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New York, 7:50 AM
Fri Dec 11
59 posts in the last 24 hours
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09/30/09
The article itself makes no coup prediction. Freeper editors are as pinheaded as their target audience.
[www.freerepublic.com]
09/30/09
I mean, that is definitely part of the military, don't get me wrong...but in my experience a helluva lot of these militiamen war-mongers who say shit like "BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA" or ask for the BC were draft dogders in 'Nam or never bothered to sign up for duty. I'm guessing they don't join the military too often because, judging by their political screechings of the last 10 months, free health care and free education don't appeal to them. That's gotta be it, right?
In short, besides the logistic issues with staging a fucking COUP, what the hell officers are they recruiting to do this?
09/30/09
09/30/09
See we have this thing called Congress, not a burned out husk of a Reichstag. And a Supreme Court. And many branches of the military, and many many generals who might not like Obama but would never...
Oh why bother? These people simply live on another planet.
09/30/09
09/30/09
You lost a free and fair election in the world's first and, thus far, most lasting representative democracy. Offer something better for the next cycle or shut the fuck up.
09/30/09
09/30/09
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09/30/09
one reason.... because the Secret Service is only halfheartedly going after these people.
[www.politicsdaily.com]
09/30/09
I think it would be hard to keep up with the threat level. I mean, according to the secret service, Bush got ~ 3,000 threats a year, while Obama gets 30 a day (which puts him on track for almost 11,000 threats in his first year). That's a huge increase to deal with.
[www.telegraph.co.uk]
09/30/09
See, dems knew that Bush was a crazy fucker. He probably would have gone after people who threatened him, and we'd never see them again after they went to Gitmo.
Repubs, on the other hand, know that Obama isn't such a crazy fuck. He's got more important stuff to worry about, so they feel safe to say stupid crap. Like a dog behind a cage, they feel safe and bad ass.
Open the cage, actually send people after these dogs, and watch them back into the corner and piss themselves.
09/30/09
09/30/09
09/30/09
09/30/09
I don't understand why so many liberals are in denial that this could ever happen here. The military has become more and more separated from the population at large in recent decades. The military is more white and more conservative than the general population.
The one thing limiting a coup's effectiveness in the U.S. is the fact that liberals and lefties could probably virtually shut down most major cities with general strikes and sabotaging infrastructure.
FUN TIMES!
09/30/09
09/30/09
don't get into denigrating our military. this has nothing to do with them.
09/30/09
Why is it denigrating the military to say that the modern military is becoming increasingly separated from the rest of the population?
[www.theatlantic.com]
09/30/09
The military is not more white than the general population. That's... so very, very wrong... I can't even grasp how someone can believe that. Literally, I can't even think of a metaphor right now for how off that is.
Separated from the general population? Really? You believe that?
While we're in fantasy land, can I have a pony?
09/30/09
The weird thing is, this sounds a lot like what went on in the Bush administration, if "patriotic general and flag officers" were replaced with "experienced legislator and veteran White House operative Dick Cheney".
09/30/09
09/30/09
I think the equivalent would be if HuffPo had a columnist who called for the overthrow of Bush.
09/30/09
Maybe I'm understimating this "Newsmax" creature? My argument is mostly predicated on the outlet's total lack of public visibility/importance, and if I've misjudged it then that's a mistake on my part.
09/30/09
09/30/09
And...Bush lied us into a war for political and monetary gain. There is no corollary to that in American history.
09/30/09
That said this is just a really stupid column by a fascist nut but Newsmax is the sort of place where fringe shit originates on its way to the "mainstream" mouths on Fox (or the floor of the House, or whatever).
I mean World Net Daily is a complete freakshow but half of America's Republicans believe Obama was born in Indonesia now!
09/30/09
They really are a right wing version of HuffPo, with their contributors appearing on Fox as guest pundits. The site itself also gets millions of visitors. They aren't some crazy fringe website, unless you consider Fox a crazy fringe network.
ETA: Although I guess I think that Fox does often choose to run with, and even promote, crazy fringe stories. So maybe they are a crazy fringe network in mainstream media sheep's clothing.
09/30/09
But we put a fairly elected black man in office who hasn't really done all that much his first 9 months in office and the far right is already all about militia-building, coups and succession.
09/30/09
Well, we'll know you were right when the National Guard marches on Washington. I will continue to hold on to my (perhaps willfully blind?) belief that nobody is listening to these guys because they're just mumbling under rocks.
09/30/09
09/30/09
No corollary? You're way off base. What's a domino theory? What's a military-industrial complex? Do the words: "Remember the Maine, to hell with Spain?" have any meaning to you?
09/30/09
But Bush's reckless adventurism certainly has no corollary in the Obama administration. And this retired newspaper editor and former White House functionary's call for a military takeover of our government has no corollary among Democrats or liberals in the recent past. Had Dick Clarke or Ben Bradley or Robert Rubin or Joe Wilson (the diplomat) said anything remotely resembling this column, he would have been pilloried in the media and hung out to dry by both parties. And you know it. (See: moveon.org/Patreus ad.)
Stop equivocating. Stop rationalizing. If you're a conservative, these are the voices that speak for you. If they're not what you believe, stop fucking excusing them and change the rhetoric.
Or own it. Just choose.
09/30/09
Agreed: Obama has not led us into a war based on lies. There aren't many valid criticisms of the man's foreign policy thus far unless you're in favor of leaving Afghanistan alone in the dark to be raped by the Taliban.
But my original point was that disjointed, insane rambling from marginalized zealots is not unique to the Obama administration. Militant communists and aggressive antiwar protestors compared Bush to Hitler four years ago in numerous signs and demonstrations, for example, and yet when it happens during the Obama administration we treat this sort of idiotic shouting as a Sign O' The Times. It's not. This is just how frustrated losers act.
Newsmax may be more mainstream than initially characterized - mea culpa - but these guys don't speak for me or for Conservatives. They speak for Angry White Pricks, because even if they have Conservative socioeconomic ideals they have a totally insane view of how to best realize them.
09/30/09
09/30/09
And the GOP also relentlessly panders to Rush Limbaugh and other equally fringe pundits. It just seems like they're trying to drive out anyone who isn't actively frothing at the mouth.
And god forbid you're in the middle, like Snowe or Specter. I mean, us liberals love to get our Blue Dog bashing on but that comes from the hoi polloi, not the DNC party chair.
That's where the whole "oh, these guys are just fringe whackos" argument gets sticky to me. The more the GOP whittles itself down, the closer the fringe gets to the center.
Sorry for the long post, but this really bugs me.
09/30/09
09/30/09
09/30/09
Believe me, I'm sure this is a test balloon and you haven't heard the last of this highly seditious idea.
And there will be no "reasonable right" to oppose it.
09/30/09
For the rest of us, no shock at all.
09/30/09
WHY is the conservative movement even relevant in this country, again?
09/30/09
Manchester also discovered that Dallas "had become the Mecca for medicine-show evangelists … the Minutemen, the John Birch and Patrick Henry Societies, and the headquarters of [ultra-conservative oil billionaire] H. L. Hunt and his activities."
"In that third year of the Kennedy presidency," Manchester wrote, "a kind of fever lay over Dallas country. Mad things happened. Huge billboards screamed, ‘Impeach Earl Warren.’ Jewish stores were smeared with crude swastikas.…Radical Right polemics were distributed in public schools; Kennedy’s name was booed in classrooms; corporate junior executives were required to attend radical seminars." A retired major general ran the American flag upside down, deriding it as "the Democrat flag." A wanted poster with J.F.K.’s face on it was circulated, announcing "this man is Wanted" for—among other things—"turning the sovereignty of the US over to the Communist controlled United Nations" and appointing "anti-Christians … aliens and known Communists" to federal offices. And a full-page advertisement had appeared the day of the assassination in The Dallas Morning News accusing Kennedy of making a secret deal with the Communist Party; when it was shown to the president, he was appalled. He turned to Jacqueline, who was visibly upset, and said, "Oh, you know, we’re heading into nut country today."
09/30/09
09/30/09
09/30/09
Their business slogan is God, Guns, Guts, and American Pick-Up Trucks.
[thinkprogress.org]
09/30/09
They are a minority, though. But, then, the last words heard by JFK were from the govern's wife, alluding to all the cheers. "Mr. President, you can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you."