Political speech in this vein is not entirely new. What’s new is the hero worship that Obama gets despite his naivete and limited competence. In other words, The Extreme Left Obama Hero Worship is Flat Out Nuts would be a much more interesting topic to discuss.
Maybe, certainly that seems to be the consensus view of what the tea-party’s are about. Here’s a poll asking what the most important issue facing the US is. 2% say budget deficits, so while its important to some people, it doesn’t appear to be a top priority for a very large chunk of the country, so I’m skeptical that’s the motivating factor.
I guess, but if you were to ask what the antiwar protesters were protesting and what would make them happy, the answer was pretty clear: they don’t like the war, and ending it would make them happy. I don’t think the answer is as clear cut with the current round of protests. As I said, the budget deficit doesn’t seem to actually concern that many people. The idea appears to have started with that one guy ranting on CNBC about the government bailing out homeowners unable to pay their mortgages, but I don’t ever actually hear anyone cite that as a reason for the current protests. Tea party suggests a tax protests, but Obama has done nothing except lower taxes so far (err…unless your a smoker).
Which is why the teabaggers get more grief for seeming unhinged. There were nuts at the anti-war protests, but the majority of them seemed to have a fairly concrete and sane idea of why they were there and what they wanted. I’m sure the nuts at the current round of protests aren’t representative of the participants either, but its unclear who exactly is representitive of the majority there.
Indeed, if your looking for a left-wing analog to the tea protesters, I’d say a closer bunch is the various anti-capitalism protests that spring up at varoius G20 and World Bank meetings (most recently in London). They are truly incoherent, and even if the world gov’ts wanted to make them happy, its unclear exactly what they could do to do so.
You may be right. That’s my fear. But I did mean “one country” in only those “most basic generic terms”. I’ve been in many parts of this country, and I believe I’ve seen and felt that unity. I think it was sufficient, although perhaps only barely, to keep us one country in formal reality (since the Civil War anyway).
As for finding evil in our presidents, I’ve been watching them since Eisenhower and I cannot recall anything even approaching the hatred seen now. Not even in my days as a hippy and Viet Nam war protestor, we never hated LBJ or even Nixon like people seem to be hating Obama.
I’m sure they did, there just wasn’t a 24-hour news cycle hungry for dramatic footage and an internet for them to blogmit all over, so they were less visible.
I think this is the big factor in all this, CannyDan. I’d bet that this brand of crazy existed since time immemorial - but with the advent of 24-hour news cycles and the intarwebs, it actually has a stage.
ETA: I was agreeing with Bryan’s post, but didn’t realize I was restating it almost verbatim…
As someone who didn’t particularly care for nor particularly hated Bush, and feels roughly the same for Obama, the types of things being said and the types of people saying them seem to be about the same, except by the opposite groups. There’s the small percentage of Bush/Obama lovers who would follow him to hell, and there’s the samll percentage of Bush/Obama haters who hate anything and everything those people say, do, or even think. In fact, my observation is that the very same people who loved Bush seem to hate Obama with about the same fervor and vice versa. Of course, the funniest part is, whenever I try to point it out to a now Obama lover/hater about how they’re reacting the same as they use to deride the Bush haters/lovers, they tend to get wildly offended and go on and on about how it’s not the same at all.
So, quite frankly, yes, the extreme Right Bush lovers and Obama haters are nuts. And you know what, the extreme Left Bush haters and Obama lovers are also nuts. But really, can you blame them? All the Bush lovers were so sick of constantly defending him against a lot of spurious arguments (and I would say that for every legitimate gripe, there was at least one stupid one) that they’re not looking for every possible fault they can in Obama to return the favor. And same for all the Obama lovers, they were so glad to finally see Bush gone and their man in office, that it’s hard for them to see past all the stupid things raised against him and take note of the legitimate gripes.
The only real difference I see is that you have eight years of reasons to love or hate Bush, but only a few months worth of reasons to feel the same about Obama, so all the fanatical hate and worship of Obama is all that much worse than it was for Bush.
No, I said and meant “we” not some indefinite “them”. It would be untrue to claim that I knew even a large subset of the total people who protested against the Viet Nam war. But I did indeed know a large number. Chicago, Miami and lots of other places clearly showed the possibilities for dramatic footage, even absent a 24/7 news cycle. And certainly there were crazies aplenty among us. Some did and said truly crazy things.
But again, the absolute, drool spraying, unmitigated hatred that seems so much a part (“a part”, not the whole) of these protests simply was not a factor in my experience. We detested LBJ, but we didn’t see ourselves leading a holy war against him. We just wanted that other war stopped.
I think this means that the people that you saw (even the crazies) just weren’t the really crazy crazies that we’re seeing here.
Really, this “absolute, drool spraying, unmitigated hatred” is rooted in demagoguery, which is not particularly new.
Not new at all. When directed against the helpless, like folk musicians. What is new (it seems to me, again) is directing that amount of hatred and vituperation against a sitting President who has been on the job less than 3 months and whose general approval rating (from polling) is in the 70% range.
If almost three fourths of the country still approves of him, what did he do to so alienate the rest to that degree? Except win the election, of course.
The right has a long way to go before it reaches the level of hate the left has been displaying.
Let me know when someone at a right-wing protest throws a molotov cocktail at the cops.
Or when they burn an effigy of Obama, then piss on it to put the fire out.
Or make posters with a wanted photo of Obama and the caption Serial Killer.
Or wear black masks and smash windows
And of course, many of the left-wing protests were organized by groups like International ANSWER, which is a Marxist revolutionary organization closely affiliated with the Worker’s World Party and FIST, or ‘Fight Imperialism Stand Together’. And of course, you can’t go to a left-wing rally without seeing the ubiquitous pictures of Che Guevera all over the place - a symbol of violent revolution.
FIST and Worker’s World overtly call for ‘violent revolution’ and describe their movement as a ‘people’s war’.
No - it is based on the fact that the organizer of most of these marches, International ANSWER, has an anti-Semitic reputation even among the political left.
From LA Weekly - not exactly a bastion of the political right.
That is inverted.
I’m sure big old Sam can come up with LOADS of examples from Dubya’s first three months. I am looking forward to seeing them.
-Joe
Or send mailbombs like the Unabomber?
Heh, who even cares about this one.
There are plenty of pics of Obama in some form of reference to being a murderer. Yet he hasn’t started a war on false pretenses yet.
Bomb abortion clinics? (since you used this example I figured you are expanding it beyond mere Bush hate)
Answer meet Fox News, Fox News meet Answer. You’re right there is no symbol like Che.
And Chuck Norris and Glenn Beck talk about secession, which is, umm, violent if you recall your history.
But it has been directed towards our political leaders, as well. Continuing the reference to McCarthyism, President Truman was accused of being “soft” on communism, and people were claiming that his administration was basically payrolling and protecting communist spies.
You’re probably right in that there are likely other factors playing into the current situation (e.g., the ~70% approval rating, you mentioned). I think the group of people who disapprove of Obama’s performance so far, include (but are not limited to):
[list=“1”]
[li] People that legitimately don’t agree with his decisions[/li][li] People that have some kind of martyr complex[/li][li] People who are just plain paranoid of government[/li][li] Truthiness people[/li][/list]
So, while we are seeing what seems to be a large number of people from #4, I don’t think it’s a fair extrapolation to assume that they make up the majority of that ~30%.
There have been several stories of Obama effigies being hung, along with a multiplicity of incidents involving racist merchandise, Obama “monkey” cookies, and the like. Obama has also been the target an unusually large number of death threats and assassination plots.
I’ve never heard of any of the organizations you named, nor have you provided any reason I should be alarmed at any of them, but I do know that, the anti-Obama lunacy is being fueld not just by fringe groups, but by the very mainstream core of the GOP party. Not only has the rhetoric risen to ludicrous levels not seen in recent memory (Mainstream news networks calling Obama a “fascist,” elected Congresspeople calling for armed revolution, the Governor of Texas babbling about secession, talk radio hosts holding serious discussions over whether Obama is literally the Antichrist), but the charge is being led by the leadesr of the party.
It’s laughable to say there’s any comparison. There isn’t. It’s the religion that does it. The Christian fundies are as crazy the Muslim ones.
Obama does not have a 70% approval rating. The RealClearPolitics average of all polls is at 60.9% approval, with a range between 55% and 66%. Aside from one CNN outlier poll a few months ago, not a single poll has had him at 70% or above since inauguration day.
His approval numbers are about average or slightly below average for a President at this point in his term.
Have you got any images of that? Or direct reports from the mainstream media?
First, those groups are not small. They are heavily funded, and are major organizing forces behind left-wing protests in the U.S. Go to their web sites and have a look at the size of their rallies. These are not tiny wacko groups operating in someone’s basement. There’s nothing remotely equivalent to them on the right.
Second, could you give me some specifics on how the GOP is driving these ‘tea party’ rallies? I haven’t seen a single GOP politician speak at them. Nor have I seen a single press release or anything in support of them coming from the RNC. So I’d like to know just how they’re being fueled by the GOP.
I’ve been following the development of these, and I don’t see the GOP involved at all. It seems to be a movement driven more by people like the Libertarian Instapundit. There’s plenty of GOP bashing going on at these rallies as well. It looks to me to be truly a grassroots type of thing driven by libertarian and conservative blogs, much like the rallies organized by MoveOn and ANSWER, and fueled by support from left-wing bloggers like Daily Kos.
I think its the arrogance and the “in your face” attitude. Remember, when he was overseas on the basketball court? Sank that three pointer from way out? Well, a lot of people have an aversion to basketball players…
I’d’a thought this’d be balanced by support from the bowlers…