Much That Is Hidden

.
It shouldn't come as a surprise to many Americans that, according to the Associated Press, Barack Obama has garnered more death threats than any previous president-elect. The article relates three minor situations, the most repugnant being the "The Osama Obama Shotgun Pool" put forth at a convenience store in Maine to guess the date on which he will first be attacked. "Let's hope we have a winner," was the charming sales pitch on the sign-up sheet. My personal favorite is the guy from Georgia (hohum) who wants to see Rev. Jeremiah Wright and all the "traitors" of Trinity United Church of Christ be deported. Aside from the obvious ridiculousness of the suggestion, I pondered about where U.S. citizens might get deported.

Sure, I worry a bit that some skinhead pukes will find a way to breach the rigorous security measures of the U.S. Secret Service and cause Obama and his family harm. But I follow BHO's lead, which as chief cool cucumber is a measured "not likely, let's go on about our business." The AP article prompted a response from the editors of the right-leaning Family Security Matters website. I tend to agree with their basic point:

...Signs of deranged reactions against politicians are part of the danger zone that we live with in this country. But the AP wants us to believe that a "new emerging threat" is on the rise. Their underlying message is that President-elect Obama is inspiring a political change which is nourishing counter-change violence. And here lies the danger in the AP story: it is predicting violence and pervasive race hatred which doesn't exist sociologically. In short, it is trying to create a new "menace."

They contend that the AP is "using extra energy to 'build' a case for a lethal threat against Obama, so that an imaginary enemy is created – other than the standard nut cases whom we have among us anyway."

So noted. But since they are a righty entity, I can't let this post, and their article, pass without doling out the GeeDub prize for ideological ironicness. Get a load of this (emphasis mine):

In the Third World and within populist ideologies, the manufacture of a mythical danger is a part of the consolidation of a regime. It creates sympathy for the sitting leader and grants him moral power to increase the security apparatus. While we don’t have evidence that the news agency is promoting such activity, we can clearly see a pattern, and perhaps even a strategy, in the way the report presented the threat... And such an imaginary enemy can be used politically for many purposes: national security rearrangements, foreign policy decisions, war on terror reshaping, and all other wilder fantasies.

You don't need 20/20 hindsight when the past you're looking at is close enough to express a zit on your ass, you betcha.
.

Labels: journalism, politix, racism, vitriol

.
As we come into the homestretch in The 2007, it seems a nomination for one of my favorite rectal cavities in Joe The Troll’s monthly American Asshole poll is going to fall several lengths short. Joe has typically dug up some great choices to recognize for assholery in the next-to-last month of competition, but I had my marbles on none other than the anything-but-reverend Fred Phelps, 78, the disbarred lawyer, father of thirteen (four estranged, according to liberally-biased Wikipedia) and hate-crusading pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas.

Phelps and his congregation, the majority of which reportedly consists of his extended family, have made numerous headlines with their disgusting protests at military funerals. These protests are fueled by their claim that “God Almighty” is punishing the U.S. through the Iraq War because, among other things, the country is "a sodomite nation of flag-worshiping idolators." Westboro maintains several websites with names like www.godhatesfags.com, www.smellthebrimstone.com, and www.godhatesmexico.com (along with about six or seven other websites dedicated to specific deity-despised nations).

Phelps makes the AA list at Under The Bridge for the recent $10.9 million judgment against Westboro in a lawsuit filed by the father of Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder. The Marine was killed in Iraq on March 3, 2006 when his transport vehicle overturned. According to the Kansas City Star, “Snyder’s Maryland funeral drew Phelps’ followers and their usual antics, such as flashing placards at the passing motorcade that read, ‘Thank God for dead soldiers’ and ‘Fag Troops’."

If organizing consummately hateful efforts to disrupt the funeral of a 20-year-old soldier, an only son described by his father as "the love of my life" isn't at the very least, as the verdict determined, an “invasion of privacy by intrusion and intentional infliction of emotional distress” upon the Snyder family, I don't know what else could be.

Phelps deserves to owe a debt to them, and hopefully the action will bankrupt the church to the point that their insane hatred is made unobtrusive. Sadly, he may get the check his ass can't cash covered by the First Amendment, which has heretofore allowed him to do all this in the name of his benevolent supreme being, including tirades against Sweden, Ireland, Hillary Clinton and, in what seems to me to be a valiant attempt to prove that he is an equal-opportunity hatemonger, Ronald Reagan, Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell (Westboro cancelled plans to pickett Falwell’s funeral as well as the services for the slain Amish school girls). The guy is pure sunshine, no?

So while the Constitution protects his acts from being technically considered criminal, it does not rescue him and his ilk from moral bankruptcy. I know they would find that laughable, but I will be glad to discuss it at Phelps’ funeral service, should they be foolish enough to schedule one after he croaks. My Day-Glo “Phelps Brand® Fertilizer is GOOD Fertilizer” sign and mega phone stand ready.
.

Labels: Assholery squared, Holy Crap, rants, religion, vitriol

.
Max Blumenthal, that is. Just a few days ago he took his camera and his pointed inquisitiveness to the Value Voters Summit sponsored by right-wing Christian organization Focus on the Family and its D.C. lobbying arm Family Research Council. Before seeing this I thought I'd heard every idiotic and vitriolic angle from the religious right, but I confess I was astonished by several statements made by these so-called moral people in Max's video. In the accompanying column Blumenthal speaks about the new turn by some evangelical Christians to move away from the heated dogmatic issues and address ones more in line with benefiting all of society, not just issues that exhalt the people going to heaven while excoriating the hell bound:

Recently, there has been a lot of mainstream media noise about a new, more socially conscious evangelical movement rising from the angry ashes of the Christian right. Pastors like Rick Warren and "evangelical feminist" Bill Hybels are supposedly bringing issues like the environment and poverty to the forefront of the movement's social agenda, while pushing anti-abortion and anti-gay activism to the wayside.

Alas, Max says it seems that no one told those gathered at the Value Voters Summit about this friendly new initiative, and "If anything, the movement seemed more extreme and paranoid than it did four years ago."

Check out the video from his latest adventure
.

Labels: don't mix, family, Holy Crap, politix, religion, vitriol

.
...goes to Vanity Fair's James Wolcott, from The Simple Life: White House Edition:

"Following Abu Ghraib, Katrina, the Valerie Plame scandal, his flyboy showboating on the aircraft carrier with the MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner as backdrop, the ongoing evisceration of Iraq, and the shaming embarrassment of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general, the majority of us can't wait for Bush to drag himself back to Dodge bearing the invisible stigmata of permanent disgrace to wind down his days in the infernal glow of wildfires heralding the wrath of the global warming he did nothing as president to forestall."

Hell, I'll give Wolcott runner-up this month as well, from the same article:

"The chrome peeled off of Bush's halo as national healer in the post-Katrina tragedy of errors, the commendation 'Heckuva job, Brownie' tied like a tin can to his legacy no matter how they try to paper things over at the future Bush presidential library and car wash."

Nice work, James.
.

Labels: Bush, vitriol, words, work, writing

.
I've been hearing, and of course contributing just a teensy bit to, a lot more vitriol on Iraq since President Bush announced what most everyone knew he would - SURGE! The Chief's call-up won't even bring troop levels to the mark they were at in Jan. 2005 (160,000), a turning point when his approval ratings crossed under the majority line. From then on the numbers would slide as more Americans began realizing the disaster he and the neocons had crafted. Now, for all but the worst of his sycophantic and deluded 35-or-whatever percent approvers, the mistake that was made is obvious.

If people are sounding a bit pissed, you ain't heard/seen and soon read nothing yet. Check out Scott Thill's recent HuffPo column entitled Bush to U.S. - Go Fuck Yourselves , which makes the article's R-rating quite obvious.

Here is an excerpt, where Thill tells the troops:

So the next time the president is about to give a speech, turn it off. It doesn't have anything to do with you anyway, and if you ask Joe Biden, neither does the Democratic takeover of Congress. While your elected representatives sit and write long-winded backslappers about all they will do in 100 hours, and the days after those hours come to nothing, you're going off to the heated armpit of hell to die for nothing. Enjoy the ride, and make sure to leave a clearly defined will. The crumbs will be small and coveted here back home, as the environment warms and the recession gears up.

Yeah, I'd say he's pissed.
.

Labels: Iraq, politix, vitriol