Browse any right-wing blog or listen to wingnut radio these days and you're confronted by a steady stream of angry voices denouncing "tin-foil hat" liberals and their "conspiracy theories."
The wingnuts are convinced that we liberal "conspiracy buffs" believe in some far-out things.
According to the wingnuts, we believe that Bush lied America into war. And we believe that the 2000 and 2004 elections weren't honest. And we suspect that maybe the White House puts the interests of Halliburton over the American people.
Pretty wacky stuff, huh?
The only problem is that a majority of the American people have similar questions these days. Which I guess means that America has become a land of tin-foil hat wearers.
However, there's a rich irony with the wingnuts denouncing conspiracy theories. After all, these people wrote the book on conspiracies. You won't find a more paranoid group of people in the nation.
The fact is, wingnuts believe that just about everything is part of a conspiracy these days.
Global warming is a liberal conspiracy. The media is a part of a liberal conspiracy. Iraq War opponents are part of a liberal conspiracy. Anyone who questions Bush is conspiring to harm America. And polling companies that show that Bush has a low approval rating are part of a liberal conspiracy.
According to the wingnuts, even the U.S. Navy was part of a liberal conspiracy, when it awarded John Kerry military honors that he didn't really deserve.
And the latest liberal conspiracy, according to the wingnuts, is that we're secretly working to shut down their beloved Rush Limbaugh, and the rest of wingnut radio.
This paranoid behavior on the part of the wingnuts is nothing new. In fact, it reached a fever pitch during the Clinton administration. Back then, talk radio and the wingnuts were constantly embracing every wacky anti-Clinton conspiracy that came down the pike.
According to them, Clinton conspired to "murder" Vince Foster. Clinton also murdered Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, who died in a "mysterious" plane crash. As Arkansas governor, he conspired to murder dozens of people who "knew too much." And when he wasn't busy murdering people, he was raping women left and right.
I rarely can bring myself to admit that the wingnuts do something better than the Dems. But in this case, I'll make an exception. Liberals' "conspiracy" theories are definitely no match for the wacky conspiracy theories on the Right.
And when the wingnuts aren't accusing us of far-out conspiracy theories, they're accusing of something called "Bush Derangement Syndrome."
Apparently, it seems, we hate Bush for no particular reason. And our hatred is therefore irrational. To dare suggest that maybe Bush had something to do with the fiasco in Iraq, we're guilty of a serious case of Bush Derangement Syndrome.
The creator of the progressive site, BeggarsCanBeChoosers.com, Marc McDonald is an award-winning journalist who worked for 15 years for several Texas newspapers, including the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, before he quit his day job and set up shop in cyberspace in 1995. McDonald's articles have appeared in a number of popular progressive Web sites, including OpEdNews.com, BuzzFlash.com, Crooks and Liars, Salon.com, Progressive Daily Beacon, The Neil Rogers Show and The Raw Story. McDonald's Web articles have also been featured and reviewed by various national and international media, including CNN Headline News, the BBC, the Washington Post, USA Today and many more.
All through the Clinton administration, I remember the right wing pundits expressing their fear that he would cancel elections and declare martial law. As I could see no basis whatsoever for this fear, I became convinced I was seeing classical psychological "projection." That is, the pundits were expressing their own desire for a dictatorship of the right with their expressed but clearly unfounded fear that Clinton would establish a dictatorship of the center. I believe much of what Rush, Hannity, et.al., say can be taken in this context.
by
W.M.L. (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 330 comments)
on Friday, June 29, 2007 at 4:14:37 PM
Yes, there were irrational Clinton-haters, and there were people who gave actual thoughtful criticism of his policies. Same thing applies today. There is criticism, and then there is hate-spewing lunacy. The tinfoil-hat brigade today puts last decade's brigade to shame. The conspiracy theories of today - stolen elections, lying about WMD's, 9/11 inside job, blah blah blah - are piles of lying crap, just like the Clinton-chronicles conspiracy theories were.
by
Scott (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 493 comments)
on Saturday, June 30, 2007 at 11:51:48 PM
3 comments
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