Wednesday, July 14, 2010

At Least the Vandalism Is Signed


"Radical leaders prey on the fearful and naive."

Indeed.

At least the bottom quarter of the billboard is accurate.

"Live Free Or Die." Hmmm. Well, maybe they'll commit mass suicide if they're convinced their rights are being infringed. (Hey, it's YOUR slogan, Angry White Man.)

I love the bumbling attempt to co-opt the use of the word "change" into something evil. It was a sorry, hate-filled group who, at the end of the Bush Administration, was not eager to clean house, which is why Obama could make such an effective single-word campaign slogan out of it. At least the boldness of the stupidity of this billboard leaves voters in no doubt. (Sarah Palin in 2012!)

What an embarrassing photo for our country. What a shameful embrace of willful ignorance to broadcast around the globe. "This is how stupid we are."

4 comments:

Paul said...

I see Obama as a centrist. He's hardly any kind of extremist. In all my 48 years I haven't seen as much polarized invective tossed around as I presently observe.

Glenn Beck (whom I am hesitant to mention since I don't think anything he has to say is worthy of note) seems like a McCarthyesque throw back. He's the latest incarnation of the old-time preacher. All his "arguments" are entirely emotional. To me he's an entertainer whose style I don't find entertaining.

What scares me is that Glenn and his ilk have a substantial following. Ironically, that's how Hitler got started. He was an eccentric who people started taking seriously.

If the audience for this sort of stuff continues to grow, that's when I start getting nervous.

--Paul

wstachour said...

I agree with all of that 100%, though your tone is less hysterical than mine ;-)

The whole Tea-Bagger movement seems to be an exercise in opposite-think. They are so often precisely guilty of that of which they accuse others. The irony of that slogan--"Radical leaders prey on the fearful and naive"--is stupefying.

It's ALL rich with irony: they throw the specter of Hitler around purely as a fear tactic, when this raw emotionalism that characterizes their movement--emotionalism with a contempt for fact-based reasoning--is what characterized Hitler's movement (among other things)! Goebbels was a master of saying what needed to be said to mobilize the masses, reality be damned; it's exactly what we're seeing now.

I have a *very* cautious optimism that the more this lunacy gets broadcast the more any kind of center will flee (not that there was ever anything centrist about the movement). Sooner or later the Republican Party, which used to represent a lot of American voters, will realize that their future lies away from this fringe.

CyberKitten said...

Socialism.....?

You're having a laugh..... [rotflmao]

These people *clearly* have no idea what they're talking about.

payingattention said...

Well put, as usual. As you note, at least they had the (insert euphemism for testes here) to put "their" name on it, unlike the people who are paying for the billboards on Hwy 41, via a couple of Neenah attorneys who are "just doing what their clients asked." Ya-huh. CyberK has it right. And yet, based on FBI reports and Southern Poverty Law Center's hate group watch, it IS getting to be a bigger problem all the time, actually.