{"id":5225,"date":"2009-08-09T09:28:18","date_gmt":"2009-08-09T14:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=5225"},"modified":"2009-08-09T09:36:58","modified_gmt":"2009-08-09T14:36:58","slug":"people-derangement-syndrome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=5225","title":{"rendered":"People Derangement Syndrome"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twelve years ago, Clinton Derangement Syndrone swept many reaches of the American right.\u00a0 Fringe-y conservative pundits claimed Clinton had done everything from murdering Vince Foster to giving prisoners AIDS-tainted blood to (I’m getting a little foggy on the story) make money from the hike in blood prices (?).<\/p>\n

Over the past eight or so years, the debt was repaid with loan-shark interest; Bush Derangement Syndrome (he brought down the Twin Towers, doncha know) spawned at least two broadast radio networks and most of MSNBC’s current lineup.<\/p>\n

But this pathology is evolving into an uglier, more virulent pathology.\u00a0 Because while distrusting the government is normal (and to a certain degree healthy), when the government and its attendant “elites” start assuming the people are some sort of mass of depraved animals, it’s a very bad thing.<\/p>\n

Paul Krugman, Nobel prize winner, is shocked – shocked <\/em>– that people are upset about Obamacare.<\/p>\n

And he just can’t find a historical precedent <\/em>for the anger he thinks he’s seeing:<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a far cry from what has been happening at recent town halls, where angry protesters \u2014 some of them, with no apparent sense of irony, shouting \u201cThis is America!\u201d \u2014 have been drowning out, and in some cases threatening, members of Congress trying to talk about health reform.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Because members of Congress, especially those who support Obama, just can’t get heard<\/em> in this day and age, can they?)<\/p>\n

Some commentators have tried to play down the mob aspect of these scenes, likening the campaign against health reform to the campaign against Social Security privatization back in 2005. But there\u2019s no comparison. I\u2019ve gone through many news reports from 2005, and while anti-privatization activists were sometimes raucous and rude, I can\u2019t find any examples of congressmen shouted down, congressmen hanged in effigy, congressmen surrounded and followed by taunting crowds.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And, Paul Krugman, you can’t find any examples of union goons beating up dissenters in 2005, either, can you?<\/p>\n

What possible <\/em>difference is there between now and then?\u00a0 Between the Social Security debate and Obamacare? I’ll let you take a moment and turn that keen, Princeton-trained mind on solving that little riddle as we move on?<\/p>\n

And I can\u2019t find any counterpart to the death threats at least one congressman has received.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Paul Krugman:\u00a0 you seriously claim you can’t find any <\/em>expression of anger in the past, say, eight and a half years<\/em>, any expression of rage that overtopped the banks of sanity<\/a>?<\/p>\n

OK – that’s two jobs for that keen, Nobel-prize-winning intellect to tackle.<\/p>\n

We’ll take a detour through crummy journalism…:<\/p>\n

So this is something new and ugly. What\u2019s behind it?<\/p>\n

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, has compared the scenes at health care town halls to the \u201cBrooks Brothers riot\u201d in 2000 \u2014 the demonstration that disrupted the vote count in Miami and arguably helped send George W. Bush to the White House. Portrayed at the time as local protesters, many of the rioters were actually G.O.P. staffers flown in from Washington.<\/p>\n

But Mr. Gibbs is probably only half right. Yes, well-heeled interest groups are helping to organize the town hall mobs. Key organizers include two Astroturf (fake grass-roots) organizations: FreedomWorks, run by the former House majority leader Dick Armey, and a new organization called Conservatives for Patients\u2019 Rights.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…because goodness knows a movement like Krugman’s, which depends on MoveOn.org, ACORN, the NEA and the SEIU to get crowds out for events can’t stand <\/em>the thought of political action groups actually…organizing politics<\/em>!<\/p>\n

But with that out of the way, let’s move on to the casual class defamation:<\/p>\n

That is, the driving force behind the town hall mobs is probably the same cultural and racial anxiety that\u2019s behind the \u201cbirther\u201d movement, which denies Mr. Obama\u2019s citizenship. Senator Dick Durbin has suggested that the birthers and the health care protesters are one and the same; we don\u2019t know how many of the protesters are birthers, but it wouldn\u2019t be surprising if it\u2019s a substantial fraction.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Michael Savage told me that the only way Paul Krugman could win a Nobel Prize was by providing sexual favors to Nobel committee members. I think he just might be right.<\/p>\n

“Wow”, you might say – “That’s defamatory”.<\/p>\n

It would be, if I meant it.\u00a0 It’d take a bit of scabrous (and in this case fictional) libel from a “source” whose only motivation is hatred for Paul Krugman, and waters it down with just enough weasel words (“he just might be right”) to give myself some ethical wiggle room.
\nSo let’s unpack Krugman’s last paragraph – which is easily the most cynical, stupid paragraph I have ever <\/em>read in the Old, Gray, Increasingly Demented Lady.<\/p>\n