Year Of The Conspiracy Theorist

In Part IV of my "best of the year/decade" series, we take a look at how the conservative movement embraced conspiracy theory as fact and made not only a laughing-stock of themselves, but somehow managed to take away the mantle of "lunatic-fringe" from the likes of Alex Jones.

1 - Orly Taitz


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Since she burst onto the scene, I've often asked myself how someone so completely unglued from the fabric of reality is not only allowed to practice law but has the mental capacity to do so. It is, for that same reason, the many of the members of the tea-bagger movement are seen as just as crazy and ill-informed as she is, considering they cite her claims as fact.

But it isn't just Taitz or the tea-baggers that continually espouse this assertion that Obama was not born in the US. Rush Limbaugh, one of the leaders of the conservative movement, gives voice to this inane prattling:

2 - Obama is the Anti-Christ



Conspiracy theories that involve the Bible and politicians are not new in the least. I can still remember people insisting that Reagan was the Anti-Christ because of the numerical value of his name.

Many cite the fact that this has some relative truth to it simply because it comes from the Bible. However, there are many passages within the Bible that are so vague, so lacking in context, that they could mean anything. After all, the entire book of Revelations was allegedly written by a man marooned on an island and was hallucinating.

3 - Obama is a Muslim



This has got to be one of the most crystal-clear examples of how racism and xenophobia were part of the campaign against Barack Obama and not just used as conspiracy theory. Also, it is the video above - actually the 13 second sarcastic response to the allegation - that birthers and religious paranoid delusional reference as a "confession" that Obama is in fact a Muslim.

4 - Beck's Communist Art Project



Of all the conspiracy theories that Beck puts forward on literally a nightly basis, this one has got to be one that has got to be one of his best. And by that, I mean his craziest. Well, the FEMA concentration camps were a good one, but he back-peddled on that one while he was trying to pass it off as fact - he just didn't have the courage at the time to listen to the voices in his head like with the art one.

Keith Olbermann had a nice response to this, I thought:



5 - Census workers are coming for you



This bit of conservative paranoia was brought to us from someone whom is almost as crazy as Orly Taitz and somehow managed to get elected to Congress.

In this one, we get a two-fer. Beck and Bachmann, in the initial throws of the "warn on ACORN", claim that they have control over the 2010 Census and that within the form there is information that will be used against you - perhaps placing you into one of Beck's FEMA camps.

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Conspiracy theory within the Republican party and it's voters has become the new fact, just as the fringe-conservative has become the traditional conservative. Not in my lifetime has a group of people been so willing to insist that their very freedoms, their liberties, and life own lives are in danger. And while some will cite the theories behind Sept. 11th and many actions that George W. Bush took during his two terms as President, those were never embraced as fact the way that conservatives are reacting now to Barack Obama.

Yes, the "Truther" movement was most certainly anti-Bush, it was - and continues to be - roundly rejected by liberals/progressives within the Democratic party. Aside from that, there were really no conspiratorial movements on the Democratic side, or at least none that were given such a monumental platform as those espoused by the modern conservative movement.

Some Thoughts For Your Morning

- Glenn Beck's inability to seperate the fantasy from the reality the remainder of American live in is growing to near synesthetic proportions. His stance against volunteering, helping your community in a variety of ways, is grounded in some bizarre notion that volunteering is a communist tactic. He later goes on, in his standard "six-degrees-of-seperation" way, that Hollywood, the White House, and NBC Universal are all conspiring to do something bad to America.

- To actually know that some people actually use Drudge as their primary news source every morning, my thoughts on it have gone from "these people are just down-right silly" to "jesus-harld-ramis-christ, these people are fucked in the brain-pan". The Right's favorite hype artist had a new mashup message when it was released to the Obama administration would not seek the arrest of people who follow state laws in relation to the use of medical marijuana. While the headline was quite vague if you didn't already know what was going on, it was the photo that was used in conjunction that would likely have caused loyal Drudge-ites to assumed that Obama was hoping to target kids.

- With a plurality of Americans supporting a public-option in healthcare reform ( a fact that has not changed since reform was placed back on the table ) why is it that pollsters such as Rassmussen continually tout as fact the complete opposite?

- And finally, have you ever noticed anything strange about the polls that Fox"News" creates?

The Face Of Indoctrination

I came across this pic at Bob Cesca's blog and several questions popped into my head.



This kid, who doesn't appear to be one hopeful chest-hair more than 11 or 12, likely knows nothing about Racism, Communism, or McCarthyism, or even the political process other than what he hears about from this own family. But, there are several things that we can postulate from this pic alone.

The dog-tags likely belong to his father. Could he be another pseudo-radicalized member of the military that we have seen pop up in sporadic frequency over the past 9 months? Is this boy subjected to racist rantings at the dinner-table fueled by cheap whiskey and personal failures? However, the boys appearance leads me to believe that he isn't from a lower-income home. He appears to be well taken care of, and his mother or father seem to have enough money to throw away on a trip to DC and right-wing fringe coture.

However, even at that age, aside from hearing the inane ramblings of his parents, he is likely smart enough to do a little research on his own. Is he afraid to, or has he become so steeped in abject ignorance that he is numb to it all now? With the ever elevating technical abilities of America's youth and their ability to use the internet better than most adults 2 and 3 times their age, one would have to wonder how a kid this age even believes one putrid ounce of what his family apparently believes in.

The Beckian Code

Glenn Beck's conspiratorial nature has been getting the best of him since he came into the employ of Fox"News". From allegedly uncovering the secrets behind some of America's former presidents to elevating Jonah Goldberg's laughably flacid thesis in Liberal Fascism to the status of Pulitzer worthy research material, Beck has slapped a label on any and everything he perceives as "evil".

But now, he's entering into a whole new world.



I'm beginning to wonder if Dan Brown can file suit against Beck for stealing intellectual property.

Beck isn't pleased with simply diving headlong into the shallow end of the pool, he's bound and determined to create this elaborate web of lunacy that is a hybrid of the films National Treasure and The Divinci Code. The only question that remains is what does Beck think he's going to uncover once all of his imagined clues has been followed?

So Helping Children Is A Step Toward Communism?

Oh, and regulating the banks and their executives that have recieved federeal "bailout" money is bad too.



Well, if you're Glenn Beck, this all makes sense. Everyone else is forced to try and understand such ham-fisted and headache inducing logic:

Beck: Hey, has anybody noticed this crazy thing that we're on the road to socialism? I'm just sayin' -- wow, we got that SCHIPs thing goin' for us -- that's great, there's the change that we were all hoping for, seriously.

Hey, I got an idea, if we're gonna go down the road to socialism, I mean, why not really go for it, hah?

[Graphic shows road from "Capitalism" to "Socialism" to "Communism"]

Comrades! Good news from the Western Front! Our glorious revolution is starting to take hold. Oh, the revolution of Change. Our fearless leader has just signed in SCHIPs, and earlier today, he spoke out against capitalism. Listen up:

More here from David Neiwert at Crooks And Liars.

I'm starting to think that Beck is trying too hard.

I mean, if your first show on Fox"News" is just as crazy as what O'Reilly and Hannity have to offer, then that means that their crazy is going to have to be amplified exponentially in order to compensate for the "new crazy". Before you know it, O'Reilly is going to start telling his viewers to give up individual liberties and rights in order to be "safe".

Oh, wait. That already happened.

Predictability : Michelle Malkin Whines About NBC And The Olympics

I had thought about prefacing this blog with the phrase "if someone at NBC had come up with the cure for cancer, Michelle Malkin would find a way to bitch about it".

But seeing as how it is the conservatives that tend to live in the "what if" world rather than the one that most people inhabit, I'll skip that and get right to the point.

Michelle Malkin - as well as those that follower her as if she has some hypnotic musk or perhaps a tractor-beam emanating from her evry orafice - seems to think that NBC is "supporting" or "glossing over" the fact that China is a "communist" nation.

True, China is censoring the internet, certain members of the press have been detained, people were removed, dust-masks were seen as insults, and some are even claiming that Bejing is becoming a massive police-state for this years events.

If Bejing were a dangerous place to hold the games, the IOC would most likely have not chosen it, don't you think?

But, the Olympics are about a coming-together of nations where a sort-of common ground can be shared and the spirit of competitiveness and sportsmanship is shared and learned from.

I'm opting not to watch the Olympics this year simply because I've lost interest in them.

True, as a former competitive swimmer, I'm hoping that Micheal Phelps gets all 8 golds that he is striving for, but I'm not going to watch - no other reason than I just don't feel like it.

Enter "The Pursed-Lipped-One", Michelle Malkin.

Malkin needs - no DEMANDS - that you have a reason that you are watching the Olympics, demands that you rationalize your reasoning of "supporting" NBC. She demands that NBC fall into lock-step with her and her followers. She ( and a few others ) seem to think that NBC is somehow "glossing over" the fact that the games are being held in China.

So, what do Malkin and her fellow compatriots do? They do what they always do - complain without offering a reasonable solution and ( their favorite tactic ) using Photoshop.

Seriously, if your ability to proficiently execute all the options available through Photoshop somehow made you a respectable and praise-worthy blogger, then Malkin and her reactionary-minions might be something to marvel at.

The truth is, it doesn't and she's not.

You're not going to hear about other protests, other activists' voices quoted, other's statements of disapproval echoed by Malkin unless she has "approval" of them alread. Why would the woman want to talk about anything that she didn't think of to begin with.

This whole "China-Bad-NBC-Bad-Malkin-Smash" schtick brings up an interesting point.

Why is it that so many people wait for a "world-event" to talk about things like nations censoring their citizens, governments removing any form of civil liberties, segregation, genocide, et al?

The reason is, to me at least, it gives them ( Malkin in particular ) the false-glow of "awareness".

You see, we like to admire people who pretend to know what they are talking about.

I'll be up front and tell you that I am ignorant about many things that I should know plenty about. But I learn. I read. I listen. I rationalize. I process and make informed, reasonable, logical decisions.

If there's one thing that I know of, one thing that I can say unequivocally, it is that Malkin has never supplied a "solution" to anything.