Sunday, June 14, 2009

Right-wing mob forming, conservative leadership AWOL



It's a treacherous thing, guessing just what is afoot, historically. But it has seemed to many of us for some time that the conservative hoi polloi (i.e., the Republican "base") has been descending into new and stunning depths of mob-like irrationality. One watches the angry-man-in-the-street news stories, reads the uncouth letters to the editor (or to this blog!): these people do not distinguish between fact and opinion. They do not discriminate between sources of information. They offer no arguments. They appear not to be amenable to reason.

They believe what they want to believe, and they want to believe some ugly and frightening things.

Conservative leadership? For the most part, they seize the opportunity to demagogue*, encouraging the phenomenon. Good grief!

One good thing: there's a growing recognition of this (apparent) development and a call to conservative leadership to do something about their unruly herd.

Frank Rich’s piece in yesterday's New York Times:

The Obama Haters’ Silent Enablers

WHEN a Fox News anchor … warns urgently on-camera of a rise in hate-filled, “amped up” Americans who are “taking the extra step and getting the gun out,” maybe we should listen. He has better sources in that underground than most.

The anchor was Shepard Smith, speaking after Wednesday’s mayhem at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington…. ¶ What he reported was this: his e-mail from viewers had “become more and more frightening” in recent months, dating back to the election season. From Wednesday alone, he “could read a hundred” messages spewing “hate that’s not based in fact,” much of it about Barack Obama and some of it sharing the museum gunman’s canard that the president was not a naturally born citizen. These are Americans “out there in a scary place,” Smith said.

What is this fury [against Obama] about? In his scant 145 days in office, the new president has not remotely matched the Bush record in deficit creation. Nor has he repealed the right to bear arms or exacerbated the wars he inherited. He has tried more than his predecessor ever did to reach across the aisle. But none of that seems to matter. A sizable minority of Americans is irrationally fearful of the fast-moving generational, cultural and racial turnover Obama embodies….

This homicide-saturated vituperation is endemic among mini-Limbaughs. Glenn Beck has dipped into O’Reilly’s Holocaust analogies to liken Obama’s policy on stem-cell research to the eugenics that led to “the final solution” and the quest for “a master race.”….

But hyperbole from the usual suspects in the entertainment arena of TV and radio is not the whole story. What’s startling is the spillover of this poison into the conservative political establishment….

The question, Shepard Smith said on Fox last week, is “if there is really a way to put a hold on” those who might run amok. We’re not about to repeal the First or Second Amendments. Hard-core haters resolutely dismiss any “mainstream media” debunking of their conspiracy theories. The only voices that might penetrate their alternative reality — I emphasize might — belong to conservative leaders with the guts and clout to step up as McCain did last fall. Where are they? The genteel public debate in right-leaning intellectual circles about the conservative movement’s future will be buried by history if these insistent alarms are met with silence….

LOCAL VOCAL YOKELS:

OC's Reverend Wiley Drake Prays for Obama's death

Night of the Nazi (the SOCCCD, a decade ago)

MORE IRRATIONALITY:

Irrationality about health seems to attract people from across the political spectrum. Consider Oprah Winfrey, who resides, I suppose, somewhere on the left. Her advice and influence concerning health issues is disastrous.

Check out a recent article in Newsweek magazine:

Live Your Best Life Ever!

Wish Away Cancer! Get A Lunchtime Face-Lift! Eradicate Autism! Turn Back The Clock! Thin Your Thighs! Cure Menopause! Harness Positive Energy! Erase Wrinkles! Banish Obesity! Live Your Best Life Ever!

…[T]he truth is, some of what Oprah promotes isn't good, and a lot of the advice her guests dispense on the show is just bad. The Suzanne Somers episode wasn't an oddball occurrence. This kind of thing happens again and again on Oprah. Some of the many experts who cross her stage offer interesting and useful information (props to you, Dr. Oz). Others gush nonsense. Oprah, who holds up her guests as prophets, can't seem to tell the difference. She has the power to summon the most learned authorities on any subject; who would refuse her? Instead, all too often Oprah winds up putting herself and her trusting audience in the hands of celebrity authors and pop-science artists pitching wonder cures and miracle treatments that are questionable or flat-out wrong, and sometimes dangerous.

*Yes, I know, only a barbarian would use this word as a verb.

UPDATE:

This isn't really an "update," since the article below was published four days ago. But its relevant:

Conservatives going after Shep Smith

You bet. The delightful Mr. Charles Krauthammer seems to be the ringleader. You know what he's like.

My guess: Shep's days at FOX are numbered.
Good for him.

The Great Depression as experienced in the OC

A WPA breadline in Santa Ana

This morning, the OC Register offers a lengthy piece, by Eugene Garcia, entitled "The Great Depression in O.C.: Are the hard times back?"

The article begins unpromisingly:

Have we avoided another Great Depression? Many think the worst has passed. But some long-time Orange County residents are less hopeful. They lived in and around Orange County through the relentless Depression of the 1930s, a period with stark differences and similarities to the current recession. So how do the two crises compare?

OK, this is confused. Obviously, unlike most of us, "long-time OC residents" can tell us how bad it was in OC in the 30s. They can, I suppose, compare those days to these days.

But surely the current recession hasn't yet played out: we've witnessed only the early chapters of a long saga. The big question is: where is this heading? Have we seen the worst? How bad will this get? Hence the talk of "hopefulness" or the lack thereof.

My point: the Depression experiences of OC oldsters does not provide them with superior insight regarding that, contrary to Mr. Garcia's assumptions.

Still, if you're like me, you'd love to hear from these people about what things were like in the OC during the Depression. In this regard, Garcia's piece manages to be interesting and informative, especially when it describes the fate of local artists and the behavior of bank customers.

Also, in the article, some of these OC oldsters worry about the preparedness of current youth for an increasingly severe downturn. Very wise, that.

So check out the article.

The article is accompanied by five videos, evidently produced by Mr. Garcia, some of which offer images of OC's past that we rarely or never see. These videos are generally excellent:

Let Them Eat Lobster
Hobos descend on the county as breadlines cope with the local unemployed.

Running to the Bank
'Dirty tricks' help close one third of O.C.'s banks during the Depression.

Will Paint for Food
Laguna Beach's early impressionist painters take desperate measures to make ends meet.

Dancing for Dollars
The first reality shows in Orange County could have been called 'So You Think You Can Keep Dancing?'

Is History Repeating?
O.C. residents weigh-in on how the Depression compares to the current crisis.

(All descriptions, and the photo, from OC Register article.)

WEEKEND BRATS:

Natalie, 20 mos.

Catherine, 20 mos.

TigerAnn, six years old

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...