Oy.  From the FaceTubes, a comment on a friend’s posting about Donald Drumpf’s call for violence from the podium:

So, the fact of the matter is that the leftwing (primarily blacks and hispanics) violently attack impoverished whites tens of millions of times each year in america. We are a very violenced, crushed people and the oppression is building against us, and people act offended if we mention it and then commit violence against us some more to make themselves feel better. I’m exactly sure how empowered white libs are able to sweep this under the rug: they want poor, unempowered whites eliminated from society due to the violent cut-throat competitive ideology of the left. Look into how non-white poverty is tended to versus white poverty, and it’s shocking that this nation is committing a genocide against multi-generationally impoverished whites in front of everybody’s face, and everybody’s mad at the impoverished whites enduring it and still trying to silence and slaughter them. it’s happening in Britain as well. Trump is the first time we as whites have had something like representation in this country. He’s not ideal, but at least he gets it and is brave enough to face black/brown violence and do the right thing. Remember, rightwing whites aren’t the ones calling for violence. The left is just implementing some sort of Opposite Day brainwash as they pull this genocide off. The bible talks all about it.

I mean to say, what??

It’s a solid wall of paranoia, a veritable Plato’s Cave of alternate reality, and I don’t really know how to approach it.  For one thing, there’s not a single verifiable fact in the whole post.

• blacks and hispanics violently attack impoverished whites tens of millions of times each year in america
• [impoverished whites] are a very violenced, crushed people
• oppression is building against us
• “people” act offended if we mention it
• commit violence against us to make themselves feel beter
• white libs want poor whites eliminated from society
• violent cut-throat competitive ideology of the Left [what??]
• non-white poverty vs. white poverty
• this nation is committing a genocide against multi-generationally impoverished whites
• trying to silence and slaughter them
• It’s happening in Britain
• Trump is the first time whites have had something like representation in this country [what??]
• [Trump] gets it and is brave enough to face black/brown violence
• rightwing whites aren’t the ones calling for violence
• the bible talks all about it.

Mercy. I can’t mock this because it’s so sad.  The author is stuck in a fever-swamp of resentment, and I’m willing to believe that from where he sits there’s a lot to resent.  For a good long read, far better written and more qualified to say so than I, see “I Know Why Poor Whites Chant Trump, Trump, Trump,” by Jonna Ivin.

It would be easy to dismiss this posting by saying that the author is mentally unstable in some way, but I think we need to be careful in ascribing our opponents’ political views to insanity (or stupidity).  Certainly, if this man truly believes what he has written—although indeed my first reaction was to re-read it as satirical (cf. Poe’s Law)—then we must ask ourselves how we can deal with him and those like him.

Attacking him won’t work, of course; it would just confirm his worldview, not to mention being unkind.

If he were a personal friend, I might ask him to explain his concerns in a personal narrative, i.e., what has happened to you to convince you of these truths?  Sometimes that allows the narrator to begin to realize that those Others might have the same story and in fact might be the victims of the same system as he.

Sidebar: I do think that unempowered poor whites are victimized. Their jobs have vanished, their neighborhoods decayed, their healthcare nonexistent.  Their death and suicide rates are rising.  But I can’t see that the “Left” (by which our author seems to mean “Stalin” or something) has done this.  On the contrary, it’s the conservative business class who have created the economic situation that oppresses the poor.  I don’t think that the overlords have done this “to” the poor whites, however; they don’t actually give a shit about whom their transactions might harm.  But asking our author here to pick through any kind of Marxist dialectic is expecting Plato’s cave dwellers to break their own chains.

The friend on whose feed this was posted is a kinder, gentler hippie than I, and she asked him if he had any links to the “tens of millions” of acts of violence against poor whites, or to the “genocide” being perpetrated in front of everybody’s face.  I’m not sure this will have any kind of effect since having data is not the kind of thing this type of speaker usually does, and I’m not sure he has a firm grasp of the technical meaning of “genocide.”  But kudos for her for trying the Socratic approach!

Mostly I find this man’s post depressing and disturbing, because he is not alone.  Donald Trump is clearly and deliberately appealing to this very attitude of victimization with every step of his campaign, and just as clearly there is nothing anyone can do to break that spell he has woven.  The very fact that there are no facts in the post—or in Donald Trump’s spewings from the campaign stump—means we are dealing with millions of stampeded amygdalas, and there is no way to stop that stampede with rational measures.  All we can do is hope that when they plummet off the cliff that they don’t drag us along with them.

But it’s not looking good.

I am connected on the Facetubes to several individuals who are—and I am being as kind as I can here—seriously whacked rightwing nutjobs.

Because I am trying to be a better person every day and in every way,  I generally do not respond to the crap they post about politics, but merciful Cthulhu they have gotten on my last nerve.

I present to you some of the stuff they have posted this week.

::sigh:: Who makes this stuff up?  It’s not true, it’s never true, and yet people post this crap all the time.  First of all, “beloved photo”?  Really?  Okay, sure, maybe members of the DAR all have this on their walls, I don’t know.  But it’s not even a good photo.

But again, who made this up? And why do people believe it?  That second question can be answered with “Because they want to preen their patriotic feathers.”  They are patriots; you are not.  “They hate us because of our freedoms.”  No, not really, and embracing chauvinism as a virtue is not very attractive.

But who made this up?

Yeah, I get it.  We can’t handle the truth.  For differing values of truth, apparently.  What does the geography and culture of the Middle East have to do with… I don’t even know what their point is here, other than they hate Muslims.  And yes, dear, you’re a racist, even though Islam is a religion, not a race, and socialism has nothing to do with the Nazi SS.  Those are your guys, not ours.

Stock photo of black woman.  √ Anti-Obama rant. √  Absolutely no basis in facts… √√

The idea that the “rest of us” are worse off than in 2008 is laughably false.  No, salaries are not where they need to be, but that ain’t because Barack Obama “gave away jobs”—how does that even work??  I think it’s a hoot that whatever rightwinger cooked this one up at least gives black people credit for paying taxes; their usual position is that Those People are moochers.

It’s a lie.  Cf., “I’m a racist,” above.

And then there’s Hillary.  There’s plenty that can be said about Clinton that is true^1; why post absolute fabrications?

Created for a Photoshop contest.

Nothing in this meme is true.  Nothing.

And now we have the whole tsimmes about who poops where.  The ignorance and cruelty is astounding.

Oy.  You can see why I don’t respond on the Facetubes to these idiots.  Can you imagine trying to get them to comprehend, much less empathize with, those whose gender is not the same as their birth certificate? Why, it would be almost as hard as getting them to understand and admit that the problem they’re trying to solve² doesn’t exist.

Would it be snide of me to mention that the individual who posted most of these also posts this:

Yeah, you’re right, it would be.  So I won’t.

—————

¹ Check out any Bernie supporter’s Facetube feed if you don’t believe me.

² Spoiler alert: they’re not trying to solve it.  They’re trying to fear-monger to get out the amygdala-dweller vote.

That is the sound of rightwing nutjob’s brains when they are invited to leave a comment on a World Daily Online article entitled OBAMA ANNOUNCES HORRIFYING NEW EXECUTIVE ACTION.

First, a little background.  World Daily Online is one of those nutjob aggregators that take brief snippets of news, rewrite the lead-in, slap a clickbait headline on it, and conclude with “Tell us what you think in comments.”  You will notice, if you take a look at the main page, that the screamy headlines are all a bit similar.  If you believed WDO, President Obama and Hillary Clinton do nothing but PANIC, and you yourself will constantly be either ill or in disbelief with the events of the day.

For your average conservative nutjob, it’s the perfect way to get your angerbear on first thing in the morning, and the comments are about what you would expect.^[1]

So what HORRIFYING NEW EXECUTIVE ACTION is Obummer guilty of this time?

Here, go read it.

Right.

Now, I don’t know about you, but an a la carte approach to cable offerings has been a desideratum for this dirty freaking hippie for some time.  Why am I paying for shopping channels or entire channels devoted to the exploits of dead golfers or sitting in boats or college football players who are now more geriatric than I am?

Also—and here the nutjob and the hippie are of one mind—are we not concerned to the point of rebellion over the ickiness of huge, practically monopolistic corporations?

So here the Muslim Kenyan Usurper says, hey, I think we should give the people more choice in how their money is spent, and how do the nutjobs react?

SPROINNNGG!

They can’t do it.  They cannot say, “Wow, even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then” or “Even a stopped clock is right twice a day” or any other sequence of words that would give the MKU any props whatsoever.  They simply cannot do it.  The comments are an amazing study of cognitive dissonance.

I love that the article has over 2500 FaceTube shares of this HORRIFYING EXECUTIVE ACTION. I am amused that the authors of the website didn’t bother to recast any of the actual facts, so that their readers get the news that something they probably have bitched about is being supported by the MKU, straight up.

I’m a little concerned that—and this will shock you—the headline and lead are completely offbase in their characterization of the event.^[3] The angerbears, who I am willing to bet are not getting their news from any actual news source, now firmly believe that they have one more example of the MKU’s blatant disregard of the Constitution.^[4]  If you were to engage one in discussion, their unshakable faith in the perfidy of Barry Hussein Soetero Obama would be an irritating, teflon-coated wall, impervious to actual real Things, and this article will have contributed to that.

Oh well.  As the sage once said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”  It’s just amusing that some brains can’t process some facts when they don’t agree with their opinions.^[5]

—————

^[1] Never read the comments.^[2]

^[2] Read the comments.  They’re a hoot, and a great way to get your eyebrows and jaws their exercise first thing in the morning.

^[3]  Here’s the Washington Post article.  See if you can tell the difference. That’s right, Billy, “urging” the FCC to do something is not the same as “issuing an executive order.”

^[4] Unconstitutional?  Meh.  It’s a gray area, but most jurists are inclined to give the sitting President the benefit of the doubt.

^[5] Actually, most brains can’t, but don’t get in my way when I’m being mean to nutjobs.

From today’s FaceTube:

Because the rock star is punching up at the discriminatory power structure, but the baker is punching down at the discriminated.

There you go.  You’re welcome.

Today on the Facetubes:

This encapsulates two of the rightwing positions that just drive me over the edge: worship of the military, and hatred for the poor.

As for the first, the idea that our current deployments in active war zones are in any way “protecting your unskilled butt” is ludicrous.  The last line in particular is one of those rightwinger classics.  I think the allusion is to the second World War, that we defeated Hitler and thus escaped the inevitable universal Third Reich that so captivates the authoritarian mind.

Because you remember how France and Poland and Holland were all speaking German by 1942, right?  Oh wait.^[1]

I might add, if I were of a caustic nature,^[2] that at no point in the last 60 years have any of us suffered the slightest threat of having to learn Vietnamese, Lebanese, Pashto, Arabic, Kurdish, or even Grenadan.  Just because the rightwing brain gets off on imaginary threats doesn’t mean they’re real.  (Spoiler alert: they’re not real.)

In the real world, our current “boots on the ground” adventures having nothing to do with any kind of existential threat to our nation.  They really don’t, and pretending they do is simply a ploy to elevate the good men and women who serve in our military to godlike heroes—a position I’m not sure many of them are comfortable with—for political purposes.^[3]

My second bugbear, hatred of the poor, is there in spades.  Insulting names?  Check.  Disingenuous assumption that “Johnny Fry-Boy” works 40 hours a week?  Check.

But the argument that always just amazes me as an incredible example of the “is not/is too” frame of the rightwing mind is the “job designed for a kid in high school… who is earning enough for gas” thing.  They keep harping on this idea that fast food service jobs are merely some kind of a Happy Days lark, not a “real” job.

As they leave the drive-through at lunch, do they ever wonder who made their Value Meal if the place is staffed by high school students?  How is McDonald’s able to open before 4:00 every afternoon even?

Also, they harp on “burger flippers,” because those people are obviously scum, but of course the country is replete with other minimum wage jobs. (Also.)

Given the rightwing’s insistence on “personal responsibility,” it amazes me that they will look at someone working a job at McDonald’s in order to make a living and still sneer that for whatever reason the person doesn’t even deserve that because of “lack of skills.”  You’re poor and uneducated?  You should have thought of that before, loser.

I mean, and here’s the point, even assuming that Johnny Fry-Boy is a high school dropout and has no marketable skills other than working the line at Mickey-D’s, what do the rightwingers want him to do?

And here’s the biggest point that really leaves me slack-jawed: I see this story and the solution that pops into my head is to make sure our military is paid more too.

You would think that might have occurred to people who think our service men and women are godlike heroes.

—————

^[1] Sure, the Angles and the Saxons had to learn some French after 1066, but… You know what?  The whole mindset is stupid.

^[2] I am of a caustic nature.

^[3] During the run-up to the Iraq War, the authoritarians were waving the “fight Them over there so we don’t have to fight Them over here” flag, and the dirty freaking hippies were all like, “Dude, terrorism isn’t an army,” and guess who was right?

Let’s take another look at our posting from the Facetubes yesterday:

My problem with this graphic is not that someone says “Merry Christmas” or “God bless the USA” or any of those other things.  My problem is that the author—and I have to assume anyone who posts it—wants you to think it’s a problem that they say these things.

They are hopping up on that cross to be crucified as martyr patriots when in fact no one is standing by with nails.  Most of the country would in fact agree with the honest sentiments expressed in each of the phrases individually.

But these people are not saying, “Merry Christmas.”  They’re saying, “I say ‘Merry Christmas,’ and that’s the way it’s supposed to be and if you don’t say it too then you are the enemy and I will fight you in the halls of Iwo Jima because you are one of Those People.”

They are declaring their über-patriotic stance as the only permissible and credentialed patriotic stance there can be in these here parts, and the rest of us need to take our nelly sensibilities and just move somewhere else if we don’t love the United States of A as much as they do.  That we might love our country as much—and perhaps differently— is clearly impossibile.  It is a thought-crime as far as they are concerned.  They have suddenly realized that there are 300,000,000 other Americans outside their monkeysphere, and they are freaking the freak out.^[1]

Now I personally do have issues with the political stance behind some of these statements, “We support our troops” in particular.  What does that even mean other than militaristic idolatry?  But again, if these people are honest in their troop supporting, I have no issue with that. It’s when they go berserk with their SUPPORT THE TROOPS while at the same time they vote for people that lie us into wars; when they vote for people that don’t pay for those wars; when they vote for people who don’t provide for our veterans; when they post uninformed graphics about rejecting refugees while we have homeless veterans that need to be taken care of  while not voting to take care of homeless veterans; that’s when I have issues.

And I would be correct.  Politically, ethically, and economically.

—————

^[1] Am I suggesting that they are hooting and flinging poo?  Why are you even thinking that?

Today on the Facetubes:

No, darling, you are not politically incorrect if you say those things.  You may, however, be an asshole if you say them as a way to consolidate your tribal membership to the exclusion of Those People.  And we all know about Those People, don’t we?

Those People are queer, aren’t they?  Or bitches, or chinks, or towel-heads, or niggers—aren’t they?

Those People all up in your face saying you ought to be more respectful of them and their so-called humanity.

Those People who make you so angry because they think that their “lifestyle” or “culture” or “religion” deserves some kind of special rights.

Those People who get their precious feelings hurt if you just say what everyone is thinking.

But no, darling, your saying “Merry Christmas” or “God bless the USA” is not why we might be calling you politically incorrect.  Let me know if you figure it out.

(see also…)

So today on Facebook…

Never Would Have Guessed

WHY MR. ROGERS WORE
A SWEATER?

I think that on the whole it is better if we don’t delve too deeply into the fever swamps of deluded rightwing conspiracies, but today a “friend” on Facebook shared a meme from Exposing Satanic World Government.  That’s a Facebook group, folks.  (I would like to say that this “friend” is a recent addition, and I do—I really do—look for signs of this kind of thing before I click on the Accept button, but sometimes they just slip by you, you know?)

Here we go, straight into the deep end.

Let’s start with an easy one.

This is the kind of thing that one usually gets: the government is out to get us, etc., etc.

Nothing new or exciting really.  Just your run-of-the-mill, take-a-standard-government-program-and-turn-it-into-ONE-WORLD-GOVERNMENT-WAKE-UP-SHEEPLE stuff. As one does.

But I would like to draw your attention to that first comment. The poor guy meant “patsies,” I guess.  Easy typo, or perhaps an autocorrect, but I’m comfortable thinking that he just didn’t know the difference.

This is the level of discourse we’re dealing with here. Literacy is not this kind of person’s strong suit.

I should say at this point that the whole group is purely Christian in its approach.  I think it’s part and parcel of the whole authoritarianism thing that has recently caught the attention of the pundits trying to explain why Donald Drumpf is leading the Republican pack—and is closely followed by the even bigger horrorshow of Rafael Cruz.

(Of course, the hippies have been making fun of Republican “strong daddy” types since the days of W, but just like the Iraq War it sometimes takes time for the Very Serious People to catch up.)

Anyway, this is the kind of group that seeks strength through Christ, and by that I mean pure, naked power, not the strength of quiet faith and good deeds that the wiser among us picked up in Sunday School.  Since they seek power, they see it everywhere.  Since they want dominion over the earth, they a) create a self-image of being righteous warriors, and then—because what good is a flaming sword unless you have someone to smite it with—indeed, why does the flaming sword even exist unless there were, of course, b) an all-powerful Enemy?

Once you have this mental framework in place, then every waking moment of your life is spent looking under the bed and in the closet for that Enemy.  Every. Waking. Moment.

What was it the man said?  “Seek and ye shall find…”?

EVERY WAKING MOMENT, KENNETH!

The comment on this one is representative of many of the comments on this page, a kind of pearl-clutching fantod that reassures the commenter and the readers that yes, they are servants of the Risen Lord and all manner of things will be well.  I’ve written about this before, this curious split-brain thing of thinking that one is simultaneously on the losing end of this corrupt world and yet the victor.  I still don’t get it.

Mercy.

I mean, these kinds of theories have abounded about the Beatles since the 60s, but it’s still hysterical to see all of them so tidily presented (and by a 24-year-old author!).

You may have noticed by now that there seems to be no dearth of websites dedicated to exposing the TRUTH to the world.  Once you start clicking, there is no end to them.

None of them explain why the Illuminati/Bilderberg/Freemasons/Satanists are taking their own sweet time in implementing the New World Order. You would think that our all-powerful overlords would have lost patience with teh sheeple and just taken over by now, but no, it’s clear they must get a kick out of teasing us with the threat of a nightmare future.

Again, I’ve written about this before, but it’s important to remember that this frisson of fear is a feature, not a bug, in these people’s worldview.  They wouldn’t see it that way, but their brains love that little tickle of terror they get when they imagine Satan just sitting there like a spider in a web.  They’re addicted to it.

Moving on…

 

Closer to home:

It all seems so clear now, doesn’t it?

I like the part about “intelligent people who actually understand socialism.”  This is something I have not noticed to be true in this election, especially from this kind of voter.

And the comments… The old “Marshall law” gambit: remember when the crazier liberals thought the same thing about W?  But this time… You know it’s true.

The energy expended by these people is incredible.  How do they keep it up when none of their fears are proven to be true and they just transfer the fear to something new? It exhausts me just observing it.

As for the “will of God” gambit, mercy, people, when are you ever going to think that perhaps God is working his spirit out through Barack Obama or Bernie Sanders or even, Cthulhu help us, Clinton?¹

Spoiler alert: never.  It will never occur to them that God might be a liberal.  Or that she might not even care.

And if “our blessings will be just the same,” then why all this energy directed at identifying, exposing, and defeating the Satanic World Government?  I’m not sure what the point is, if nothing you do matters because God has his eye on the sparrow.

 

Last one, I promise:

There is a 15-minute video which I have not watched—nor am I going to—positing that Donald J. Drumpf is a high-ranking priest in the Satanic World Order.

This is not an isolated viewpoint.  Click through and a) read the comments; and b) check out all the videos recommended over on the side.

Jebus.

As I’ve said, folks, EVERY. WAKING. MOMENT.

Once you’ve committed to this mindset, the whole of the planet must be viewed through that lens, and everything must be made to fit the madness.  Donald Drumpf is just a egotistical bully?  Nonsense: he’s part of the conspiracy to elect She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.  The Beatles were a talented group of men who hooked into the zeitgeist of a world waking up to possibilities of not despising those different from you?  Crazy talk: they were puppets of a conspiracy so vast that it is capable of destroying all that we hold dear.²

Personally, I blame the Wachowski sisters.  Red pill/blue pill, my ass.

——————

¹ Just to be clear, I am not a Clinton basher.  It’s just that she’s the current repository for all the irrational fear and hatred.  What do people think is going to happen if she’s elected? What on earth could it be that would make it better to vote for Trump or Cruz??

² Because, really, who wouldn’t want to rule over a world that you’ve wrecked beyond repair?

Or, I might add, when he abuses members of the press and incites anger against them.