Current illogical fears, spiraling passions lead to ...

If anyone needs tangible proof about what I've said for quite some time on where the current wave of frenzied and irrational rhetoric might lead us, here it is:

Associated Press Writers= DETROIT (AP) — Nine alleged members of a Christian militia group that was girding for battle with the Antichrist were charged Monday with plotting to kill a police officer and slaughter scores more by bombing the funeral — all in hopes of touching off an uprising against the U.S. government.

...

The arrests have dealt "a severe blow to a dangerous organization that today stands accused of conspiring to levy war against the United States," Attorney General Eric Holder said.

Authorities said the arrests underscored the dangers of homegrown right-wing extremism of the sort seen in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people.

...

David Brian Stone, 44, of Clayton, Mich., and one of his sons were identified as the ringleaders of the group. Stone, who was known as "Captain Hutaree," organized the group in paramilitary fashion and members were assigned secret names, prosecutors said. Ranks ranged from "radoks" to "gunners," according to the group's Web site.

"It started out as a Christian thing," Stone's ex-wife, Donna Stone, told The Associated Press. "You go to church. You pray. You take care of your family. I think David started to take it a little too far."

And this was "Christian" right-wing outfit, no less.

Indeed, Frank Rich with The New York Times recently touched on some of this "rage," in describing the heated fervor over this politically moderate, Mitt Romney clone of a health care bill:

Yet it’s this bill that inspired G.O.P. congressmen on the House floor to egg on disruptive protesters even as they were being evicted from the gallery by the Capitol Police last Sunday. It’s this bill that prompted a congressman to shout “baby killer” at Bart Stupak, a staunch anti-abortion Democrat. It’s this bill that drove a demonstrator to spit on Emanuel Cleaver, a black representative from Missouri. And it’s this “middle-of-the-road” bill, as Obama accurately calls it, that has incited an unglued firestorm of homicidal rhetoric, from “Kill the bill!” to Sarah Palin’s cry for her followers to “reload.” At least four of the House members hit with death threats or vandalism are among the 20 political targets Palin marks with rifle crosshairs on a map on her Facebook page.

All the while, he correctly notes that folks previously cried foul about "socialism" regarding other sweeping overhauls, but

there was nothing like this. To find a prototype for the overheated reaction to the health care bill, you have to look a year before Medicare, to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Both laws passed by similar majorities in Congress; the Civil Rights Act received even more votes in the Senate (73) than Medicare (70). But it was only the civil rights bill that made some Americans run off the rails. That’s because it was the one that signaled an inexorable and immutable change in the very identity of America, not just its governance.

The apocalyptic predictions then, like those about health care now, were all framed in constitutional pieties, of course. Barry Goldwater, running for president in ’64, drew on the counsel of two young legal allies, William Rehnquist and Robert Bork, to characterize the bill as a “threat to the very essence of our basic system” and a “usurpation” of states’ rights that “would force you to admit drunks, a known murderer or an insane person into your place of business.” Richard Russell, the segregationist Democratic senator from Georgia, said the bill “would destroy the free enterprise system.” David Lawrence, a widely syndicated conservative columnist, bemoaned the establishment of “a federal dictatorship.” Meanwhile, three civil rights workers were murdered in Philadelphia, Miss.

That a tsunami of anger is gathering today is illogical, given that what the right calls “Obamacare” is less provocative than either the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or Medicare, an epic entitlement that actually did precipitate a government takeover of a sizable chunk of American health care. But the explanation is plain: the health care bill is not the main source of this anger and never has been. It’s merely a handy excuse. The real source of the over-the-top rage of 2010 is the same kind of national existential reordering that roiled America in 1964.

In fact, the current surge of anger — and the accompanying rise in right-wing extremism — predates the entire health care debate. The first signs were the shrieks of “traitor” and “off with his head” at Palin rallies as Obama’s election became more likely in October 2008. Those passions have spiraled ever since ...

Here's another look from The Atlantic: Anti-Government Unrest and American Vigilantism.

Talk radio echo chamber claptrap

If you haven't heard of radio host Michael Savage, he's another in the long line of neocon talking heads who wrap their heads in the American flag, while attempting to make readers tremble in their boots about the socialist spiral in which we are apparently unequivocally headed — at least for the next three years.

On Tuesday, he devoted most or all (I didn't get to listen to the whole thing because I was traveling away from the radio signal) of his show to theories that tie President Obama (He calls him Barack Hussein Obama, and for reasons that escape me, he insultingly pronounces the second syllable in "Barack" with a short-A sound) with the Red Army Faction, Herbert Marcuse, Frankfurt School and even more wrongly, Mao Zedong.

Here's a clip (apologies for the poor quality)

He said last night that unlike the Red Army Faction, Obama is not seeking a violent revolution toward a socialist "takeover," but a nonviolent one, more along the lines of Marcuse's line of thinking and others. Savage calls it a "quiet revolution:"

I realize it's not the meat and potatoes that you've come to expect from talk radio, but we have to do it. We have to do it so you understand the danger we're in. You have to do it until you understand how little time is left before there's a total takeover of every aspect of your life from cradle to grave, which starts with health care reform.

Thus, Savage isn't unlike any of the other right wingers out there attempting to frighten folks into thinking the Obama administration is up to some big conspiracy to bedazzle us into socialism. For one, the lawmakers, even Democrats, who very much benefit from this capitalistic free-for-all era corporate lobbying wouldn't stand for it. Second, Obama's only got four more years, eight at the most. What does Savage think is going to happen in that time? Health care reform doesn't bring any new far left agendas to the table. We've already passed bills in this country that could, like health care, be called socialist, and numerous presidents prior to Obama were charged with the same crime.

So, we hear the same old claptrap over and over, and it's tiring. You don't want a few seeds of socialism (an economic system) or communism (a political system ... Savage seems to use the two interchangeably.) in this country? Good. Call your lawmakers or state lawmakers and tell them you want to abolish your local police station and your local sheriff's office. Tell them to do away with county-maintained fire departments. Tell them to stop working on the roads. Tell them to shutter the Federal Reserve so we can go back to trading in gold and silver and bartering. Tell them to do away with Medicaid, which helps children and disabled people, and Medicare, which helps the elderly. Tell them to offer up all Forest Service land to speculators, since that worked so well the last time. Public schools? Closed. Everyone will be home schooled from now on. Public colleges? Unnecessary and filled with folks who think too much.

Obama will either be our president in 2012 or he won't. The propogators of such nonsense will either continue the frenetic push to get people infused with fear and loathing for the administration, or they will tone their rhetoric back if a Republican gets in office and level the vitriol at whichever Congressman or woman seems the most progressive. The country will move on just like it did after FDR enacted his giant New Deal.

By the way, the Red Army Faction was actually an anti-imperialistic organization responding to the Vietnam war, German capitalism at the time and Germany's concealment that high-ranking officials were former Nazis. While it by no way excuses the violence and death caused by the organization, Savage fails to mention much in his incendiary, fear-mongering rhetoric.

And one final thought: Savage actually said that Obama's policy on economics was to take from the middle class and give to the rich. He calls it "reverse" Robin Hood. Has he even been paying attention? Has he heard the $250,000 figure tossed around ... reversing Bush's policy of giving tax breaks to the rich? I don't know about Savage, but I don't consider someone who makes more than 250k middle class at all. Maybe he has a different income gauge than I do. But I'm sorry to break the news: 250k is not a middle class wage level by any stretch. See here.