If the history books used in American classrooms were grounded in any sort of reality, I often wonder what will be said about the age I am currently living in. Knowing that the fight to teach accuracy in schools is probably a losing battle, I wonder what lies the authors may come up with in the future to explain away the current right-wing psychopaths that have seemingly endless potential for media coverage. The incoherent verbal assaults taking place at the health care reform town hall meetings are bound to bring laughter to any reality-based person, myself included. Nothing elicits a grander guffaw than watching these encephalitic psychopaths completely mischaracterize socialism, the ‘founding fathers’, or the very Medicare they themselves receive. Our laughter must be carefully monitored, however, for it masks the precipitous horrors these people will bring to fruition. Having said that, I do recognize the necessity to express my stupefaction at the overwhelming ignorance displayed by these people.
Yes, you read correctly, I referred to the offending individuals as a collective ‘these people’, and there is a hard intention behind that. They are the genesis of a mass movement, a movement that has been gradually shaped and molded over the decades, a movement that has emerged from its adolescence with a hunger for violence.
The brains behind this movement lie in many hands, be they the practitioners of free market extremism, promulgators of the many systemic-industrial complexes, or proselytists of religious fundamentalism, but they all require the aid of the malleable. This is where the birthers, the deathers, and the tea-baggers come into the picture. The necessity of an angry mob, a collection of cognitively deficient pawns with which to direct as per your bidding, has always been necessary for those wishing to overthrow a regime of some kind. The one thing that needs to come about, however, is both a consolidation of message and the establishment of some kind of leadership, no matter how anti-establishment these people claim to be. Thus far we seem to be seeing a loose association of individuals with disparate objections, ranging anywhere from the anti-federal government, anti-tax lunatics to the viciously racist militiamen. Indeed, what seems clear at the moment is that no such consolidation seems to have happened, and frankly, it is often impossible to discern a decisive message with a great many of town-hall disruptions. Even a casual dip into Wikipedia reveals that the Sturmabteilung didn’t exactly coalesce into the kind of organization we associate with the term until 1922, by which point both the German Workers Party and the structureless pugilists had reconfigured into the NSDAP. Any further reading on Hitler’s rise to power, or any totalitarian regime for that matters, suggests the same, that consolidation of interests enables the success of a rise to power1.
If it weren’t for disturbing trends that suggest such a cohesion is just around the corner, I might consider relaxing. Finding myself at teapartypatriots.org brought a little phrase back into my vocabulary, lost in the din of the town hall psychopaths: The 9-12 Project. Looking at the extensive list of ‘Tea Party Patriot Groups’, a.k.a. angry white idiot douchebags, the term ‘9-12’ appears more times than I am comfortable with. In case you’re still unconcerned, the The 9-12 Project is one of Glenn Beck’s masturbatory experiments in delusion that first came to my attention in March. In case you’re still vacillating on the connectivity here, I think it’s safe to say that the 9-12 project is precisely the coalescent meme necessary to bring about the dreaded consolidation. Given that Glenn Beck’s latest book, Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine (shazail!) has been on the New York Times non-fiction best sellers list for weeks2, and knowing that the book ends with instructions on how to organize a 9-12 ‘club’ of your very own, my unwillingness to calm down is not a result of my own superfluous anxieties, but an objection to the unfolding of ensuing darkness.
Take a quick peek at the 9 Principles, and tell me you aren’t disturbed given specific trends in American Society (as written about here by friend of the site, Samantha Fingerhut).
1. America Is Good.
2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.
God “The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.” from George Washington’s first Inaugural address.3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.
Honesty “I hope that I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider to be the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.” George Washington4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.
Marriage/Family “It is in the love of one’s family only that heartfelt happiness is known. By a law of our nature, we cannot be happy without the endearing connections of a family.” Thomas Jefferson5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.
Justice “I deem one of the essential principles of our government… equal and exact justice to all men of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political.” Thomas Jefferson6. I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.
Life, Liberty, & The Pursuit of Happiness “Everyone has a natural right to choose that vocation in life which he thinks most likely to give him comfortable subsistence.” Thomas Jefferson7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.
Charity “It is not everyone who asketh that deserveth charity; all however, are worth of the inquiry or the deserving may suffer.” George Washington8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.
On your right to disagree “In a free and republican government, you cannot restrain the voice of the multitude; every man will speak as he thinks, or more properly without thinking.” George Washington9. The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.
Who works for whom? “I consider the people who constitute a society or a nation as the source of all authority in that nation.” Thomas Jefferson3
The sun is truly setting. Brace yourselves.
- Reading any Robert Paxton (Fascism), Milton Mayer (They Thought They Were Free) or Eric Hoffer (The True Believer) will disturb to the core, but they serve to illuminate trends that these societies have seen in the past. Paxton is an expert on Vichy France, Mayer’s book is full of magnificent interviews from those who lived through the rise of Nazism, and the Hoffer talks about the relationship between self-esteem issues and the rise of totalitarian regimes ↩
- The New York Times. 2009. Best Sellers List 21 Aug 2009 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/books/bestseller/bestpapernonfiction.html?_r=1&ref=bestseller ↩
- The 9/12: Glenn Beck. Glenn Beck. 2009. Mercury Radio Arts, Inc http://www.the912project.com/the-912-2/ ↩
