You know who else liked bicycles? HITLER!!

Reading about the Republicant paranoia on a daily basis really makes me fret for the future of this country.

Then, I read something like this. I encourage everyone to click through to the Sandler's letter. It is truly inspiring.

His whole reasoning is very Beckian. "it will be exposed, it's what they want you to think" etc. On another site a commenter troll said the the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives is connected to the Tides Foundation. These people need help not an elected position.

I think I have slowly began to understand the mindset of right wingers as I get older but the one bugaboo of theirs that I can still never wrap my mind around is their bizarre hatred for all things European. They really seem to believe its some sort of awful hellhole and that bicycle paths are the paved roads to that hell. I mean, life in Holland is just so horrible that we ought to shun anything that even seems like something they would do over there. Its fucking pathological.

Been there, done that.

"This is all very well-disguised, but it will be exposed," Maes told about 50 supporters who showed up at a campaign rally last week in Centennial."

Laugh.Out.Loud.

On a somewhat related note, you know what *I* think threatens our personal freedoms?

Dependence on foreign oil. And oil companies working domestically that half-ass their work in a way that not only decimates the environment, it also spills million of gallons of oil away, thereby INCREASING our dependence on foreign oil.

So if self-sustaining development and increased bike riding eans a DECREASE on foreign oil, then our personal freedoms are threatened less, more money stays in the country instead of a rich Saudi's pocket, everything gets better.

Of course, that's just what I want you to think...come on, take the bait. I dare you.

It must be the dreaded....Glenn Beck Disease (GBD)! They all have it! It's spreading like, well,... like... a disease! So it must be one!! This disease was and it's proliferation were likely well planned and thought out, no doubt, long ago in a dark and musty hide-away by a diabolical communist, socialist, fascist, American-hating, Islamic-loving, godless, liberal-loving pack of no-good heathens out to COMPLETELY DESTROY the American way of life. Oh my God...GBD IS contagious! AHHHH!!

Maybe there is a vast right wing conspiracy aimed at putting Jon Stewart and Stephen Cobert out of business. Or at least to eliminate the writers at those shows.

Unless, that's all part of Hickenlooper's radical plan, and he just wants us to think he wasn't involved in 1992. In reality, he was plotting even then, teaming up with the Illuminati, the Loch Ness Monster, and Bigfoot, working together in some giant pro-bicycle U.N. scheme.

sure, you scoff, but these are the same crafy liberals that thought far enough ahead to put fake birth announcements in the Honolulu papers two generations ahead of when their commie scheme to unlawfully put a Black Marxist Kenyan in the White House would come to fruition. you just can't be too careful with these libs and their nefarious plots!

"I can still never wrap my mind around is their bizarre hatred for all things European"

Add that to their bizarre hatred of gay, blacks, hispanics, middle eastern peoples and I think its fair to say they have a bizarre hatred of everyone except uneducated, bitter, squinty-eyed, red-faced white born and bred (sometimes in-bred) in America bigots.

But it's a threat to our cherished traditions of obesity, couch-potatodom, slavish dependence on our cars to get farther than our front doors, and even more slavish dependence on imported oil. It must be a Commie idea. But wait, does this mean we have to throw Lance Armstrong out of the country?

"he was plotting even then, teaming up with the Illuminati, the Loch Ness Monster, and Bigfoot"

You forgot Colonel Sanders and the Rothschilds.

Bigfoot is well known for needing really big bike paths. I would be pissed too if I lived in a commie city like Denver.

Uh, you don't have to ride a bike if you don't want to. And Hitler gave up his bike when he got his first Mercedes limousine. The amazing part is how these people think others' freedom to act differently somehow threatens theirs. Their slogan has always been "I'm Free -- To Conform." And don't you dare to be different.

Sadly, Richard Hofstadter, whom MattF references and is seen by many liberals as a sage on this kind of stuff, had many of the same qualities, particularly in his analysis of populism. Hofstadter, who seldom got out of New York, never understood the difference between Midwestern Progressive Populists and the sort that birthed the Tea Party, a mistake that's crippled eastern liberal perception of Progressive Populism for years.

New word watch

Copenhagenisation.

Steve - You forget to mention the Pentaverite:

"The Queen, The Vatican, The Gettys, The Rothschilds, *and* Colonel Sanders before he went tits up."

(Mike Meyers, "So I Married an Axe Murderer")

(btw, that's the second time I've been able to use that quote in 24 hours - keep the crazy coming, guys)

- PonB

@NTodd - you got yours in before I could type mine out - great job...

- PonB

You forgot the Tri-Lateral Commission, and the Free Masons.
There are always Free Masons behind every nefarious thing. ALWAYS!!!
Mwaa-haa-haa!!!

Stewart & Colbert are going to have a field day with this one.

I'm looking forward to tonight's shows. :)

Must have been a good lunch, Steve. You really brought the funny on this one!

Dan Maes has the unfortunate task of out-Tancredoing Tom Tancredo. It's the only way he's going to win the GOP nomination.

Don't be too distressed. Hickenlooper's got a lock on this one.

He added, "This is bigger than it looks like on the surface, and it could threaten our personal freedoms."

Also, it could sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids! Somebody get SAC on the red phone!

You can see these people in action, every day on sites like this one: http://www.resistnet.com/forum

I have been trolling there for months, trying to get a sense of what the Birther/Tea Party folks actually say to each other and profess to believe... It's truly terrifying. Many of the posters are simply, well, unhinged. The core fear driving nearly every post is that of a vast liberal conspiracy to destroy America. Nothing more, nothing less. And every news story or re-post of Newsmax tripe is presented as evidence of the conspiracy. It's absolute madness. Welcome to the GOP of 2010.

To make matters worse, Lance Armstrong is, at this moment, on Colorado's capital steps with Gov. Bill Ritter promoting a new bike stage race to be held in Colorado in 2011.

Bike stage racing ... like they have in France ... and you know who beat the French in WWII? Hitler!

(I yearn for the days when this nation will move beyond being a parody of itself.)

"Unless, that's all part of Hickenlooper's radical plan, and he just wants us to think he wasn't involved in 1992."

While he wasn't in politics, in 1992 Hickenlooper was the owner of a brewpub (Wynkoop Brewing Co), and we all know that bicycling makes people thirsty. Clearly he had a motive.

Ever seen pictures of all those bicycle riders in communist China!! Well there ya go.

Interesting that "Maes" is a top selling brand of beer in Belgium, a nation that prides itself on bicycling, and hosts the headquarters of NATO. Really makes you wonder...

I saw this somwhere last week, and wish I could remember where to give proper credit....

2010 - The Year of the Exotic Candidate

Hmmm . . . I guess all of Portland, OR is part of this nefarious plot. Last year we were voted the most bike friendly city in the US. Then again, we're also known for latte sipping, micro-brew swilling, dirty hippies.

For years, especially in the '90s, the right desperately hated the United Nations.

Oh, it goes back waaay further than that. It's a symptom of the Bircher takeover of the GOP. I still remember a Fourth of July parade when I was about twelve, where there was a John Birch Society float featuring a ten-foot-high statue Uncle Sam shaking his fist, with the banner "One Nation Under God -- Not the UN!"

sure, you scoff, but these are the same crafty liberals that thought far enough ahead to put fake birth announcements in the Honolulu papers two generations ahead of when their commie scheme to unlawfully put a Black Marxist Kenyan in the White House would come to fruition. you just can't be too careful with these libs and their nefarious plots!
Posted by: zeitgeist on August 4, 2010 at 1:45 PM

Thank you, Zeitgeist; just what I was thinking myself. And you know what else? Look at the initials of that monstrous organisation that the hick is trying to loop Denver into. ICLEI. And where are you most likely to see a lei? Why, in Hawaii, of course. And who comes to mind when you mention Hawaii? Why, the Kenyan Impostor! Now all is revealed: it's a conspiracy where Hickenlooper is, actually, a minor partner. Mostly, it's an Obama plot to get USA under the One World Rule, so that his citizenship will no longer be in question. Thank goodness for Maes and his sharp eyes (I bet he can even look into Putin's from his back porch. Also).

This isn't just stupid in the "believe anything" sense--it is also stupid in the "trying to get votes" sense. Colorado ranks at the top of bicycling states. By lots of measures. We have the climate for it. Selling and repairing bicycles is big business here, and lots of people bike to work and for fun.

Maes just lost the cyclist vote and Hickenlooper has it made. (Not to mention Tancredo siphoning off the serious loony vote.)

OBAMA MEMO leaked: The New Black Panthers are meeting with Illegal alien anchor babies, and want to hold death panels so they can impose the VAT tax before killing grandma... all of this will be disguised as a Denver bike-athon...

Clicking through the link to the Denver Post story, I note that Hickenlooper caused something of a dustup with auto dealers by declaring that the bike program was essential to "wean ourselves off automobiles." Maes may just be pandering to a deep-pocketed constituency. It reminds me, though, of one event at the so-called Tea Party Convention here in Nashville last February, at which the speaker attacked "smart growth" policies as a conspiracy against the inalienable right to drive an SUV. It went over well with that crowd.

Dan Maes comments give credence to a fellow cyclist's suggestion that The Onion is writing his speeches.

Way back in a 1981 city council campaign in a west coast college town, an arch-conservative candidate argued that the three steps to communism where bike paths, buses and recycling.

I would have hoped that we as a nation have matured since then, but alas....

Mr. Maes completely overlooked another damning piece of information about that spawn of Satan, John Hickenlooper. Mr. Hickenlooper got his start in the Denver business community by opening a brew pub!! Brew pub = beer. Beer = Germany. Germany = Hitler.

I rest my case.

It would all be hysterically funny if the media treat it as the paranoid lunacy that it is, but they most likely won't. It'll circulate through the right-wing blogosphere, and become another piece of the echo chamber that reinforces every mindless utterance by the wing-nut crowd.

Glenn Beck Disease might just be Ayn Randianism on acid. Just a guess. Don't be another victim. Turn off the talk radio and the TV. Get your acid from a deadhead or some other trustworthy source.

These poor, pathetic people, they simply can't adapt to the changing world. Their sky is falling on their heads. The Rockwellian Utopia of The Beaver and Doby Gillis (as if it ever existed) is gone forever.

It would be sad if it weren't so dangerous.

The Rockwellian Utopia of The Beaver. . .

Except the Beav rode a bike!

Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream.

Call yourselves liberal conspirators, do you? Not a single mention of the Spanish Inquisition, the Federal Reserve, OR the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"? I mean, really, those three are de riguer! They provide ANY conspiracy with that full, well-rounded sense of fanaticism true connoiseurs recognize?

I meant "require." Not, "recognize?" Sheesh.

I've had my suspicions but until I think this thing through, I'm leaving my commuter bike in the garage instead of the house.

From wikipedia article on a certain former 5 term Vermont governor:

In 1980, Dean spearheaded a grassroots campaign to stop a condominium development on Lake Champlain, instead favoring the construction of a bicycle trail. The effort succeeded, and helped launch his political career

Maybe Maes isn't scared of the power of bicycle path advocates because of conspiracy theories?

And you wonder why Tancredo got in the race?