Remedy For Complacency: Eavesdropping On What Rightwingers Are Telling Each Other
Check out this thread from Lucianne.com. Lucianne is Jonah Goldberg's mother, the woman famous for arranging the Monica blue dress deal. Lucianne.com is the second biggest rightist website (after Free Republic).
We live in the same country with these people. How many are there? We'll find out soon enough. But these folks are the mainstream right.
Think race matters to them? Oh yeah, he's also a socialist!
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What a shock!
I find that reading the thread at Luciannecom reveals that white right wingers are racist, one-dimensional, rigid, racist, hateful, half-witted, racist, greedy, stupid, mean-spiritied, racist, reactionary, fearful, xenophobic, intellectually limited, and also racist!
October 26, 2008 4:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not to mention racist!
October 26, 2008 6:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I couldn't get through it. I got to this item and teleported out:
"will Obama be able to withstand the temptation to set free all the black people in federal prison, or various other temptations?"
Not to mention constant mentions of OJ, reparations, socialism, stock up on survivalist stuff and lock and load one's weapons,.....
This is the other side of the country...
October 26, 2008 7:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly. That's the point I was making. Why drive traffic to such lunacy.
October 26, 2008 10:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
So why are you driving traffic their way? Seriously, I don't get this.
Remember when Sen. Clinton's book "It Takes a Village"? All those working in the multi-billion dollar Clinton hate industry went apoplectic and all of their ranting drove up sales of the book. I laughed.
Likewise, with a hundred other examples.
So why drive traffic to sites featuring whackjobs and perhaps drive up their advertising revenue. Not that I know if this particular site sells advertising, as I'm not biting.
October 26, 2008 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is educational. All of us are deluded into thinking that we "know" how others think. This link shows us what a right-wing echo chamber sounds like. I doubt many people who read TPM hear comments like this every day. I certainly don't. And I live in Texas!
October 26, 2008 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I understand what you are saying and realize that you're right.
But I just find no value in reading the renderings of true believers, not matter their location along the political spectrum. True believers are so convinced of their superior rectitude that they are able to lie without shame, delude themselves, and in extreme cases even to act sociopathically. Those who post at No Quarter, for an example liars and the self-deluded. Eric Rudolph, Timothy McVeigh, and bin Laden as sociopathic examples.
Regards
October 26, 2008 6:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Chris,
You are doing the same thing here as you did on the "Republicans are Sick" thread.
You seem to be taking affront at any mention of Republican extremism.
Why? Such extremism is important to understand. It is not like some dotty aunt, we hide away upstairs from the guests.
You seem to be very uncomfortable with Democrats taking umbrage at the hatefulness on the right...
Why?
October 26, 2008 7:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
First, thanks for your thoughtful question. With all due respect I think you're comparing apples to oranges, to resort to cliche. I don't think my comments here are at all related to my comments in the other thread, in which my point was that calling all republicans sick because of the comments of the Wade whacko amounts to bigotry.
Exactly. I'm expressing my opinion. My questions and opinions posted to these threads are entirely sincere and not at all intended as provocation. I am not an ideologue knee jerk.
I take umbrage at the individuals who express hatefulness or bigotry, whether directed toward Muslims, republicans, Baptists, women, Hispanics, or any other group. I take umbrage, as I explained in the other thread, at those who ascribe to any given group, the "right[wing]" for instance, the behavior or beliefs of one or a few of that group. It is bigotry. But that is not at all the point of this thread.
There are those on the "right", for instance, who pursue an agenda of looting the public treasury in the interest of their personal riches who are not haters or racists. The "country club republicans", if you will, who don't paste the kind of stuff which apparently is posted at the site to which M.J. referred.
As to my comment to which you responded. I just don't get the propensity amongst some to draw attention to the Coulters, Limbaughs, the site which M. J. highlighted, or other fringers. That is after all what they seek and what keeps the money rolling in. That's all there is to it. I just don't get it.
We know there are lunatics and haters and they don't just reside on the right end of the political spectrum.
Your question, with all due respect, seems to be reacting to the fact that I raised a question not in line with the prevailing orthodoxy. I just don't get it, really.
October 26, 2008 10:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
.
Heh!
~OGD~
** Pissing off the Cafe verbose since June 2005 **
October 27, 2008 8:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
thanks for your courtesy, I was out of form that day I queried your intentions. Its your business not mine.
apologies
Lux
October 27, 2008 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Personally I'm more uncomfortable with Democrats failing to take umbrage at the hatefulness on the left.
October 27, 2008 6:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
All the comments on that site sound like the same person wrote them. Same language structure, same tone, etc.
October 26, 2008 5:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, MJ, that stuff is priceless. Reality is so much more gruesome than satire. Here are my "favorite" quotes from the self proclaimed "non-racists":
1. "This junk has set race relations back 50 years. It makes white people who have struggled to do the right thing over the last decades and bring their children up to be colorblind feel like fools. " (On blacks being giddy about getting--finally--to vote for an African-American for President.)
2. "the inmates getting ready to run the asylum" (I guess implying that AA's are somehow mentally unbalanced or in need of psychiatric treatment.)
3. "Nothing screams racism louder than having 95% of the black population voting for someone simply because of skin color over experience and ability!" (Remember: the alternative is McCain-Palin, not George Washington-John Adams.)
And my personal favorite, the real KKK'er of the bunch.....
"Since blacks constitute only 12.3% of the total population of the United States, they have good reason to worry about what the other 87.7% are thinking."
Nothing like the old implied threat of violence if Blacks rejoice.
Welcome to Rove's America.
October 26, 2008 5:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sure in 2000 they were crowing about how 'the grownups are back in charge' and how the first MBA President and his team were going to 'run the government like a business.'
I quit reading wingnut blogs a long time ago, because it is depressing to see such deluded idiots. And I use this language purposefully, because the definition of an idiot is someone who is not capable of learning from experience and ordinary reason.
These idiots can't remember last week, let alone the past 8 years.
October 26, 2008 9:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or how the selection of Cheney meant there would be a "steady hand on the tiller." The steady hand belongs to Captain Ahab.
October 26, 2008 10:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nothing could illustrate more clearly why they are going to lose a landslide than this list of 'typical' Republicans.
October 26, 2008 5:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Three years after Appomattox, the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting blacks citizenship came before Congress: 94% of Republicans endorsed it. "The records of Congress reveal that not one Democrat – either in the House or the Senate – voted for the 14th Amendment. [Emphasis mine.]
These are the people that want to home school their kids because the public schools are so bad?
October 26, 2008 6:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where to begin....you do realize that the Democratic Party that supported slavery and Jim Crow has long since disappeared? You do realize that many of the adherents of Segregation became Republicans. Ever heard of Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond? Nixon's Southern Strategy?
Your points seems to be that if a political party once championed a certain cause that means they "own" it forever.
Okay, I'll bite. The Republican Party is the party of Joseph McCarthy, apparently, forever, (using your logic).
October 26, 2008 7:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
mythbuster, there is a misunderstanding between us. The italicized paragraph at the top of my post is what I copied from one of the comments (number 34) in the thread that MJ brought to our attention.
Where I was going is that not only is their ideology so awful, they can't even get their facts right. It is the 13th Amendment that the commenter is referring to, not the 14th:
I should have been more clear. Sorry for the misunderstanding and believe me, we are on the same side.
October 26, 2008 7:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
As far as driving traffic to her site, I dont see any adds. Of course I used add block. She has also closed new registrations. If she has no adds and is contribution supported, we should all visit several times a day :)
October 26, 2008 7:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Haha! I was thinking that too, stranger.
Hmm now why would a big GOP site close its doors when the GOP is busy thrashing around in flames, trying not to completely die? Oh right, it's because they stopped invading our sites, we started invading theirs.
That thread is pure comedy gold. All I wanted to do is tell them that ;-)
October 27, 2008 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rosenberg must be hard up for worthwhile commentary. Citing commentary of any site as indicative of general attitudes is intellectually dishonest. As example, if one needs to reinforce the socialist meme regarding Democrats, one only need copy one of the threads here.
October 26, 2008 8:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Really? Why is that? TPM Cafe posters are pretty representative of liberal Dems. Why isn't Lucianne.com representative of rightists. Fact is her posters are representative. They are the other side. Like it or not.
October 26, 2008 8:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh horrors!Whatever shall we do!
So you're saying "socialist" is appropriate for everyone on the left? No, you used the qualifier "liberal". Perhaps you'd like to go back and amend your description of the mainstream right?The average, mainstream, person on the right is a racist, and economic demagogue!
Or would you rather retain the racist and fearmongering, denunciation of potential McCain voters - based on your description and a very small sample of blog commenters? Tsk.
October 26, 2008 10:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why pollute your mind?
If you tell me the site is full of hate and all kinds of vile things, why do I want to partake.
It would be a better thing, to alert others against those kinds of sites.
Of course the curious will look, and should be ashamed, and watch out that they will not be influenced by fear and hate.
GIGO.
garbage in, garbage out.
October 26, 2008 8:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Everyone should have read Mein Kampf in the 20's and 30's even if Hitler got royalties . You need to know what's out there. Hiding one's head in the sand and pretending that a sizable portion of the country is not like these posters is a big mistake.
"The great beast is the reactionary elements in the country. Those are the people that we have to fear."-- Lyndon Johnson
October 26, 2008 9:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's not at all a matter of "Hiding one's head in the sand and pretending that a sizable portion of the country is not like these posters is a big mistake."
It is a matter of having already read it, and even heard it from talking hairdos on CNN, though in somewhat more restrained language.
It is no revelation that perhaps 20% of the population might hold hateful, racist views. It's simply that I've read it all before.
When I see a stadium of brown shirts raising their hands to the Führer, or when I see the brown shirts trashing an ethnic community I will pick up my gun and start killing the fascists. But I just don't see the equivalency to a relative handful of nutballs posting to a hate filled website.
I think your posts about the percentage of Jewish voters supporting the various candidates and your posts passing on reports from Ha'aretz to be very informative and useful. But I'm not biting on referrals to the looney bin.
October 26, 2008 10:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree they should be feared;
I'll take your word, that this site and those who expound Lucianne' thoughts, as someone to be followed, should be feared.
I have seen and I have heard hate speech before, and I know people who preach this garbage, are as bad as any who have come before and will still come.
Thanks for the warning
Because I have read your comments, and I don't think you've ever mislead me. I can believe it’s as bad as you say.
October 26, 2008 10:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've been subscribed a few right wing blogs as well as Maryland blogs for McCain for months. I'm not sure why I bothered, it is really disheartening.
I read much of them same in the conservative blogs I subscribe to. One or two and I'd say maybe this isn't representative, but after reading them for some time I think it representative of at least a faction of the population of this country. I think it important to know your enemies, and no one is really sure how accurate those polls are now are they.
October 26, 2008 9:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
These guys are pathetic. Here's a pictoral essay set to music that sums up their campaign, party, and values. Take a minute (well, actually 3 minutes) and take a look.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8gJ_rPHXtk
October 26, 2008 9:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, I've come to the conclusion that these sites and the McCain/Palin rallies should be monitored, and a dossier started on the participants and their activities, because they are such a clear danger to the safety and security of this country.
Heh, that's just a little sauce for the gander, since teh wingnuts have always been in foursquare favor of shredding the Constitution, and pooh-poohing such effete liberal ideas as protecting civil rights...because they always delude themselves into thinking that it is the 'other' who will be surveilled.
It's funny to think how their opinions would change, and their sweat would grow cold upon the realization that the Obama government is watching their every move--courtesy of the George Bush regime;>
October 26, 2008 11:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are those on the "right", for instance, who pursue an agenda of looting the public treasury in the interest of their personal riches who are not haters or racists. The "country club republicans", if you will, who don't paste the kind of stuff which apparently is posted at the site to which M.J. referred.
Well good for them! They beleive in diversity! Any little kid in America can grow up to loot the treasury!
And what you say is arrant nonsense. Have you never heard a Republican tell who he has the right, nay the obligation to loot the treasury so those-----s don't get it?
If there are Republicans who loot the treasury without excusing their behavior on a racial or ethbic basis, and even have the good taste not to exult in their superior brains or Darwinian fitness, I salute them! I guess they would be the progressive Republicans.
A distinction without a difference is what you've got going there.
October 27, 2008 1:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Anyway, Sadly, No!,com does a great job with all the sites mentioned here. That's the only way to keep up with what those rhetorical sociopaths are up to. Those guys have developed the art (no, I wouldn't put a "fine" in there) of messing with them to a high level. Sadly, No! prods them, and they jump and dance every time. So you get to laugh at them, in company with many others.
October 27, 2008 1:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
I find it amusing that at lucille and also free republic appear to not have hardly any ads. They must not generate enough traffic to attract advertisers. I've seen really really racist comments on threads of the NY Post online too. It's really very sad.
Assuming Obama wins (taking nothing for granted here) people will come to see that the sky won't fall and the prisons won't be emptied and whatever else their paranoid fantasies are won't come true. It will help with some and help with race relations. It won't be a cure but it will be a big step forward.
It's spooky to hear how McCain or Palin can utter a word and all of a sudden it's just tacked on Obama and believed by these people, however far from the truth. If they said he was a Martian tomorrow they'd all be yelling Marxist Martian!
October 27, 2008 1:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Pardon my grammar. I find it amusing they have very few ads.
October 27, 2008 2:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are a bunch of Wonderfull People. Why you say? Well, the way you Expressed the way the awfull vile people behave. You used the Right words. JUST what I was looking for! Oh, of course I can say those kind of people are bad/really bad, theives and liars but you folks said it Just Right! Thank you!
October 27, 2008 6:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't often visit Lucianne, but do sometimes get over to Free Republic. It's a giggle, but it's just the real hard-core True Believers. However I was disturbed by the survivalist language of some (lock & load, store up, etc.) - are these people from Idaho?
Unfortunately I have a cousin in Texas who insists on referring to Obama as a "half-breed" - I really thought we'd left that stuff behind with Cher's song in the '60s or '70s. Is this hate and fear so widespread or is it a media magnification of a few loonies?
October 27, 2008 8:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
I went to Lucianne.com and insulted her by reminding everyone there that Jonah is her son.
October 27, 2008 11:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good job, John
October 27, 2008 12:33 PM | Reply | Permalink