"We have to 'rise up' and 'take back our country'."

We just did.

For christ's sake rise UP already!

They need a good beat down. It ain't gonna happen until they come runnin' out of their double wides.

The sense of relief I felt when Obama was elected and the republicans were out of power in Congress has deserted me. I have a renewed sense of dread which is now accompanied by a feeling that real tragedy is around the corner. There is nothing funny about any of these people any more. They are frightening parodies of rightwind militias and angry mobs.

Apparently the guy who shot the cops in Pittsburgh believed Obama was coming for his guns.

I agree with CDW. The initial relief of November is long gone, and there is nothing funny about the American right wing. Their paranoia is truly frightening, and I hear some of it from friends and relatives. The psychological Balkanization of the U.S. is complete.

Link:
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/was-pittsburgh-shooter-driven-right-

And yet the media STILL treat them liked rational people. When will this bat-shit crazy stuff break through the media shield of "on the other hand"?

I'm with CDW.

Although watching Michelle Obama and the President interact with real people like the girl students in London is touching and inspirational, I worry about the President getting to close to someone like Joe the Plumber or some other zealot willing to martyr themselves because of the demagoguery of Beck, Bachmann, Limbaugh and their ilk.

Ghandi was murdered, surrounded by his supporter.

I've often wondered what it would take to get a notorious draft dodger like Chuck Norris to pick up a real gun.

Since Bachmann is actively encouraging these people is there anything we can charge her with when one of these wack jobs decides hording guns isn't enough and instead starts bombings? It's not like it'd be the first time a deranged right-wing nut followed through.

This is only getting started, and we should fear where it's going. So I'd deadly serious, what can we do to the people actively encouraging and goading these loose cannons into violence?

Coop et al. are on target. Is there any doubt that the Glenn Becks of the rightwing really want a fight? That they honestly think that true honest hardworking Americans are suffering because of liberals/socialists/marxists?

They believe in their own purity so deeply that they don't think their leaders are wrong, EVER. I don't even think they are ideological anymore. I think they are fueled purely by the dogma that they are correct, always, and that anyone--ANYONE!--who opposes them is a jihadist-loving communist.

I have relatives who tell me that liberals are all rich, and that the middle class is made up of good conservatives who love freedom. When I ask them to explain, then, why liberals are bad if they want to raise taxes on themselves and cut taxes for conservatives, the look back at me blankly.

There is no logic to the rightwing. There is no rationality. There are only paranoia and hatred.

For christ's sake rise UP already!
They need a good beat down. It ain't gonna happen until they come runnin' out of their double wides.
Posted by: dontcallmefrancis

They've already risen up; laying siege to themselves, from within their own little bunkers. They're like a herd of rats fighting over the right to get first shot at the cheese---while it's still baited to the rat trap.

By the way, a backhoe can do a really good job at "beating down" a double wide. You can get rid of both the eyesore and the "infestation" inside the eyesore at the same time.

Should take about 45 minutes a pop; 75 if you dig the hole to pile the rubble in first, but no more than 20-to-25 if you're Mike Mulligan, and your backhoe's name is Mary Ann....

If Obama is just another Clinton then we are screwed in any case. Most people on both sides, imvho, don't think he is. Can you imagine Obama's daughters growing up to be hedge fund managers?

The challenges are greater. The man appears to be far better. That is why the rabble is being whipped up. Obama will do what he can to set things right, not do what he can to get by. And because of that, the situation is far more volatile.

Chuck Norris:

will our leaders finally listen or will history need to record a second American Revolution

Thank you for this important post.
Their's is the most un-American language--- in the form of propaganda, spin and provocative deception.

Dresden James said it best: "When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic."

As you noted, they did it during Bill Clinton's term.

They are crazed nationalists that George Orwell warned about.

As Abe Lincoln observed: "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

So, dontcallmefrancis, when I was GOTV in trailer parks around here, I saw nothing but Obama/Biden signs. It was in the comfortably middle class neighborhoods that I saw the McCain signs. And not that many.

Do not use bigoted ideas to characterize people, because you will insult people unnecessarily, you will alienate whole Democratic constituencies (a lot of Hispanics live in mobile homes), and you will miss who the real enemies are: the selfish white folks (especially male) who feel entitled to everything, grew up in a culture of greed and looking out for number one, and don't mind killing to kill others in order to get what they want.

violence is the preeminent difference between progressives and conservatives. Informed progressives were as outraged or more under the bush/cheney regime than conservatives are under Obama, but never thought of violent struggle as a means to overcome their frustration and redress their grievances. Conservatives are ALWAYS looking for an excuse to resort to violence. Its why they imagine so many irrational made-up outrages, looking of the one they can claim puts them over the top.

We are entering an extremely dangerous period, where the wingnuts will increasingly be pulling the triggers on their arsenals.

When will enough be enough?

Consider that the Obama administration has hardly scratched the surface of what needs to be done.

There is NO difference between the so-called fringe on the right and some of their own leaders. They say the same things, they think the same things. Bachmann should be reprimanded for her complete stupidity and paranoia, but do you hear any sane Republican leader chiding her? Hell no. They have gone all in, they have nothing left to lose.

At least the kooks on the left are marginalized very far away in the corner. And they don't have a track record of shooting innocent people.

Glenn Beck is mind-numbingly unraveled for someone still existing on prime time television. Truthfully, he reminds me of a mental health consumer self-disclosing in an anger management group.

Conservatives are ALWAYS looking for an excuse to resort to violence. Its why they imagine so many irrational made-up outrages, looking of the one they can claim puts them over the top.

Dick Cheney practically got hard-on thinking about torturing people. Bill Kristol, John Bolton, Norm Poderhertz, all have not served in the military yet these goons were so dead set on spilling blood as the only solution to problems in the middle east.

Cowards and chickenshits, all of them. I know for a fact Norm Poderhertz never got over getting his ass kicked repeatedly as a child, and he's written about it and that's shaped his views of the world. Bet it was the same for Kristol and Bolton and Cheney and the rest of the warmongers.

Take a pill Carol.

This is sedition. Plain and simple. And sedition is against the law.

We need Bachmann arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to death for treason.

"IT'S LIKE DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN"

Back in '95 a nut shot at the White House from the street with an AK-47 after he had been listening to RightWing hate radio.

There is NO difference between the so-called fringe on the right and some of their own leaders.

They are different. The leaders are self-serving fearmongerers who wouldn't go near a loaded gun. Their followers are desperate and looking for someone to blame.

"Back in '95 a nut shot at the White House from the street with an AK-47 after he had been listening to RightWing hate radio."

And where was he from? Colorado, of course. I don't don't know what it is about my state, but we sure produce a disproportionate number of wackos crazy enough to shoot at the president.

"And what seemed at first like "harmless, hotheaded expostulation..." --Blow

Where the hell has this guy been? The only people who haven't taken the right seriously during the past 20-30 years are the ones who can't wrap their minds around the fact that anyone could possibly think or act as conservatives do.

All evidence points to the contrary.

The right may be nuts, but they're seriously dedicated nuts. And the more complex the world gets, the more threatened, desperate and unhinged they're going to become.

So...they're advocating/encouraging/aiding and abetting the violent overthrow of the U.S. government, correct? Isn't that a crime? Oh, right. Only if you're NOT a Republican.

I think we need to coin "Obamaplexy" as the new "Bush Derangement Syndrome"

Seems catchy, right?

An important point about conservatives, a huge part of them anyway, is that they think they're being funny.

For conservatives this is wit.

So many of them were completely taken in by Colbert because they don't know the difference.

They think the serious is laughable.

from the ap story about the pittsburg police shooter:

Edward Perkovic said Richard Poplawski, his best friend, feared "the Obama gun ban that's on the way" and "didn't like our rights being infringed upon." Another longtime friend, Aaron Vire, said Poplawski feared that President Barack Obama was going to take away his rights, though he said he "wasn't violently against Obama."

Poplawski had often fought with neighbors and had even gotten into fistfights with a couple, Sand said.

"This is a relatively really quiet neighborhood except for him," Sand said. "He was just one of those kids that we knew to stay clear from."

Take a pill Carol.
Posted by: francis 3:03 PM

You're doing OK Carol. No medication needed. Good comment, well written.

The right wing won't be happy until there's another Oklahoma City. Even then, they'll deny and deny and deny that it was homegrown terrorism. Don't forget, we went to war in Iraq partly because Crazy Laurie Mylroie insisted that Iraqi agents blew up the Murrah building, not McVeigh and Nichols. She convinced a bunch of neocons, up to and including Dick Cheney.

Great post. I stopped laughing at the antics of these clowns some time ago. People who get their news from sources other than Fox and right wing websites may dismiss the rantings of the right as stupid and ridiculous, but there are plenty of right wingers who believe this nonsense and think Obama is a genuine threat to their freedom and their country.

The whole schtick -- Obama is a dangerous anti-American socialist -- is based on deception and distortion, but it is scaring the pants off the most uninformed and unhinged fringes of the GOP. I find it disturbing and dangerous, and the members of Congress who echo the Fox rhetoric and hand out the pitchforks don't deserve even a shred of public trust and support. They are irresponsible cowards who are willing to trade the president's security for the certainty that the nuttiest of the GOP nutjobs will turn out at the polls and vote for them.

And where is the MSM on this? Someone needs to do a serious story on the danger of this inflammatory rhetoric.

What is also staggering is that so many of these people are foolish pawns, manipulated by unscrupulous corporations and our wealthy aristocracy for the latter's greed and sense of entitlement.

You have a selective way of "remembering."

"Fox News did its level best to whip uninformed right-wing activists into a frenzy?" Fox News went on the air in October 1996. The Clinton presidency you claim to remember was almost half over by then. The Clintons had already been through several years of investiagtions. Ken Starr had replaced the original special counsel more than two years earlier!

By the time of Fox's debut, Gene Lyons had already published Fools for Scandal, about the way the Washington Post and the New York Times "invented Whitewater." Did you ever hear of those news orgs? They're part of the "mainstream" press corps. Granted, it's safer and easier to talk about Fox. And easier for the rubes to digest.

Do you ever stop to ask yourself if you actually know what you're typing about? As you write this, of course, you snark about the other side's "uninformed activists."

Still no analysis of Obama's Afghan policy or Geithner's relationship to the bankstahs from Steve Benen. just wall to wall factually challenged right wing strawmen.

I suggest listening to Democracy Now and Bill Moyers from yesterday.

The paranoid right has always been with us, and isn't likely to go away. What makes them more sinister now is the racial element introduced by Obama, and our unique economic conditions. In such circumstances it isn't generally the left that is empowered, but the Fascist right.

Fox Faux News and Bimbaugh, together with idiots like Bachmann and Beck, are fanning the ever present embers of right-wing fears, anger and resentment. The gullible, undereducated and uninformed that are the target audience for the right's propagandists somehow think that a totalitarian government of bullies and brownshirts is the answer to their powerlessness.

Talk about a failure of education.

Should there be any sort of uprising, on what side will the police and the military be? I hope we don't have to find out.

Ya know, grinning cat, that you could hop on over to any one of a number of sites and set up a blog of your very own and post about these things that you are so chapped at Steve for not addressing to your satisfaction, don't you? And if it doesn't suck, you might even draw a following.

So, the real question is when has Nut Job radio and Nut Job politicos crossed the line and yelled fire in a crowded theater? At what point do these people become culpable for the actions of their followers? Personally, I don't think that line has been crossed yet, but if we do fall into a real ugly depression, things could get much worse.

The old saying is that we (the USA) got lucky in the Great Depression, we got FDR, and Germany got Hitler (consider Godwin's rule invoked at this point), but the point is that some serious Nut Jobs can crawl out from underneath the rocks during times of great duress and a desperate public will latch onto them. I don't think we're in a position to tolerate or humor this type of BS like happened during Clinton

It's patently obvious at this point that all the right wing braying about "capitalism" and "socialism" is so much BS, and what they're really all about is by the rich, for the rich, to the rich and everybody else can go get f%^ked. We need to spread the word that if you put the Repubs back in charge, you will lose everything, your Medicare, Social Security, you name it. They will strip mine the government of every last dollar that helps the middle class and send it to the rich.

Following up on Smiley's comment.
Here's the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article about the stand-off in Pittsburgh's Stanton Heights neighborhood between a McCain supporter who thought that Obama was coming for his guns and police. Three police officers were killed.

Another friend, Aaron Vire, 23, said he'd helped Mr. Poplawski[the shooter] and Mr. Perkovic[a friend of the shooter] with a radio show they'd broadcast on the Internet, discussing "politics, girls and life."

Mr. Poplawski had supported Republican candidate John McCain in the presidential election and had "very spirited debates" about Democratic candidate Barack Obama, Mr. Vire said. Mr. Poplawski was opposed to Mr. Obama's election, which he thought would result in the loss of his rights, Mr. Vire said.

"He wasn't a racist but thought some of his amendments were overlooked," Mr. Vire said. Even though Mr. Vire is black and Mr. Poplawski is white, the debates over President Obama did not hurt their friendship, he said.

Mr. Poplawski told him he bought his guns "because he felt the quality of life was being diminished," Mr. Vire said.

"He said he'll be ready if there's ever an invasion of the United States and that he had stockpiled foods and guns for that eventuality."

Posted by: Joe Friday on April 4, 2009 at 2:14 PM |

Sums it up nicely. What Beck buttons perceive as a revolution will actually be a civil war. A revolution comes from a majority of the people not a small minority of instigators being manipulated by the ultra rich to protect the wealthy's holdings. In this time of economic crisis ALL senate republicans voted for a tax cut for the wealthiest of the wealthy (0.02 percent of the people. 98.8% were totally unaffected by this issue) and this is who Beck and his buttons want a revolution to protect?????

These goobers have been cultivating ignorance with huge media productions being too stupid to see it is they that will die first if violence breaks out. The rich will be killed by their body guards when the violence turns toward being between the haves and have-nots. Beck and Bachmann and her republican supporters in congress show themselves to be completely stupid but think they are brilliant by encouraging the emotionally sick to take up arms and look for victims of their anger and hostility. They are too stupid to see the ignorance they are unleashing will get them beheaded. Their political revolution will turn into a class civil war so fast they'll be running for cover. Crazy and stupid. The rich getting the poor to fight for them to keep their wealth. Surprise surprise.
It's always Party First and screw everybody else.
The "silent majority" is also armed and just as ready to shoot rich republicans as these wingers are to shoot liberals and that is a horrible shameful reality. FOX and Beck just want a circus for profits...but it will backfire on them if they continue.

FWIW there's a breaking news story coming out of Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania about a man who, among other things, was reportedly convinced Obama would have people coming to take everyone's guns away. At the current time, around 5:00 east coast time, he'd shot three policemen dead and two others were injured. He's been taken into custody after a four hour stand off.

http://news.aol.com/article/pennsylvania-police-shooting/414264?icid=main|main|dl1|link3|http%3A%2F%2Fnews.aol.com%2Farticle%2Fpennsylvania-police-shooting%2F414264

I'm sure more details will be coming out and this may start to get the attention of the traditional media, especially after the mass killings in Binghamton, NY only yesterday. It will be interesting to see if they dare mention the violent rhetoric coming from the right wing and its possible role in all this.

I will also be waiting to see if Glen Beck and others back away from this and disclaim any responsibility.

Somerby is totally right about the MSM being equally hostile to Clinton (though for different reasons) with right-wing media. And that's why the right basically got a pass for the OKC bombing, which they fomented, and which never would have happened but for the paranoid environment they fostered: the media felt like they had to triangulate between the right-wing and their sworn enemy, Clinton.

The mainstream media's relationship with Obama is rather different, so I'm fairly certain that a second OKC would be the death-knell of movement conservatism; at the very least, the end of the career of anyone who had made insurgent-type noises immediately prior to it. Not that it won't happen, but the aftermath will be much different this time (if it does happen).

"You have a selective way of "remembering."

"Fox News did its level best to whip uninformed right-wing activists into a frenzy?" Fox News went on the air in October 1996." bob somerby on April 4, 2009 at 4:23 PM

I'm having a hard time with your fucked up logic. If FOX had gone on air in say 2000, then Steve's statement would be very misleading. 4 years is plenty of time to whip rightwingers such as yourself into a frenzy.

Lets assume for a moment that "Bob Somerby" is the REAL Bob Somerby form the Daily Howler.

And you palinoscopy descry him as a right winger?

To quote Bob "Do you ever stop to ask yourself if you actually know what you're typing about? As you write this, of course, you snark about the other side's "uninformed activists.""

First, May I call you Francis? First, where pray tell in my statement did I "snark about the other side's "uninformed activists"." I believe I was questioning Mr. Somerby's logic.

Second, Francis, your one to talk about uniformed activists. "They need a good beat down. It ain't gonna happen until they come runnin' out of their double wides." is as stupidly an ignorant a comment as they come.

Thirdly, anytime you start a argumentative statement with "let's assume", that's a conversation ender for me.

It has always been my belief that there would be this period where the wingnuts would react like horribly, pathologically spoiled brats who've always had their way and suddenly don't, and that is exactly what we're seeing. But I always figured that given a certain amount of time, they'd realize the sky wasn't falling, that Obama's leadership would eventually improve conditions in the country and in their lives, and they would grudgingly come to accept some of the direction we're going. I'm not giving up on this scenario. There are a few tentativel, positive indicators, and I expect more to come.

Funny how the Dixie Chicks became traitors and almost had their careers destroyed for saying negative things about George Bush on foreign soil. But, Chuck Norris can talk openly of insurrection, secession and becoming President of Texas and is seen as a patriot of course. More liberal media bias I guess.

Palinoscopy "4 years is plenty of time to whip rightwingers such as YOURSELF into a frenzy."

A direct response to somerby's post. Who BTW does read this sight.

Second oh noes! I generalized the right wing mob most of the clowns in this post are worried about!

Do you think the wealthy who support the fomentation from the right are gonna come out gunslinging?

Lastly DON'T CALL ME FRANCIS!

I'm not sure I'd describe Bill Clinton as a "center-left" president.

Anyway, Bob Somerby's point is that hostility to Clinton and his agenda (and again to Gore) was not generated solely by self-professed "conservatives" or Fox News. It came from other sources as well, and if you fail to discuss these other sources and their characteristics, then perhaps you don't really "remember the Clinton presidency" (or understand our polity) as well as you think you do.

CDW and others

I totally understand your anxiety and while I do not dispute the reality that there are many individuals who are against this administration and many Americans, I still believe that most support the administration and what is happening in our country. We cannot afford, no matter what the risk, to give the minority knuckle draggers that kind of victory....and I truly believe in the power of YES... what good does it do, if the people who would support YES are too fearful to believe in it?

We cannot know the future or change history. We can know only our own hearts and our own wills. A whole lot good has been done with just that....

Do you ever stop to ask yourself if you actually know what you're typing about? As you write this, of course, you snark about the other side's "uninformed activists."
Posted by: bob somerby

If this is Bob Somerby of the Daily Howler, thanks for reminding me what a sanctimonious prick you are, and why I stopped reading you years ago.

Still no analysis of Obama's Afghan policy or Geithner's relationship to the bankstahs from Steve Benen. just wall to wall factually challenged right wing strawmen.

With three police officers dead in Ohio, you're still wondering why we're wasting our time pointing out that Republicans are deliberately whipping people into a frenzy of fear about the government coming to take their guns away?

Gee, maybe it's the dead bodies laying on the ground that grabbed our attention.

I am turning the comments off on this thread overnight. They will be turned back on in the morning. You guys have no idea what I have unpublished on these threads.

Apologies for any frustration or inconvenience, but even moderators have to sleep sometimes. Freepers, however, seem exempt from this physiological requirement.