bringing the crazy

After Obama was elected, I had this idea that perhaps political discourse in this national would be somewhat elevated. I imagined that with a smart and articulate president, people would actually talk about ideas. Holy Fuck-Stockings, was I wrong! Ok, I knew it was incredibly naive to think that, but I had high hopes.

The Crazy has been coming out of the woodwork all over. It's a deluge of Crazy. First the Birthers, who insist that Obama was not born in this country despite proof that he actually was. Then there was all the talk of Texas succeeding from the union. And the "Tea Bagger" tax protests. People showing up at Obama events with guns. The kicking around of the Thomas Jefferson quote "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants." The irrational conviction that Obama is a socialist dictator, planning to take away our freedoms, suppress dissent and put republicans in concentration camps. The comparisons of Obama and Hitler. Then there is all the disinformation about the health care reform, which has veered into bold-faced lies and weird fantasies about "death panels." The latest is that Obama's planned speech to school children, to stress the importance of education and encourage them to work hard in school, is actually an attempt to "indoctrinate our children with his socialist agenda."

There will always be paranoid and delusional people, at all parts of the political spectrum. But I am stunned, and scared, that this level of insanity has become so wide-spread. It's not just the fringe now; people with power and influence are spreading this Crazy. Sometimes it seems that we, as a species, will just keep getting more and more insane until we destroy ourselves. It's actually a pretty likely outcome eventually. What's surprising is that we have not done it yet.

Well... this is turning into a happy blog post, isn't it?

Of all the sources of Crazy, there are two people that really worry me. I would like to dismiss them as harmless, but I can't. I think they will provoke the right-wing nutjobs until one finally cracks and does some serious violence.

One of these nut jobs is talk-show host Glenn Beck. He's one of the loudest voices in meme of Obama as socialist dictator. And he has a show on Fox with many rabid, brainless followers.

The other one that scares me is Minnesota congresswoman Michelle Bachman. Her brand of Crazy is more ridiculous than dangerous, but still dangerous. She makes Sarah Palin look reasonable. I first became aware of her when she proposed on TV that the media should start taking a look at what people in congress are actually "un-American". Here are a few other examples of what Bachman has to say:

“The big thing we are working on now is the global warming hoax. It’s all voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax,”

"And the real concerns is that there are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums."

"We're running out of rich people in this country."

"What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing. This [health care reform] will not pass. We will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn’t pass…Right now, we are looking at reaching down the throat and ripping the guts out of freedom. And we may never be able to restore it if we don’t man up and take this one on.”

"Many Americans pay more than half their income in taxes... it’s nothing more than slavery.”

"I am so proud to be from the state of Minnesota. We're the workingest state in the country, and the reason why we are, we have more people that are working longer hours, we have people that are working two jobs."

“He [John McCain] is not my man. Our candidate was chosen by the media. But there are other races out there.”

This goes on and on...

How on Earth does an insane person like this get elected to office? I am SO glad I don't live in her district.