How to Tell If You May Be a Tea Party Whacko

Lately I’ve been troubled about how to define the Tea Party people.  They seem to come from all over the map. It is claimed some are Democrats (Polls show 5%).  A very many are conservative Republicans, and Libertarians to be sure, and many seem to come from radicalized fringe groups like militias and white supremacists.

From the hodgepodge of misspelled and mis-punctuated signs they like to wave about, it is fairly obvious many Tea Partiers are borderline illiterates.  Some seem to be way over the border in fact. And, many Tea Partiers seem to be otherwise normal people who have been mobilized from the complacent, self-satisfied comfort of their sofas and arm chairs to attend the meetings.   There they worship their intellectually challenged heros like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin who are the ones who mobilized them in the first place.

After a good bit of though I have discerned many commonalities which help describe the disparate group of people who call themselves Tea Partiers.   It was simply a matter of sitting down and giving the issue sufficient thought.  I am sharing my conclusions with everyone in the hopes it will help those who may suspect they may be whackos themselves to draw their own conclusions.  Shown below is my ‘calculator’ which will help you decide.  Simply enter an ‘X’ or checkmark in the boxes for the characteristics which describe you, then total the number of marks you make.  A convenient scoring index at the bottom will help you decide for sure:

(Double-click on the chart below to expand)

The 'Soul' of the Republican Party

In other posts I have mentioned the seemingly inexorable trend towards the destruction of the Republican Party.  I have said it almost seems like some evil plot by enemies of the party.  Perhaps that is so,  but I can not find any real evidence of  that.

Instead, it seems more like some ugly political suicide at the behest of the neoconservative far-right wing of the party, holding a gun on everyone else in the party.  The neoconservatives' implacably insist on their own brands of perverted dogma, 'nothing else, and nothing less, so help us God'.   The result is a radical shift far right which other factions of the party seem powerless to resist.   Core values and principles are abandoned wholesale and left bleeding by the side of the road.  Whenever any group so abdicates its core principles and its abrogates values to the prejudices of lowest common denominators, how can you not expect damage or destruction of the party? 

Many neoconservatives believe and say the 'soul of the Republican Party' today is represented by, among others,   popular talk show personalities Sean Hannity,  Bill O'Reilly,  Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.  These figures broadcast through either Fox News or Clear Channel Communications, and often both.  Three of them (Hannity, O'Reilly, Beck) are catholic, or ex-Catholic in the case of Beck who has now converted to Mormonism.   I mention this because it seems to a trait among Catholics towards strictness and obedience to 'doctrinal truths'.  Extreme examples are the infamous 'inquisitions' during Medieval times in the 13th centry and the Roman, Spanish and Portugeuse inquisitions supremacy during the 16th century.

Between the four of them, Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh and O'Reilly, only one finished college (O'Reilly) with the others having dropped out early in their 'educational careers'.  At least two are or have been confirmed drug addicts (Beck, Limbaugh).   Beck has been accused of rape.  O'Reilly has been sued for sexual harrasment with the suit being settled out of court, reportedly for millions of dollars.

These people freely and deliberately engage in outrageous claims and flaming rhetoric, the more outrageous and sensational the better.  This seems hugely attractive to the lower educated classes in the country, many of whom accept their claims as gospel while disregarding realities.  There are strong anti-elite, anti-intellectual and anti-progressive currents running through all their broadcasts.  Due to their popularity among the rank and file who call themselves conservatives, Beck and Limbaugh are now the most highly paid people in broadcast media today, with a following of millions of Americans.

Since the repeal of the FCC's 'Fairness Doctrine' by President Reagan, social and political issues have become polarized  into opposite partisan camps, as a result of the influence of broadcast media on those who follow them.  Before its repeal, the Fairness Doctrine compelled broadcast media to offer the opportunity to present contrasting or opposing viewpoints.  The Supreme Court upheld its legality. However, it was an FCC rule and not mandated by legislation although Congress. 

Unfortunately for the Republican Party,  their media wing now seems to captured by special interest groups and dominated by the Fox Broadcasting and Clear Channel Communications.  Each of these entities have their own agendas, neither of which is necessarily aligned with the interests of the American people, although they both stridently claim to do so.

Fox Broadcasting is owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.   Murdoch hired Roger Ailes to create the Fox News Channel which he now runs and which is now the preeminent cable news channel in the country. 

Ailes was the media consultant for Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and Rudy Guiliani.  His specialty is political sensationalization.  He is the author of the  'Orchestra Pit Theory", saying:  "If you have two guys on stage and one guys says, 'I have a solution to the Middle East problem', and the other guy falls into the orchestra pit, who do you think is going to be on the evening news?"

Clear Channel Communications owns over 1200 radio broadcast stations throughout the US, and dominates in many regions being the only stations available.  Their board of directors is headed by wealthy far-right neoconservatives, largely from Texas or Oklahoma.  At least one director (John H. Williams) is a member of the infamous Bohemian Club of San Francisco.

Oh yes, it is clear some decidedly slanted 'reporting' is going on here.   Much of it is duplicitous, deceitful, and created opinion masquerading as truth and reality and has swayed elections.  It is neither reality nor truth.  Americans are being deceived and the credibility of Republicans is being destroyed. 

Will the so-called 'Soul of the Republican Party' ultimately destroy the party?

THE WINGNUT OLYMPICS

The Wingnut Olympics were held Bayou la Batre, Alabama last week.

The 'Birthers' came out of the gate strongly with strident claims that Barrack Obama was not born in the US of A. They trotted out all sorts of manufactured 'evidence' and theories to 'prove' their case. But, they were ruled out on a 'lunacy' technicality when a Birther fringe element laid out a case that, in fact, not only was Obama not even born in the country, but not on the planet Earth. Their contention was that Obama was a 'droid' manufactured on the as yet undiscovered planet "Sublime" by a socialist race with communistic tendencies.

Supposedly, and according to the Birthers, the obama droid was 'inserted' into the mainstream 'milieu' and programmed to gain traction in Chicago, Illinois. Why Chicago should be chosen was beyond anyone's comprehension - hence the lunacy disqualification.

The fundamentalist Christian faction, always strong contenders, went out to an early lead which they stubbornly, if absurdly, defended throughout most of the entire event. Led by Sarah Palin in partnership with James Dobson, they attempted to perform 'de facto exorcisms' via telekinesis of Obama, Sonia Sotomayor and Tinky Winky of Teletubbie fame.


When this failed, Palin volunteered herself as a subject in a desperate attempt to hold onto the lead. And, in fact, several demons WERE successfully exorcised from Palin, but several even more heinous ones were not. The voo-doo priest who performed the exorcism then took his own life by 'self-will' on the stage in front of thousands of excited fans, some of whom were actually splattered by chicken blood. As a result of that, the entire attempt was deemed a fraud and a failure by the judges.

But, no matter. The judges were immediately overruled by the very Reverend Pat Robertson who opined, "Hey, if I can make God steer hurricanes, why can't I overrule a few corporeal judges? But Robertson himself was then distracted by some peculiarly nasty controversies concerning the abysmal treatment of workers at one of his diamond mines in Africa, and lost control of the situation. The judges ultimately prevailed and ruled the fundamentalists out. The fundamentalists stomped out of the event, but not before angrily dynamiting the administration building and torching a number of the judges.

"Peace on Earth and good will to men.' n'est pas?

But the real heroes of the event were the Flat Earthers and the Global Warming Deniers, who although small in number, displayed a strength far beyond their apparent capacity. Buoyed by massive infusions of cash from their multi-national oil company sponsors, they were a force to contend with throughout.

The FE's and the GWD's were themselves strongly aided by the anti-abortion crowd, who threw a wild care in the event with their claims that human life begins at very first thought of any sexual thought by the male of the species. Although wags like to call this the 'Horny Toad Conundrum', the judges seemed to give the idea a lot of credence.

It was only when the Pentecostal Snake Handlers crowd began wholesale lobbying for the 'Right to Life' for unborn snakes 'even before the egg' that the judges realized their error and reversed themselves.

The gold medal winners turned out to be 'Cynical Corporate Masters', as if there ever were really any doubt. These cynical, behind-the-scenes manipulators of the intellectually challenged, controlled everyone else through the medium of Fox news and corporate shills such as Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly. Most of the above contenders coincidentally, already qualify on the intellectually challenged account. As a result the CCM's ruled the event, and laughed hilariously all the way to the bank afterwards.

The American Media and the US Crusade Against Gog and Magog

Did you know that US president George W. Bush viewed the war in Iraq as a mission from God to combat Gog and Magog? Well, neither did I, but apparently that is true, according to an article by editor James A. Haught of the Charleston, WVA Gazette.

Bush actually called French premier Jacques Chirac by telephone in early 2003 and told him: "Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East. ... The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled. ... This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a New Age begins."

Sounds a lot like Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson, doesn't it? And, Bush must have had a direct link with the God of Christianity to be able to tell Chirac what God wanted . . .

Haught's newspaper is the only US paper to publish this astounding bit of news - until the Juneau Empire in Alaska republished it today. The Toronto Star in Canada is the only other paper in the western hemisphere to report it. Why? Apparently other media, if they even knew about it, found the story to be too incredible to believe.

I am coming to believe that the American media today is too fearful to seriously challenge the bizarros from the right. I can't explain it any other way. True, you do have a few like Jon Stewart who try to throw a spotlight on the incredible dementia which seems to be proliferating. But his brand of journalism is commonly viewed as 'comedy' - albeit closer to the truth than almost anything else out there.

Gene Lyons of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist writes about Ann Coulter's book: ""Slander," I once noted that "the 'liberal' sins (she) caricatures -- atheism, cosmopolitanism, sexual license, moral relativism, communism, disloyalty and treason -- are basically identical to the crimes of the Jews as Hitler saw them.""

The real tragicomedy is the craziness emanating from those who otherwise might seem to be fairly normal people - until they open their mouths to spew their brand of political invective, hate, hyperbole and falsehoods. With no apologies mind you. You see Sarah Palin declaiming about 'Death Panels', and the incessant nonsense Fox News puts out under their brand of 'journalism'. Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity are nothing but shills for right wing extremism and corportocracy. One has to wonder what the powers that be behind all this hope to gain in the end. A 'New Republic"? A "Fifth Reich"?

The danger to all of us is the constant stream of deceitful propaganda directed at the 'already convinced' which motivates some of the more extreme elements to violence and ever more craziness. Some of their comments in the blogosphere border on insanity. They seem to prefer to believe the shrill, self-serving doctrinal lies over bothering to actually check facts for themselves.

Our situation today is eerily similar to Germany's just prior to the Nazi takeover in the early 'thirties.