Recent diaries have described encounters with members of the Tea Party stating that they "seemed mentally unbalanced" while others have said that they are "technically delusional".
I think [the first of] these are probably unqualified armchair diagnosis (the second diarist informed me he's a licensed psychotherapist), but probably not all that far from the truth. (Someone at some point should do a real serious study of political/social delusion) Any person may say something that sounds crazy, they may in behave in a manner that seems crazy, but that doesn't make them clinically insane. A person who is partaking in a Willful Delusion can easily appear mentally unbalanced to someone who doesn't share that delusion.
You have to be "part of the club" for what they're saying to make sense.
At an Obama Inauguration Day Party, arranged by Color of Change I encountered a set of 9-11 Truthers who were absolutely convinced that the Towers had been taken down in a controlled demolition as has been described by such documentaries such as Loose Change. On the surface the theory that the Towers couldn't have been brought down by the impact of two 737's may make some sense. Many perfectly sane and logical people have felt that way. It's a puzzle. It's a riddle. People feel that have some special knowledge when they reject the "known story" and instead seek out their own ultimate "truth" to explain the riddle.
Then again, sometimes, Occam's Razor prevails. All things being equal, the most likely answer - is the answer. As the History Channel's extensive Truther Debunking has shown. Bin Laden and al Qaeda destroyed the towers and attacked the Pentagon. No one else.
Trying to talk someone out of these conspiratorial delusions can be very difficult, sometimes nearly impossible - like trying to talk a drug user out of their habit - but it doesn't mean that they're crazy.
The difference between the truther situation and what we have with the Tea Party and GOP is that their entire political ideology and platform is based on a series of DELUSIONS, and as a party they depend on continuing to promote and promulgate these delusions to their voting flock. They've been Strategically Disinformed for years.
As a result they are in short, A CULT.
It's not news that the Tea Party sounds crazy to non Tea Partiers. This week a NY Rep actually said that on tape (although that tape had been unfairly edited via the remaining remnents of the Breitbart Co), the result was that the Tea Party went on to prove they weren't crazy - by acting crazy and threatening her.
Clarke: When I first encountered the tea party, I thought "Well, these people are crazy", and people would say "they're crazy". Well, you know what? Crazy showed up, and not only did Crazy show up it elected 39 members to the House of Representatives.
After an edited version of this video was posted on Glen Beck's site The Blaze, Tea Partiers were outraged - leading to this....
[Clark spokesperson Judith] Kargbo said there were a “range of calls” after the video was posted. While some were very respectful, one was “threatening in nature.”
“Something to the effect — I don’t have the exact words — of, ‘She thinks we’re crazy, that b-word has not seen nothing yet,’” she recalled.
“Things like that we have to take seriously,” Kargbo explained, noting that the Congresswoman’s office is located next to the office where former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) worked before being shot in 2011.
In a statement on Thursday, Clarke pointed out that the threats “demonstrate the volatile political environment of 2012.”
Is that really all that different from what our diarist said yesterday?
7. Obama has taken over both Facebook and Apple, and has already begun to use them so that all American could be followed.
A. Apple is using the Iphones to track all Americans and the information is relayed every day back to the White House, and there are full reports ready every morning to review where everyone is.
B. The information gathered by Facebook is used so that people can be followed by armies of -- i didn't understand armies of who -- are surreptitiously able to follow everyone.
8. The reason for all of this is that Obama is planning to launch a war against the United States, probably a race war, bot definitely some sort of civil war.
9. The tracking devices would then be used to locate everyone who has been opposing him, so that they would then be rounded up "just like the Jews."
These are fever dream paranoid conspiracies that go far beyond being just a truther or birther. But isn't this exactly the kind of tripe that Glenn Beck travels in? Isn't the exactly the kind of thing you would read in all those wacky wing-nut mega-forwarded email blasts, that ones that your otherwise perfectly nice and normal brother, sister, cousin, dad, mother, friend, neighbor just
insists on cc'ing you with? You
know them and you know they aren't crazy, but some of the stuff they're willing to believe is pretty out there isn't it?
It's been well documented that many who call themselves Republicans have a definite "crazy streak" even going back to before the Tea Party first appeared during the McCain/Palin Campaign as shown by "Right America, Feeling Wronged".
It then began to grow, and get noticed - particularly in how it was an "Astro-Turf" movement that was directed and manipulated by corporate interests such as Americans for Prosperity. They were screaming to the hills about their taxes going up, when they had actually Gone Down, which just didn't seem rational. But for AFP it was a exactly according to plan.
Similarly, the things they believed about Healthcare Reform, were completely upside down.
Then they showed the depth of their compassion as they verbally assaulted this VETERAN with Parkinson's who dared to sit in front of them with a sign support Health Reform
From there you had scenes like this a Screaming Tea Partiers proclaiming "DEATH TO THE COMMIES".. showing they level of mental balance and comity.
When they're called "Racist" the most amazing thing the Tea Partiers ever did - was openly admit it, sarcastically.
Except for when they were truly caught being racist Then, they decided to live in a magical world where the guy who made comics like this... somehow claims he isn't a Racist
It's not an accident they believe these things, they've been indoctrinated to believe them by a strong, persistent, propaganda campaign funded by the Right. It doesn't require being mentally ill in the classic sense, but they have been strategically programmed to buy into this none sense and to doubt and fear anyone outside the "cult".
And I'm not saying that it's a conspiracy, it's right out in the open. Media Matters has dedicated themselves to documenting it because their founder David Brock used to be one of those propagandists. Eventually he repented and has since explained exactly how it all worked, and continues to work in his book "Blinded by the Right". When you take a concerted and overt plan to demonize and marginalize anyone and everyone on the left, add to that a dash of authoritarianism (ala John Dean's "Conservatives Without Conscience"), and a pinch of Terminal Confirmation Bias, this is what you get.
Plant Corn you Get Corn. Rotten coil. Boll weevil infested corn.
Particularly when this is what they're marinating in all day, every day.
There's just enough truth in what their saying... like the part about government requirements for minimum care - not maximum, MINIMUM - before a provider can offer their services on the exchange. Rules for providers outside the exchange don't change much other than offering preventative measures free and not blocking people with pre-existing conditions. Yes, the government will have a greater role in trying to keep people's employer and insurance providers from screwing them over and denying them coverage, and that's nothing but a good thing.
45,000 Americans per year die because they don't have access to Health Care. That's Ten 9-11's per Year, but are people motivated to do something, anything, about it in the way that were motivated by the NY/DC attack? Whlie Tea Partiers and Republicans generally seem to believe many crazy, counterfactual things ("There is no War on Women" - although there is a "War on Christmas" or "80 members of Congress are Card Carrying Communists") they can't seem to bring themselves to believe something that's actually true.
That's how a cult behaves.
As far as people being tracked by the cell phones, that's true too, but the Government isn't doing it - Google and Apple are because that's how their phones work in order to provide GPS services. There are websites that allow you to plug in a phone number and track someones location. However, this can be disabled on the phone. Facebook is also linked into this and if you want to through their "Check In" feature which, but it's optional and controlled by the user.
Some of their worries about privacy concerns are genuine, but the issue is either one that actually began under George W. Bush (NSA wire & email tracking) or is being done by private corporations (employers requesting Facebook passwords). CISP is a genuine privacy issue, not that they'll ever realize it's the people they elected who are pushing it to help enhance Corporate Power over their lives, not governmental.
Lastly their worries about a "Racial Civil" War isn't exactly wrong either. As far as I'm concerned it's already begun - but "those people" that they're so afraid of are on the receiving end of it through "accidental" shootings of minority men by police, innocents people being killed via "Stand Your Ground", the force of the crack down on Occupy, and out-and-out Terrorist Attacks by people like James Von Brunn (Holocaust Museum Shooting), Joe Stack (Austin IRS Plane Attack), Byron Williams (attempted Oakland ACLU/Tides Foundation Attack), spitting on Congressmen, curbstomping a girls head against the ground at a Rand Paul debate, the attempted firebombing of the MLK parade, the racial killing spree in Oklahoma, and Anders Beivik (Norway Bombings/Shooting Massacre).
They aren't going to be the victims, they're going to be the shooters and the cheerleaders as the violence that has already started - grows.
As a matter of course, Right-Wing Media outlets take what's real and
twist it with a partisan bent for their own political gain. They don't have to worry about telling the truth or being fact-checked because none of their audience is paying attention to anyone who might do that. LIke a Cult they're indoctrinated into believing only that with the "correct" sources tell them, and to automatically disbelieve all others. The things that "those people" say. "The Leftist Media can't be trusted." Put this on simmer or thirty years and gradually this crazed, rabid, angry, terrified, information and fact impervious Tea Party is exactly what you get.
And none of this requires anyone to be "Crazy", only to act like it.
Vyan