The Phantom Menace, Part II: Paranoia, Brain Destroyer
By Mitch Berg
PRE-POST NOTE: I actually wrote this series last week, when the “annoying trickle” of pointless,mindless, baseless slander of conservatives was pretty much background noise.
Of course, since I wrote the first three parts of the series, Janet Napolitano’s Department of Homeland Security – which would seem to have become completely politicized in the past three months – has essentially declared all conservative thought and dissent (not to mention military service) as probable cause for government suspicion.
My friend and radio colleague John Hinderaker at Power Line, shreds this report in one of the essential fiskings in recent blog history; I’m sure it’s just the beginning.
But the extent of the defamation of all conservative thought in this country goes way beyond a witless bureaucrat and her minions, and won’t end in the unlikely event Napolitano is fired in the disgrace she deserves.
My timing, sadly, could not be better. Or worse, depending on your point of view.
———-
As I noted yesterday – the usual annoying trickle of leftybloggers and “alternative” media types grasping onto examples of bad behavior by conservatives or (more usually) inflating off-handed remarks into “evidence” and outright mangling of context has turned into a babbling runoff-swollen brook of cultural defamation.
Few brooks babble more than local leftyblog icon Mark Gisleson, who wrote last week:
On Sunday’s The UpTake live news show [no archive available], host Tom Elko’s conservative blogger guest Mitch Berg turned to the camera and implored his 2nd Amendment buddies to not get crazy. No clue if JammieWearingFool listens to Mitch’s radio show or reads his blog.
Now, haven’t seen the video of the Uptake appearance – if there’s anything I hate more than listening to my voice, it’s seeing myself on TV – but I’m pretty sure the subject was the nutcase in Pittsburgh who shot the three cops, due to (he and the media claimed) his fear of Obama’s anti-gun proposals. Now, despite that fact that most of us Second Amendment/Human Rights activists deal with this by joining the NRA (and you’ll note that there have not been four million of these incidents), I was urging fellow human rights activists to not panic; we’ve beaten back worse than this, and done it not only by civil means, but means we can be proud of a civil Americans.
It’s hilarious, of course – this is the same Mark Gisleson who five years ago earned undying infamy for pining for armed revolution, in the Twin Cities’ Reader’s late, unlamented “Babelogue” (whose archives have perhaps mercifully gurgled down the memory hole):
In my heart, I still believe in revolution. In my heart, I still think I have the ‘nads to put my life on the line for a cause. In my gut I think this is the only way we’ll ever achieve our goals of economic and social justice. But in my head, I want to win the next election so we don’t have to have a revolution.
…and who’s boasted about a purported past as a “labor goon”, has suddenly gotten the vapors over the odd bit of (let’s take him at his word, by which I mean “humor the delusion”) borderline-militant rhetoric.
Vapor-y enough to refer us to…:
And TBogg has more on the eliminationist Right.
Ah. TBogg. Well, if TBogg says it, it’s…
…well, it’s someone else’s talking point, only lobotomized. TBogg is the ultimate metastasization of the anonymous leftyblogger; intellectually vacuous, given to broad sweeps of cultural group slander (while shielded from accountability by his precious anonymity) and waves of nasty, petulant, juvenile snarkiness, and…
…well, pretty much everything that the local anonymous leftyblog community aspires to.
But is the right “eliminationist?” Wow. That’s a word you don’t see every day; Daniel Goldhagen used the term “eliminationist anti-semitism” to describe the German people before and during WWII – but he took a whole book to do it, in which me laid out a case that German society had in it a long tradition of a desire to, y’know, kill Jews.
So since it’s such a big word, curiousity triumphed over experience. I read “TBogg”, wondering as to the “evidence” of the “eliminationist right” that apparently lurks outside the gates of our civilization.
Read it if you feel compelled to do so; it tries to link the story of James Adkisson, the deranged Knoxville man who, let it be known, really really did hate liberals (WARNING! PDF FILE! GIVE UP ALL HOPE OF USABILITY OR PERFORMANCE!), and followed up on that hatred by killing two people at a Unitarian Universalist church.
Mr. Bogg (and the various leftybloggers who are his only real sources) ties Adkisson to Timothy McVeigh, which is trite and facile but not uttelry inaccurate, and thence to “Right-wing hate radio”, the diabolical cabal of Limbaugh/Hannity/Bernard Goldberg (?), who we are assured are really behind it all.
And there, in the bleatings of a gutless anonymous blogger and his dotzy fanboy in Saint Paul and of a thousand similar intellectual copulations, is the nucleus of the real story; the left wants you, and the population at large, to make the following leap:
Conservative dissent leads to murder.
More tomorrow.
EPILOGUE: Again – I wrote the above late last Friday. I’ll write more about Secretary Napolitano’s slander on Friday.
April 15th, 2009 at 8:10 am
Of course, since I wrote the first three parts of the series, Janet Napolitano’s Department of Homeland Security – which would seem to have become completely politicized in the past three months – has essentially declared all conservative thought and dissent (not to mention military service) as probable cause for government suspicion.
First, nonsense.
Second, so you’re saying things have improved vis a vis what it was under Bush, when groups from the Audubon Society to labor unions were infiltrated to see if they had seditious leanings, right?
Funny how liberty only matters when it’s your liberties at risk.
April 15th, 2009 at 8:24 am
Why do I get this sudden urge to pop a cap?
April 15th, 2009 at 8:26 am
Don’t worry, heavily armed right wing kooks. The administration is only worried about *violent* heavily armed right wing kooks. You’re all safe, until you do something wacky like lock yourself and your children in a compound filled with explosives and antitank weapons. Or start threatening local tax collectors and abortion doctors.
April 15th, 2009 at 9:20 am
Well, Pen and AC you should know that Charles at LGF agree with you. I personally continue to believe what I was told, that dissent is patriotic.
Go ahead ridicule and marginalize those who disagree with you, it only lets us know we are making a salient point.
April 15th, 2009 at 10:10 am
The administration is only worried about *violent* heavily armed right wing kooks.
Yeah. Like anti-abortion protesters. And outspoken tax activists. and returning veterans. And the American Legion.
No, Clown, what this means is that dissent, suddenly, is not patriotic. It is probable cause.
Pen,
Second, so you’re saying things have improved vis a vis what it was under Bush, when groups from the Audubon Society to labor unions were infiltrated to see if they had seditious leanings, right?
Not sure where you’re getting that from. But there’s a difference between investigating specific crimes, allegations and charges (and I’d love to see any evidence of the Feds doing anything of the sort under Bush, but I know I won’t) and declaring a blanket suspicion of all dissent, real or imagined.
Funny how liberty only matters when it’s your liberties at risk.
No, Pen, I have a pretty solid record of standing up for EVERYONE’s liberties.
April 15th, 2009 at 10:13 am
AC, or have St Paul city council members working with terrorists to bring them to town to kill Republicans.
April 15th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Pen (and, probably, Clown):
The Bush Administration impeded not one single civil right from one single American citizen in eight years.
In three months, Obama’s administration and Congressional support have proposed gutting the First, Second and Tenth Amendments, and are actively trying to stigmatize all dissent (as well as tripling the already-scandalous Bush deficits).
There is no defense for this. None.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Is that the Mark Gisleason that loves to fantisize about violent attacks by crazed union thugs?
The same Mark Gisleason whose inability to restrain himself earned him a well placed bitch slap?
You mean that Mark Gisleason?
Pffft.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:07 am
chickenlittlewagon said: “AC, or have St Paul city council members working with terrorists to bring them to town to kill Republicans.”
Oh dear, the carnage, the Republican corpses piled in the street during the convention! Why those lovebirds Levi and Bristol hardly got a chance to have a decent engagement party!
April 15th, 2009 at 11:47 am
“There’s a chill wind blowing across America.” – Tim Robbins speaking to the National Press Club, circa 2002
April 15th, 2009 at 11:51 am
vchickenlittlewagon
Says the guy who sees “armed wingnuts” behind every tree west of the Ramapo mountains? The one who is proud of voting for an administration that is officially saying, now, that dissent is NOT patriotic?
Waaah.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:58 am
Peev and AssClown either want to abolish the 1st & 10th Amendments or they just can’t comprehend the constitution and our republic form of government.
“A republic, if you can keep it.”
April 15th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
It is amazing the lengths AssClown, Peev, Flush, et al will go through to support the actions of the Obama Administration/Oligarchy.
Liberal Fascist tools, indeed.
Hey AssClown, were they able to get you special huge jackboots to go with that brown shirt?
April 15th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Godwin invoked! Yay!
April 15th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
I’m so frightened of Janet Napolitano!
April 15th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
I’m so frightened of Janet Napolitano!
Says the guy (and by extension, the movement) that soiled themselves when John Ashcroft was selected AG…
…and proceeded to do nothing to anyone.
April 15th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Again, maybe you can find some evidence to support your point, Mitch. You run the blog – seems to me you wouldn’t have any problem searching the archives for such a thing.
April 15th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
It would be more appropriate, AC, to ask Napolitano to produce some evidence to support her point. The report is pure specualtion, no specific groups, individuals, or numbers are cited.
We’ve seen this before — the American Right declares war on America’s enemies abroad, the American Left declares war on the American Right at home.
April 15th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
The size 27DDDD jackboots is enough evidence.
April 15th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Reno, Napolitano…it’s Janets you right-wing kooks fear!
April 16th, 2009 at 2:40 am
Actually I think it was those little kids at Waco that had to fear Janet Reno. What a strange person. Never married, no kids, yet obsessed with taking on the role of defender of children. Ironic that she would end up voluntarily taking responsibility for killing so many of them. Another affirmative action pick, another example of the psychosis that lies at the heart of progressivism.
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