re: #662 Gus 802

As much as I am a critic of Obama I’ve been taken aback by the outrageous responses I’ve been seeing for the past several months. They are out of control and that includes certain media outlets, personalities as well as certain citizens. As you checklist shows and I agree. They have no interest in getting much on facts or putting things in historical perspective (and no to the other readers that does not mean blaming Bush). It is to put things in context.

Did you read some of those comments I just posted from the AR15 site? At first I wasn’t sure if this would lead to violence but it’s looking like it may turn to that more and more each day.

I did. It’s really scary.

I strongly recommend the hofstader piece to those who are not familiar with it. It’s been a staple reference on the left for the last two years, and I’ve posted it here before. It only gets more timely.
And notice too that the essay was written in part as a response to the John Birch society— and as Charles and others have been pointing out, they’re back and people like Beck are mainstreaming them.

I’ll quote and update this one part again:

Very often the enemy is held to possess some especially effective source of power: he controls the press (liberal media much?); he has unlimited funds (Soros, ACORN, Annenberg, etc); he has a new secret for influencing the mind (Obama brainwashing, Obama hypnosis, FEMA reeducation camps); he has a special technique for seduction (Addressing school children, press conferences, grass roots activism, email rapid response, Organising for America…)

the paranoid style is ever-fresh, and is certainly in fullflower now.