to war!”
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Thanks for reading and considering this.

jumpoverit,

What comments are false? Read the article. Van Jones calls himself a Communist. How is that false?

“i find it hard to stomach that there are people out there who do not believe that every individual has the right to live and be healthy.”

Wow! Are you serious? What about our CONSTITUTION??? I find it humorous that the same liberals who scream ‘foul’ at the mention of death panels because, they argue, that term is not found in the House bill, also somehow find abortions and a “right” to healthcare in our Constitution. Hypocrites, all of you.

[...] Isn’t that SPECIAL? He is a decent lad, but some of the folks got a bit roudy, and one had this to say: One woman said there were four known communists in the government and that she’d [...]

Rusty stopped pretending he was right. You must have hit a nerve, Dee.

I find Klien’s commentary unpersuasive. He does little to address the actual issue he identifies: whether the Administration has intellectual credibility on the matters it advocates. Rather than directly tackling his own question, Klien instead resorts to the obvious ‘idiocy’ and “danger” of the opposition, typified by the allegedly ignorant woman he makes the focus of his commentary. But whether the woman is ignorant and demagogued does little to address Klien’s issue. The undisputed fact, even by Klien, is that prominent members of the Administration advocate political philosophies to the decided left of political center; i.e., the majority consensus. In so doing, the Administration has set itself the task of shifting that consensus by force of its ideas and logic. What Klien ignores is the fact that the Administration is losing that effort precisely because it tried to avoid the hard work of changing minds, and instead attempted to sell its wholesale restructuring of large sectors of our economy and society as nothing more than ‘business as usual.’

Consider healthcare. The Administration claims its “public option” would enhance our system of private, competitive health insurance rather than devolving it to a single-payer, centralized bureaucracy. No private competitor, however, can compete with a government program tapped into an endless reserve of taxpayer funds and which can keep operating regardless of its losses. By force of logic, there can be no question that the “public option” would drive private competitors out of business and leave, effectively, only one provider: the government—the very definition of a single payer system. Of course, the Administration’s effort to hide the true effects of its plan leaves only one conclusion: it believes the average voter won’t like or accept it, which the Administration has now guaranteed by virtue of its very deception. Of course, the Administration’s tactic is not limited merely to healthcare, but is evident in numerous other initiatives it has pushed under the guise of “crisis.” Can it be a surprise, therefore, that the Administration is losing the debate?

Joe: You must be close to my age. The Republicans, in my memory, have always used fear, bigotry, and division as their modus operendi.
1950s: John Birch Society
HUAC
Joseph McCarthy
Impeachment of the Supreme Court
With Dixiecrats on opposition to desegregation
Blacklist
Eisenhower a Communist dupe
Home bomb shelters
Loyalty oaths demanded of teachers
1960s: Spiro Agnew, nattering nabobs
Communist sympathy by anti-war protestors
Increased presssure to preserve Jim Crow
Pat Buchanan anti-semite career begins
Nixon paranoia put into policy
1970s: Continued demonization of the Democrats
Carter weak
Same old, same old
1980s: Same old story
1990s: Oh the Clintons
Evil
Murderers
Thieves
Newt Gengrich reign of fear, hate, and lies
Now: Innuendo about black President
Instil fear at every chance
Block any legislation by Dems
Fox and conservative radio spew fear, hate,
and lies
The Republicans have driven out all of the reasonable moderates from their party. They have no one left to speak up to the extremists. There are no Rockefellers, Dirksons, Fords, Brooks, Javits left.
Have they no shame? NO.

Surely textee is pulling our legs.

Conservatism is ceasing to be a political philosophy and becoming a pathology.

Why is it that all of a sudden such comments are “scary”? I vividly recall seeing liberal activists firsthand talking about “going after” President Bush after he left office and openly inquiring about whether he would have the same level of Secret Service protection after he was no longer President. And this was coming from people with graduate degrees! If that’s not scary, then I don’t know what is. And then there was that independent film that got some buzz for its “fantasy” about the assassination of President Bush and some liberal commentators actually wondering how things would have been different if he had been assassinated. I heard this kind of garbage and “scary” talk for years from people on the left. Heated language and vague threats are nothing new, unfortunately, but it is certainly not something exclusive to the right-wing of the country.

Is there actually any point left in visiting the Swamp, much less commenting here?

Site your sources.

Actually it is CITE your sources.

And trifecta, ask and you shall receive:
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http://frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=10846
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And, if you think Obama has it bad, let me refresh your memory of all the Bush Haters of just a couple years ago.
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http://theredhunter.com/2009/08/the_nazipresident_selective_outrage_of_the_left.php

I was not a fan of Bush, but I was repulsed when I saw him called a Nazi and Hitler on a daily basis (people who think this happened less with Bush than Obama are dreaming). Unfortunately, people of the same caliber are now doing this with Obama, but I just think it’s unfair to try to forget that this ever happened with Bush too.
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Also, I have a feeling that this Communist controversy will be compared to the McCarthy era of earlier times. However, the difference was that back then there actually WERE Communists in the government. Lots of them.

[...] fear and purity balls everywhere: Time’s Joe Klein reports from Arkansas, where he attended a town-hall event hosted by Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D). He found an [...]

Oh my gosh, Faiz Khan is an Assistant Imam? Thanks for pointing that out rusty. And for putting that fact in boldface. Because that’s one radical liberal…wait, you mean terrorist, don’t you? What the hell, liberal, terrorist–they’re all anti-real-Americans.

This is why the GOP lost in November, among other reasons. And why it’s headed for the garbage heap of history, at least if it keeps it’s current form. Argue honestly about policy, provide constructive alternatives, make a case for yourselves rather than simply demonize the opponent. The worst you can say about a person is that he’s an “Assistant Imam”? Pathetic, really.

(I know you can’t hear me because I’m one of “them” and so anything I say must be evil, but I’ll try anyway.)

Here’s an idea: If every parent who keeps their kid home on September 8th is forced to home school their kids from now on, we can use the money we save on education to pay for universal health care or comprehensive education reform.

[...] Joe Klein: “Could I just say that the intensity of this is getting pretty scary…and dangerous? We are heading toward a cliff and the usual brakes of civil discourse are not working. Indeed, the Republicans have the pedal to the metal… I’m usually not one to panic or be overly worried about the state of our country — even when we do awful things like invade Iraq and torture people, we usually right our course before long — but I have a sinking feeling about where we’re headed now.” [...]

From the sound of these statements, it seems as though the Conservatives and Right Wing of this country want another Civil War. I say let’s let them have one. I wonder how many would stand up and physically fight for what they believe is correct. All their smear tactics and proganda are rather inflamatory and their media actually seems as though it is trying to insight violence. Are they all talk? Probably not… we know how much they love their guns. Most I have spoken to personally are basically selfish and egotistical people who would rather see puiblic education abolished, roads privatized, and the exile and the censorship of Centrists, Liberals and others who do not subscribe to their beliefs. Most are also hidden racists who would no sooner give you a smile then turn around and stick you in the back. Something else, let us revisit the speeches of their dear President Reagan. Speeches geared to the younger generations. Can we remember how his images and dreams were everywhere during that period of our history? Was that not attempted indoctrination or was that “patriotism”? One more thing, a good portion of the radical right idolizes Hitler… In closing, I say once more, if they want a Civil War let them physically start one. Come out of hiding and rear your ugly, hateful, and elitest faces. For if the hopes of the Right Wing come to dominate, it will certainly mean the end of our society and the regression to an underdeveloped nation where a minority will subtly yet tyranically rule the majority. A majority who will be uneducated, people without access to medicine, and without Civil Rights. Wake up all those who voted for change last November, it’s time to band together and keep the momentum going or you might find yourselves in the coming decades censored, dominated, ignorant, sick, poor, and if you’re lucky enough to get out, living in another country friendy to the plight of a vanquised progressive population. All this could happen if the views of the Right prevail.

“I was not a fan of Bush, but I was repulsed when I saw him called a Nazi and Hitler on a daily basis (people who think this happened less with Bush than Obama are dreaming).”
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There’s quite a bit of false equivalency there. For one thing, with Obama the Hitler comparison is fevered delusion, with Bush it was only outraged hyperbole.

Joe, you truly are an asshat. I’m so tired of you pathetic media types trying to cover this wonder-boy in the white house. He is a disaster and deep down, you all know it. You want to save face because you all believed he would deliver but he is just an embarassment. Can you really look at the list of czar’s and seriously not have concerns? Not sure why i’m asking you because even if you did, you would lie and say otherwise.

I just realized I misspelled INCITE, oops… The Conservative Media does abuse freedom of speech, though.

You’re wasting your energy arguing with the people. Their side actually made a movie about killing GWB. Can you IMAGINE the outrage if someone made a movie about someone assasinating Obama?

Get some help!

And I bet you consider Obama a moderate right? Just wait and reap the disaster he is going to bring to the Democrat party.

Fears of government take over and destruction of everything are not “the fruit of Glenn Beck’s fruitful imagination” but of common sense and just a little history lesson. Government has never been the solution in all the history of the world. Government attracts the most evil of people. What person in their right mind would want to rule over someone else and tell them what to do and what not to do.

Can you tell me one good thing the government has ever done for anyone?

Go read Ivan The Fool.

Dee, don’t give yourself too much credit. You are a walking DailyKos nut and couldn’t carry a logical thougt in a wheelbarrow. Hey genius, do yourself a favor and look at the polls. We’re winning the debate, not you. It’s not just right-wingers but again, you just get that from your talking points. 2/3 of independents have left the boy-genius.

Yet another person that doesn’t know what they are talking about. Go read the Gallup poll from a couple of weeks ago…conservatives outnumber liberals in this country and the margin will be even greater after O gets finished wrecking everything.

What person in their right mind would want to rule over someone else and tell them what to do and what not to do.
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Um…. a CEO?

Are you kidding me shepherd? So it was okay to call Bush a Nazi but not Obama? How could you objectively agree with that? Come on!

How about we use resources to meaningfully reform education, instead of repeatedly flushing money down the toilet that is the sorry state of our public education system?

“…the censorship of Centrists, Liberals and others who do not subscribe to their beliefs”
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Fairness Doctrine for liberals?

thevirgin said that people were inquiring whether the security around Bush would be lax enough to murder him after he left office. Vividly. Rusty’s evidence doesn’t address this in the least, he points to one example of some Euro inquiring about assassinating Bush on the job…and I think thevirgin was implying that some large number of unhinged American hippies were doing it.
Now I imagine if you trawled around the internet long enough you could find some random comment way down in some unread thread that said something to this effect…you could also find someone that is into rubbing icy hot on their genitals and dancing to the song St. Elmo’s Fire. I bet genital burn guy is actually easier to find.
The difference is when the wacky liberal stuff bubbled up to even a random commenter on Huffington Post wishing Dick Cheney had a heart attack, There were all points bulletins in the traditional media to pester every elected Democrat in the country about whether they were for or against what ‘random guy on the internet was saying’. If you are a Republican mainlining this stuff it gets you a job on FOX Primetime.

That’s right, Joe, we ain’t stopping this time.

And the coterie of little fools, like the simps commenting here (OMG, those evil conservatives are sooo much dumber than me) ain’t gonna help you much.

So suck it, tool.

Time Magazine??!! Man, have some self respect.

LOL, oh the drama!

A CEO, you mean someone appointed to run a corporation of employees who voluntarily choose to work for him, in exchange for such work they are paid a salary? Employees who are free to leave, to “opt out” any time they wish?

That kind of CEO?

“Reactionary??!!”

Bless your heart, I love it!

Or howzabout I keep my money?

My kids go to private schools.

Is that OK with you, God?

I want no part of your ersatz utopia.

I spent part of this morning calling my senators, congressmen, and the white house and pleaded with them to take this filth seriously and push back as vigorously as possible, to avoid what I believe will be the inevitable assassination attempt.I believe these people are pushing the conversation in a very dangerous direction which will continue to escalate so long as there is no pushback.

Van Jones is a former communist. He now describes himself as an eco-capitalist and is considered an expert on Green issues, which is what his role as a Special Advisor to the President on green issues encompasses. He is the only one on this list who has ever been a communist.

John Holdren never ‘proposed “compulsory sterilization” and forced abortions to control population’. He was co-author on a textbook on population policies in the 1970s that discussed various ways that governments have tried or proposed to control populations, but the authors did not endorse these methods. Instead they proposed noncoercive measures such as better access to condoms and (voluntary) abortion.

Cass Sunstein is a strong supporter of animal rights and has stated that hunting should probably be (eventually) banned and that animals should perhaps be allowed legal representation (in a speach at Harvard in 2007). He has not proposed that such measures be undertaken in the near future nor has he proposed outlawing meat consumption.

Carol Browner was the administrator of the EPA for 8 years, during which time she never made any suggestion or advocacy for “global governance.” She couldn’t have been “a member of the Socialist International” since the SI is an association of political parties and organizations, not individuals.

Ezekiel Emmanuel, a leading opponent of legalized euthanasia(!), was discussing the “Complete Lives System”, which is a system for

“Allocation of very scarce medical interventions such as organs and vaccines.”

That’s it. As a bioethicist, he was analyzing the question of how to allocate things in short supply such as donated organs, and considered various alternatives that had been proposed.

In a 2009 article in the Lancet, this system was described. Here is a quote:

“Allocation of very scarce medical interventions such as organs and vaccines is a persistent ethical challenge. We evaluate eight simple allocation principles that can be classified into four categories: treating people equally, favouring the worst-off, maximising total benefits, and promoting and rewarding social usefulness. No single principle is sufficient to incorporate all morally relevant considerations and therefore individual principles must be combined into multiprinciple allocation systems. We evaluate three systems: the United Network for Organ Sharing points systems, quality-adjusted life-years, and disability-adjusted life-years. We recommend an alternative system—the complete lives system—which prioritises younger people who have not yet lived a complete life, and also incorporates prognosis, save the most lives, lottery, and instrumental value principles.”

In the article he specifically compares the CLS and DALY and comes to the conclusion that while both systems discriminate against the elderly, DALY is worse in this regard. Dr. Emmanuel has never advocated heath care rationing in general.

You have no idea what you are talking about . more than one country, Germany comes immediately to mind, have both a robust private and public health insurance component and have for decades.

Very well said. It’s seeing comments and discourse like this that bit by bit help to somewhat preserve my faith in humanity.

…that is not at all what I meant.

That was kind of a joke, and not the least bit dramatic.

[...] Time’s Joe Klein is less impressed with pure intensity as the sole measure of political viability: [...]

[...] Joe Klein: “Could I just say that the intensity of this is getting pretty scary…and dangerous? We are heading toward a cliff and the usual brakes of civil discourse are not working. Indeed, the Republicans have the pedal to the metal… I’m usually not one to panic or be overly worried about the state of our country — even when we do awful things like invade Iraq and torture people, we usually right our course before long — but I have a sinking feeling about where we’re headed now.” [...]

You all know me as fairly mild mannered, but one of the things that disturbs me most is that if the worst, unmentionable happens, I don’t trust myself not to get into fisticuffs with some of my Republican friends. Or worse. This is part of the legacy of being 60, and remembering earlier heroes being cut down.

The most obvious thing in all of this is that Republicanism is now an STD, transmitted by pig ignorant, racist parents to pig ignorant, bigoted offspring. These degenerates don’t want rational debate, they don’t want democracy, they don’t want the Constitution or the United States. Instead they want a perverted pseudo-Christian theocracy and a neoNazi state. That’s why it’s the duty of real Americans to resist this barbarian rabble and keep freedom safe for our children, as the Founding Fathers wished.

I am so disappointed with all of the news/opinion shows, polititainment or smearatainment or disinformatainment. It really doesn’t matter if they or left or right leaning. Glenn Beck or Keith Olbermann. We just have to stop watching this stuff. There is no context anymore. These reports are written to inflame/encourage either side. What got me to Joe’s article was a daily beast article that said “School districts in six states are refusing to show President Obama’s upcoming”. Causal readers, myself included, would think that the education leaders of 6 states have decided (all) their schools will not air the program, when it is really some school districts in six states. Would the article have had the weight it had if they had said “20 school districts from across the nation refuse to show the president’s speech” or “about the same number of school districts that aired the George Bush’s Speech to the schools will air Barack Obama’s” or “99% of school districts will air the speech”. The point being, the headline was cheap, not informative. Regardless, is refusing to air the speech a political statement or with the push for schools to teach to exams making it so school may find time is better spent on that activity.

The misinformation, the train wreck reporting (MJ, rapist/kidnapping guy), slanting of the truth and downright lies (RightGladiator.com) has come to be what our news media offers us. The opinion radio and TV hosts are just the leaders, and the rest of the media is the followers.

We need some perspective. Joe’s article for example. Is it news that some people in Russellville, Arkansas are misinformed. Is all of Arkansas misinformed? What am I to get out of this? Should the news spend time informing instead of repeating the garbage?

I have am trying to stop watching TV news shows, except for NewsHour and BBC news. And try not to get worked up when someone tells me something political. It is hard but I am trying.

[...] of the ghost of Joe McCarthy, Joe Klein writes, I was at a Blanche Lincoln town hall meeting in Russellville, Arkansas, yesterday–and the [...]

[...] Klien is not one of my favorite journalist, but at least even he knows crazy when he sees it, It Gets Worse I was at a Blanche Lincoln town hall meeting in Russellville, Arkansas, yesterday–and the [...]

Though it’s tempting to think Obama’s race is the primary motivator here, let’s not forget how easily the right went after a 100% white war hero, someone you would think might elicit more of their sympathy. No, this is just intolerance of any view other than their own.

If you watch and enjoy the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, I must urge you to consider donating. The Newshour is in dire straights, and they are struggling to fund themselves. They recently lost funding from the NSF. Pretty soon, it’s highly likely there will not be a NewsHour anymore. Maybe this year, maybe next, but in any case it’s in serious danger.

Get a grip Joe, I didn’t see any blogs by you and the left wingers when there was celebration over a movie on assasinating W.

The majority of Americans reject Obamacare due the fact that is just one in a long list of his attempts to turn this country into a socialist / communist / country.

Calling the people who disagree and don’t want Maobama care wingnuts / etc, only goes to show, you can’t come up with arguments to counter the truth.

No one god / forbid wish Maobama and his family any harm, it would terrible and a tragedy……..The best we can hope for is that his true colors are now known and the american people have figured out how dangerous he is to this country, due to his left wing, fringe, socialist agenda.

It is not about health care, it is about government control…………

If Maobama wanted to reform health care, it would include tort reform, health savings accounts, competition accross state lines etc. His / Pelosi and Reid is all about goverment takeover and control…….period.

So lay off the kool aid and counter the facts, instead of fretting / panic over very valid arguments on his radical agenda.

definition: socialism
movement based on socialism: a political movement based on principles of socialism, typically advocating an end to private property and to the exploitation of workers

please make your argument as to where Maobama does not push the socialist agenda by definition above.

[...] Klein reports on a town hall meeting where people think that Obama has larded the government with communists. Bizarre — but I’ve been getting equally bizarre claims in much of my mail. And [...]

[...] Klein reports on a town hall meeting where people think that Obama has larded the government with communists. Bizarre — but I’ve been getting equally bizarre claims in much of my mail. And [...]

[...] Jump to Comments Oh, Lord.  It really has come down to this, hasn’t it? Sorry, folks.  Many Americans really are as idiotic as these people who don’t even know that the Tsarist period predates Lenin, and that Lenin (OF COURSE) fought [...]

That’s right: Keep ‘em home! Sign the petition:

http://www.keepyourkidshome.com

It would be different if it were anyone else. This Castro/Chavez-loving radical is an entirely different deal, which is why the country is in full-fledged revolt.

uh, are you under the impression that Obama is a capitalist? Allllllllllllllrighty, then

Electing a black president was like gasoline on an already raging backwoods fire.

Those of us who have lived in the deep south over the last couple of decades have long been aware of the rising tide of paranoid hysteria on the far right. I remember the anti-Clinton craziness – Clinton was a communist too in these folks’ warped little minds. So was Eisenhower and FDR, for that matter.

A strong and active minority in our country are now committed to a world view as irrational and dangerous as the interwar period’s “international conspiracy of Jewish communists and bankers”. Many of the particulars are different, but the social function of their passionately held fantasies is the same.

Thank you Joe, for stating the obvious though ugly truth.

So tell me about what kind of country you envision after the “full-fledged revolt” is successful. Please be specific about the role of Federal, State and Local governments, individual liberties (including the right to bear arms, gay marriage and reproductive rights) and the seperation of church and state (if any). You want a revolution – then tell us what your alternative is.

The arguments by the right here cannot be countered or reasoned away since they are not based on reason. For example, the entire notion that Obama wants to brainwash your kids. Nothing approaches activist brainwashing more than the radical, activist here that have supported Intelligent Design inclusion in schools as actual science. The success of that agenda has essentially killed the notion that as a culture, it is possible anymore to distinguish between fact and belieft. Stong feelings have become the only evidence needed for truth. A large portion of the population has lost the ability to discern truth from fiction so discussing anything other than that is pointless. As result, you have very popular people on TV speading lies for money and reaping huge benefits from it. Beck and his ilk don’t care about the truth, it’s about having something to be against, in order to feel powerful and righteous. The core to entire insanity is that when Bush was in office doing clearly illegal actions, eroding rights, attacking countries without cause and giving away the country – that was all patriatoric and good. But somehow Obama is the bad guy here by stopping torture, improving the economy and wanting to reign in costs of health care? Focuse people….. If you think this is about socialsm, you need to get a gripe. It’s about MONEY. It is truely beyond belief that the so many people who would benefit trememoundsly as the rest of the civilized world has from government funded medical system would become so horrified at their good fortune to be able to not go bankrupt so a for profit company can continue to make massive, massive profits on the backs of the middle class. Who benefits from this right wing whacko crusdade? Not the people who are claiming foul.
Keep in mind that many of these people truly believe that the earth is no older than 6000 years old. They believe that what their eyes tell them are lies. When you think that you cant trust your senses, you are in a word senseless. Unfortunately, that makes a whole of armed, angry, sensless people who are being told their counry is jeopordy, when in fact it was just rescued from the likes of them.

….A large portion of the population has lost the ability to discern truth from fiction so discussing anything……sounds like the left………

……But somehow Obama is the bad guy here by stopping torture, improving the economy and wanting to reign in costs of health care? ….excuse me, employment at 26 year high …………record deficit……….

that is really an improvement to make massive, massive profits on the backs of the middle class………insurance companies profit margin is less than many industries…

It’s about MONEY……wrong / its about gov’t control of more and more of every facet of your life………..

please name me one gov’t program that is not broke, going broke, will be broke????

stick to the facts………..hr 3200………….irs will administer plan………you honestly trust the gov’t to have access to all of your bank accounts……….medical records………….

get off the kool aid…………

[...] is surreal. If Joe Klein really believes that this is some kind of recent phenomenon, then we must assume that he agreed with [...]

“…sounds like the left”

Reality has a well-known liberal bias.

“…employment at 26 year high …………record deficit……….”

You don’t think the events of the last eight years have anything to do with this? You might recall that the biggest economic meltdown since the Great Depression started under President Bush’s watch.

“insurance companies profit margin is less than many industries…”

Any proof of this? Could you also say that the insurance companies’ profit margin is _greater_ than many industries?

“wrong / its about gov’t control of more and more of every facet of your life”

Like when President Bush signed the Schiavo Bill passed by an emergency session of Congress?

“please name me one gov’t program that is not broke, going broke, will be broke????”

If you mean underfunded, then perhaps that has something to do with an elective war costing billions of dollars a year, combined with tax cuts.

“stick to the facts………..hr 3200………….irs will administer plan………you honestly trust the gov’t to have access to all of your bank accounts……….medical records”

Like they already don’t? At least the IRS is forced to use subpoenas and the rule-of-law when they gather evidence.

“get off the kool aid”

You first, friend.

I have to agree with you here in that the political commentary of the mainstream media is never examined properly by the viewing masses and often taken as factual accounts of true news. Pundits synthesize non-causal correlations based on temporally events as causal connections to factual happenings. It seems they then add in moralistic reasoning as to the good or bad of these created events as a way to sell their product and it is sadly not interpreted to the fullest extent. Realistically, there are naturally occurring trends with popularity, the way polls are asked based on a groups understanding of the wordings, etc. that can greatly influence polls that mean nothing. “Lies, damn lies, and statistics” (Benjamin Disraeli) is much of an understatement in our society. Both the right and left have people who feed into these streams of less abstraction that disengage our society from an appropriate debate about how to actually implement reform by feeding passion and not logic. Our society has polarized groups of people based on political views without considering the overall impact on society and the nature of governance. America should not be a diametric ideal but a unified vision, though it would create problems for our privately funded by big interest political system then.

I don’t think that there is not a reason for people to be upset with a government that to me seems to not listen to the people, but to the desires of big business…but this is not a new problem. I think if people want real change, people start needing to think about how to bring it about. Pundits on the right and left blabber about inane minutia that distract people from the real problems. I was wound up in the frenzy but once I stepped away towards the BBC and Newshour too and oddly it seemed to help. Once facts have “insight” added they start to lose their factual nature and tie us to different arguments than the truth.

Anyway, I think it is the sad state of journalism that sensationalizes stories rather than provided accounts to interpret. As you stated this story lacks perspective. Why should I care what one woman said, was she the only one there or did the crowd fully support her? Does she speak for all of Arkansas and their political views and ideals? Was this story more about the publics ability to be influenced by the current media? To me it just seems rather empty and the stream of thought journalism that America has succumed to.

To stuartzechman:

Excellent post, although I doubt the FoxBots are going to be swayed by Reason.

Nomad28′s claim that this is a Conservative country are based on a Gallup poll where the choices were 1) Very Conservative, 2) Conservative, 3) Somewhat Conservative, 4) not that Conservative, and 5) Liberal. The first 4 responses were then tallied as Conservative. Unsurprisingly, the Liberal tally was quite small.

The same Gallup page links to their polls on Party Identification. The results? 30 States Firmly Democratic, with 8 more leaning. Republican? 4 Solid, 1 leaning. And they are all low-pop. States (Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Alaska, Alabama.)

The Obama Haters use faulty numbers, out-of-context quotes, unfounded accusations, and outright Lies. There is no Conservative majority. There is no Republican majority. Progressives are in the driver’s seat, trying to steer us away from the cliff Bush and his cronies aimed us at, and will be for 7 more years.

God Bless our President.

We’ll be greeted as liberators.
WMD are a slam-dunk.
We’ll never spy on Americans.
Obama wants to kill your Granny.
Plus, he was born in Kenya.
And is a new Hitler.
And wants to destroy America.
And he caused the recession.
And is trampling the Constitution.
And hates white people, like his Mom.
Global warming is a conspiracy.
The jury’s still out on evolution.
Abstinence Education works.
Poor people caused the bank crisis. Worldwide.
Cut taxes on the wealthy and de-reguate business and eveything will be rosy forever.
Torture prevented attacks.
And besides, Jesus would be OK with it.
Taxes are higher than they’ve ever been.
Environmentalists hate America.
The Geneva Convention rules are a quaint outmoded fancy.
Borrowing money from China to buy oil from Saudi Arabia is A-OK.
Lying is OK as long as it supports the GOP agenda.
But it was impeachable for Clinton.
Adultery is fine as long as you’re a devout Evangelical.
Democrats like terrorists.

REPUBLICANS WILL STOP LYING WHEN YOU STOP BELIEVING.

1) Educate yourself! Socialism is the economic system generally associated with a Communist political system. This is akin to Capitalism being the economic system in our Democratic Republic. Socialism shortly may be seen as a belief that without government intervention there will be poolings of wealth atop the systems and that governments need to intervene to increase distribution of wealth towards the lower tiers.

2) Our country has had years of socialistic interventions that have both helped and hindered our current system. The Sherman Antitrust act of 1890 may in some ways be considered socialism by limiting the powers of the people at the top to create an uncompetitive marketplace and extract the greatest earnings possible in some means.

3) If you are defining socialism as government involvement and you advocate for less government involvement, why should they create a special account for you to save in? That is “socialist” intervention then and you should not need the government to help.

4) Realistically the global economy is a complex entity that needs to be re-evaluated with how we deal within it. Is it good enough for us to just base production in foreign countries for increased margins? Should we deal with countries like China who mandate a fixed percentage of Chinese run companies in a business of a US owned companies who seek to enter into their marketplace? How open should our free markets be to countries who do not fully open their markets? How should we regulate companies that are considered “too big to fail” if we are a capitalistic country and they do not control a majority of the market share? Why do we provide subsidize for known inefficient fuel systems or to support agricultural crops that are grown elsewhere cheaper? How should the United States manage itself economically for the 21st century and what rule modernizations needs to be created?

5) What does that have to do with healthcare? Our current markets in healthcare are not free and open markets allowing for great competition among them. I agree that opening them up between states would help, but there also needs to be major limitations on their cost coverage. The middle management of these companies create an economic sector within increase the cost to the consumer and provides them no benefit. Limiting these sectors by creating government actuarial tables through modernizing healthcare records may be a good means to limit liability of doctors (show the majority of doctors across the country do this treatment to show standard of care given…with 300 million people and showing that you did what was done for the other 20 million who have the same disease may be quite powerful in a court) and limit the need for torte reform. Also, cost of coverage may decrease if statistical inaccuracies are shown given a great pool of coverage and cost of efficacy based treatments. This would also help create great research by being able to access vast amounts of details to find the most effective treatments for disease and create a basis for nationalized research. Finally, drug companies derivive the majority of their profits from American consumers (look at the balance sheets of merck, pfizer, etc.) and are given market preference which is limited in other countries. Opening up our borders to other countries would also be great to limit the cost of coverage in the United States. Realistically, for business to recover at a great rate, and the average consumer to see their income rise vs inflation, healthcare needs to be drastically reformed and government intervention may be initially necessary. Businesses spend a great deal on healthcare costs currently and they may be able to hire more workers at a cheaper cost, or have the same workers at a cheaper cost, allowing for more competitive wages globably. Not all government intervention is bad. They may also be able to collapse redundant systems currently provided through the government and eliminate waste currently in government (hahaha…like they would ever do that…)

I knew that our country had fallen to an all time low when it came to intellegence, but this is way below what I thought. I can’t believe that we are surrendering all the decisions to the stupid and ignorant of this nation. This is absolutely ridiculous and I never thought that we we sink to something like this. How far down are we going to let this ignorant, stupid zealots continue to call the shots for the rest of us in this nation. We are all aware that this racism is a deep down sickness. This is a pitiful state of the nation.

To Elvis (9.3):

Wait… wait…

You used the phrase ‘notions of “factual… and “false”‘ in a reply to a guy whose rant is loony enough to mention Obama Youth uniforms?

BWWWAAAAAAAHHAAAHAAAHHAAHAAAHAAA(gasp)HAAAAAHAAHAAAHAAAAA!

Stop it. Yer killin’ me.

[...] Joe Klein: It Gets Worse, by Joe Klein: I was at a Blanche Lincoln town hall meeting in Russellville, Arkansas, yesterday–and the [...]

woodwakr,

You’re dead wrong. First of all, on the Gallup poll, the choices were: 1. Very Conservative 2. Conservative 3. Moderate 4. Liberal 5. Very Liberal

(http://www.gallup.com/poll/120857/Conservatives-Single-Largest-Ideological-Group.aspx)

Of those polled, 40% called themselves “conservative” while only only 21% called called themselves “liberal.” What part of this poll DON’T you understand? It’ll be fun to see you try to “explain” this poll away. Bring it.

Jon Meacham, late last year, wrote a column in his newsmaganize Newsweek in which he argued that this country has historically been a center-right country. Miind you, this is coming from a flaming liberal like Meacham whose magazine routine lambasts conservatives and evangelicals. Let me quote some excerpts for your enjoyment:

(http://www.newsweek.com/id/164656)

“But history, as John Adams once said of facts, is a stubborn thing, and it tells us that Democratic presidents from FDR to JFK to LBJ to Carter to Clinton usually wind up moving farther right than they thought they ever would, or they pay for their continued liberalism at the polls. Should Obama win, he will have to govern a nation that is more instinctively conservative than it is liberal—a perennial reality that past Democratic presidents have ignored at their peril”

“So are we a centrist country, or a right-of-center one? I think the latter, because the mean to which most Americans revert tends to be more conservative than liberal. According to the NEWSWEEK Poll, nearly twice as many people call themselves conservatives as liberals (40 percent to 20 percent), and Republicans have dominated presidential politics—in many ways the most personal, visceral vote we cast—for 40 years. Since 1968, Democrats have won only three of 10 general elections (1976, 1992 and 1996), and in those years they were led by Southern Baptist nominees who ran away from the liberal label. “Is this a center-right country? Yes, compared to Europe or Canada it’s obviously much more conservative,” says Adrian Wooldridge, coauthor of “The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America” and Washington bureau chief of the London-based Economist. “There’s a much higher tolerance for inequality, much greater cultural conservatism, a higher incarceration rate, legalized handguns and greater distrust of the state.”

The argument I am making—that we are at heart a right-leaning country skeptical of government once a crisis that requires government has passed—is probably going to look dumb, or at least out of step, for many months to come. A big blue tsunami appears imminent. Election night and the first phase of a possible Obama administration may feel as though we have left the old categories behind, striking out on a bold new path in which pragmatism trumps dogma. (Bold new paths are a specialty for new administrations, until they become safe old paths.) Economically, the deficits are so vast that we’re all supersized Keynesians now, and there will most likely be political and intellectual cover for a stimulus package of new spending in the new year.

“Will a Democratic administration, he asks, “ban handguns? No. Will it throw its weight behind legalizing gay marriage in every state? No. So even if you have, as we will, a Democratic Washington, America will remain a fundamentally conservative country.”

Sir, it would do you good to step out of your little liberal bubble and look around the country. I’m a Mexican-American living in Southern California. I’m surrounded by liberals and live in a very liberal state, but yet I also understand that my little bubble is not representative of this country. If you were to remove your ideological blinders, you would understand that the reason that Fox News is so popular is not because the “fringe” flocks to its stations, BUT because there are more of us (conservatives) than there are of you (liberals).

[...] is surreal. If Joe Klein really believes that this is some kind of recent phenomenon, then we must assume that he agreed with [...]

I rejoiced when Obama was elected, believing America had finally moved beyond the fear and hatred and ignorance that made the election as president of a black man such a hard-to-imagine concept in the past.

I see now that my joy was premature. As a country we are not ready for him. Change is painful, and there is so much pain.

This man was elected to bring about change, as a nation we were heading off a cliff. He is trying, understanding that his responsibility is to serve all 300 million Americans, not primarily the 10 million who have most of the influence.

As their influence slips away, they fight; claws out, teeth sharpened, wrapped in the warp-wrap of the American flag (which has NEVER stood for their ideas of arogant hatred), they spew. Just spend some time, a few minutes, listening to Hannity, Beck, LImbaugh, Savage. Here in Florida there’s a guy on the radio named Bortz who exclaims glee at his ability to insult and demean those who don’t agree with his pseudo-facist (again, wrapped and presented in his warped ideas of the red-white-and-blue).

The struggle will continue. Sadly, we are on a path of disaster, not because of the actions of the president or the congress, but because of the hatred and hostility and bigotry and small-minded ignorance of those who call themselves “Conservatives.” My gosh, Bill Buckley would spin in his grave if he could see and hear them.

It is not conscientous, intelligent analyses that is causing parents to decide to keep their children out of school so that they are not “swayed” by the president’s words next week, it is fear.

The men and women who over the years have fought and died for this country — for the land of the free and the home of the brace — would vomit if they could see what is happening today.

Klein writes: “I was later told by a local observer that many of these vomitous, disgraceful notions were the fruit of Glenn Beck’s fruitful imagination.”

Someone told you? Wow. Thanks for that research.

nomad28, it’s clear that you desperately need to believe that your way of thinking represents “normal” America, rather than some lunatic fringe. Unfortunately, it’s just not so.

As to the absurd rhetoric about John Holdren and other advisers, stuartzechman and gmalcolms have debunked it pretty thoroughly. I would only add this: a single minute of Googling about Holdren turned up this page setting the record straight, with extensive documentation. To quote the takeaways:

>>”Holdren’s office issued this statement: ‘The quotations used to suggest that Dr. Holdren supports coercive approaches to limiting population growth were taken from a 1977 college textbook on environmental science and policy, of which he was the third author. The quoted material was from a section of the book that described different possible approaches to limiting population growth and then concluded that the authors’ own preference was to employ the noncoercive approaches before the environmental and social impacts of overpopulation led desperate societies to employ coercive ones. Dr. Holdren has never been an advocate of compulsory abortions or other repressive means of population limitation.’

>>”Holdren’s office also provided a statement from Annie and Paul Ehrlich, the co-authors: ‘We have been shocked at the serious mischaracterization of our views and those of John Holdren in blog posts based on misreadings of our jointly-authored 1000-page 1977 textbook, ECOSCIENCE. We were not then, never have been, and are not now ‘advocates’ of the Draconian measures for population limitation described — but not recommended — in the book’s 60-plus small-type pages cataloging the full spectrum of population policies that, at the time, had either been tried in some country or analyzed by some commentator.’ ”

I think it goes without saying that the other allegations are no more credible. The only people likely to be convinced by this sort of rhetoric are those… like you… who are either so anxious to believe negative propaganda about Obama and “the left” that they’re *unwilling*, or so ignorant that they’re *unable*, to see through it and recognize how counterfactual it is.

There’s also an interesting an completely unsurprising anti-intellectual tone to it all. Holdren is a distinguished professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government; Sunstein is a professor of law also at Harvard, formerly at the U of Chicago; and so on. Just can’t trust those eggheads, can you?

Finally, as for how many people are “conservative”… first of all, you need to recognize that in a broad-brush survey like the Gallup one you cite, the fact that people self-identify as conservative (without the term being defined) does *not* mean that they actually agree with *you* on, well, anything. Second, a slightly deeper look into the social science research (presumably anathema to you) would reveal that even when Americans self-identify as conservative, they actually tend to hold traditionally *liberal* ideas on specific *issues*. I wrote about this very issue some months back, when it was fresh: . Suffice it to say that Jon Meacham is simply *wrong* to call this a “center-right country.”

And seriously… what has Obama or anyone in his administration *actually done* since inauguration that a reasonable person would categorize as anything other than moderate and cautious? What exactly are you *afraid* of from these people, policy-wise? The overblown rhetoric just seems utterly out of touch with reality.

we are all afraid that we know how this is going to end – and I think that is what they want.

Excellent insight, Kristiia. These are people driven by fear and anger. It’s all they understand at this point. If they can make the *rest* of us afraid of *them*, then they regain control. And indeed, more than once of late I’ve heard level-headed friends worry that this is all going to erupt into violence of some sort.

And if we worry about it, surely policy-makers worry about it… and no doubt adjust their behavior, and their positions, accordingly. Not out of reasoned concern for the public interest — or even concern for their own *electoral* interests, since we’re not talking about majorities here — but out of quiet fear of how far the unhinged, angry wingnuts might be willing to go.

All in defense of their vision of a straight, white, patriarchal, Christian, laissez faire, and (without a trace of irony!) “freedom loving” America, of course.

Whoops, sorry… I meant to post this in the subthread under #4, way up above. Hit the wrong “reply” link. (Wish this site allowed for comment editing…)

jennofark-

People fear what they don’t understand. That’s not unexpected… we all do it, to some extent.

But for this sort of extremism, it’s not only not an excuse, it’s really not even an explanation.

Because what most reasonable, thinking human beings do is just what you did — attempt to understand more, to experience more of the world, to get outside their comfort zones.

The people we’re talking about here didn’t do that. They had other options, but they all chose ignorance. They choose to isolate themselves from anyone who looks, acts, or thinks differently from themselves, and indeed to lash out angrily at such people.

I’m not sure you were necessarily expressing any sympathy for them… but for the record, they certainly don’t deserve any.

[...] UPDATE: Boy, someone needs to send this to far left crank Joe Klein. [...]

The undisputed fact… is that prominent members of the Administration advocate political philosophies to the decided left of political center; i.e., the majority consensus.

On what do you base the assertion that this is “undisputed fact”? For such a claim even to have meaning, first of all we’d have to agree on what the “political center” is… and the way the term is typically used certainly has nothing to do with the “majority consensus.” The mass media usually treats it as if it’s some arbitrary midpoint between What Democrats Say and What Republican Say (both of which have been slipping rightward for decades), while everything else is out of bounds for “serious” discussion.

You want to talk about what the majority of Americans really believe? Look into the long-term survey research… e.g., from the Pew Research Center and the American National Election Studies . You’ll find that (for instance):

* 69% of Americans believe that government has a responsibility to take care of people who can’t take care of themselves, and that it should guarantee every citizen sufficient food and shelter
* 66% favor government funded health coverage for all citizens
* 65% believe corporate profits are too high
* 84% support a higher minimum wage
* 83% favor stricter laws and regulations to protect the environment
* 69% believe conservation should take precedence over oil drilling as a policy priority
* 66% have no objection to homosexual public school teachers
* 56% oppose new restrictions on abortion
* 56% have a favorable opinion of labor unions
* 66% oppose organized prayer in public schools
* 61% reject Biblical literalism
* 58% want the government to be doing more to solve our problems, not less—and more than twice as many (43-20) want more public services and spending rather than less
* 66% consider taxes on upper-income people to be too low

There’s your “center,” your “majority consensus.” And it’s actually well to the “left” of most of what the Obama administration has been proposing. And those are all numbers from before the 2008 election cycle.

However…
In so doing, the Administration has set itself the task of shifting that consensus by force of its ideas and logic.

On this one thing, I have to agree with you. The administration seems to have premised a lot of its strategy on the premise that people will recognize, and listen to, reason. Obviously for media and beltway elites… and for a small but loud minority of the population… that’s simply not so.

A) I wish I knew why this site keeps swallowing my blank lines between paragraphs. Now I understand the “dots” some posters are using.
.
B) Some links to back up the statistics I just posted:
.
http://people-press.org/report/312/trends-in-political-values-and-core-attitudes-1987-2007
.
http://www.electionstudies.org/nesguide/gd-index.htm#4

BTW, here are the links I mentioned to the Holdren story debunking…
.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/jul/29/glenn-beck/glenn-beck-claims-science-czar-john-holdren-propos/
.
…and that blog essay…
.
http://blog.smartmemes.com/2008/12/america-is-not-a-center-right-country/
.
(Sorry, I’m still getting the hang of this site’s posting quirks…)

Can you tell me one good thing the government has ever done for anyone?
.
What? Seriously? Have you never studied any history, or civics, or political science?
.
Limiting things strictly to the U.S., here’s a list of highlights:
.
* Established a nation that recognizes key human rights as “unalienable,” and therefore has government elected by citizens in recognition that political power flows from the people, not some divine authority

* Eliminated the scourge of slavery, and extended that voting franchise to blacks and women

* Opened its shores and offered citizenship to people from around the world, rather than linking national identity to birthplace

* Preserved and protected vital national parks, landmarks, and natural resources

* Instituted universal public education, the effects of which have probably done more to improve human quality of life than any other single reform ever

* Passed laws ending child labor and all sorts of other inhumane employment practices

* Made sure our food, drugs, water, and air are safe to consume

* Extended electricity and telecommunications to even the most remote and impoverished corners of the nation

* Put an end to legal discrimination based on race (and religion, and other sorts of minority status)

* Made sure that senior citizens don’t spent their final years in poverty and sickness
.
And that’s just a short list, off the top of my head. Really, pretty much every worthwhile bit of human progress in the last 250 years has been achieved by concerned citizens working through government. It has the tools to get the job done.
.
Now, what have multinational corporations ever done to enhance the common good? (Or do you even believe in the concept of the common good?) Hint: “enhancing shareholder value” doesn’t count.

[...] maintain this is due to the ravings of irresponsible blow-hards on radio and cable television. True up to a [...]

Conservatives frustrated with MSNBC, CNN, and the New York Times, the presentation of the news these “unbiased” media purvey, are branded crazies, loonies, wingnuts (have I forgotten any favorite “progressive” characterization?) by our friends of the liberal persuasion. And some of these conservatives are less than courteous or correct. Big revelation, wow. Further, Joe Klein now believes these folks are a danger to democracy. OMG, should I stay awake nights worrying?

And of course Fox News is to blame, without doubt. Conservatives simply don’t realize that spending trillions of dollars for ObamaCare will save us money. They can’t understand that jobs are good, but that employers (other than governments) are bad. That cap and trade is absolutely necessary because liberals are absolutely certain what the climate will be like 100 years from now. These poor conservative rubes, tools of the unfeeling right wing… how sad. These dolts don’t even understand that good intentions are the only thing that matters in life, good intentions as defined in our progressive friends’ personal dictionaries. Social “justice” trumps all.

If you believe my analysis is flawed, please carefully read the speeches of our progressive friends’ new-found hero, President for Life Hugo Chavez, a true democrat with only the best intentions for humanity. His paving crews are very active, reworking the road to that well-known destination.

Gallup shows Obama with a 55% approval rating, and Real Clear Politics shows an average approval rating of 53%. Only Rasmussen show him as under 50%.

But everywhere I look, the far right is proclaiming that Obama’s approval rating is under 50%. So who is spreading this disinformation? Is this something that Glenn Beck is saying on his show?

i think it would be nice if nomad28 would reply to stuartzcheman’s arguements. funny how he replies to some argurments but not when he is proved wrong……

[...] back inside the Beltway, Joe Klien, Time, has his head buried so far up that he can not see, much less report: I was at a Blanche Lincoln [...]

[...] Joe Klein columnist for Time Magazine, recently attended a town hall and was appalled by the hate and ignorance he witnessed there. “The amazing thing remains not only the unwillingness of responsible Republicans–a term that is in danger of becoming an oxymoron–to call bull– on this, but also the willingness of many prominent Republicans to join in the slinging of garbage,” wrote Klein. [...]

Keep them home…why? Because if they weren’t hearing Obama, they’d be hearing this guy?
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http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/education/orl-loc-maxwell-greer-obama-090509,0,3762186.column
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Check it out, hodude. It’s short. Then answer this: would you have a problem with Jim Greer talking at your kids’ school? If you wouldn’t have a problem with Jim Greer talking to your kids, then you are simply being a hypocrite. If you would have a problem, then explain how President Obama’s desire to encourage students to work hard and stay in school is anywhere near Greer’s commentary.
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I’m with ames1008. Tell us, please, what you would like in place of what we have today.

Get a grip Joe, I didn’t see any blogs by you and the left wingers when there was celebration over a movie on assasinating W.
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Seriously? I remember this film vaguely–a “what if?” fictional documentary–and thought it was in rather poor taste. I don’t remember “celebration” anywhere regarding this movie, certainly nothing like the angry, vicious commentary from far-right-wing people calling for Obama’s head on a platter. I don’t remember any left-leaning preachers talking to their parishioners about praying for W to die so he could go to hell. (http://thedailyvoice.com/voice/2009/08/baptist-pastor-prays-for-obama-002221.php)

Sher, I heard Chavez is actually Vice President for Life, at least here in the U.S. Nancy Pelosi got it done in exchange for some Venezuelan oil concessions. Chavez will get Cuba to provide America’s health care to boot. So it’s all good.
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Where did I hear this, you ask? What, I need to provide links? Sources? What are you, a DFH? I don’t NEED links or sources. I KNOW the truth!
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In all seriousness…your initial post, while I disagree with much of it, was clever and had some cogent points. Then you stepped in with Chavez, as if he’s President Obama’s BFF. No progressive I know admires Chavez. What’s that about?

Ok, fair point; President Chavez is a little bit too much for most progressives to stomach. Still, the extreme left seems to have a touch of hidden respect, voiced after their third martini.

A few serious points: good intentions don’t always lead to good results, a lesson some liberals struggle with. Why not try “insurance reform”, otherwise known as Obamacare, as a small scale experiment rather than as a big bang? Why bet one trillion dollars plus on a scheme that has not worked out very well in either Tennessee or Massachusetts? Especially without obvious cost reduction provisions, such as tort reform, insurance company competition across state boundaries, and eliminating the laundry list of state mandates. (I recently read the mandate list in MA; one must buy a Mercedes policy or none at all. It’s illegal for insurance companies to offer a Chevy, Buick, or Toyota.)

Finally, regarding President Chavez, let’s discuss his protegee, Manuel Zalaya of Honduras, who attempted to violate the Honduran constitution. The Supreme Court of that nation said no, term limits are there for a good reason, no Presidents for Life please. Next, Mr. Zalaya imported ballots from Venezuela, told the court to kiss off, and tried to hold the “election” anyway. He then incited his followers to violence. Now this is where things get weird…. President Obama wants this autocrat restored to power. After he was legally removed by the court for a shameless power grab. Zalaya and Chavez are obviously cut from the same cloth; yet our President supports this guy. And some progressives do too, a little scary when one thinks about it.

Good intentions? A government solution for health insurance and damn near everything else? Pleas get a grip. This is no way to run a railroad, or a nation.

By the way, I don’t personally hate or even dislike President Obama; he was elected and is our leader. Most Republicans I know agree with me; I see a lot less hostility toward President Obama than the reflexive hatred directed at G.W. Bush by our progressive friends. Further, I respect the Prez; he is intelligent, smooth as silk, and reads very well from a teleprompter.

I simply disagree with his world view, nothing more, and nothing less. I’m a member of the loyal opposition. I may articulate this belief slightly better than some conservatives, and less well than others. Joe Klein appears to be disturbed by my less articulate brothers and sisters. Perhaps he should examine his own house, which seems to be made of glass regarding President Bush, before he begins throwing stones.

It all depends upon what the meaning of the “communists”. It means just a committed anti-capitalist (like Joe himself) then there are way more than 4 of them.

Last time I checked, the Donkeys had 60 votes in the Senate and a 70 seat advantage in the House. Yet, their own leaders admit they won’t get a “public option” for heathcare reform.
In the early 90′s Hillary Clinton was charged with reforming heathcare and she also had majorities in both houses of Congress as well as a husband in the White House. Her ideas never even came up for a vote.
There must be something wrong with the Donkey’s idea of reform.

[...] Klein – who is normally a vapid name dropper – made this observation: Could I just say that the intensity of this getting pretty scary…and dangerous? We are [...]

I think Joe is exactly the type of person that Yuri Bezmenov was referring to when he used the term “useful idiot”.

Ever heard of “Ideological Subversion”, Joe?

You should read up on it.

It might sound very familiar…

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/from_russia_with_no_love.html

[...] wanted to share this piece with you from Joe Klein of TIME: I was at a Blanche Lincoln town hall meeting in Russellville, Arkansas, [...]

[...] « PreviousWe Knew It Was Ugly Out There… Next »Hey, Internet People! It Gets Worse Posted by Joe KleinThursday, September 3, 2009 at 3:20 pm 138 Comments • Trackback (12) I was at a Blanche Lincoln town hall meeting in Russellville, Arkansas, yesterday–and the number of people who believe that the President has larded the government with communists (!) was astonishing. One woman said there were four known communists in the government and that she’d researched it on the internet. When I read more [...]

[...] amazing thing,” Joe Klein recently wrote, “remains not only the unwillingness of responsible Republicans — a term that is in [...]

[...] is surreal. If Joe Klein really believes that this is some kind of recent phenomenon, then we must assume that he agreed with [...]

[...] craziness of the town hall meetings on healthcare being held across the country. Time commentator Joe Klein recently remarked (Time), “I was at a Blanche Lincoln town hall meeting in Russellville, Arkansas, yesterday—and [...]

[...] We’re supposed to be afraid that the “czars” in the Obama administration are commies infiltrating the government [...]

[...] finds itself in the position of hoping that Arkansas’ birthers, tea baggers, and Glenn Beck acolytes manage to take out a Democratic Senator. Such are these surreal political [...]