07 September 2009

What we're up against (2)

The problem we're confronting with the American right wing is not just a matter of fringe lunatic extremists living in a fantasy world (see post below). It also includes mainstream lunatic extremists living in a fantasy world.

Meet Paul Broun (R-Georgia), a member in good standing of the US House of Representatives.

Shortly after the 2008 election, Broun sounded what has become a recurring right-wing theme -- that the election opens the way to a Communist (or Nazi -- they seem hazy on the difference) take-over. "I'm just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may -- may not, I hope not -- but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism." Of Obama's idea for a civil reserve corps to assist with disaster relief and reconstruc-tion -- an idea also proposed by Bush -- Broun said "That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did.....When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist." And further: "You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I'm not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I'm saying is there is the potential of going down that road" (source).

Broun has said that Obama "has the three things that are necessary to establish an authoritarian government," with those three things being a private army, a ban on gun ownership, and total control of the media (source) -- none of which, in fact, even remotely exists.

Broun declares anthropogenic climate change a "hoax" that has been "perpetrated out of the scientific community" (source). Paul Krugman comments: "I’d call this a crazy conspiracy theory, but doing so would actually be unfair to crazy conspiracy theorists. After all, to believe that global warming is a hoax you have to believe in a vast cabal consisting of thousands of scientists — a cabal so powerful that it has managed to create false records on everything from global temperatures to Arctic sea ice."

Remember, this is not some scruffy crackpot waving a misspelled sign at a rally. This is a Republican Congressman.

(Found via Reconstitution 2.0.)

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

And then you have Michele Bachmann with her kooky ideas, Chuck Grassley with death panels (Newt Gingrich and others agreeing with those), and this guy:

Florida Republican party chairman Jim Greer said he was "absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama's socialist ideology."

He's talking about Obama's planned speech to schoolchildren.

Which makes me completely confused now. Because if telling kids to stay in school, learn and try to get good grades is "socialist ideology," then what's the Republicans' alternative? Dropping out? Would that be non-socialist (and/or capitalist?) enough for these people?

No rhyme or reason. Or rather plenty of crazy reasons.

07 September, 2009 10:06  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

"Socialist ideology" is now anything Obama or Democrats or the left do, or that the right imagines they do. If Obama had pancakes for breakfast, they would find some way of claiming that that was "socialist".

07 September, 2009 10:13  
Blogger Ranch Chimp said...

Nice posting... But what I really want to comment on...is the response here that you gave to Ms.Elizabeth as far as what "Socialist Ideology" is here. I agree with this because frankly...I havent seen nothing coming out of the opposition as far as explaining the opposition and giving a solution to any issue's.All I been seeing is a constant attack on ANYTHING the left proposes...and it's alway's the same garb...that it is a recipe for national doom and gloom. I believe like you said...in the "pancake" point you made.And in this moment of desperation,they will grab anything they can and turn a bitch-fight of mostly woof-ticket's into an actual war. I'll shut up now

Thanx Guy .........

07 September, 2009 16:13  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

RC: I havent seen nothing coming out of the opposition as far as explaining the opposition and giving a solution to any issue's.All I been seeing is a constant attack on ANYTHING the left proposes...

They aren't interested in solving problems. They are only interested in stopping the left from solving them. They've said straight out that they want to "Waterloo" Obama. That's the goal -- to score points, not to achieve anything.

EM: And then you have Michele Bachmann with her kooky ideas,

The craziness of Michele Bachmann cannot be emcompassed or even summarized in one blog post. It's a lunacy beyond all measure or accounting, one which spans all of time and space in its infinite dementia. There needs to be, probably, a whole blog devoted to it.

07 September, 2009 17:00  

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