Read This. RIGHT NOW.

My 1933 Nightmare

(Via Rod on my facebook. Thanks Rod!)

Best bits:

“But what seems to me new about this moment is the political road rage, the thuggishness of masses of Americans who not only are venting about insane nonsense, not only are undermining their own interests acting as marionettes of laughing corporate predators, and not only are taking down democracy around themselves in order to do so, but are in fact also destroying the entire Enlightenment project of rationality-based management of public affairs as well. The single most frightening characteristic of this movement, to my mind, is that fact that no amount of evidence or logic could persuade these folks to abandon the lies they’ve attached themselves to, like a pit bull clamped to the leg of some poor SOB’s pants.”

“What does it take to get someone to the point that they believe that the US Congress is passing a healthcare reform bill that will allow the government to exterminate seniors? What does it take for them to impute that motive to a president from the feeble Democratic Party? And, at that, one of the most Milquetoastian creatures to hit Washington since Hubert Humphrey ran for president acting like he was a guy named Hubert Humphrey? From Minnesota, no less.”

“What do you have to do to humans to get them so stupefied that they believe Obama’s Hawaiian birth was some sort of conspiracy, replete with fake 1961 newspaper announcements? What sort of powerful drugs does one have to be on to make the argument that this rather considerably conservative president is a socialist? And then to call him a fascist in your next breath, blissfully unaware that the chasm separating the two ideologies not only makes them wholly different, but, indeed, oppositional. (You know, like in World War II. Maybe they’ve even heard of that.)”

Go right now and read this. I felt this way back in 1992-3 as I listened to a coworker listen to Rush Limbaugh, G. Gordon LIddy and Oliver North every day for 18 months. The state of conservative intellect is in disastrous tatters. When Oxycontin abusing and nearly psychotic freaks who happen to be entertainment figures are the best source for your thoughts. It’s no wonder there is nothing but sheer idiocy and fear coming from conservatives. That’s all they have left.

This is the best thing I’ve read all week.